Drawing the Death Card at Sky Meadow
Just returned from the Spring 2024 Metamodern Spirituality Lab gathering at Sky Meadow, a spiritual retreat center in Vermont’s beautiful Northeastern Kingdom. The Lab has been a wonderful immersion in Serious Play; restoring an abandoned medicine garden to its original form and purpose, designing and enacting an elaborate welcoming ceremony/pilgrimage for the weekend participants, another … Read moreDrawing the Death Card at Sky Meadow
Floralia 2024
Spring has sprung again and I’ve chosen today, with the temperature suddenly balmy at 68 degrees and at the height of the solar eclipse, no less, to “officially” begin the new season of Floralia this year. A lone Great Blue Heron at the riffle, doubtless soon to be joined by others of his kind as … Read moreFloralia 2024
“What if Death was a Person?”
The Tale Foundry examines various literary and pop-culture personifications of Death.
Rest in Power, Jayden Perkins
In the final moments of golden hour, petals fell into the North Branch of the Chicago River this evening in memory of Jayden Perkins, aged 11, who died heroically defending his mother from a domestic abuser.
“Rites of Passage: Death”
In the first episode of his series on rites of passage, English artist Grayson Perry creates rituals to commemorate the life of Jordan Seddon – a 17-year-old boy killed by a drunk driver – and officiates a celebration of life for Roch Maher, a man dying of motor neurone disease. A powerful, moving argument for … Read more“Rites of Passage: Death”
“Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital”
Dr. Rowe’s book is available from Amazon and other retailers. Here’s the blurb: Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions―including Black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists― Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. On their own, these strategies are not enough, … Read more“Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital”
Thanksgiving/Day of the Dead in Cicely, Alaska (Northern Exposure, 1992)
The good people of Cicely, Alaska enjoy their eccentric, Day of the Dead-inflected version of Thanksgiving in this scene from Northern Exposure (1992). As explained by Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), the indigenous people of Cicely do not regard the orthodox Thanksgiving as a day of celebration. In fact, they carry a lot of ancestral anger … Read moreThanksgiving/Day of the Dead in Cicely, Alaska (Northern Exposure, 1992)
“An Atheist Chaplain and a Death Row Inmate’s Final Hours”
Emma Goldberg writes for The New Yorker: The gray Oklahoma skies opened into a drizzle. Moss wondered what he had to offer Hancock in these final hours, when ordinary wisdom seemed to fail and prayers, in this case, were irrelevant. Heaven, hell, salvation: He had talked about it all with Hancock, but neither of them … Read more“An Atheist Chaplain and a Death Row Inmate’s Final Hours”