Death and Dying
Rituals for Grief and Loss
by Dr. Terri Daniel, CT, CCTP Most of us go through our lives living with a set of assumptions about our sense of safety in the world. But when we face a profound personal loss or trauma, those assumptions can no longer sustain us, and our grief invites us to look for deeper meaning…
Read MoreGrief and Non-Attachment
Danny’s Bed: Reflections on Grief and Non-Attachment Excerpted from Turning the Corner on Grief Street by Terri Daniel 2014 CHAPTER SIX This is a good place to explore how it’s possible to experience a traumatic loss and emerge whole and healthy rather than bitter and broken. Let’s start by examining the difference…
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Acceptance of Death
and Reclaiming Traditional Wisdom
With gratitude to Gary Wederspahn of Final Exit Networkfor contributing this article (Editor’s note: Gary Wederspahn is an FEN board member and author of Intercultural Services: A Worldwide Guide and Sourcebook and many articles on cross-cultural communications and relations. He has lived and travelled in over 20 countries. ————————————————————————- When I was born in 1940,…
Read MoreSuicide and The Bible
Many thanks to Kevin Bradley of Final Exit Network for contributing this article. There is nothing in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures – which most Christians refer to as the Old Testament and New Testament – that explicitly says suicide is wrong. The biblical sources tell of seven people who had a hand in their…
Read MoreHow We Learn About Death – Part 2
Excerpted from Embracing Death: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude and God By Terri Daniel We’ve all heard the cliché, “nobody’s ever come back from death to tell us about it, so there’s no proof that the soul lives on.” But that’s not true. Countless people have had near-death experiences and communication with departed…
Read MoreHow We Learn About Death – Part 1
Excerpted from Embracing Death: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude and God by Terri Daniel The way we perceive death is a choice. When my 10 year-old son Danny was diagnosed with a degenerative illness that would end his life sometime within the next 10 years, we began a sacred, transcendent journey that led…
Read MoreDeath Has Many Names
This article is from the New York Times, Feb. 14, 2021 By George YancyPhoto Credit…Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times Not a day goes by that speakers of the Yoruba language do not make mention of death as both a phenomenon and a certainty. George Yancy: Here in the West, where a few…
Read MoreBereavement and the Buddhist Bardo
I shared this article by Pema Khandro Rinpoche in the January 2021 issue of our newsletter, The Afterlife Advocate, and want to also post it here, because it’s one of the best pieces on death and grief that I’ve ever seen: Breaking Open in the Bardo
Read MoreThe Ego’s Desire for Deathlessness
I just watched a movie on Netflix called HOPE FROZEN, about a family in Thailand whose two year-old daughter died of brain cancer, and they have her cryogenically preserved. It makes a powerful statement about science vs. spirituality, family dynamics and complicated grief. I had a very strong emotional (and socio-political) reaction to it..At…
Read MoreThere Are No “Stages” of Grief
Can We Please Stop Talking About “The Stages of Grief?” In my professional capacity as a pastoral counselor specializing in loss and grief, I hear from bereaved people almost daily about their struggles to find healing and peace after a profound loss. For me, and for my most of my colleagues, it is endlessly frustrating…
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