BLOG | RESOURCES
some links may require subscription

To feel grief, to feel pain, to feel the cry of the Earth - that is an honest, real response. And if Earth is to be remembered and thought of as a sacred, living being and related to as a sacred, living being, then it asks of us to respond from a real place inside of ourselves.

In this podcast from Emergence Magazine, Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee offers a framework for how we might navigate our current moment of unprecedented transition and transformation. When we are left with fragments of a dying world, and given glimpses of an emerging one, how can we find our bearings? Speaking to what can take root when we truly open ourselves to grief, love and ultimately kinship with the living world, he urges us to step into the liminal - the space between worlds, to recognize new ways of being.

Read or Listen to Emergence Magazine piece Stepping into the Liminal here.

This 4-minute listen from NPR, Why beautiful sadness - in music, in art - evokes a special pleasure, highlights how we humans, who normally avoid sadness, actively seek it out in aesthetics and art. It allows us to experience the benefits that sadness brings, such as eliciting empathy, connecting with others, purging a negative emotion, without actually having to go through the loss that is typically associated with it. The paradox of pleasurable sadness helps us to find our humanity, it makes us feel and know we are alive.

Listen at NPR here.

In this NY Times opinion piece A Fitting Final Gift From Jimmy Carter about President Jimmy Carter’s final days, there is a beautiful human story to be shared. After a series of short hospital stays and at an advanced age, Carter opted for hospice care in order to stay at home rather than undergo further medical interventions. He realized his announcement would be a boost to the hospice movement, and he liked that. With his work with Habitat for Humanity he has spent decades building homes for so many, it is fitting and just that when his time comes, he has chosen to be in his home with his family and loved ones. There will be no doctors rushing in. When he draws his last breath there will only be quiet. He made his choice, and that's the best any of us can do.

Read A Fitting Final Gift From Jimmy Carter in The NYT here.

For so long, America has been seen as a young nation — elastic, vibrant and constantly renewing. But by 2034, there will be more Americans over the age of 65 than children. America will no longer be a young nation but an old one. It’s time to prepare. By 2053, more than 40% of the federal budget will go toward programs for seniors, primarily Social Security and Medicare - but those programs are not designed for or prepared to handle the new demographic reality. In this Series of opinion pieces, Can America Age Gracefully? The NYT Editorial Board expresses urgency that this demographic shift be addressed by US leaders across party lines. 

They claim An Aging America needs:

1. An honest conversation about growing old.

   Read Can America Age Gracefully? here.

2. Safer Streets.

   Read The City Looks Different When You’re Older here.

3. Sustainable Caregiving.

   Read You Shouldn’t have To Take Care of Your Aging Parents on Your Own here.

4. Flexible Housing.

   Read The Magic of the Granny Flat here.

5. Entrepreneurs who pay attention.

   Read What Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Understand About Old People here.

6. To see and be seen.

   Read It’s Fun To Be Alive here.

In this NYT piece, What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us About Grief, writer Teju Cole explores the depths of grief and its resonance within the themes of Greek tragedy. This journey gradually unveiled a profound connection between the enduring narratives of ancient plays and the universal human experience of mourning. These narratives became a lens through which to examine the resilience of individuals who, despite facing profound loss, continued to persevere in their pursuit of hope and a better future. Thus, this pilgrimage not only uncovered the timeless power of Greek tragedy but also illuminated its profound connection to the enduring human spirit, which finds strength even in the face of overwhelming sorrow.

Read the NYT piece, What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us About Grief, here.

Discussing death is often avoided, but it's essential to plan for it. Inadequate funeral planning can lead to unforeseen costs, as demonstrated by a mother-in-law who pre-paid for her funeral, only for additional expenses to arise upon her death. With the average adult funeral costing over $7,000, it's crucial to research and make informed decisions, alleviating stress during a challenging time. Utilize resources like FTC’s Funeral Rule for price transparency, document your funeral wishes, and openly discuss them with family to ensure a stress-free farewell that eases your loved ones' burden. In Good Housekeeping’s Know Before You Go: The Not-So-Sad Guide to Planning a Funeral, there are tips to navigating costs and a handy checklist full of resources in each category. 

Read on as this is a 6-piece series of articles around death and grief, including United by Grief, Funeral Disruptors, What to Give, Funerals are my Calling, Finding Joy in Death and What to Say. 

Read Good Housekeeping’s Know Before You Go: The Not-So-Sad Guide to Planning a Funeral here.

Brittany Bacinski discovered a profound sense of closure in Olympia's Squaxin Park when she used the Telephone of the Wind to communicate with her late first love. This unique rotary phone, firmly affixed to a tree, enables users to have heartfelt conversations with their departed loved ones. Inspired by a similar Japanese wind phone that emerged after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, these unconventional devices are gaining popularity in the United States.

Corey Dembeck, the visionary behind this telephone says, This phone is meant for anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one. It serves as a channel for those who carry messages they long to convey to their friends and family—a lifeline for preserving cherished memories and voicing the farewells that were left unsaid. In a changing landscape of death practices and grief rituals, where more people are choosing cremation and loved ones may rest in distant places, these wind phones offer an incredibly moving and poignant means of connection, particularly in light of the pandemic's heart-wrenching theft of countless final visits.

Read the Seattle Times piece, The Power of a One-Way Phone Call to Cope with Grief here.

Becky Wilkes documented the final year of her mother and father’s life. Bob and Mary Behrens were married 67 years. They loved sunshine, fresh coffee, and square dancing. They left behind four kids, nine grandkids, and more than a dozen great-grandkids, including, as Wilkes put it in the obituaries, one or two unnamed imminent arrivals. Wilkes shot the memorial. She kept shooting afterward. She shot her parents’ idle walkers, folded up in the garage, and the golden boxes that hold their cremated remains. She staged a local exhibition of those photographs alongside furniture that she fashioned from Kleenex and incontinence pads. On the gallery’s windows, she stuck vinyl transcriptions of text from the condolence cards that her family received. She didn’t realize until too late that she had almost no photographs of herself with her parents from their last year together. In retrospect, she writes in her artist’s statement, I recognize there were times when I used the camera to separate me from the moment I was witnessing. Till Death Do Us Part preserves those moments in a compendium of caregiving: Bob and Mary for each other, and their daughter for them.

Read The New Yorker’s A Photographer’s Frank, Tender Portrait of Her Parents’ Final Year here.