Resources

Themes: Curious - About mortalityDeath - About the time of deathDying - About the end of life journeyMourning - About grief

Articles

Blogs

  • •The Collective for Radical Death StudiesThe Collective for Radical Death Studies is the radical shift Death Studies needs and thereby serves as a source of knowledge for how death practitioners, death care professionals, students and scholars alike can all better understand deathways of people of color and marginalized groups.

Books

  • •Grief is the Thing with FeathersIn a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness.
  • •Conversations about Death: A Practical Guide to Talking about End-of-Life Care and DyingConversations About Death is a much needed tool to assist in those conversations about what things a person might consider for themselves and their families regarding their death; to understand what’s happening in the field of ‘death care’; to know what changes are being made; and to be informed as to what might be possible for the future.| Sally Cant 2015
  • •The Denial of DeathWinner of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize and the culmination of Ernest Becker's life's work, The Denial of Death is one of the twentieth-century's great works. In it Ernest Becker's passionately seeks to understand the basis of human existence. Addressing the fundamental fact of existence as man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality, Becker sheds new light on humanity and the meaning of life itself. Becker views human civilisation and achievement as an attempt to transcend a sense of mortality as mankind seeks heroic acts (a sense of heroism is the central fact of human nature) to become part of something eternal. | By Ernest Becker 1973
  • •Dear LifeIn this short, powerful book, Karen Hitchcock shines a light on ageism in our society. Through some unforgettable case studies, she shows what care for the elderly and dying is really like - both the good and the bad. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions and over-treatment, frailty and dementia | By Karen Hitchcock 2016
  • •Staying Connected, How to Continue Your Relationships with Those Who Have Died"The idea of ""working with the dead"" --maintaining, continuing, and enhancing one's relationships with those who have died--was fundamental to Steiner's work. This volume collects a rich harvest of his thoughts on the subject, gathered over many years. Steiner spoke directly from his own experience and formulated various meditation practices and verses that worked for him. | By Rudolf Steiner 1999"
  • •The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find OurselvesWe are all storytellers—we create stories to make sense of our lives. A moving collection of short, personal encounters between a psychoanalyst and his patients, The Examined Life reveals how the art of insight can illuminate the most complicated, confounding, and human of experiences. Ultimately, these stories show us not only how we love ourselves but how we might find ourselves. | By Stephen Grosz 2014
  • •Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and SurvivingA warm, moving and practical guide to grief from a leading bereavement counsellor, Grief Works features deeply affecting case studies of the author's clients, which will appeal to readers of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, Stephen Grosz's The Unexamined Life and Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air. | By Julia Samuel 2017
  • •The Untethered Soul: The journey beyond yourselfWhat would it be like to free yourself from limitations and soar beyond your boundaries? What can you do each day to discover inner peace and serenity? The Untethered Soul offers simple yet profound answers to these questions. | By Michael A. Singer 2007
  • •Radical Acts of Love: Twenty Conversations to Inspire Hope at the End of LifeIn this profound and moving book, oncology nurse Janie Brown recounts twenty conversations she has had with the dying, including people close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective on, and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities. | By Janie Brown 2021
  • •Easy Death: Spiritual Wisdom on the Ultimate Transcending of Death and Everything ElseIn 1983, the first edition of Easy Death appeared to wide acclaim. Many people in the professions associated with death and dying expressed their immense appreciation, and the book was hailed by death-and-dying pioneer Elizabeth Kübler-Ross as a “masterpiece.” | By Adi Da Samraj 2005
  • •MeditationsThe "Meditations" of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius are a readable exposition of the system of metaphysics known as stoicism. Stoics maintained that by putting aside great passions, unjust thoughts and indulgence, man could acquire virtue and live at one with nature. | By Robin Hard
  • •The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation Through Hearing In The BardoIn this classic scripture of Tibetan Buddhism—traditionally read aloud to the dying to help them attain liberation—death and rebirth are seen as a process that provides an opportunity to recognize the true nature of mind. This translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead emphasizes the practical advice that the book offers to the living. | By Chogyam Trungpa 2000
