I’m reading Carole Cusack’s excellent Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith and am delighted to have discovered the Hot Tub Mystery Religion, intriguingly described in this 2003 Reason.com article by Jesse Walker: Atheists have long regarded religion as, at best, a collective work of art, but in the last century that view has grown popular … Read more“Inside the Spiritual Jacuzzi”
The notably arts-friendly Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York City has hosted a number of artistic installations including works of sculpture, dance, poetry, photography and ritual.
Concept art for the planned Temple of the Heart at Burning Man 2023, including the Rose Altar which will feature wooden commemorative roses created by community members. More at the Temple 2023 website.
The popular Canadian drama series Mary Kills People centers on the life and work of Dr. Mary Harris (Caroline Dhavernas), who covertly operates an illegal medically-assisted suicide business with her partner Des Bennett (Richard Short). Both are willing to risk their freedom due to their conviction that people should be allowed to end their own … Read moreBrendan’s Death Ceremony (“Mary Kills People”, Season 2, Episode 6)
In this 2018 episode of his Expanding Mind podcast, author, scholar and speaker Erik Davis interviews conceptual artist Lindsay (now Scarlet) Tunkl about confronting death, therapy as art, pre-apocalypse counseling, humor, and her book When You Die You Will Not Be Scared to Die.
Humanist chaplain D.S. Moss, who was the creator and host of the popular Adventures of Memento Mori podcast series, presents this series of bedtime memento mori meditations. Each 14-minute session begins with relaxation, breathing and visualization exercises, proceeds through a review of one’s day giving attention to a particular theme, and then ends with intention-setting … Read more“Goodnight Lovelies”: a Humanist Memento Mori Meditation with D.S. Moss
Scifiinterfaces.com offers this series of in-depth articles analyzing the various interfaces shown in the Soylent Green (1973) thanatorium sequence: When considering this model for the real world, we should take great exception to the no-questions-asked expediency seen in Soylent Green. We would want such a service to be slow, deliberative, and life-affirming, with counseling and assistance … Read moreA Deep Dive Into the Technological and Ritual Interfaces of the Soylent Green Thanatorium
A short video preview of the upcoming Beyond Granite project, which will invite visionary artists to create special commemorative works, performances, and installations on the National Mall and throughout the District of Columbia.
Jesse Dorris writes for The New Yorker on the newly-unveiled permanent memorial for the six teachers and twenty young children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012: The memorial’s spatial poetics—the balance between circular pathways and blocks of granite, its enduring engravings of names in stone and perennials for texture and color … Read more“The Contemplative, Unnerving Beauty of the Sandy Hook Memorial”