#death acceptance

[a-typical]

At almost any location in any major city on Earth, you are likely standing on thousands of bodies. These bodies represent a history that exists, often unknown, beneath our feet. While a new Crossrail station was being dug in London in 2015, 3,500 bodies were excavated from a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cemetery under Liverpool Street, including a burial pit from the Great Plague of 1665. To cremate bodies we burn fossil fuel, thus named because it is made of decomposed dead organisms. Plants grow from the decayed matter of former plants. The pages of this book are made from the pulp of raw wood from a tree felled in its prime. All that surrounds us comes from death, every part of every city, and every part of every person.

Death avoidance is not an individual failing; it’s a cultural one. Facing death is not for the faint-hearted. It is far too challenging to expect that each citizen will do so on his or her own. Death acceptance is the responsibility of all death professionals—funeral directors, cemetery managers, hospital workers. It is the responsibility of those who have been tasked with creating physical and emotional environments where safe, open interaction with death and dead bodies is possible.

— From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Caitlin Doughty

#dead man's bones #death avoidance #death acceptance #Caitlin Doughty #Ask a Mortician #From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death #From Here to Eternity #books #bookblr #death positive #death positive movement #nonfiction #science #history #travel #anthropology #memoir #sociology #atypicalreads #deathcare #cw death

[khaire-traveler]

Death is scary.

As a concept, it fills many hearts with anxiety, fear, and dread. It keeps people awake at night; it leaves an uneasy feeling in the stomach; it leaves many wondering if they've done all they can with their lives. It is a permanent change - the greatest unknown to all of humankind.

We fear things we don't understand by nature, however natural they may be. We fear major changes outside our control - so little in life is within our reach. We worry and panic and demonize and ignore. We focus so heavily on the bad aspects that we forget to look at the good.

The beautiful life that we've already lived, no matter how difficult; such things deserve celebration. The peace death can bring, transitioning from one chaotic world to one that is silent and calm. The knowledge that it's ok not to know what happens with certainty, it's ok that we don't know everything. Maybe it's not as bad as we think it is. Maybe it's kind and embracing. Maybe it welcomes us as an old friend, with compassion, hospitality, and gentleness.

Death is life's ultimate change, when we move from one form to something entirely new and unexperienced. That can be scary. Change can be scary. But just like in life, I choose to believe that not all change is bad change. There are many things we haven't experienced until we finally do; riding a rollercoaster, going to university, moving to a new place - all of these are changes, some scarier than others, that can result in beautiful experiences beyond what we could've possibly imagined. Whose to death won't be the same?

#cw death #tw death #thanatos deity #death acceptance #this is mostly just a #reminder #to myself not to fear death as much #i tend to have a lot of anxiety around the topic #i hope that this also reminds someone else that it will be ok #no matter what lies ahead #you will be ok

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

saw a video of a woman with terminal cancer visiting a site she enjoyed for the last time. The comments were full of people telling her to "not give up", "don't call it the last time' and "have faith for a miracle" and idk it just struck me as so wrong. This woman has accepted what's happening and chosen to enjoy the things she loves before she passes and all people can focus on is the end and how much they don't want it to come. They don't even know her and they're telling her that she's wrong for knowing she's dying. The intense fear of accepting death keeps so many people from actually doing their "bucket list" activities when they receive a terminal diagnosis, either because they don't want to accept it or because their family doesn't and won't support them. And here people are telling her she's wrong for being joyful and spending time with her family who clearly just want her to be happy. Stop forcing people to not accept death because dying makes you uncomfortable. If you're not the dying one then the death isn't about you.