  • •Man’s Search for Meaning: The Classic Tribute to Hope from the HolocaustA prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. | By Viktor Frankl 1946
  • •The Death of Ivan IlyichThe Death of Ivan Ilyich, first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, considered one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s | By Leo Tolstoy 1886
  • •Tuesdays with MorrieThe autobiographical story of Mitch Albom, an accomplished journalist driven solely by his career, and Morrie Schwartz, his former college professor. Sixteen years after graduation, Mitch happens to catch Morrie's appearance on a television news program and learns that his old professor is battling Lou Gehrig's Disease. Mitch is reunited with Morrie, and what starts as a simple visit turns into a weekly pilgrimage and a last class in the meaning of life. | By Mitch Albom 2008
  • •The Art of Death Midwifery: An Introduction and Beginner’s GuideThe Art of Death Midwifery: An Introduction and Beginner's Guide, by ordained interfaith minister Joellyn St. Pierre, is a compelling and comprehensive manual for family, clergy, hospice volunteers, or medical staff engaged in the field of death and dying. | Joellyn St Pierre 2009
  • •How We DieThere are many books intended to help people deal with the trauma of bereavement, but few which explore the reality of death itself. Sherwin B. Nuland - with over thirty years' experience as a surgeon - explains in detail the processes which take place in the body and strips away many illusions about death. The result is a unique and compelling book, addressing the one final fact that all of us must confront. | By Sherwin B Nuland 2010
  • •The Year of Magical ThinkingIn this book the author explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage - and a life, in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. | By Joan Didion 2005
  • •When Breath Becomes AirThis inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living? | By Paul Kalanithi 2016
  • •Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the EndIn Being Mortal, Gawande examines his experiences as a surgeon, as he confronts the realities of aging and dying in his patients and in his family, as well as the limits of what he can do. And he emerges with story that crosses the globe and history, exploring questions that range from the curious to the profound: What happens to people's teeth as they get old? Did human beings really commit senecide, the sacrifice of the elderly? Why do the aged so dread nursing homes and hospitals? How should someone give another person the dreadful news that they will die? | By Atul Gawande 2014
  • •The Lovely Bones"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. | By Alice Sebold 2002
  • •Deaths in VeniceThomas Mann's captivating novella that delves into the deep complexities of love, beauty, and the inescapable truth of mortality. | By Thomas Mann 1912
  • •Psychedelics and the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural RepairA mythological journey through 10 archetypes of psychedelic healing: ancient stories, tangible tools, and depth psychology insights.| By Simon Yugler 204
  • •Memorial DaysA heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toward peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse. | By Geraldine Brooks 2007
  • •Here For Now: Living Well with Cancer Through MindfulnessThrough narrative, guided exercises, and meditations, Here For Now was the first book to apply the principles of mindfulness meditation to living with cancer. This book empowers the reader to transform suffering into compassion and joy. Here For Now is a sought after addition to the current body of work available to patients and healthcare practitioners alike, as well as anyone who wants to thrive in the face of adversity. | By Elana Rosenbaum 2007
  • •Life and I: A Story About DeathThis sensitively-told story for readers of all ages illustrates the inseparability of life and death. Rosy-cheeked and wrapped in blue, with a flower in her hair, Death rides a pink bike. Death, a greeneyed little girl in this pastel world, visits small animals with soft fur and big animals with sharp teeth. She lingers with a kindly grandmother as they knit one last scarf together. She wanders through surroundings of gentle beauty and she tells us who she is. For parents of children facing the loss of a family member, a friend, or a pet, this book finds words to express what is often so difficult to explain. It ends with such a feeling of uplift and acceptance that readers of any age will turn the last page with a smile and a tear. | By Elisabeth Helland Larsen 2016
  • •Lasting LoveThis gorgeous picture-book meditation on loss and family love is a useful tool for children navigating a first experience with death. | By Caroline Wright 2019
