-
What is the SOLACE project? (Interview)
The director of SOLACE shares the wisdom of the dyingToday, I talk with Camille Adair, the filmmaker behind the SOLACE Project. Camille’s background is in hospice, where she has worked as a nurse case manager, clinical liaison, patient care manager, and the director of education for a healthcare organization in New Mexico. Her first film, Solace: Wisdom of the Dying, was inspired by her…
/
-
“The Secret Life of Bees”
A young girl grapples with her mother’s death and the universal problem of growing up in this novelGrowing up has never been easy for any one. In Sue Monk Kidd’s critically acclaimed first novel The Secret Life of Bees, her protagonist, Lily Owens, does so in the midst of the Deep South’s Civil Rights revolt. The memory of her mother’s death, which she witnessed, and may have even inadvertently played a part…
/
-
Ancient Chinese Funerary Practices
Unlike what we know of classic Christian death mythology, in which the hope is for the soul to escape to Heaven after life on earth, early Chinese beliefs surrounding death expected the core of your being to remain intact right where you were. Tombs were even designed to keep you in familiar surroundings, allowing you…
/
-
Trauma After the Aurora Theater Shooting
Lessons from Carolyn L. Mears on this emotional shockAs we, in solidarity with individuals and organizations across the world, continue to express our sympathies to those affected by the tragedies of the Aurora theater shooting of July 20th, SevenPonds wants to touch on a subject we have yet to scratch the surface of: trauma. An event of this magnitude is followed by the…
/
-
“Between Going and Coming” by Octavio Paz
Reading Octavio Paz’s “Between Going and Coming” as a reaction to deathOctavio Paz received some seriously impressive accolades during his lifetime: he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1982, and for a period he held the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University (an honor bestowed upon the likes of T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost).…
/
-
Gain Comfort and Solace Through Laughter
Frank & Funny greeting cards give you a unique way to offer your sympathiesA new greeting card line written exclusively by stand-up comedians offers road-tested jokes for all occasions. “Frank & Funny,” created by Seattle comedian David Crowe, even has a few cards that let you laugh out loud at aging, illness, and other circumstances you’ll face dealing with the end-of-life. The name beautifully encompasses the frankly sleek…
/
-
What is Advance Directive? (Interview)
You already knew about the importance of filling out an advance directive; what about a POLST?Dr. Judy Neall Epstein is a naturopathic physician and the Clinical Director of the Compassion & Choices End-of-Life Consultation Program. Dr. Epstein spent ten years in private practice before accepting her position at Compassion & Choices, where she works with counselors and clinical coordinators to advocate for the terminally ill and provide education and support…
/
-
“Angels in America” by Mike Nichols
The play’s poignant, brutally honest take on the physical, mental, emotional crisis of an AIDS patientTony Kushner’s Angels in America is almost too big to discuss: a sprawling three-part, six-hour play ambitiously covering themes ranging from love and abandonment, to homosexuality and Mormonism, to faith and religion, to disease and dying, to politics and justice, to progress and the very meaning of millennial America. Undoubtedly, too many to focus on…
/
Want an Easier Way to Plan a Memorial Event? Get our FREE guide
“7 Ways to Create an Amazing Celebration of Life”
