Death Culture Archives - Page 4 of 5

Death Doula Jill Schock on ‘The Perfect Death’

June 25, 2020February 1, 2018 by admin

Each body has its own way of shutting down due to illness or injury. In a natural death, your breathing will simply slow until it stops. That is out of our control. Eventually all of our bodies will wear down to nothing more than ashes and dust. But American culture struggles with accepting mortality. We don’t like to age; we don’t like ugly. Unfortunately, neither idealizing nor ignoring death will make it go away.

What Happens After Death? What Netflix ‘Afterlife Sci-Fi Dramas’ Got Right

June 25, 2020June 1, 2017 by Kelly MacLean

Fans of the Netflix sci-fi thrillers The OA and The Discovery, both of which weave tales of scientists researching the afterlife, may be shocked to know it’s not just the stuff of fiction. While the haunting plotlines are (thankfully) fantasy, their themes echo real clinical research into what happens to consciousness at the moment of death.

Have You Met BJ Miller?

July 6, 2020July 14, 2016 by admin

We don’t want to diminish how much palliative care physician BJ Miller‘s TED Talk, “Not Whether But How,” will move you and get you thinking, but we can’t resist giving you a taste here (if only to get you to take a break and listen in full): “I’ve been seeing Frank now for … Read more

Living on a Timeline

January 11, 2018June 22, 2016 by admin

We all wonder what we’ll do, how we’ll react, if (or when) we receive news of our own or a loved one’s terminal diagnosis—and how we’ll go on living when we have that information.

Plan for Death As Though It’s a Birth

June 28, 2020May 26, 2016 by admin

Sheila Kitzinger was a “champion of women’s rights in childbirth.” She spent her career pioneering birth plans that secured choice and autonomous control for women giving birth.

Before I Die, I Want to ___________

July 6, 2020May 6, 2016 by admin

When Joan, a close friend to New Orleans designer Candy Chang died, the artist and urban planner was moved to invent and create the “Before I Die” wall on the side of an abandoned house in her neighborhood, using chalkboards and chalk.

In the Aftermath of Tragedy

January 23, 2018March 23, 2016 by admin

Death frequently comes without warning. But when tragedy strikes, there is a certain suddenness and violence that can have overwhelming effects on us, our families, and our society.

A Matter of Death and Life

July 6, 2020January 28, 2016 by admin

The Harley School in Rochester, N.Y., wanted students to excel in their academics — but also in life. That’s why the private school offered a class called “hospice.”

Inviting Death Back into Polite Society

June 28, 2020January 7, 2016 by admin

But in the 21st century, death “is now considered impolite to talk about,” says Megan Rosenbloom, director of Death Salon, self-described “resident death expert” on Vice’s Entitlement podcast, and the associate director for Collection Resources at the Norris Medical Library at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “And people don’t know how to manage that.”

Rosenbloom has given the topic more thought than most of us do. She even talks about how she doesn’t want her own body to be buried after she dies and why.

A Good Death from ChemHeritage on Vimeo.

End of Life Doula

January 23, 2018November 26, 2015 by admin

“There is nothing on Earth – nothing inevitable, anyway – that we are prepared for less than death, and I just don’t understand why that is. Where is our guidance for this? This thing that every single one us will have to face?”