flowerskull Click here to read Queena Yi’s 2013 Master of Architecture thesis, proposing a design for a non-sectarian public memorial site in Seattle: This thesis proposes a reinsertion of memorial spaces into the Seattle city core to re-establish the connection between the dead and living, replacing the rarely visited cemetery landscape with spaces woven into the … Read moreA Design for a Non-Sectarian Memorial Site in Seattle
The DAG-Box (‘Goodbye-box’) is the creation of Dutch play therapist and primary school teacher Bonnie Jansen. Celebrant Rosalie Kuyvenhoven writes: What is the Goodbye-box? “The box helps young children to play out emotional and distressing situations. Unlike adults, children don’t tend to express themselves verbally. They rather convey messages and share feelings through play. The Goodbye-box … Read moreThe Goodbye Box
Follow this link to artist Michelle Turriani’s online exhibit featuring vanitas assemblies with the skulls of endangered species: The human skull of the Vanitas or Memento Mori painting is substituted by an animal one. The viewers are invited to review their existential questioning beyond the confines of their own individual destiny and to embrace their … Read more“In the Tradition: Memento Exstingui”
Freelance writer and philosopher Daniel Callcut speculates for Aeon on the notion of bespoke, curated deaths: The word ‘euthanasia’ comes from the Greek for a ‘good death’. However, this idea of a positively good death can easily be lost in contemporary debates over euthanasia where the emphasis is typically on the rights of a person … Read more“Death by Design”
I’m happy to learn that my upcoming online course via the “Morbid Academy” educational initiative has just sold out. “The Art of Ritual” is a 5-week interactive deep-dive into the counterculture of end-of-life, funerary, memorial and memento mori ritual creation, based on the memento mori ergo carpe diem premise. “Oh, come with old Khayyám, and … Read moreSOLD OUT: “The Art of Ritual: Changing Ways of Life and Death” (August/September 2021 Edition)
In this touching scene from the popular TV series Orange is the New Black, Brook Soso (played by actress Kimiko Glenn) unveils a new form of library in memory of her late girlfriend Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), who had been the prison librarian. At this point in the story the inmates have taken over control … Read moreThe Poussey Memorial Community Library
In the first series of his Old Diary Leaves (1874-’78), Colonel Henry Steel Olcott records the events of a Theosophical funeral ceremony he devised and presided over at the Masonic Temple in New York City. The ritual was to mark the life and death of the Baron de Palm, a member of the then-recently inaugurated … Read moreA Pioneering Theosophical Funeral in 1870s New York City
Existential coach Daniel Lev Shkolnik offers insight into one of the ultimate questions, with special reference to the work of the Austrian psychiatrist, philosopher and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.
I live near the shore of Lake Michigan and daily meditation walks are part of my Way of Life and Death. I hope this ritual may be of use to you – noting that it’s an embodied practice, not just a thought experiment. Most mornings and evenings I go down to the shore, form my … Read moreThe Handprint Ritual