According to ceremonialist Daniel Lev Shkolnik: In the oldest story in existence, Gilgamesh crosses the sea of death in search of immortality. In Greek mythology, Charon ferries souls across the river Styx to Hades. In ancient Egypt, departed souls were thought to travel with Ra on the solar bark to reach the sacred field of … Read moreOdyssey of the Dead (2019)
I started creating this bookshelf altar during the day and evening of September 22, which was the Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The altar features a colorful scattering of dead leaves gathered during my evening walks, a copper string of white lights, a mirror for self-reflection, an incense holder, a small jar of home-mixed … Read moreAutumnal Equinox Memorial Altar 2020
This talk was given at a local TEDxSnoIsleLibraries event and produced independently of the TED Conferences. Cultural anthropologist, Jennifer James, believes embracing the awareness of our mortality is a key to fully living. Jennifer’s lifetime of curiosity about beliefs, human behavior and the human spirit has roots in her childhood. That curiosity has underpinned her … Read moreLiving Fully Through Death Awareness
Humanist poet, speaker, organizer and ritualist Daniel Lev Shkolnik writes for Patheos on a self-devised memento mori/carpe diem rite: When I pass into a cemetery alone, a calm settles over me. I watch the hawks hunt from the pines. The hares dash through among the stones and the bones of slower hares. The puffball mushrooms … Read more“Dancing with the Dead: Two Techniques for Spiritual Rejuvenation”
Click here to read Sasha Sagan’s 2014 essay for The Cut: My parents taught me that even though it’s not forever — because it’s not forever — being alive is a profoundly beautiful thing for which each of us should feel deeply grateful. If we lived forever it would not be so amazing. In this video, Sasha … Read more“Lessons of Immortality and Mortality From My Father, Carl Sagan”
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.
A concise presentation on the subject of mortality from the Epicurean philosophical perspective, from the Society of Friends of Epicurus.
In this scene from George Romero’s messy, mystical, countercultural take on the Arthurian mythos, Merlin (Brother Blue) councils King Billy (Ed Harris) on the tensions between notions of destiny and self-fulfilling prophecy. The clip includes some shots from a later scene in which Merlin’s prophecy (and Billy’s dreams) come true, in the form of a … Read moreMerlin on Self-Fulfilling Prophesy and Destiny (Knightriders, 1981)