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Grief isn’t confined to loss of loved ones; it extends to environmental degradation too, termed "solastalgia,” arising from the destruction of cherished places. The Guardian’s Climate grief is real highlights indigenous people’s enduring grief of land.

The New Yorker’s What to do with Climate emotions explores climate-related emotions, addressing denial, activism, and therapy’s role in channeling feelings. It emphasizes balancing emotional acknowledgment of climate change with meaningful action.

Read The Guardian piece Climate grief is real – and I cannot keep watching images of our dying planet here.

Read The New Yorker piece What to do with Climate emotions here.

In this Emergence essay, Animals in the Room, Why We Can and Should Listen to Other Species, author Melanie Challenger evokes a passionate memory of her time living among many other species of animals in the forest while raising her children. For someone who never had a strong sense of belonging she found herself, along with her son, grieving the loss of the animals and the natural home they left behind. This poignant piece highlights a grief we may not even know we share…and why it is high time for us to pay attention to others whom we share the planet with and what they have to reveal to us.

Read the Emergence essay here.

In 2016, the body of legendary mountain climber Alex Lowe was discovered after 17 years, when the melting ice and snow of Tibet’s Shishapangma released him from the glacial avalanche that claimed him. Torn, a documentary film released by National Geographic in 2021, and gracefully directed by Lowe’s son Max, is an exploration of his family’s experience with the tragedy and its aftermath.

Although the film captures the entire family’s experience, Max Lowe is the protagonist of Torn, and it’s quiet heart. Watching him watch himself as a boy, in footage shot by his father, and then later after his father’s death, as a witness to the presence of his father’s replacement, no words are necessary. This film is poignant and beautifully honest; a tribute to loss and renewal, to the human spirit and to love that is big enough to encompass us all.

Read the New Yorker review of Torn here.

Watch the Torn trailer here and stream on Hulu here.

In Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death, a

poignant memoir of loss, author Laura Cumming centers her book on the gifted young 17th-century painter Carel Fabritius, a student of Rembrandt. Fabritius was just 32 when his home collapsed around him in an enormous gunpowder explosion. Prior to this life-changing event, Fabritius knew no end to his experience with loss. He buried both his wife and the three babies she bore him by the time he was 21.

Cumming, who fell in love with one of Fabritius’s enigmatic paintings as a lonely young woman in London, is haunted by these losses and by the grief-stricken withdrawal she senses in his work. She is also grappling with the blow of her own father’s (Scottish painter James Cumming) prolonged illness and death. She implies that every death feels both sudden and random to those it leaves behind. Her book becomes an elegy for both men, as well as for all those memory pictures we hold so dear.

Read reviews of the book here. Buy the book here.

Emmy-nominated series The Bear on FX delves deep into grief, portraying it not as a challenge to overcome but as a profound, engulfing experience. The show follows Carmy Berzatto, who grapples with his brother's suicide and his role in the family sandwich shop. Unlike other series, The Bear authentically captures the rawness and chaos of grief, making it a central theme rather than a backdrop. As Carmy navigates guilt and emotional turmoil, the show reminds us that healing takes time and that cherished memories can provide the strength to move forward.

Read NYT Opinion piece, I Thought No One Had Felt Grief Like Mine. Then I Saw The Bear here.

This remarkably rich and responsible Atlantic article Four Ways to Make Grief More Bearable offers deep insight into surviving in the aftermath centering around four core ideas - Look for Meaning, Make Changes to Your Identity, Adopt Rituals, Let Yourself Be Happy Again. It also wisely points out that when attending to another’s grief it’s best to listen and simply be present, relying on words may be unnecessary as attentive silence may be the best thing we can offer.

Read the Atlantic article Four Ways to Make Grief More Bearable here.

In this NPR interview, Why this poet sees grief as its own kind of spiritual practice, poet, author, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib beautifully discusses the interwovenness of grief and spirituality. He acknowledges that he doesn't ever move past loss, but learns to live with it by embracing grief and finding ways to keep the essence of those he lost alive. In describing his relationship to his grief, he says, I believe that I should be a generous steward to my grief. If I tend generously to my grief then it treats me well in return.

Listen to this NPR interview with Hanif Abdurraqib, Why this poet sees grief as its own kind of spiritual practice here.

The rise of a digital afterlife is linked to our extensive online presence, which lingers long after our passing. A recent article by The Guardian titled Grief in the Age of AI explores how those who have lost loved ones are utilizing AI tools to navigate their grief. This emerging field, dubbed grief tech, employs various digital avatars like VR documentaries, interactive memory apps and ChatGPT in which the bereaved are inputting text conversations with their deceased loved, hoping to receive responses that mirror their personalities and voices. While this provides comfort to some, so many ethical concerns have arisen with this technology.

Read The Guardian piece Grief in the Age of AI here.