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Stephen Jenkinson

Stephen Jenkinson, MTS, MSW is a worker, author, storyteller, musician and culture activist. In 2010, he founded Orphan Wisdom, a house for learning skills of deep living and making human culture that are mandatory in endangered, endangering times. It is a redemptive project that comes from where he comes from. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time he won’t live to see. When not on the road, he makes books, succumbs to interviews, tends to labours on a small farm, mends broken handles and fences, and bends towards lifeways dictated by the seasons of the boreal borderlands.

Orphan Wisdom

Orphan Wisdom is the home of Stephen Jenkinson’s writing and teaching work. It is a redemptive project that comes from where he comes from. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time he won’t live to see.
Orphan Wisdom is located on the present and ancestral homeland and unceded territory of the Omàmìwininì: Algonquin People.

DARK ROADS/ROUGH GODS
Available Now

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Reckoning
The new book by Kimberly Ann Johnson and
Stephen Jenkinson

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A Generation’s Worth: Spirit work while the crisis reigns
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Latest News

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Lost Nation Road

Lost Nation Road is a glimpse behind-the-scenes of a soulful mystery train, an ode to wonder, and a love letter for the willingness to know endings featuring Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins. Learn more and watch the full short-film.

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Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson
Official Book Trailer

In his landmark provocative style, Stephen Jenkinson makes the case that we must birth a new generation of elders, one poised and willing to be true stewards of the planet and its species. Read more…

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DIE WISE

DIE WISE, A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, is Stephen Jenkinson’s book about grief, and dying, and the great love of life. Published by North Atlantic Books.

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Griefwalker

Griefwalker is a National Film Board of Canada feature documentary film, directed by Tim Wilson. It is a lyrical, poetic portrait of Stephen Jenkinson’s work with dying people. Griefwalker shows Jenkinson in teaching sessions with doctors and nurses, in counselling sessions with dying people and their families, and in meditative and often frank exchanges with the film’s director. Read more…

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Money and the Soul’s Desires

Money and the Soul’s Desires: A Meditation ~ What is the origin of the dread so many of us experience in money matters? Where does money get its power to provoke conflict and discord? Is it even possible to live a soulful, authentic life in the presence of money? These are some of the questions this book makes a language to explore. Available in print, digital download and a 5 CD audio book spoken by the author.

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The Haiku Sessions

This three day teaching is part wonder, part battle cry and part strategy for the beginnings of a deeply wrought human life which makes peace with the ravaged world, finds a home along the old abandoned road, and honours the grief soaked longing for those things and those people we thought we lost. This is what generations to come deserve from us, this labour, and it might yet fashion from us a generation of ancestors worth coming from. Read more…

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The Making of Humans

The relentless pursuit of self reliance and self improvement is rooted in our lost connection to common stories, homeland and ancestors that bind and unite us. The times now demand that we recognize the world’s suffering in our own. Read more…

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The Meaning of Death

Many among us now are crazy for meanings, and crazed by seeking them out. The meanings of life aren’t inherited. What is inherited is the mandate to make meanings of life by how we live. The endings of life give life’s meanings a chance to show. The beginning of the end of our order, our way, is now in view. This isn’t punishment, any more than dying is a punishment for being born. Read more…

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