  • •After Life: Ways We Think About DeathMoving between science and culture, After Life: Ways We Think About Death takes a straightforward look at these and other questions long taboo in our society. By showing the fascinating, diverse ways in which we understand death, both today and throughout our history, the book also shines a light on what it is to be human. Each chapter includes a brief telling of a death legend, myth or history from a different culture or tradition, from Adam and Eve to Wolf and Coyote, and ends with a section on a common theme in our thinking about death, such as rivers and birds in the afterlife, the colors that different cultures use to symbolize death, and, of course, ghosts. The final chapter is about grief, which is both a universal human experience and unique to each person. The text offers suggestions for ways to think about our grief, when to ask for help and how to talk to friends who are grieving.| By Merrie-Ellen Wilcox 2018
  • •The Seed of Compassion: Lessons from the Life and Teachings of His Holiness the Dalai LamaFor the first time ever, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate His Holiness the Dalai Lama addresses children directly, sharing lessons of peace and compassion, told through stories of his own childhood. | By Holiness the Dalai Lama 2020
  • •The Flat RabbitWhen a dog and a rat find a flat rabbit, they decide to move her off the road. But where can they take her? After much thought and consideration, they decide to give the rabbit a proper send off. They say goodbye and give the rabbit a beautiful gift - seeing the world from a new perspective. | By Bárður Oskarsson 2019
  • •The Memory TreeFox has lived a long and happy life in the forest, but now he is tired. He lies down in his favourite clearing, and falls asleep for ever. Before long, Fox's friends begin to gather in the clearing. One by one, they tell stories of the special moments that they shared with Fox. And so, as they share their memories, a tree begins to grow, becoming bigger and stronger with each memory, sheltering and protecting all the animals in the forest, just as Fox did when he was alive | By Britta Teckentrup 2014
  • •The Lion And The BirdOne autumn day, a lion finds a wounded bird in his garden. With the departure of the bird's flock, the lion decides that it's up to him to care for the bird. He does and the two become fast friends. Nevertheless, the bird departs with his flock the following autumn. What will become of Lion and what will become of their friendship? | By Marianne Dubuc 2014
  • •The Velveteen Rabbit, Or, How Toys Became RealA toy velveteen rabbit longs to be loved, and he begins to experience this when a boy adopts him as his favorite toy. But the rabbit wonders about "real" after meeting two rabbits with feet that pad softly on the ground and with noses that twitch. He learns that he can't jump like the other rabbits and that he smells different. It's only when a mysterious nursery fairy kisses him that the velveteen rabbit learns finally what it's like to be real--not just to the boy, but to everyone. | By Margery Williams Bianco, Margery Williams 2011
  • •My Father’s Arms are a BoatIt's quieter than it's ever been. Unable to sleep, a young boy climbs into his father's arms. Feeling the warmth and closeness of his father, he begins to ask questions about the birds, the foxes, and whether his mom will ever wake up. They go outside under the starry sky. Loss and love are as present as the white spruces, while the father's clear answers and assurances calm his worried son. Here we feel the cycles of life and life's continuity, even in the face of absence and loss, so strongly and clearly that we know at the end that everything will, somehow, be all right. | By Stein Erik Lunde 2012
  • •What to Do When I’m Gone: A Mother’s Wisdom to Her DaughterA mother's advice to her daughter--a guide to daily living, both practical and sublime--with full-color illustrations throughout. | By Suzi Hopkins 2018
  • •Dealing with End Stage Kidney DiseaseHis book, while funny in some cases, highlights the differences between life and a good life and discusses the rational decision-making process required to end that life under your own control. | By Harry Haxton
  • •Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly DepartingIn this revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide, with translations in 29 languages, Bronnie expresses how significant these regrets are and how we can positively address these issues while we still have the time. | By Bronnie Ware 2019
  • •To Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know NowFull of things we may know but have not articulated to ourselves, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart offers solace, guidance, and hope to everyone ready to become the person they'd most like to be. | By Dr Gordon Livingston 2009
  • •Caring for the Living and the DyingCaring For The Living And The Dying explores the extraordinary experience of caring for a loved-one who is dying, detailing the physical, mental and emotional issues associated with everyday and long-term care. Through his own personal and professional experience Michael Barbato explores death and dying in a sensitive and insightful way and offers practical suggestions on many of the issues carers are likely to confront | By Michael Barbato 2010
