Films, audio and books
Griefwalker – A lyrical poetic portrait of the work of Stephen Jenkinson by director Tim Wilson. Griefwalker shows Jenkinson in teaching sessions with doctors and nurses, in counselling sessions with dying people and their families, and meditative and often frank exchanges with the film’s director while paddling a birchbark canoe about the origins and consequences of his ideas for how we live and die.
The Skill of Brokenheartedness: Euthanasia, Palliative Care and Power – Stephen Jenkinson – A talk that tries to make sense of the despair that is endemic to our way of dying and fuels the debate over decision-making, and offer up a little heartbreak as one sane response to our palliative poverty.
Die Wise -A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, is Stephen Jenkinson’s new book about grief, and dying, and the great love of life. An exquisite book with a beautiful forward by Dr Martin Shaw. Here is an excerpt from the book and the video trailer.
A collection of Sound Cloud Interviews with Stephen Jenkinson
The Smell of Rain on Dust – Martín Prechtel – If there ever was a book that makes a case that grief is vital to the ability of our culture to survive then this is that book. Declaring that grieving what we lose and praising what we have are two inseparable parts of the love of life.
In every case where grief and praise are still honoured, there is one aspect that remains the same with all people: grief, even for an individual’s loss, is a thing for which a lot of people are necessary. A tribe is necessary even if it’s just to be a kind of resilient nonjudgmental human basket, against which the griever is able to thrash. I doubt if anybody’s relatives could be that for us. A tribe lets us say things we may or may not believe, be filled with the grief in whatever form it takes without hurting ourselves or anybody else, unworried that the sometimes uncharacteristically expressive being we might turn into when in the necessary state of grief will be held against us when the blessing of life has healed, and we can continue slowly returning to its more regular flow.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow – Francis Weller
Excerpt from his book:
The First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose
I’ve have come to have a deep faith in grief; have come to see the way its moods call us back to soul. It is, in fact, one of the voices of the soul, asking us to face life’s most difficult but essential teaching: everything is a gift and nothing lasts. This is a painful truth. To accept this fact is to live on life’s terms and not try to deny the simple truth of loss, what the Buddhists call impermanence. When we acknowledge grief, we acknowledge that everything we love, we will lose. No exceptions. Now of course, we want to argue this point, saying that we will keep in our hearts the love of those who depart his earth before us: our parents, or our spouse, or our children, or our friends, or, or, or – and yes, that is true. It is grief, however, that allows the heart to stay open to this love, to remember sweetly the ways these people touched our lives. It is only when we deny grief’s entry into our lives that we begin to compress the breadth of our emotional experience and live shallowly.”