#death tw #death acceptance #death positivity #idk I just feel like if I was dying and people kept obsessing over the small possibility I could live #instead of accepting it and being in the moment with me #I would get fucking sick of it

[melancholicvvitch]

"adults who are racked with death anxiety are not odd birds who have contracted some exotic disease, but men and women whose family and culture have failed to knit the proper protective clothing for them to withstand the icy chill of mortality" - Irvin Yalom

#death #death positive #death positivity #death acceptance #mortality #philosophy

[conjcosby]

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

If I Should Die by Emily Dickinson ▫ Hope this will help you accept death. (link above) 🙏 #ifishoulddie #emilydinckinson #deathacceptance #acceptanceofdeath #poet #poets #poetry #poem #poetryreading #poemreading #readingpoetry #readingpoems #poetoftheweek #poetsoftheweek #poetryoftheweek #poemoftheweek #potw

#if i should die #emily dickinson #death acceptance #acceptance of death #poet #poets #poetry #poem #poetry reading #poem reading #reading poetry #reading poems #poet of the week #poets of the week #poetry of the week #poem of the week #potw

[queencolondarkwing]

“The Sound of Her Wings” and The Death Positive Movement (Spoilers)

Since a lot of tumblr “Sandman” fans are only focusing on HobxDream shipping (tumblr simplifying complex media to obsessive shipping - shocker), I figured it would be nice for someone to talk about Death as presented in the comics and show.  How changing the order to Hob sharing an episode with Death was one of the smartest ways to do a TV adaptation.

This part in the comics didn’t get followed by the Hob story.  In fact - the part with Franklin specifically had a bit more to it if I remember right. I love that Neil took the show a different route which left us with a really overall nuanced view on dying. While the story of Hob starts with Death - her personification doesn’t keep playing an active role.  However death (lowercase) does.  Death as a concept always underlies immortality tales.  To die is a fact of life - so to defy it creates an alternate state of life.  An absence of death almost brings more focus to death than death itself does. So this show made an EXCELLENT parallel in these two stories. Especially when Death’s message was how Dream should connect more with the humans that they are to serve.  Which is what he is doing with his little Hob experiment and with Shakespeare.

Now onto the Death part of the episode.  She brings up that when life was new that nobody really feared death.  One may argue that this is contrary to our innate biological programming.  After all, one classification of living things is drive to stay alive.  It is a common misconception to assign that to individuals of a species, but many species have individuals knowingly die in order to reproduce (octopi) or for the good of the many (ants).  Individualism doesn’t exist naturally in nature or even in most of human civilization.  The West largely pushed for individualism instead of collectivism or tribalism. However, a large part of human experience in history is being willing to sacrifice or die for an ethnic group, religion, region, or familial unit. Women willing to die in childbirth.  Men willing to die in wars.  Death was still tragic (cultural expectations around grief and widows is fascinating) but at several points in history was viewed more casually than it was today.  Even in the West - focus was on having lots of kids in case a few die.  Many didn’t receive names right away which is why so many graves for babies and toddler just say “Baby” on them.

I’m still terrified of death.  Most of us are.  The thought of just...ending. Of life existing outside of ourselves.  I’ve been extremely suicidal in the past and have to watch myself for ideation rearing its ugly head and I STILL fear death most of the time when I really think deeply about it.

This episode is important.  So was the comic character.  Death being positive and comforting.  Death itself being compared to birth.  Something that can happen to any person on any day.  On your honeymoon, at birth, to violence, or at home in our old age. Few people choose how or when they go.

It reminds me of something I’ll occasionally read about called the Death Positive Movement.  Don’t worry - it isn’t a murder cult.  It is a movement around appreciating life, but also accepting that all truly living things must die.  They fight to end the stigma around discussing death.  What death means.  What it looks like.  For a fact of life - death is treated as a taboo subject, which only makes it scarier for people who know it is happening to them.  Death wasn’t wrong for saying most people need a friendly face.  Viewing Death as a gentle voice instead of a scythe wielding cloaked asshole makes the process less scary.  I suggest people read more at orderofthegooddeath.com/death-positive-movement for a good intro to these concepts.