  • •300 Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It’s Too LateAsk the perfect questions and receive answers full of wisdom with this easy-to-use guide. Learn from your parents the time honored traditions and habits that have made them who they are today, including their views on spirituality, what they learned in their youth, how they feel about parenting, and much more! With over 300 questions, this guide is a sure way to help you know your parents better. | By Shannon Alder 2023
  • •Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary RitualThis revised edition of a cross-cultural study of rituals surrounding death has become a standard text in anthropology, sociology, and religion. Part of its fascination and success is that in understanding other people's death rituals we are able to gain a better understanding of our own. | By Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington 1991
  • •Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your BabyEmpty Cradle, Broken Heart offers reassurance to parents who struggle with anger, guilt, and despair after such tragedy. Deborah Davis encourages grieving and makes suggestions for coping. | By Dr Deborah L. Davis 1996
  • •The Little Book of Loss & Grief: You can read while you cryThis beautiful, non-judgemental book on Loss and Grief is the perfect gift for yourself or others in times of deep sadness. It can be sent instead of flowers to remind people that they are not alone in their experiences and emotions.Liz Crowe has taken the complex theories of loss and grief and created a book with simple, easy to read text that is complemented by gentle illustrations. | By Liz Crowe 2014
  • •A Commonsense Book of Death: Reflections at Ninety of A Lifelong ThanatologistThis book touches on provocative topics such as some proposed criteria for a good death, a variety of ways in which we seek to survive our own death in our postself; the world-wide coarsening of death, and a chapter on suicide in which the author discusses his theory that the black heart of suicide is psychological pain. | Edwin Shneidman 2008
  • •A Healing Touch: True stories of life, death and hospicePulitzer Prize-winning writer Richard Russo and five other Maine authors here prove that the close of life need not be filled with darkness, when hospice help is at hand. These writers recount intensely personal and profoundly moving end-of-life accounts that cover a wide spectrum of human experience. | By Richard Russo 2008
  • •For You When I am Gone: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Your Ethical WillA beautiful keepsake journal inspired by For You When I Am Gone to help you create your own ethical will. | By Steve Leder 2022
  • •The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and PraiseInspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. | By Martin Prechtel 2015
  • •Can’t we talk about something more Pleasant?In her first memoir, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast’s memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents. | By Roz Chast 2014
  • •Death PoemsPretty much every poet in every age has written about death and dying. Along with love, it might be the most popular subject in poetry. Yet, until now, no anthology has gathered the best and most famous of these verses in one place. | By Russ Kick 2013
  • •Living is Dying: How to Prepare for Death, Dying and BeyondRenowned author and teacher Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse responds to the most common questions he's been asked about death and dying--exploring how one prepares for death, what to say to a loved one who is dying, and prayers and practices to use as a handhold when approaching the unknown territory of death. | By Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse 2020
  • •Coma A Healing Journey: A guide for family, friends, and helpersComa: A Healing Journey, is a heartful and practical guide to non-intrusive communication with coma patients. Extending her husband, Arnold Mindell’s pioneering work with people in comatose and near death conditions, Amy Mindell provides step-by-step exercises to help family members and caregivers communicate with, and care for, patients thought to be lost in coma. | By Amy Mindell 2019
  • •The Needs of the Dying: A Guide for Bringing Hope, Comfort, and Love to Life’s Final ChapterExamining the physical and emotional experiences of life-challenging illnesses, Kessler provides a vocabulary for communication with doctors, with hospital staff, and with each other, and-at a time when the right words are exceedingly difficult to find-he helps readers find a way to say good-bye. | By David Kessler 2000
  • •The Way We Die NowWe have lost the ability to deal with death. This is the starting point of Seamus O'Mahoney's thoughtful, moving and unforgettable book on the western way of death. Dying has never been more public, with celebrities writing detailed memoirs of their illness, but in private we have done our best to banish all thought of dying and made a good death increasingly difficult to achieve. | By Seamus O'Mahony 2016
