Stephen Jenkinson
at the Orphan Wisdom Hall
Ontario, Canada
STAGGERED • SUMMONED • STILLED
A Thinking Man’s Brush With Neurodegeneration
July 16-19, 2026
Orphan Wisdom Hall
Ontario, Canada
It’s good to be wrong about yourself from time to time. It lets other people in.
A year ago I thought I was in a swoon of disablement. No school. No Grief/Mystery. No being cool. I was in the death grip of a beast, almost pure prey, curled in upon myself.
Seems I was off a bit in the prognosis. What a difference a year makes.
During that year I wrote – or staggered, with a pen. I’d no book in mind, no audience, no cause. Not survival, not sanity. It was what I had for instinct. I was barely there.
It’s a book now, though, due out in early July 2026. Just in time for a decent read before this new session.
-Stephen Jenkinson
Stephen Jenkinson’s
Trembling, Still:
The Awful Clarity of a Mind in Eclipse
to be published 7 July 2026,
will be the body and soul of this session.
A PDF copy of Trembling, Still goes to each registrant.
For details about this book, visit:
Trembling, Still: The Awful Clarity of a Mind in Eclipse
I admit I am mad keen to take the veil down off the pages, and wonder with you about mind, brain, degeneration, soul, God.
And am I ever desirous to open the doors of the old home of Orphan Wisdom to you, and shrug off the foregone for a while.
In that beamed hall we’ll get after some big work this time.
And then it has come to pass that the new record(s) from Gregory Hoskins and myself have readied themselves. And the Nights of Grief and Mystery band has begun kicking at the stalls, hankering after some time in the footlights with the new songs. Here’s the result: we’re going to mark the record release with the first live performance of Caldera on July 18 in that teaching hall. All in all, a ‘wonders never cease’ high five to life.
I hope you’ll join me in that teaching hall for a several day session for getting close to the clarifying light of heartache. We’ll work on speaking what the wellness world seems to think is unspeakable. We’ll make a libretto for a lucid mindfulness that is neurodegeneration’s proper, faithful companion. And we’ll sing.
-Stephen Jenkinson
Caldera is a record about some understandings and misunderstandings about the faces of love in the modern age.
Details
The road, let it be said, can blister you with adversity. Ah, but it can burnish you with kindness, too. I’ve met genuine characters and good souls there, and some have become comrades, allies in this strange cause of mine. And then, once in a while, along comes a chance to employ their goodness, and have their love of life mix with mine. This is where the mysteries of this life gain a little traction, and make a little heat.
For our session July 16-19 at the Orphan Wisdom Hall, I will have Evelyn Maldonado Mendes, a remarkable contemporary dancer/choreographer from Oaxaca who danced at the Orphan Wisdom School. She will translate some of the trembling, and the stillness that we get up to in our sessions.
And I will have American photojournalist Joshua Cogan, who knew of my work before I knew of him, and who has emerged as a lucid, engaged friend of this orphan wisdom. And Chris Christou, long-time Orphan Wisdom scholar, will bring his questions for me to the fray. Both will join me as interlocutors for some of the sessions.
• • •
July 16, 2-5 pm: Welcome table opens, followed by an evening session.
July 17 and 18: Two sessions per day.
July 19: Event concludes at noon following a morning session.
Tuition Includes
• Six sessions with Stephen in the Orphan Wisdom Hall
• Handmade meals
• PDF access to the new book Trembling, Still: The Awful Clarity of a Mind in Eclipse
• First performance of Night of Grief and Mystery’s Caldera
Tuition does not include accommodation.
We offer on-site private and shared rooms ranging from to $150-$350 per person for the event. We also offer onsite camping for $45 per person, you provide tent, tarp, bedding and all tools. Otherwise there are local hotels and motels available.
Tuition
$1800 – Tuition
$1500 – Per member for each family attending together, and those who wish to qualify for financial consideration.
From Trembling, Still:
“We go out of our minds sometimes. Sometimes it’s for keeps. Where do we go when we do? Out of our mind, into what? God willing, we’ll be beyond caring by then. Having done so, do we ever go back, then? Are the ties that bind stretched like the elastic waist of old foundation garments? Will our minds take us back, once we’ve philandered? Does being in our minds ever lose its appeal? Is it like going out of business?”
STAGGERED • SUMMONED • STILLED
A Thinking Man’s Brush With Neurodegeneration
Stephen Jenkinson
July 16-19, 2026
Orphan Wisdom Hall
Ontario, Canada
Photo credit: Joshua Cogan and Khadija Striegel
