Click here to access over eighty in-depth conversations facilitated by Michael Dowd on what it means to live meaningful, fulfilling lives in the face of climate chaos, societal breakdown, and economic and ecological “doom”: Those with a post-doom mind and heart haven’t given up; they’ve stood up. Empathy follows naturally in the wake of realizing … Read morePost-Doom Conversations
Here’s author Lisa Wells’ new essay on the ethos and practice of human composting at Recompose: As a matter of convenience, one might be deluded into thinking their ecological sins in life could be absolved in death. Recompose claims that each person who chooses composting over conventional burial or cremation will prevent an average of … Read more“To Be a Field of Poppies”
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”
This is my Summer Solstice contribution to the Artists of the Wall 2021 project. It’s a local (Rogers Park, Chicago) tradition extending back about 30 years, when residents started decorating a 600 foot long concrete bench/ barrier between Loyola Park and the Lake Michigan beach. Artists purchase the right to paint sections of the wall … Read more“… with hope that this assemblage of rubble would become a shrine …”
Free Inquiry is a Humanist publication whose Oct/Nov 2007 issue was on the theme of mortality from the Humanist perspective: Early in 2006, Free Inquiry began to solicit essays from atheists and humanists, activists and everyday folks, open skeptics and closet doubters. What had they experienced of death and dying? How had they responded? What … Read more“Dealing with Dying” (Free Inquiry Magazine, October/ November 2007)
I will be teaching this upcoming online course via the Morbid Academy, starting August 25: This course explores an emergent, dynamic and positive response to the existential problem of death denial, centered on the simple philosophical premise of “mortality sapience”; that by remembering death, we can learn to seize the day. In that spirit, artists, … Read moreThe Art of Ritual: Changing Ways of Life and Death (Online Course)
After shifting modes to virtual space during the 2020 pandemic, the All Souls Procession is now planned to return to the streets of Tucson, Arizona between November 5-7, 2021. Donations towards their efforts to reboot this wonderful event can be made here.
From Barbara Groth, Founder and Creative Director of the Nomadic School of Wonder: This image is from the very first gathering of the Nomadic School of Wonder in Galisteo, New Mexico in 2015 where we explored the theme of “Death & Rebirth” with palliative care physician and teacher Alex Jadad. On All Hallow’s Eve, Alex … Read moreA/Wake Ritual with the Nomadic School of Wonder (Galisteo, New Mexico 2015)