In Consideration of Death
A M. Macha NightMare Legacy Project
Thanatopsis* is a group of diverse Pagans who are working together to improve death literacy and to provide resources and information for Pagans interested in or facing choices surrounding death and dying. These include support and vigil for those passing, honoring the body that houses the deceased, memorializing, and grief support.
Thanatopsis seeks to provide education, support, and practical Pagan-oriented and interfaith approaches to all matters concerning dying, death, body disposition, memorializing, and grieving resources, including art and music.
Thanatopsis will adapt to the changing needs of Pagan community as it evolves and stands to help those with matters involving death and dying.
*Than·a·top·sis (thăn′ə-tŏp′sĭs) n. A meditation upon death. [Greek thanatos, death +opsis.] Thanatopsis (ˌθænəˈtɒpsɪs)n. a meditation on death, as in a poem [C19: from Greek thanatos death + opsis a view]
Resources
Preparing and Planning for Death
Forms and Planning Tools:
Advance Directive Forms by State
Last Will and Testament Template https://eforms.com/wills/
End-of-Life Planning and Education Tools & Programs https://www.willoweol.com/store
Many resources and information https://www.thenaturalfuneral.com/
Building a meaningful, eco-friendly and equitable end of life https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/start-here/
Examining the Harmful Impact of Modern Views of Death and Offering Healthy Alternatives https://cobb.institute/learning-lab/process-of-dying/
End of Life choices, dying with dignity, including assisted suicide https://www.compassionandchoices.org/
Death, Dying, Grief, and Bereavement https://templeofwitchcraft.org/scorpio/
How to Become a Tree When You Die- Debunked -Includes questions to ask the funeral provider when someone wants to become a tree when they die https://www.talkdeath.com/how-to-become-a-tree-after-you-die-debunked/
No One Should Die Alone Foundation https://nosdaf.com/
Threshold Choir - Singing for those at the thresholds of life.Threshold Choir Video: https://youtu.be/NR25A8C6hGU?si=cOcx4_63OKSNejCxBooks:
Augsburger, D. – Caring Enough to Confront
Butler, Katy – Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death
Cadge, Wendy – Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine
Cadge, W. – Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care in the Twenty-first Century
Canda & Furman – Spiritual Diversity in Social Work Practice
Davies, Simon - Death Meditation
Doehring, C. – The Practice of Pastoral Care
Doka, Kenneth J. – Counseling Individuals with Life Threatening Illness
Dunn, Hank – Hard Choices for Loving People
Dykstra, R. C. – Images of Pastoral Care
Fersko-Weiss, Henry – Caring for the Dying: The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death
Frank, A. – The Wounded Storyteller
Gawande, Atul – Being Mortal
Gordon, Steve & Kacandes, Irene – Let's Talk About Death
Hilsman, G. J. – Confrontation in Spiritual Care
Jenkinson, S. – Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul
Leming & Dickinson – Understanding Dying, Death, and Bereavement
Milne, Julie M. – Sacred Transitions
Pruyser, P. W. – The Minister as Diagnostician
Roberts, S. B. – Professional Spiritual & Pastoral Care
Satir, V. – The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond
Swinton, Willows et al. – Spiritual Dimensions of Pastoral Care
Wannemacher, M. – Let's Talk About It. Now!
Podcasts
https://lifechangesnetwork.com/how-to-die-consciously-changing-the-culture-of-dying-ep709/
https://www.thenaturalfuneral.com/death-science-podcast/
Conversations
Thanatology Cafe https://thanatologycafe.wordpress.com/
Death Cafes https://deathcafe.com/
Poems, and Articles About Dying & Death:
I was 19, he was 22, I was skinny and hot as the steaming coffee I drank black every morning from Jack's Deli. I had the gray, fitted designer winter coat. Men turned when I passed construction sites and whistled and put down their hammers. I could dance to anything - salsa the two step, improv. Just put on music and I was all in.
I stole clothes from John Wanamaker and Saks Fifth Avenue, I had boots, bodysuits, one pound earrings. I danced to Donna Summer, Madonna, Blondie. Under disco balls, under the moonlight, in the Black Banana and Studio 54.
The bouncer always called me to the front of the line. They had nicknames for me, and me for them.
I sweat, I jiggled, I fucked, and I judged other women who couldn't dance, didn't have a sense of style, who ate too much, who were too fat or too loud or too in love or not in love enough. Or were too old wearing too short skirts.
What were they thinking?
I was on top of the world, and I was with a man who loved the wild weed of me, and when he saw me judge another woman or another man, or the male prostitute dressed like Little Bo Peep who hung on my front steps leading up to my apartment, he would say things to me about the people I judged.
He would say look how beautiful she thinks she is.
Or he said, Baby, you don't know her story.
Or he said, she's trying to get attention, let's give her some.
He dug through my closet while I was getting ready to go to dinner with him, and when I'd search for my favorite green, designer sweater with the pearl buttons, I'd usually find it on Little Bo Peep, and my man would say he was cold, he gave it to him while I was in the shower, and he'd buy me another sweater.
