RESOURCES
I've gathered an extensive list of resources related to mindfulness, living, aging, dying, and death. I'm continually adding to this page. Please contact me with any additions or questions you have on any of these topics.
Note: The recommendations below may contain affiliate links to my Amazon associates account. I might receive a nominal commission if you purchase through any links. However, my recommendations are not in any way influenced by a potential commission. You are, of course, free to purchase these products through any other source. In fact, I encourage you to shop local.
Note: The recommendations below may contain affiliate links to my Amazon associates account. I might receive a nominal commission if you purchase through any links. However, my recommendations are not in any way influenced by a potential commission. You are, of course, free to purchase these products through any other source. In fact, I encourage you to shop local.
Films
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A Will for the Woods What if our last act could be a gift to the planet? Determined that his final resting place will benefit the earth, musician, psychiatrist, and folk dancer Clark Wang prepares for his own green burial while battling lymphoma. The spirited Clark and his partner, Jane, boldly facing his mortality, embrace the planning of a spiritually meaningful funeral and join with a compassionate local cemetarian to use green burial to save a North Carolina woods from being clear-cut. With poignancy and unexpected humor, A Will for the Woods portrays the last days of a multifaceted advocate – and one community's role in the genesis of a revolutionary movement. As the film follows Clark's dream of leaving a legacy in harmony with timeless cycles, environmentalism takes on a profound intimacy.
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Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) This is the life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, who fought a 28-year campaign to win the right to end his own life with assisted suicide. The film explores Ramón's relationships with two women: Julia, a lawyer suffering from Cadasil Syndrome who supports his cause, and Rosa, a local woman who wants to convince him that his life is worth living. Through the gift of his love, these two women are inspired to accomplish things they never previously thought possible. |
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Griefwalker This documentary introduces us to Stephen Jenkinson, once the leader of a palliative care counselling team at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital. Through his daytime job, he has been at the deathbed of well over 1,000 people. What he sees over and over, he says, is "a wretched anxiety and an existential terror," even when there is no pain. Indicting the practice of palliative care itself, he has made it his life mission to change the way we die – to turn the act of dying from denial and resistance into an essential part of life.
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Books
A Year to Live, by Stephen Levine and Ondrea Levine. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom, and to live each moment, each hour, each day mindfully – as if it were all that was left. Levine decided to live this way himself for a year, and in this book, he shares how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities. This book was the basis for a presentation at the Hoffman Center in 2020.
Advice for Future Corpses, by Sallie Tisdale. The author offers a lyrical, thought-provoking and practical perspective on death and dying. Informed by her years working as a nurse, with more than a decade in palliative care, Tisdale provides a direct and compassionate meditation on death. She led a discussion based on this book at the Hoffman Center in 2018.
Landscapes of Aging and Spirituality, edited by Kathleen Montgomery. In this collection of essays, nineteen writers reflect on the experience of aging and the ways it intersects with their spiritual lives.
Aging as a Spiritual Practice, by Lewis Richmond. In this book, Richmond, a Buddhist priest and meditation teacher writes about how aging can bring new possibilities, fresh beginnings and gratitude.
Walking Each Other Home, by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush. In this last book written by Ram Dass a year before his death in 2019, he and Bush engage in conversations designed to enlighten readers on the spiritual opportunities within the dying process.
Ageless Soul, by Thomas Moore. Using examples from his practice as a psychotherapist and teacher, Moore argues for a new vision of aging as a dramatic series of initiations rather than a diminishing experience.
Who Dies? by Stephen Levine and Ondrea Levine. Who Dies? is the first book to show the reader how to open to the immensity of living with death, to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next. The Levines provide calm compassion rather than the frightening melodrama of death.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow, by Francis Weller. In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, author and soul activist Weller offers a new vision of grief and sorrow. He reveals the hidden vitality in grief, uncovered when the heart welcomes the sorrows of our life and those of the world. When the deeper rhythms of grief are allowed to emerge, we become aware of the intimate connection we share with all things. We are ripened in times of loss, made more human by the rites of grief. Through story, poetry and insightful reflections, Francis offers a meditation on the healing power of grief.
Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande. Being Mortal is a meditation on how people can better live with age-related frailty, serious illness, and approaching death. Gawande calls for a change in the way that medical professionals treat patients approaching their ends.
Die Wise, by Stephen Jenkinson. Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center-of-the-page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever.
Advice for Future Corpses, by Sallie Tisdale. The author offers a lyrical, thought-provoking and practical perspective on death and dying. Informed by her years working as a nurse, with more than a decade in palliative care, Tisdale provides a direct and compassionate meditation on death. She led a discussion based on this book at the Hoffman Center in 2018.
Landscapes of Aging and Spirituality, edited by Kathleen Montgomery. In this collection of essays, nineteen writers reflect on the experience of aging and the ways it intersects with their spiritual lives.
Aging as a Spiritual Practice, by Lewis Richmond. In this book, Richmond, a Buddhist priest and meditation teacher writes about how aging can bring new possibilities, fresh beginnings and gratitude.
Walking Each Other Home, by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush. In this last book written by Ram Dass a year before his death in 2019, he and Bush engage in conversations designed to enlighten readers on the spiritual opportunities within the dying process.
Ageless Soul, by Thomas Moore. Using examples from his practice as a psychotherapist and teacher, Moore argues for a new vision of aging as a dramatic series of initiations rather than a diminishing experience.
Who Dies? by Stephen Levine and Ondrea Levine. Who Dies? is the first book to show the reader how to open to the immensity of living with death, to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next. The Levines provide calm compassion rather than the frightening melodrama of death.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow, by Francis Weller. In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, author and soul activist Weller offers a new vision of grief and sorrow. He reveals the hidden vitality in grief, uncovered when the heart welcomes the sorrows of our life and those of the world. When the deeper rhythms of grief are allowed to emerge, we become aware of the intimate connection we share with all things. We are ripened in times of loss, made more human by the rites of grief. Through story, poetry and insightful reflections, Francis offers a meditation on the healing power of grief.
Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande. Being Mortal is a meditation on how people can better live with age-related frailty, serious illness, and approaching death. Gawande calls for a change in the way that medical professionals treat patients approaching their ends.
Die Wise, by Stephen Jenkinson. Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center-of-the-page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever.
Advanced Directive Information (check with your state)
Facilities and End of Life Care
Organization and Paperwork
Alternative/Home Funerals
Funeral Planning (Consumer Info) and Burial/Body Disposition Options
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Sharing this video of author and death care expert, Elizabeth Fournier, "The Green Reaper, " from Boring, Oregon, who shares information on green burials.
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https://funerals.org
https://www.talkdeath.com/environmentally-friendly-burial-options/
http://informedfinalchoices.org/crestone/services/open-air-cremation-site/?fbclid=IwAR2vlO7FUvt_fqiY0YZV4au_BI1Gj2ohEXmEI14j7iOXC9OXWH2BfLyJUfU
https://www.axios.com/special-report-new-art-dying-05c5d162-8fd8-42b2-843e-d62f826ba232.html
https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2017/funeral-ceremony-trends-fd.html
https://www.talkdeath.com/environmentally-friendly-burial-options/
http://informedfinalchoices.org/crestone/services/open-air-cremation-site/?fbclid=IwAR2vlO7FUvt_fqiY0YZV4au_BI1Gj2ohEXmEI14j7iOXC9OXWH2BfLyJUfU
https://www.axios.com/special-report-new-art-dying-05c5d162-8fd8-42b2-843e-d62f826ba232.html
https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2017/funeral-ceremony-trends-fd.html
Conversation-Building
https://deathcafe.com/deathcafe/10966/
https://deathoverdinner.org
https://theconversationproject.org/tcp-blog/death-is-not-a-game-well-sometimes-it-is/
https://whatsyourgrief.com
https://deathoverdinner.org
https://theconversationproject.org/tcp-blog/death-is-not-a-game-well-sometimes-it-is/
https://whatsyourgrief.com
Training Programs
Mindfulness Retreat Centers