Now for someone with suicide ideation like me - I was grateful that Hob’s story followed the Death story.  Because while Death is inevitable and something to be accepted - we shouldn’t seek it out.  Humans can change.  Society and circumstances can change.  Hob himself went from curious to rich asshole to miserable drunk to slaver to savvy business dude. He improved. He grew and learned.  And the world around him did as well. There is a lesson I found in the order of these two stories.  Death is inevitable and an inevitable part of life (since I highly doubt a real Hob is out there lol), but life itself is equally valuable.  We should treasure every second that we get of it.  As someone with deep traumas and pain, it helped me to see Hob say he “has so much to live for” at his worst moments. We can destigmatize death without hating on life.  Death is a part of life.  John Dee said in episode 5 that all stories going on long enough end with death, but this episode proves that the stories are still worth living out til that last moment.  Our stories all ending in death doesn’t mean everything before that point doesn’t matter. Our purpose is our function and our function is to live til our bodies give out on us in one way or another.

#queencolondarkwing #dream of the endless #death of the endless #hob gadling #the sound of her wings #sandman #spoilers #death positive #death positivity #death acceptance #fear of death #neil gaiman #niel gaiman #the sandman #the sandman netflix #netflix the sandman #suicide #tw suicide #tw death

[bigdecaynergy]

I feel like my death acceptance and positivity stems from my chronic pain. I’ve always been interested in morbid things though, but this is different. Being in pain all the time makes you shift from ”I’m afraid I’m going to die” to ”It’s okay that I’m going to die” real quickly. I’m more aware of what’s going on in my body than the average person. I’m more aware of my mortality, of my bones inside me. It often feels like inside me there is just a pulsing and aching stick figure made of pain that never sleeps.

Maybe my skeleton is just ready to hatch. Someday it will be. I’m okay with that. Put me in the ground and let all my energy go back where it came from. It’s hard to make people understand how I’m already actively grieving myself, and the fact I have lost so much, just by being chronically ill. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die. Not yet at least. I’ve just made my peace with it.

Death gives me permission to enjoy life to the fullest.

#memento mori #memento vivere #chronically ill #chronic illness #death #mortality #death cw #morbid #death acceptance #death and dying #death mention #life goes on #enjoying life #personal #ask a mortician

[whoneedssexed]

#death doula #doula #doulas #death doulas #death #death positivity #death positive #covid #covid 19 #death acceptance #found out that using this archive let's you read articles for free lol

[charliebugz]

When Izzy first walked out I was worried that he would be made into a joke that the crew would laugh at

but then he started singing and the dancing began and I realized that he wasn’t meant to be a joke at all. This is the most open and happy we’ve ever seen Izzy and the show treated it that way. Not mocking him but instead celebrating this moment.

When we talk about queer representation it’s usually just focused on queer relationships, but what I love about this episode is it shows other sides of being queer. That moment where Izzy saw Wee John doing his makeup and had a realization that he wanted that too? That is what being queer means to me. The crew singing along and cheering for him? That is what being apart of the queer community means to me.

What i love about this show is that it shows queer joy, not in a sanitized way, but in away that is messy, beautiful, and without any mockery or shame.

#the fact i expected him to be made fun of just reflects how queer people are usually presented in media #i was preparing myself for an awkward scene full of secondhand embarrassment for izzy #but then it didn’t happen. And it just made me immediately feel so warm and fuzzy inside. #like he can express the not socially acceptable parts of himself and not be outcast for it #and that’s just so fantastical to me #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd s2e6 #izzy hands #rambling #i speak!

[crisishauntline]

Today was the first in-person meeting for the queer grief group I helped organize! Two people had to cancel last minute so it was just me and two other people—the same ones who came to the first virtual meeting a couple months ago. We had a nice time walking through the cemetery and reflecting on loss and memory. I felt like I kinda clicked with one of them, E. We actually had run into each other the night before at a play and complimented each other's tattoos (both memorial pieces), without recognizing each other. Small queer world.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the magnolia trees were blooming. E (a plant witch) told us you can eat the petals. We each took a nibble and the taste was pleasant and sweet at first, but then turned bitter and soapy, like eating perfume. Then when we found a place at the top of the hill to spread out my blanket and sit, I plucked a few stalks of sour grass growing on the edge of the path and chewed them to replace the perfume taste. While we did our "show and tell" of objects that had helped us grieve, Harpo found a stick and started chewing too. That that line from "Swansea" popped into my head: "All we want to do is chew and chew and chew!"