I studied how he moved through the wintery world beside me.
I watched him glide with grace and love and kindness and forgiveness and laughter.
He saw something in me nobody else saw and I began to see it too.
He saw my broken from my broken family and my potential to love the way we were all meant to love each other. He made love to me tenderly to heal my broken, and sometimes with hunger to catch my insatiable desire to feel even more alive.
He saw my potential to see, my potential to feel, my potential for empathy and kindness - he taught me how to love the too loud woman checking out at the grocery store and the man who held up the plane and then demanded a different seat after we'd all been waiting a half hour.
He taught me to love the taxi driver who took us to the opera who had eight children who couldn't make his rent. We gave him our tickets, a night at the opera and a check for what he would have made that night.
Love was a verb and we practiced it together.
As a fledging in training, I discovered each of person had a story I didn't know, and every person I judged or laughed at or decided who they were was me hiding from my own humanity, because the truth is it's sometimes hard to see.
I began to see Little Bo Peep whose mascara always seemed to be streaked down his cheeks from crying and I let him into my designer closet. I began to see all of Jack at the Deli - his gruffness was from lack of sleep from taking care of his mother.
Now when I look back on that time, I understand I was with a man who was my spiritual guide but he just looked like an electrician from Philadelphia who left hoagie wrappers on the floor of his red Ford Bronco.
When my writing partner said I should write the scene of me crawling into his open casket after he died, wanting my whole body on top of his whole body one more time - I knew it wouldn't make any sense unless you knew who he was, and who I was.
And who I was becoming.
At the funeral, my knees were soaked from his fourteen year old son's grief snot - he had collapsed into my lap sobbing, and I was stroking his hair. Then I stood up and walked toward the open casket. I had to feel his cold, thick lips sewn or glued shut, his limp hands, his shiny bald head, to be sure he wasn't there.
I put one leg up and hoisted myself into his coffin, and I let out a sound no human being should ever make, or a sound all of us should always make when we have to let go. It was as ancient as the elephant who rocks the bones of the dead.
As ancient as whale song or the Orca who carried her dead baby on her back for weeks and miles.
I'm sure my cousins pulled me out of the coffin, and took my small writhing ball of grief body outside where the trees could hold my sounds.
The man I loved who left too soon - his memory is still there every day to remind me to have compassion and not judgement, because you never know another person's heart until you stop and ask them about their life and listen.
Chaunce launched me out into this magnificent and complicated and tragic world with a heart that had eyes, and I wanted to say this morning that I see you and I want your story and I can receive your story and reflect your goodness and your beauty back to you, as it was done for me.
Once you know how to love, nobody can take that from you.
And everything really is going to be okay, because love heals - it's the best prescription to cure anything.
Burial Options:
Full-service funeral home specializing in human composting in Seattle, WA https://recompose.life/
The Natural Funeral is a holistic funeral home and cremation service provider in Colorado; also has information on non-traditional human burial https://www.thenaturalfuneral.com/
Funeral Consumers Alliance has information and where you can see regulations for each state https://funerals.org/
Memorial Ecosystems in South Carolina https://www.memorialecosystems.com/
Crossings: Caring for Our Own at Dawn, in Maryland http://www.crossings.net/
Aquamation is a gentle process that uses water instead of fire to return a body back to Mother Nature. Check your state to see if this burial option is available
Bio-Response Solutions in Indiana https://aquamationinfo.com
Cremation Association of North America - Information on Alkaline Hydrolysis, where it is legal and providers https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/alkalinehydrolysis
Life Forest is a Nonprofit Conversation Cemetery location in New Hampshire https://www.thelifeforest.com/
Terramation, or Natural Organic Reduction, is a transformative practice that gently converts human remains into nutrient-rich Regenerative Living Soil™ within 2-4 months.
