Mary Oliver’s words speak to my yearning to make this life—my life—matter. My desire to live a life with meaning calls me to reflect, to contemplate and to get clear about who and what matter. The thing is, and maybe you relate here, I find it very hard to create time and space for this type of discernment. Believe it or not, planning for my inevitable death, helps create that time and space.
This holiday season I devoured the The Productivity Project, by Chris Bailey. His message reinforces why so many people tend to put off end-of-life planning for “some day.” We can flip our procrastination triggers and get into action with anything, including end-of-life planning.
While I fantasize about gift giving that makes my heart sing, in reality, gift giving typically makes my heart race. This year I’ll be doing things differently. With the help of Willow’s Free Five-Minute Love Letter exercise ….
The heart of Willow’s work is inquiries around death and dying. We often begin with the simple question, “What are your fears around your death and dying?” The answers are as diverse as they are universal. While I’ve written and said aloud a variety of answers on many occasions, my common response is that I…
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I yearn for more remembering and honouring the dead in my life. I feel enlivened and inspired when I reflect on the relationship, lineage and opportunity that I’ve been gifted by those who’ve come before and died before me.
In the Jewish tradition the mourners are a distinct group. They are the parents, children, siblings and spouse of the deceased. At the funerals I went to while growing up in Montreal, the mourners sat in a special section upfront near the closed casket and the rabbi. I remember feeling envious of them in a…
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“When we understand about death, we understand a lot more about life.” This was the key message I heard from Barbara Bartolome when she shared the story of her near-death experience at a event hosted by a local chapter of the International Association of Near Death Studies (IANDS). Barbara is one of millions of “experiencers”…
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It happened just over two years ago. My heart was in my throat and I was starting to sweat. My 80-year-old Dad was sitting across from me in his kitchen-chair, an almost antique office chair with two-layers of seat cushions and armrests to help with the ups and downs. Dad was curious. I was determined….
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The rain pelted at the window as my 13-year-old daughter and I cracked open a journal I saved from my days as a teenager. I recently rescued the Hilroy notebook from the dusty box that had been in storage longer than she’s been alive. We lay on our backs on my bed, looking up at…
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