β€œTo have a movement that breathes, you must build a movement with the capacity to grieve.” ~Malkia Devich CyrilΝβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ 
 
 

Julia Soboleva

As the devastating atrocities of war continue to rise, this month, in particular, has been a time of deep reflection on how we can compassionately hold space for the collective grief that accompanies these times of much death, loss and grief. 

May we build and nourish communities that become our places of refuge to hold each other’s brokenness in safety and authenticity. This was the original meaning of hospice: places of safety along the pilgrim way. Let us return to hospicing humanity in these ways during these times and going forward.

May we apprentice with death itself. Start by volunteering at your local hospice, show up for a dying neighbor, do a ceremony for the dying tree and honor the animal you find on the side of the road as you would your ancestor.

I believe building communities that hold space for grief by intimately knowing death is an act of resistance. ~Kirby

 

Souvenir I, 1997, by Kerry James Marshall

Outside now his ashes
are blown by the wind

through the eyes of ten needles
he was the poorest man

he was the richest man
he floats with one ear on the horizon

and listens to the siren song of the flames
too late to make excuses

his tongue tastes the skin of the sea
his lips are the waves breaking on the beach.

Listen to After My Father’s Cremation read by author Pablo Medina here.
 

Cosmos: In the End, We Are All Stardust Β© xkopp / Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, Foto: Alexander Schippel

Humboldt Forum Museum in Berlin invites 7th graders and up to explore the theme of death through guided tours and workshops in their current exhibit in_finite. Living With Death (open until November 26, 2023). It poses questions about living with death, features multimedia installations, addresses global disparities in living and dying conditions, explores different religious views of the afterlife and more. The program includes discussions, consultations with experts, film nights, music performances, and a Mexican festival of the dead. Their workshops provide professional support for terminally ill children and their families and advanced training for educators. During their discussion events, you can talk directly to a terminal caregiver, a pathologist, a policewoman, or a funeral speaker. There is even a gallery where visitors can browse through a selection of novels, non-fiction, and children’s books with strong literary voices reflecting on dying, mourning, and death including Audre Lorde, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and many others.

Read more about it here.

Listen to Humboldt Forum’s podcast Death_Matters here.

Online Living with Death tour here.

 

Ido Weisman filmed onlookers and officials who gathered around the body of a young whale on a Mediterranean beach.

The New Yorker called Requiem for A Whale a deathly Rorschach test. They also subtitled the article about the short video, what a mammal’s loss teaches us about life and death. 

Ido Weisman was a film student when he encountered a young dead whale washed up on the shore at the beach in Israel. Documenting the worst and best of his fellow humans’ response to this epic event, he came to feel the whale is a message about our behavior as human beings…We need to be better and more kind to this place.  

I felt as if he was crying, one witness says. I remember standing in front of him and asking him for forgiveness, says another. Viewing the 15-minute piece may evoke many feelings that beckon us to not turn away from them.

Watch Requiem for A Whale in The New Yorker here.

 

Courtesy of Braided Way Magazine

Your body is an ancestor. Your body is an altar to your ancestors. Every one of your cells holds an ancient and anarchic love story, Sophie Strand writes in her essay Your Body is An Ancestor. Sophie is a writer who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. In this essay she asks us to recognize the profound ancestral connection we all share in our DNA and to honor it in our daily existence. Last month, we featured her mother Perdita Finn’s book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, who also has a very grounded, embodied faith through relationship with the dead and the Earth.

As many honor their dead this week around Day of the Dead, may we consider how we can incorporate these relationships into our daily lives. 


Read the essay Your Body is An Ancestor here.

More about Sophie Strand here.

Listen to Sophie Strand on For The Wild podcast here.

 

Self Burial, Keith Arnatt

In the 1960’s, inspired by the B&W photography of Walker Evans, August Sander and Diane Arbus, artist Keith Arnatt began to explore the documentary photography form at a time when it was an unfashionable medium. He explored the perspective where the artist and his behavior were increasingly important as subject matter.

Self Burial (1969) is a series of nine photographs, depicting Arnatt seemingly disappearing into a hole dug on the ground. This ritual act of burial confronted German TV viewers for 9 days with one frame broadcast each day for a duration of two seconds without explanation!

Arnatt had no formal gallery representation during his life. His work is now collected by museums - Tate in London, LACMA in Los Angeles and others.

Read more about Keith Arnatt here.
 

Kenny Holston/ The New York Times

In this NYT piece, America’s Black Cemeteries and Three Women Trying to Save Them, three dedicated Black women, outraged by the neglect of cemeteries in Washington, Georgia, and Texas, are working tirelessly to restore these historically significant sites. These cemeteries, crucial for preserving Black history, face neglect, development threats, and record loss. They serve as both caretakers and advocates for the protection of these sites, which, despite National Trust initiatives and grant opportunities, struggle to secure necessary funding and government support. With a deep commitment to honoring their ancestors and preserving Black heritage, these women persist in their efforts to safeguard these invaluable historical legacies.


Read the NYT piece here.

Support the efforts via Black Georgetown Foundation, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and Hamilton Hood Foundation.
 

Ben de la Cruz/ NPR

In the US, November is National Family Caregivers Month, so in honor, we're spotlighting NPR's inspiring piece on how BogotΓ‘'s Care Blocks program is transforming the lives of unpaid family caregivers, mainly women, by offering free services like education and fitness classes. This groundbreaking initiative has reached over 400,000 caregivers, raised awareness of the value of their work, and challenged gender norms within families. By promoting the importance of caregiving and encouraging shared responsibilities, Care Blocks are reshaping societal perceptions and creating opportunities for women to pursue employment.


Read or listen to How BogotΓ‘ cares for its family caregivers: From dance classes to job training here.
 

Nick Cave, by Megan Cullen

Artists can take us on cathartic and transformative journeys as they move through the circumstances of their own lives. Musician Nick Cave has been boldly sharing his grief with his audience after the deaths of two of his sons in 2015 and 2022 ~ through his music, his art, the Red Hand Files, as well as in his book Faith, Hope & Carnage, which just came out in paperback. In two recent interviews, he spoke with candid wisdom about the ever-evolving relationship with his grief.

My feelings around the death of my son, around which the book relentlessly circles, have become more reflective, less visceral, less painful…In my experience, the KΓΌbler-Ross model of the (5) stages of grief is full of shit. Grief portioned into orderly stages does not make sense, on any level.

Watch Nick Cave on CBS News here.

and in Rolling Stone here.

buy Faith, Hope & Carnage in paperback here.

 

Resources

From July 2021 a brilliant Gravity podcast with Lucy Kalanithi.…
On Mortality and Meaning with Paul Kalanithi offering references for survival in these most difficult of times including Viktor Frankel’s seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning and Lucy’s Ted Talk What makes life worth living in the face of death.

Listen to the podcast Gravity here.

In this visionary book The Spirit of Harriet Tubman, meditation and dharma teacher Spring Washam calls on the living spirit of Harriet Tubman, offering profound insights and inspiration. By combining Harriet's message with explorations of her legacy, the book empowers readers to cultivate resilience and become agents of love and truth, and to also connect with ancestors to collaborate on the creation of a more peaceful and just world.

Order the book here.


Listen to her on Sounds True here.

 

Exit Strategy’s Art & Culture Monthly Reader is curated by Karen Bellone and Kirby Lee, death doulas at The Seventh Sense serving Hudson Valley, NY. Our intention is to refocus the narrative around death, dying and grief to raise awareness and consciousness, through the lens of arts, culture, storytelling and innovation.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you feel might benefit from these resources and articles.

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