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Die Wise, From Light to Wisdom ~ Neve Shalom, Israel
June 2, 2023 - June 3, 2023
An in depth seminar hosted by Shutafim Lamasa
Author of Die Wise – A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul Stephen Jenkinson speaks about grief, and dying, and the great love of life. The session is in English.
A two day in depth seminar in which Jenkinson will delve into his provocative and thought provoking ideas on death as a part of life, on partings, and many issues that are characteristic of a society that fears death and is grief illiterate. There will be simultaneous translation into Hebrew
Friday – 12:00- 17:00 + Saturday 09:00 – 17:00 at Neve Shalom
Die Wise (English) book purchase link (2015 Nautilus Award Winner.) The Hebrew translation available here
A GOOD DEATH IS EVERYONE’S RIGHT. The idea makes no sense in a culture that doesn’t believe in dying at all.
Grief is the radical etiquette needed by a death phobic, grief illiterate time. Dying is the fulfillment, not the end, of life. From a young age we see around us that grief is mostly an affliction, a misery that intrudes into the life we deserve, a rupture of the natural order of things, a trauma that we need coping and management and five stages and twelve steps to get over.
Here’s the revolution: What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught? What if grief is the natural order of things, a way of loving life anyway? Though addicted to security, comfort and managing uncertainty, this culture could learn to honour, teach and live grief as a skill, as vital to its personal, community and spiritual life as the skill of loving. In a time like ours, grieving is a subversive act. Dying can be – and must be — the fullest expression and incarnation of what you’ve learned by living.
How you die is the proving ground, the cradle, and the grave for every conviction you may have about justice and mercy, about the meaning of life, about what love should look like and what it should do.
Dying is not the end of wisdom, and wisdom is not exhausted by dying. Dying well is a spiritual obligation, and a moral obligation. If you love somebody, if you care about the world that’s to come after you, if you want somebody to be spared the lunacy of what you’ve seen, you’ve got to ‘die wise.’”
This session begins to imagine another way of doing so.
Die Wise Video Trailer
MORE ABOUT STEPHEN JENKINSON ~ culture activist, worker, author, founder of The Orphan Wisdom School ~ Jenkinson teaches internationally and is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, co-founded the school with his wife Nathalie Roy in 2010, convening semi-annually in Deacon, Ontario, and in northern Europe.
He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work).
He is the author of Reckoning (co-written with Kimberly Ann Johnson (2022), A Generation’s Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015 and translated into Hebrew and Turkish), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Homecoming – The Haiku Sessions (Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002). He was a contributing author to Palliative Care – Core Skills and Clinical Competencies (2007).
Stephen Jenkinson is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker (National Film Board of Canada, 2008, dir. Tim Wilson and translated into five languages), a portrait of his work with dying people, and Lost Nation Road, a shorter documentary on the crafting of the Nights of Grief and Mystery tours (2019, dir. Ian Mackenzie). Read more about Stephen at orphanwisdom.com/about