Mattias Olsson interviews Stephen Jenkinson
Orphan Wisdom Sessions

July 20th, 2025
8am PT / 11am ET/ 5pm CEST

~Free 45 minute Live Zoom Event~

Plus receive access to view:
Mix Tape #1: Mystery/Religion/Jesus

On July 20th you are invited to gather around as Mattias interviews Stephen live on Zoom. Then we will provide a link to watch Mix Tape #1: Mystery/Religion/Jesus. Mix Tape #2 and #3 will be made available to all those that either sign up to become a Campfire Stories Patron and/or a Scriptorium Lineage Member.

In September 2024, documentary filmmaker Mattias Olsson visited Stephen Jenkinson and Nathalie Roy at the Orphan Wisdom Farm in Ontario, Canada, to shoot the short film Murmurings of the Land. During his four days at the farm he conducted several interviews with Jenkinson. From these he drew the storyline for the film, with its four chapters “Prayer”, “Doing”, “Harvest” and “Crisis” (as well as an epilogue). But with each interview over an hour long, there were a lot of other topics investigated too. We’re now pleased to make the Orphan Wisdom Sessions available, with three 60 minute episodes comprising all of the material that couldn’t fit in the film.

“I’ve been documented a time or two. A lot of what I said ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. Fair enough. I wasn’t making the movie. I was submitting to it. But it does leave me wondering from time to time: I wonder what’s in there. I wonder if it stands on its own, minus the story line.”
~ Stephen Jenkinson

Mix Tape #1: Mystery/Religion/Jesus
An intimate interview with author Stephen Jenkinson exploring some of the deep mysteries of our existence, and the early role of religion in human life. Throw in a few reflections on the historic Jesus figure, as well as the “Sunday schooled” version he’s been turned into. A deep wondering aloud touching on wisdom, mortality, and the stories we live by.

“Self determination ends where your fate begins.”
“It is easy to be driven to madness by awe and wonder.”

Mix Tape #2: Soil/Grief/Tools/Machines
An intimate interview with author Stephen Jenkinson, exploring how our relationship to the land mirrors our capacity to grieve. The conversation also delves into the distinction between cultured and civilized peoples: where tools extend the hand in reverence to limits, and machines extend the will in defiance of them.

“Animism isn’t an attitude”.
“Life is life taking. And death is life giving”.
“Find an elegant way to negotiate
your relationship with defeat. That’s farming”.

Mix Tape #3: Prayer/Language/Clearcutting
In this profound session, author Stephen Jenkinson reflects on how prayer must reckon with its recipient – not as an infinite giver, but as something that might be diminished by what we ask of it. On the topic of clearcutting, Jenkinson is asked to wonder about our departure from the ethic of the honorable harvest, which once prevailed.

“Don’t take the first, don’t take the last,
don’t take more than you need”.
“Most hungers aren’t hungers. They’re anxieties”. 

Stephen Jenkinson, MTS, MSW
~ Culture activist/ farmer/ author ~

Stephen teaches internationally and has authored seven books of cultural critique. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010 with his wife Nathalie Roy. The School’s new project, The Scriptorium (2025), is creating an archive and library of his life’s work.

Apprenticed to a master storyteller as a young man, he worked extensively with dying people and their families. He is a former programme director in a major Canadian hospital and former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school. Stephen has Masters’ degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work).

In 2023 Stephen received a Distinguished Alumni Honours Award from Harvard University for “helping people navigate grief, exploring the liminal space between life and death, and connecting humanity through ceremony and storytelling.”

In August 2025, Sounds True will release Stephen’s newest book: Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart’s Work. 

He is also the author of Reckoning (co-written with Kimberly Ann Johnson in 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), 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), 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).

Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical/ tent show revival/ storytelling/ ceremony of a show across North America, U.K., Ireland, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. They released their first Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017, and at the end of 2020 released two new records: Dark Roads and Rough Gods. A new album release is planned for 2025.

Stephen Jenkinson is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker (National Film Board of Canada, 2008, dir. Tim Wilson), 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). Recently Mattias Olsson, a Swedish filmmaker released Murmurings of the Land (2025 Campfire Stories).

He was a stone sculptor turned wood-carver, and learned the arts of traditional birch bark canoe building. His first house won a Governor General’s Award for architecture. He now lives on a small scale organic farm in an off-grid straw bale house. The 120 year old abandoned granary from across the river which appeared in Griefwalker was dismantled last year and re-erected at the Orphan Wisdom farm, where it is again a working barn.

Mattias Olsson
~ Swedish documentary filmmaker ~

Founder of Campfire Stories, a film platform dedicated to narratives that inspire ecological balance and human sanity. With a background as a still photographer in New York for 13 years, Olsson transitioned to filmmaking upon returning to Sweden in 2007, producing five films for Swedish television (SVT) and now over 20 films for Campfire Stories. His notable works include “Once Upon a Forest”, a poetic exploration of the Swedish forests and their threatened future, and “Imprint”, a personal journey exploring individual and collective actions towards sustainability. Olsson’s storytelling emphasizes localism, often highlighting projects and individuals within his own community to showcase ecological alternatives and solutions. Beyond filmmaking, he is an enthusiastic hobby-farmer, cherishing the simple life in the Swedish countryside where he enjoys gardening, particularly growing tomatoes and chilies.

“The older I get, the more I’m willing to credit myself with hitting the mark most of the time.”
~ Stephen Jenkinson