I started thinking of the ways Joanna Newsom sings about chewing on bones in “Swansea” as well as “Sadie.” They strike an interesting contrast: One version of the image is the dead consuming the living, the other is a living thing consuming (and/or enjoying) its own life by exhuming and consuming a dead thing.

If you want to come on down Down with your bones so white Watch the freight trains pound Into the wild, wild night

How I would love to gnaw To gnaw on your bones so white And watch as the freight trains paw Paw at the wild, wild night

In “Swansea," the ghosts/ghost towns want to chew on the bones of the living. But in “Sadie” the narrator wants her beloved dog to enjoy her bone and the other ephemeral joys of living while she can.

Bury this bone to gnaw on it later; Gnawing on the telephone, and 'Till then, we pray and suspend The notion that these lives do never end

...

And I'll tell you tomorrow Sadie, go on home now And bless those who've sickened below; And bless us who've chosen so

And all that I've got And all that I need I tie in a knot And I lay at your feet And I have not forgot But a silence crept over me (So dig up your bone Exhume your pine-cone, my Sadie)

Not sure if I'm being coherent... I want to think deeper on it. But I think the latter is a little like what the show and tell was. I brought the box of trinkets and stickers that the older sister of my high school friend David made and shared with all David's friends after he died. I also showed them my memorial tattoo of the crow and oak leaf. E has a memorial tattoo as well, of a puffer fish—I'd complimented them on it last night, in fact. We enjoyed sharing the stories attached to these remnants, savoring the bitter and the sweet.

#SoundCloud #joanna newsom #personal #death acceptance #death and dying #the good death

[a-typical]

In Toraja, during the period of time between death and the funeral, the body is kept in the home. That might not sound particularly shocking, until I tell you that period can last from several months to several years. During that time, the family cares for and mummifies the body, bringing the corpse food, changing its clothes, and speaking to the body.

The first time Paul ever visited Toraja, he asked Agus if it was unusual for a family to keep a dead relative in the home. Agus laughed at the question. “When I was a child, we had my grandfather in the home for seven years. My brother and I, we slept with him in the same bed. In the morning we put his clothes on and stood him against the wall. At night he came back to bed.”

Paul describes death in Toraja, as he’s witnessed it, not as a “hard border,” an impenetrable wall between the living and the dead, but a border that can be transgressed. According to their animistic belief system, there is also no barrier between the human and nonhuman aspects of the natural world: animals, mountains, and even the dead. Speaking to your grandfather’s corpse is a way to build a connection to the person’s spirit.

— From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Caitlin Doughty

#indonesia #Toraja #mummification #death acceptance #animistic #Caitlin Doughty #Ask a Mortician #From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death #From Here to Eternity #books #bookblr #death positive #death positive movement #nonfiction #science #history #travel #anthropology #memoir #sociology #atypicalreads #deathcare #cw death

[ofswordsandpens]

Percy, who had finally accepted to bear the burden of the great prophecy after agonizing over it for years only for everyone to repeatedly tell him in the final book that he's not the hero and its not about him:

#honestly I know a part of percy was relieved once he figured out that one line was referring to Luke and he didn't have to die #but god I'd be pissy if I basically accepted this huge burden and my impending death when NO ONE ELSE WOULD #just for everyone around me to be like #/ugh percy you're not the hero/ #pjo #percy jackson #mine