  • •A Cancer Companion: An Oncologist’s Advice on Diagnosis, Treatment, and RecoveryWith A Cancer Companion, esteemed oncologist Ranjana Srivastava is here to help, bringing both experience and honesty to guide cancer patients and their families through this labyrinth of questions and treatments. | By Dr Ranjana Srivastava 2017
  • •Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of DeathA Buddhist teacher draws from her years of experience in caring for the dying to provide inspiring lessons on how to face death with courage and compassion. Being with Dying is a source of wisdom for anyone who is facing their own death, caring for someone who is dying, or wishing to explore the transformative power of the dying process. | Dr Joan Halifax 2009
  • •The Four Things That Matter Most: A Book About LivingFour simple phrases—“Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you,” and “I love you”—carry enormous power to mend and nurture our relationships and inner lives. These four phrases and the sentiments they convey provide a path to emotional wellbeing, guiding us through interpersonal difficulties to life with integrity and grace. Dr. Ira Byock, an international leader in palliative care, explains how we can practice these life-affirming words in our day-to-day lives.| By Dr Ira Byock 2004
  • •Perfect Endings: A Conscious Approach to Dying and DeathWritten with lucidity and compassionate understanding, Perfect Endings shows how the death experience is an expansion into a wider dimension of our core being. As we move through our dying process, all the strength and wisdom we have gained in a lifetime is called forth. This is a time of quickening in which the final stages of living work themselves out as we step into our death and what lies beyond. No matter how it appears, it is, in fact, our finest hour--our perfect ending. Robert Sachs explains how he uses the Tibetan practice of phowa, or conscious dying, to aid this process in his own counseling practice | By Robert Sachs 1998
  • •Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You DieDavid Kessler, one of the most renowned experts on death and grief, takes on three uniquely shared experiences that challenge our ability to explain and fully understand the mystery of our final days. The first is "visions." As the dying lose sight of this world, some people appear to be looking into the world to come. The second shared experience is getting ready for a "trip." The phenomenon of preparing oneself for a journey isn’t new or unusual. In fact, during our loved ones’ last hours, they may often think of their impending death as a transition or journey. These trips may seem to us to be all about leaving, but for the dying, they may be more about arriving. | By David Kessler 2011
  • •Death, a Love Project: A Guide to Exploring the Life in Death and Finding the Way TogetherDeath, a love project is a short, readable, and essential reference for people of all ages, including baby boomers who aren't ready to cross the threshold of a funeral company. Ever since the Egyptians put honey into their tombs there have been rituals to help us with the awesome mystery of death. This little book conveys what we can do as families and communities to have good rituals today. | By Annie Bolitho 2024
  • •Seven Days of HospiceHospice attempts in every way possible for each person diagnosed with a terminal illness -- regardless of age, gender, race, nationality, religion, or financial status -- to complete their journey with the greatest comfort, at home, surrounded by family and friends. | By D. M. Wilmes 2015
  • •Cancer WardOne of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the "cancerous" Soviet police state. | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1968
  • •Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly AliveThis book presents the Buddhist approach to facing the inevitable facts of growing older, getting sick, and dying. These tough realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world—indeed with all things.| Larry Rosenberg 2001
  • •Journeying East: Conversations on Aging and DyingSome of the West's foremost spiritual teachers share their thoughts on ageing and the end of life process. Comprehensive and original interviews with Ram Dass, Michael Eigen, Norman Fischer, Joan Halifax, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sister Chan Khong, Frank Ostaseski, Rodney Smith, and John Wellwood provide new perspectives and offer comfort and support. | By Victoria Jean Dimidjian 2004
  • •The Skill of End-of-Life Communication for Clinicians: Getting to the Root of the Ethical DilemmaWith a focus on end-of-life discussion in ageing and chronically ill populations, this book offers insight into the skill of communicating in complex and emotionally charged discussions. This text is written for all clinicians and professionals in the fields of healthcare and public health who are faced with questions of ethical deliberation when a patient’s illness turns from chronic to terminal. | By Kathleen Benton 2017