Continuing Bonds and Kispum: a pagan priest’s persepective
Death Shrouds and Coffins:
Garments for the Grave http://www.piainterlandi.com/
Active dying, spiritual companionship, ritual support, and palliative care
Hospice and Planning:
End-Of-Life Care and Support Network https://willowkelly.com/
Gentle voices, simple songs, bringing ease and comfort to those at the thresholds of living and dying https://thresholdchoir.org
No One Should Die Alone Foundation https://nosdaf.com/
Books:
Anderson, Megory – Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life
Church, Forrest – Love & Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow
Della Madre, Leslene – Midwifing Death: Returning to the Arms of the Ancient Mother
Fitchett, George – Assessing Spiritual Needs
Holder, Jennifer Sutton & Aldredge-Clanton, Jann – Parting: A Handbook for Spiritual Care Near the End of Life
Karns, Barbara – Gone from My Sight: The Dying Experience
Miller, James E. & Cutshall, Susan – The Art of Being a Healing Presence
Ram Dass & Mirabai Bush – Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying
Starhawk & NightMare, Macha – The Pagan Book of Living and Dying
Articles:
Its okay not to grieve…
Quotes about Death:
"Before I begin, this post is not seeking sympathy. It is merely trying to shed a little light on the total weirdness and unpredictability of grief. Those who have experienced deep loss already know. But for those who have not: I washed the orange cup today. 'The orange cup' is not a metaphor. It’s a small, plastic cup—one of several in a multicolored set. It is perfect for the bathroom sink. It’s just big enough for a sip of water in the middle of the night, or to wash down daily meds. I had not washed it since before January 1st. Before you get too grossed out, I had not used it either. You see, that little orange cup is the last thing in the house that Mark’s lips touched on January 1st, before he was loaded into an ambulance, never to return. I had picked up the orange cup several times before, thinking it was time to wash it and put it away. But each time it wasn’t. I would hug that little cup, cry a little (or a lot), and return it to the counter next to the sink. It wasn’t time to wash it—until today. Today, I washed the cup. When my mother died, her house coat (bath robe) was hanging on the back of the door in the bathroom. When my Dad died 5 years later, it still hung in the same spot. He had given away or tossed a lot of Mom’s items, but just not that house coat. Had he lived another 10 years, I think it may still have been there… or maybe not. Deep, profound grief is just weird. So, keep that in mind when you wonder why grieving people do (or don’t do) what you think they should do, or what seems normal. Grief is really weird. They’re just not ready to wash the cup."
Credit: Amy Boardman Rejmer
Movies:
Departures
The film follows a young man who returns to his hometown after a failed career as a cellist and stumbles across work as a nōkanshi—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician. He is subjected to prejudice from those around him, including from his wife, because of strong social taboos against people who deal with death. Eventually he repairs these interpersonal connections through the beauty and dignity of his work.
Alternate Endings: Six New Ways to Die in America
Touching film that explores the innovative ways Americans are approaching end of life.
Time of Death
What are the final weeks, days and very moments of life really like? Time of Death offers an unflinching, intimate look at remarkable people facing their own mortality. Cameras follow these brave, terminally ill individuals as they live out the end of their lives, supported by family, friends, and dedicated healthcare and hospice workers who gently guide the process. This groundbreaking documentary series provides a tangible, hopeful reminder of the finite nature of our time here on earth.
End Game
This Academy Award-nominated short documentary explores the difficult choices patients and their loved ones face at the end of life and how their care teams help them navigate this experience.
Book of Life
An animated film about Manolo, a young man who is torn between fulfilling the expectations of his family and following his heart, embarks on an adventure that spans three fantastic worlds where he must face his greatest fears. Positive portrayal of family, grief, afterlife, and remembering those show have passed.
Coco
An animated film with playful and death-positive portrayal of family, grief, and the afterlife.
Extremis
Extremis” focuses on the physicians’ point of view. This short documentary examines how medical teams communicate with one other and families about end-of-life decisions and the crucial choices they must make.
Defining Hope
Released in 2017, “Defining Hope” shows the current state of the end-of-life experience. The film serves as a powerful reminder that ending well looks different for everyone and that we are empowered to make choices that align with our wishes.
Griefwalker
“Griefwalker” is a documentary the chronicles the death-bed experiences of palliative care Stephen Jenkinson. Following Jenkinson as he interacts with care teams and counsels families, this film makes important observations about pain, death talk, and the dying experience
The Nurse With the Purple Hair
An unconventional friendship between “Friday the 13th” director Sean Cunningham and hospice nurse Michelle Lasota led to the creation of this documentary that showcases and honors the hospice work.
Tuesdays With Morrie
Mitch Albom’s beloved non-fiction book was adapted into a TV movie staring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon. This film shows the friendship that forms between Albom and his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, and the lessons Albom learns from Schwartz — who is dying from ALS.
Thanatopsis Coordinators
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M. Macha NightMAre
M. Macha NightMare (Aline O’Brien, M.Div.(h.c.)) is a ritualist, both solo and collaborative; an interfaith activist; and an internationally published author who has contributed to anthologies, encyclopedia, textbooks, and periodicals. She co-authored, with Starhawk, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying: Practical Rituals, Prayers, Blessings, and Meditations on Crossing Over. She has taught workshops called “Meeting Death/Grieving Loss” throughout the U.S. since 1997, an is a co-founder of Thanatopsis: In Consideration of Death. Much of her work in recent years has been in the liminal realm between the magic and the mundane. She serves on the Advisory Boards of Cherry Hill Seminary and the Sacred Dying Foundation, and represents the Covenant of the Goddess and CHS in the American Academy of Religion, Marin Interfaith Council, Marin Interfaith Climate Action (founding member), and at interfaith symposia throughout the U.S. A co-Founder of Hematite Inmate Ministries, Macha currently serves the inmates of the Wiccan circle at San Quentin State Prison.
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Rev. Kathleen Reeves
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Lilith Wolf