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

#my art #feralnette au #birds of a feather #long tags #sorry I went apeshit in the tags #LETS SAY IT ALL TOGETHER NOW #I - M - A - G - OOOOOOOOO #its fun drawing marinette's back to Alya and having her appear stout and unstoppable and totally logical #and then you see her face and she's like two seconds from completely snapping and is keeping it together by a thread #as a note just because mari feels very certainly abt smth doesnt mean she's right. feelings can be valid and also irrational #in the throes of grief she decided it was better to be alone than to lose someone again so she started pulling away #and lila made pulling away very very very easy to do #shes also vaguely aware she's being unfair in pinning this on alya which is why she started spinning the drain on cockmoth again #legitimately all the shit that's happened to her wouldn't have been so catastrophic if he was never in the picture and she knows it #but the bitterness of her bestie choosing a fantastic liar over her at the worst of times stiiiiiings #alya's personal timing was bad but lila really took advantage of the fact that marinette had been acting off and weird #she basically clocked marinette as being unstable from SOMETHING and made up a lie about her #knowing she wouldn't have the strength to defend herself #between her social life going tachy bc of lila and losing fu in a way that felt like personhood death marinette was really put on the spot #and alya doing her thing of busting in there and assuming her bias is correct was a terrible combo #essentially marinette is highly unstable and alya is just realizing that #busting in and giving her a lecture when she's slightly hysterical and definitely delirious from exhaustion is NOT the way #to show her she's self sabotaging #cuz thats just gonna make her double down on self sabotaging. bc marinette will not accept that she is also a CHIIIIILD

[melancholicvvitch]

fuck death positivity

hello walkerbetweenthestars. I already saw your comment as well cause blocking me doesn't prevent me from seeing past notifications plus your comment is still there saying this exact thing. I also see that you like to harass anyone who uses the terms death positivity and order of the good death so what a great way for me to segway into talking about exactly that, not for you but for the people that actually follow blogs because they like them.

Death is a reality that we all must face at some point in our lives, often more than once. Now, I'm from the USA, a place where our death practices have been severely broken down over the past 100 years. Death has been pushed aside and ignored except for when it comes to taking money from those who are actively grieving. We're expected to pick ourselves up from our bootstraps (an impossible) and be done grieving in a matter of days but that's not adequate. Grief is complex and we should be allowed to go through it cause even though the world keeps turning, that loss has frozen the individuals world in place and they now have to figure out how to navigate it differently.

The concept of death positivity doesn't mean a lack of fear surrounding death but instead an acceptance that death is a part of life. We're all heading towards the eventual end of our mortality, something that makes life that much more important. To live well is to die well, you can not have life without death and you cannot have death without life. Working through our cultures dismissal of such a key process of life, the end of life, allows us to look at how we view death and how we can brace ourselves against the cold chill of reality. That end isn't always clean and neat, and life is unpredictable, so working through these complex feelings can help us be more at peace with death, especially when it's our turn to leave.

I've barely touched the surface of death in American society and death positivity, but I'd be more than happy to talk even more on such topics, especially because of how dysfunctional death culture is here.

At the end of the day, we should be supporting each other through these hard times. This place really sucks and we shouldn't be tearing down others who are learning to navigate a world after loss without support from society as a whole.

#death acceptance #death positive #death positivity #order of the good death

[harbingerofsoup]

there’s death of the author and then there’s whatever the fuck is up with danny phantom

#danny phantom #death of the author #most of the lore is fan made #a decent chunk of the fandom hasn’t even seen the show #one of the most beloved side characters isn’t an actual character #because we made him up based on a like 2 second clip #he’s not even the only widely accepted fan made character #because we spawned more from him #and we ba sing se-ed ourselves about phantom planet #dannypocalypse is also a thing #it doesn’t have anything to do with death of the author #but it’s important to me that we’ve pulled off a successful fandom apocalypse #every year since i think 2017

[conjcosby]

Stardate: 2024.3.12 ▫ Live and see this read later today on the usual place (e.g. my TikTok page - ConJCosby). 😊🙏 #deathacceptance #acceptanceofdeath #poet #poets #poetry #poem #poetryreading #poemreading #readingpoetry #readingpoems #poetoftheweek #poetsoftheweek #poetryoftheweek #poemoftheweek #potw

#death acceptance #acceptance of death #poet #poets #poetry #poem #poetry reading #poem reading #reading poetry #reading poems #poet of the week #poets of the week #poetry of the week #poem of the week #potw