  • •For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely WorldThe perfect gift for a loved one or for yourself, For Small Creatures Such as We is part memoir, part guidebook, and part social history, a luminous celebration of Earth's marvels that require no faith in order to be believed. | By Sasha Sagan 2021
  • •Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s ChangesTransitions takes readers step-by-step through the three perilous stages of any transition, explaining how each stage can be understood and embraced. The book offers an elegant, simple, yet profoundly insightful roadmap to navigate change and move into a hopeful future. Endings, every transition begins with one. Too often we misunderstand them, confuse them with finality -- that's it, all over, finished! Yet the way we think about endings is key to how we can begin anew.The Neutral Zone. The second hurdle: a seemingly unproductive time-out when we feel disconnected from people and things in the past, and emotionally unconnected to the present. Actually, the neutral zone is a time of reorientation. How can we make the most of it?The New Beginning. We come to beginnings only at the end, when we launch new activities. To make a successful new beginning requires more than simply persevering. It requires an understanding of the external signs and inner signals that point the way to the future. |By William Bridges 2019
  • •Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border of Life and DeathIn this remarkable book, cognitive scientist and Director of the Viktor Frankl Institute Dr. Alexander Batthyány offers the first major account of terminal lucidity, utilizing hundreds of case studies and his research in the related field of near-death studies to explore the mind, the body, the nature of consciousness, and what the living can learn from those who are crossing the border from life to death. | By Alexander Batthyany 2023
  • •The Death Talker: What We Need to Know to Help Us Talk about DeathThe Death Talker offers a common sense approach to the issues we should all be thinking about so we can live and die well. The personal stories and practical information provide a sensitive guide for exploring the 'stuff that matters' to each of us and to help us have meaningful conversations with the people we love. | By Molly Carlile 2017
  • •Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the CrematoriumFrom her first day at Westwind Cremation & Burial, twenty-three-year-old Caitlin Doughty threw herself into her curious new profession. Coming face-to-face with the very thing we go to great lengths to avoid thinking about she started to wonder about the lives of those she cremated and the mourning families they left behind, and found herself confounded by people's erratic reactions to death. Exploring our death rituals - and those of other cultures - she pleads the case for healthier attitudes around death and dying. Full of bizarre encounters, gallows humour and vivid characters (both living and very dead), this illuminating account makes this otherwise terrifying subject inviting and fascinating. | Caitlin Doughty 2015
  • •How to Enjoy Death: Preparing to Meet Life’s Final Challenge without FearFor years Lama Zopa Rinpoche has envisioned a practical book to inform students of how to help loved ones have a beneficial death. How to Enjoy Death has been compiled from years of Rinpoche’s teachings and has been lovingly edited by Venerable Robina Courtin. | By Lama Zopa Rinpoche 2017
  • •The Hospice Companion: Best Practices for Interdisciplinary Care of Advanced IllnessThe Hospice Companion is a guide to the processes of care during the intensive, interpersonal experiences of hospice work. This resource highlights the mission and values of modern-day hospice through the individual and combined efforts of the field's most valuable asset, the hospice professional. This easy-to-navigate clinical decision support tool for caregivers of those with life-limiting illnesses allows for personal and professional growth and a deeply gratifying sense of accomplishment as you proceed in the all-important work of caring for the dying. | By Perry G. Fine 2016
  • •Heart Practices for Death and DyingThis book contains advice from Tibetan Buddhist master Lama Zopa Rinpoche on preparing for death and assisting others through this time, and provides a plethora of heart practices to do at the time of death. | By Lama Zopa Rinpoche 2008
  • •From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good DeathAs a practising mortician, Caitlin Doughty has long been fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies. In From Here to Eternity she sets out in search of cultures unburdened by such fears. With curiosity and morbid humour, Doughty introduces us to inspiring death-care innovators, participates in powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in the West and explores new spaces for mourning - including a futuristic glowing-Buddha columbarium in Japan, a candlelit Mexican cemetery, and America's only open-air pyre. In doing so she expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with 'dignity' and reveals unexpected possibilities for our own death rituals. | By Caitline Doughty 2017
