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How Long Can We Achieve Youthfulness and Defy Death?
Outsmarting mortality makes for big business and bigger questionsIn 2003, Zoltan Istvan almost tripped on a landmine in Vietnam working as a reporter for National Geographic. His brush with death convinced him to quit journalism and eventually devote his life to transhumanism or the belief that emerging technologies can enhance human intellect and physiology. One question — How can we get around death? — prevailed foremost in…
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How Do You Use Beauty-Making to Process Grief? (Interview)
An Interview with Morning Altars creator, Day Schildkret, Part OneIn this first part of a two part interview, I sit down with artist and educator, Day Schildkret, best known for his Morning Altars — beautiful pieces of impermanent earth art made as a practice of meditation, wonder and ritual. We recently highlighted a few of his altars in this Soulful Expressions article. Day is based in Richmond,…
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“The End of Old Age”
A book offering a new look at the aging process“The End of Old Age: Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life” by Marc E. Agronin is a guide to growing old with as much grace and vigor as possible. He starts out describing why society needs its elders. In some anthropology books, the authors write that in tribal days, aging was beneficial because an individual…
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Barbara Bush, Comfort Care and National Dialogue About End of Life
The former First Lady’s final days prompted national discussions about end of life and palliative careFormer First Lady Barbara Bush died on April 17, 2018, at age 92. She will be remembered for many reasons, including her push to improve national literacy, being the matriarch of an influential political family, and her earnestness and candor. And now, following her highly-publicized final days, Mrs. Bush will also be remembered for her…
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“Black Gives Way To Blue”
The band’s tribute to their late lead vocalist“It’s a really intense song and a really open-hearted song because of Layne and the experience that we all went through,” said Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell of the band’s song “Black Gives Way to Blue,” from their album by the same name. “Black Gives Way To Blue” was written about the death of…
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American Children Die More Often than Kids in Other Developed Nations
A recent study shows infants and teens are at greatest riskA study published in the journal Health Affairs in January shows that children in the United States are 70 percent more likely to die before reaching adulthood than those in 19 other developed nations. Researchers estimate that, between 1960 and 2010, this translates to about 600,000 deaths that would not have happened if these American children…
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“The Rainbow Bridge”
Where do animals go when they die?Ever since humans have become aware of our own mortality, we have wondered what happens to us when we die. Do we slip away into a mindless oblivion, or do we go someplace beautiful and special? Does our behavior during life determine what will happen to us after death? We also wonder if we will…
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Prince Mural Transformed Two Years After His Death
Mother Nature delights muralist Christine Stein and Prince fans the world over with a spring surpriseArtist Christine Stein was listening to Prince’s song “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” when she first heard of the singer’s death in 2016. Her sadness over his loss inspired her to paint a commemorative Prince mural, displaying it on a small, dead-end street in Citrus Heights, California. Her husband placed the Prince mural under a…
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