Living in the Time of Dying
A sobering and urgent documentary on the challenges of living in the face of mass extinctions and climate catastrophe. For more on this subject, visit the Living in the Time of Dying website.
End-of-life
The Art of Dying Institute (New York City)
The Art of Dying Institute, an initiative of The Open Center, is dedicated to fostering an engaged community of practitioners, researchers & scholars, educators, front-line innovators, partners and investors to address the need for a cultural awakening around the theme of death and our mortality, how we die and the consequences for how we live. … Read moreThe Art of Dying Institute (New York City)
Coreopsis: Rituals for Living and Dying
Coreopsis is the semi-annual journal of the Society for Ritual Arts: Our mission is to support the ritual arts community through the advancement of arts and scholarly research in the fields of spirituality, consciousness, healing, performance, and visual media. We support work that advances freedom of spiritual practices globally, the scientific study of spirituality and … Read moreCoreopsis: Rituals for Living and Dying
An App to Remind You You’re Going to Die? On Death Positivity
In her essay for lithub.com, Ara A. Francis contemplates the prescience of Lyn Loflin’s 1978 book The Craft of Dying, which catalogs the then-nascent “Happy Death Movement”: Lyn’s analysis of death activism read as though it could have been written yesterday, and I wondered how that could be. In light of the happy death movement’s ostensible … Read moreAn App to Remind You You’re Going to Die? On Death Positivity
“Death by Design” Podcast
Kimberly C. Paul’s Death By Design podcast showcases interviews with deathcare specialists, artists, authors and others working in the end-of-life sphere: REMEMBER, YOU’RE THE DESIGNER. We must become the designer of our own destination. We must learn how to build the pathways to our last chapter by creating the blueprints that reflect our individual lives … Read more“Death by Design” Podcast
The Swan Song Festival
Swan Song is a new, grassroots death acceptance/community deathcare festival in Canada. Local events under the Swan Song umbrella are held during late October. Here’s a look at the 2019 event presented by the Cariboo Community Deathcaring Network in Williams Lake:
“Today is a Wonderful Day to Die”
In this interview, Belgian theater practitioner and ritualist Barbara Raes discusses devising new rituals of mourning: I make these rituals as co-creations with artists. I feel that many artists have a certain sensitivity for our profoundly human need for consolation and empathy, and are more adept at connecting to a more spiritual context. Art can … Read more“Today is a Wonderful Day to Die”
“Coronavirus Is Changing The Rituals Of Death For Many Religions”
NPR offers this survey of how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting the funerary rites of a variety of religions: The World Health Organization in its March 24 guidance on burials of COVID-19 victims says dead bodies are generally not infectious. But its recommendations that relatives not touch or kiss the body and government rules on social distancing … Read more“Coronavirus Is Changing The Rituals Of Death For Many Religions”
Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality
This acclaimed 2003 documentary was inspired by the also-acclaimed 1973 book The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. Positing that humans’ awareness (and denial) of their own mortality has been the driving force behind civilization, Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for literature and influenced generations of social anthropologists, philosophers and psychologists.
“How a Cheerful Monk Became a Doctor of Death”
Alizah Salario’s essay explores the life and work of Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen, the only practicing Tibetan Buddhist monk to have completed a doctorate in Public Health from an American university. Dr. Kunchok presented two sessions at the 2015 Art of Dying conference in New York City, addressing the challenges and rewards of preparing for a … Read more“How a Cheerful Monk Became a Doctor of Death”