  • •The Pagan Book of Living and Dying: Practical Rituals, Prayers, Blessings, and Meditations on Crossing OverBirth, growth, death, and rebirth are a cycle that forms the underlying order of the universe. This is the core of Pagan belief—and the heart of this unique resource guide to death and the process of dying. | By Starhawk 2013
  • •Singing Meditation: Together in Sound and SilenceIn a culture that often severs musical and artistic talent from all except a few anointed ones, this book is restorative. Following Hill and Rosauer's text is like having an ancient time traveler accompany the reader through the roots of the Tree of Life, one that grows thousands of branches of music, and musicians. This work is filled with gentle, supportive explanations reminding: Yes, music is part of your soul, the legacy you were born with and born to. | by Ruthie Rosauer and Liz Hill 2010
  • •Dying to Know: Bringing Death to LifeDying to Know offers a series of thought buds that reflect on bringing death to life - practical information, quirky facts and humble suggestions that lift the lid on death - planning a personalised funeral; telling people you love them while they are alive rather than waiting to write a memorial notice; taking round a meal for a family overcome with loss; donating organs; creating online memorials; writing an emotional will in which you leave things of the heart rather than your material property; things to do before you die and a host of other topics. Each is presented in a double-page spread and each succeeds in empowering, inspiring and, at times, amusing the reader. | By Andrew Anastasios 2007
  • •Understanding Your Suicide Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your HeartFor anyone who has experienced the suicide of a loved one, coworker, neighbor, or acquaintance and is seeking information about coping with such a profound loss, this compassionate guide explores the unique responses inherent to their grief. | By Dr Alan D. Wolfelt 2009
  • •The End: The Human Experience of DeathA fascinating exploration of the universal human experience of death. | By Bianca Nogrady 2013
  • •Life After Death: A Study of the Afterlife in World ReligionsWhat happens to us when we die? Does a part of us conquer death and live a different existence? Will we have an encounter with a creator? What is the soul? Where are heaven and hell? Questions such as these about death and dying have intrigued humanity since the dawn of time. Life After Death explores these questions in detail by providing a general overview from the scriptures of seven wold religions: Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. | By Farnáz Maʻsúmián 2002
  • •Grief Process: Meditations for HealingThe Grief Process offers a rare gem from Stephen and Ondrea Levine's long career as meditation instructors, caregivers, and healers. Includes a 23-page study guide.Stephen and Ondrea Levine are caregivers, teachers, and authors. | CD By Stephen and Ondrea Levine 2000
  • •On Death and DyingOne of the most important psychological studies of the late twentieth century, On Death and Dying grew out of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. | By Elisabeth Kubler Ross 1969
  • •To Live Until We Say GoodbyeThrough the brilliant photographs of Mal Warshaw, To Live Until We Say Good-Bye gives a gripping, intimate view of Dr. Kübler-Ross's counseling work with terminally ill patients as she brings them to an acceptance of death. | By Elisabeth Kubler Ross 2011
  • •Death: The Final Stage of GrowthFrom the author of the groundbreaking work On Death and Dying comes an exploration on why discussing death is considered taboo and how normalizing that discussion can enrich our lives. Ours is a death-denying society. | By Elisabeth Kubler Ross 1975
  • •Supporting a Person who Needs Palliative Care: A Guide for Family and FriendsA comprehensive and practical resource for family carers of a person with a life limiting illness who needs palliative care. | By Peter Hudson 2004
  • •Musical Morphine: Transforming Pain One Note at a TimeRobin Russell Gaiser became a Certified Music Practitioner after a career as a performing musician and teacher. As she learned how valuable music could be in easing patients' pain -- both physical and psychological -- she began to share her stories with friends and colleagues in music and medicine. This book is the result. | By Robin Gaiser 2016
  • •The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your ResilienceIn this interactive guide, Modern Loss cofounder Rebecca Soffer offers candid, practical, and witty advice for confronting a future without your person, honoring their memory, dealing with trigger days, managing your professional life, and navigating new and existing relationships. \ By Rebecca Soffer 2022
  • •A Heartfelt UndertakingThis book aims to document what is happening around the world, what is under development, what is new to the end of life space and how it all might work in Australia. Rich with personal reflections, this book will give you a detailed insight into what is possible at end of life, what options are emerging and how they fit into an Australian context | By Bec Lyons 2022

