Under a Birdless Sky
Dialogue Under a Birdless Sky Illustration by Andrew Zbihlyj Autumn/Winter 2023 Share on X (Twitter) Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Share on Email By Toby Cox The Towers of Silence, or dakhmas, are where Zoroastrians...
Category: End of Life Spirituality/Death
Climate Grief and the Secular Spirituality of Earth-Mourning
We need to approach earth-mourning as a necessary spiritual practice that reckons with the disorienting power of grief and the potential for meaningful change. By Dorothy Dean
Plague Wisdom
Learning from queer elders who cared for the dying through the horrors of the AIDS crisis. By Cody Hooks
Facing Death without Religion
Nonreligious elders construct meaning making narratives from science and other sources, and these frameworks provide coherence and agency. By Christel Manning
No Rescue
A crash that causes the death of a bicyclist haunts the driver for years and leads her to study Buddhism. By Shane Snowdon
Secular Death
For those who are no longer Christian, might writing and reading difficult literature be a training ground for approaching the agonies of loss? By Amy Hollywood
From Silence to Light
A daughter’s spiritual awakening enables her to give words to the silent sufferings of her family. By Lina Feuerstein
Mourning the Unknowable
Knut Hamsun’s novel Hunger helps a young woman grapple with her memories of a mother who was in the world but not of it. By Meghan Guidry
Dying in America
A national crisis looms as the population over sixty-five grows but inequalities in end-of-life care persist. By Ann Neumann
Why ‘Brain Death’ Is Contested Ground
The Jahi McMath case illustrates the disjunction between medical definitions of bodies and the ways we constitute meaningful relationships with our family members. By Jeffrey P. Bishop
Narrative Wounds and Livable Fictions
Bearing witness and fixing blame in Russell Banks’s novel The Sweet Hereafter. By Matthew Potts
The Masks We Wear
In this issue, there is not a sense of “landing” on certainties, but more a feeling of “dreaming” (in all its connotations). By Wendy McDowell
Cancer Rites and the Remission Society
50/50 captures the rites and rituals of cancer patients. By Paul Stoller
Dying Well
We need to find better words and metaphors to cope with the reality of death. By Tamara Mann
‘Nox,’ or the Muteness of Things
Anne Carson’s Nox. By Charles M. Stang
Rhythms of Dying, of Living
Yolmo rituals around death and mourning entail a soothing, sonorous “poetics of guidance” that allows people to help one another through life’s toughest transitions. By Robert R. Desjarlais
Patterns from Particularities
Jean DeBernardi’s The Way That Lives in the Heart: Chinese Popular Religion and Spirit Mediums in Penang, Malaysia and Leor Halevi’s Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society. by Steven P. Hopkins
The Other Ineffable
Julian Barnes’s Nothing to Be Frightened Of. By James K. A. Smith
Embracing Earth while Facing Death
A Buddhist monk reflects on the limits of contemporary science. By Eshin Nishimura
