News

Belonging

That’s how you belong—not by finally arriving, but by having longing for arrival quickened, by being willing to long after life by living. - t seems to me that as you get older, you might bear down upon your life and give it the quiet consideration it deserves. Do...

Point. Shoot. Repeat.

At some risk to the standing of our little website, as it holds on for dear life to a bit of asteroid out there in the blogosphere, I have in print and in person warned often about the looming hazards the internet has in store for literacy: cultural and...

The Dark Road Heading Out of Town

Matthew Stillman in conversation with Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins on the road during the 2018 Nights of Grief & Mystery Tour. Matthew Stillman (MS): So we are sitting here in Kripalu on our way to Turners Falls for the next show. You both have traveled from Winnipeg all the way...

Before An Audience

The life that awaits anyone who’d make a go of it on the road - even for a while, even when invited to do so, even when the venues are all but sold out - happens in a caboose on the Mystery Train of how it is. Add to...

Long Enough for Ordinary

I have lived long enough ... No. You don't want to leave a sentence like that, sitting all by itself, without a back end. Unless you really mean that you have indeed - as of that moment - lived long enough (and writing it down in an email seems a...

Filmmaker Ian MacKenzie Wins Storyhive Grant to Film Nights of Grief and Mystery Tour

Recently, filmmaker Ian MacKenzie was awarded a $50K grant through the community platform Storyhive to produce the short film 'Lost Nation Road.' This 20 minute documentary will follow Stephen and Gregory for the western leg of their Nights of Grief and Mystery Tour, capturing life on the road and...

Nights of Grief & Mystery on Sale Now – Pre-Order for Signed Copy

They used to be called' records’. It's old-timey. It has a good sound to it. A record, a sign that something happened, proof, a faithful witness: These stories and songs were recorded live on tours of Australia, New Zealand, Wales and England in early 2017. Concerts for Turbulent Times they...

Interview: Sanity and Soul – A Conversation with Stephen Jenkinson Facilitated by Vera de Chalambert

Dying well is not a matter of enlightened self-interest or personal preference. Dying well must become an obligation that living people and dying people owe to each other and to those to come. Dying could be and must be the fullest expression and incarnation of what you’ve learned by...

Press Record

They used to call them ‘records’. I still call them records. People concerned with my cultural literacy gently recommend that I should use the word ‘cd’. It isn’t a word. I can tell that it isn’t a word, and so can you. It’s like ‘esso’, or ‘sunoco’: They told...

Wonder for the Road

There are days that come - and surely they have found you - when assuredness about the aim and the reasons for your life is the first casualty of the giddy good fortune of awakening again and heaving to uprightness and bringing anything in particular to mind. You are...

Bold

One of the things that seemed to concern my mother during her parenting years was the danger of rearing children who turned out 'bold'. That was the darkening term, as I recall. 'Don't be bold': she didn't say it more than a few times, but the caveat was thoroughly...

Tour Video: Nights of Grief and Mystery with Gregory Hoskins

Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins – Oceania Tour 2017. Stephen is a Harvard Educated Theologian, Culture Activist, founder of The Orphan Wisdom School, author of DIE WISE: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, subject of a National Film Board of Canada documentary, Griefwalker. He comes with teachings of the...

Darker, Still

Still, mostly. That's where I sit tonight. Perhaps you are still, too. It's already begun. There'll be torrents, and the building up of memory, and the betrayal of endings. But not from here. It's still, mostly, where I am. I made some pretty stout vows about this day, some rash and utterly faithful...

Strangers of Kindness

I have – it is no secret, and there is no suspense – made something of a living by being troubled aloud about ordinary things. This has been my fortune. It could be that many of you reading this have had a hand in it; you have my thanks. There...

DIE WISE Wins Nautilus Book Award

We are thrilled to share news that Stephen Jenkinson's DIE WISE – A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, his new book about grief, and dying, and the great love of life published by North Atlantic Books is a recipient of the Nautilus Award. Honourees are selected for their exceptional literary...

Suddenly, It’s Now Again

I was at a film festival a few years ago, having just screened Griefwalker, and I was sitting beside Ian Tamblyn, one of Canada's finest troubadours. We knew each other not at all, but it can happen that something like an Old Sorrow binds people for a time, to...

You Die in the Manner of Your Living

Paul Dolman interviews Stephen Jenkinson about death and dying and the manner of how one dies. Stephen Jenkinson teaches internationally and is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010. With Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work), he...

Am I Ready to Teach?

Tad Hargrave shares this interview with Stephen Jenkinson in a discussion about teaching and the readiness for being a teacher. In February of 2015, I sat down to write a blog post that it felt ridiculous for me to be writing. It was entitled, 36 Reflections on “Who am I to teach...

A Hawk Across the Waters

This Mankiller Tour began eons ago, in February, with a small huddle of expats and curious Mexica, a crackling sound system and doubtful, generous Buddhists, riven pilgrims, end-of-the-road outcasts, trollers of purpose to go with their days, all of us gathered under the mantle, the flayed-open cordillera of Morellos,...

An Epistle From The Road

Gregory Hoskins, also known as 'The Band' who has been traveling with Stephen Jenkinson this fall on his DIE WISE tour shares some words about his experiences traveling and accompanying Stephen at various events. Beneath the Truth Lie the bones Of a Truth More complete And I'll bet everything I...

The Book of Supposed To

To make my living, to support my farm habit, I travel. I understand now what Leonard Cohen probably meant when he said, "They don't pay you to sing. They pay you to travel." People who don't travel to make their living - that would be most people, probably -...