Directors and Death Walkers

  • •Tender FuneralsTender Funerals is a not-for-profit funeral service model that aims to ensure all Australians can access meaningful and affordable funerals.
  • •Death Doula MelbourneDeath Doula Melbourne, Dina Smirnova, offers end-of-life services to Melbourne and surrounds. Service offerings include Advance Care Planning, Integrative Grief Support and Death Education.
  • •Sustainable Funerals GroupA collective of values-based, ethical funeral providers leading the industry to a sustainable future for all.
  • •Last Hurrah FuneralsThe Last Hurrah is a fiercely independent funeral company. We align ourselves to a model of operation based on transparency, flexibility, and integrity.

Info

Podcasts and Videos

Poetry and Lyrics

Stories myths and legends

  • •The Seven Gates of GriefThe Seven Gates of Grief is a mythical story from 'Psychedelics and the Soul' (2024), and adapted for Thanatos Eros. This is an ancient Sumerian tale of the shadow, grief, and descent into the underworld. | By Simon Yugler

Web resources

  • •GoodGrief!Good Grief! is a site by Margaret Rice, aimed at facilitating conversation and providing resources for grief management & end of life discussion.
  • •Hello, MortalAt Hello, Mortal, we believe that contemplating mortality is the missing link to a richer, fuller, more meaningful, more creative life. (USA)
  • •The Palliative Care CircleAnthroposophical Society of Australia: The Palliative Care Circle is an emerging initiative to establish holistic palliative care services and education in Australia.
  • •GrieflineWhat to do when someone dies
  • •Talk DeathTalkDeath encourages generative conversations around death and dying. We are the hub for death-conscious education, advocacy, and community. (USA)
  • •When you dieThe When You Die Project is here to facilitate a cultural dialogue most often avoided — one that begins at the end. (USA)
  • •Carked It!Carked It! is an hilarious death-themed card game created as a project by The Ageing Revolution – an organisation that began as a force to address ageism.
  • •Palliative Care AustraliaPalliative Care Australia (PCA) is the national peak body for palliative care. Palliative Care Australia represents all those who work towards high quality palliative care for all Australians who need it. Working closely with consumers, our Member Organisations, national health stakeholders, and the palliative care workforce, we aim to improve access to, and promote the need for, palliative care.
  • •Carer HelpYour roles as a carer is important. Find reliable and trustworthy information, tools and resources with CarerHelp.
  • •Department of Health, Disability and AgeingWhat’s important to you when it comes to preparing your end-of-life care? Thinking about these things can help make important decisions easier for you and your loved ones.
  • •Order of the Good DeathThe Order is about making death a part of your life. That means committing to staring down your death fears—whether it be your own death, the death of those you love, the pain of dying, the afterlife (or lack thereof), grief, corpses, bodily decomposition, or all of the above. Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety and terror of modern culture are not. (USA)
  • •Modern LossModern Loss is a place to share the unspeakably taboo, unbelievably hilarious, and unexpectedly beautiful terrain of navigating your life after a death. Beginners welcome. (USA)
  • •Good GriefGood Grief builds resilience in children, strengthens families and empowers communities to grow from loss and adversity. (USA)
  • •Compassionate CommunitiesCompassionate Communities Australia is part of a global movement of communities working to improve how we care for one another, especially during illness, death and challenging times.
  • •Death CafeAt a Death Cafe people drink tea, eat cake and discuss death. Our aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives
  • •Death Over DinnerOn August 24, 2013 we launched Death Over Dinner and in a single night we tracked over 500 dinners in 20 countries. Since then there have been over a hundred thousand deathdinners around the globe
  • •Death letter projects100 Australians write a letter about death: What is death; and what happens when we die?
  • •Advance Care Planning AustraliaAdvance Care Planning Australia is a national project funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, enabling Australians to make the best choices for their future health and care
  • •Natural Death Care CentreThe Natural Death Care Centre is a small NSW Charity providing end of life and after-death care Services, Education and Training.
  • •GriefIlluminating grief for all Australians
  • •Social Health AustraliaAt Social Health Australia, human connection is the basis for the kind of citizen-led, sub-clinical social-emotional-existential support we’ve been working to make available in a wide range of settings
  • •Love & LossSarah and Tony Pletts are learning to live fully with both love and loss without shame, to embody and express more of ourselves. Our projects aim to encourage connection with our bodies, in relationship with others, in community and with nature through playful exploration of profound themes. Sarah and Tony Pletts love to collaborate and often work with other facilitators and teams. (UK)