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“Haunted Houses of California: A Ghostly Guide To Haunted Houses & Wandering Spirits” by Antoinette May
Time for a good read on haunted houses and ghostsWith Halloween coming up this week I have the deep desire to explore and tour haunted houses. I love haunted anything! So I picked up a book to survey my local options here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Given its fabulous history, combined with the abundance of old victorian mansions, the Bay Area has…
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Tana Toraja, Indonesia: Where Death is Never a Severe Goodbye
In this Indonesian province, family members continue to live, quite literally, with their recently passed loved onesIn the South Sulawasi province of Tana Toraja, Indonesia, lives a culture where death doesn’t automatically mean saying a clear-cut goodbye to our loved ones. Close to half a million Indonesians live in the region, which has held fast to its cultural identity despite the Dutch colonial influences of the turn of the century. The Toraja…
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NPR Announces New Series: “Conversations On The Afterlife”
The radio station opens up a unique dialogue on death, dying and the afterlifeNPR will be broadcasting a number of discussions on the subject of dying this month in their series, “Conversations On The Afterlife.” In particular, the station will place its emphasis on the concept of an afterlife according to men and women across religious, spiritual and secular mindsets. The series is the station’s effort to create…
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“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson
A poem that describes an encounter with mortalityI’ve been looking a lot at writers’ views on death itself lately, but not as much at what happens after death. Emily Dickinson offers her take on the afterlife in “Because I could not stop for Death,” arguably her most famous poem. In it, she asserts that we are immortal after death, and personifies death…
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Artist Bruce Nauman and The End-of-Life Electric
What does it mean to render life, death and humanity in neon?In the late 1970s, Indiana native Bruce Nauman emerged as one of the key players in America’s contemporary art scene. Like many of his peers, Nauman’s art knew no fixed medium – he worked in print, sculpture, video and even performance art to explore the trajectory between life and death. “Art became more of an…
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What Are the Tools for Meditating While Dying? (Interview)
The meditation expert travels the world to teach a moving message: that dying is livingToday SevenPonds speaks with Maneesha James, who explores meditation as a resource for all aspects of living and dying. Maneesha lives in London, England and graduated in nursing, midwifery and psychiatry. She’s had a number of influences that have changed her life; she had the privilege of being close to Osho, an Indian mystic, guru and…
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“Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death”
A valuable book that sometimes suffers from an overly glib toneJoshua Slocum’s and Lisa Carlson’s book, Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death, is one part in-depth expose of all things deplorable and funeral, and two-parts step by step manual detailing the different states’ laws regulating this shadowy industry, which in some instances are so ill-conceived and ripe for exploitation as to verge on…
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The Jamaican Tradition of Nine Nights
Similar to the concept of a wake, in Jamaica (and other parts of the Caribbean), there is a funerary tradition known as the “Nine Nights,” or “Nine-Night,” in which the family and friends of a person who has died gather to celebrate the life of their loved one. It typically takes place from the night…
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Dead Man Walking?
Why Ohio’s laws on death rulings continue to proclaim a living man deceasedIn 1986, Ohio native Donald Miller fell off the grid. After the devastating loss of his job, it appears that Miller decided to quit his quotidian life in the town of Findlay – even if that meant leaving behind his wife, Robin, and their two children. He claims to have spent time in the South,…
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