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Inspiration & Poetry

Beautiful books of inspiration and poetry

 
 

Anam Cara

John O'Donohue

Discover the Celtic Circle of Belonging

John O'Donohue was an Irish poet, philosopher, and scholar. He writes beautifully about the spiritual landscape of the Irish imagination. In his book Anam Cara, Gaelic for "soul friend," he shares blessings, teachings, and stories of Celtic wisdom revolving around the universal themes of love, life, death, friendship and solitude.

 

Earth Prayers

Edited by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon

In forest clearings, beneath star-filled skies, in cathedrals, and before the hearth...women and men have always given voice to the impulse to celebrate the world that surrounds and sustains them. Now, as we face a diminished present and an uncertain future, the need to honor the interconnection between people and the planet is heightened.

From Walt Whitman, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Black Elk, to Margaret Atwood, the Rig Veda, and the chant of a Samar fisherman, the varied voices linked here offer songs and prayers for land, sea, and air; graces for food; and invocations, poems, and passages that reveal in the common spiritual heritage of all who cherish creation.

 

Who Dies?

Stephen and Ondrea Levine

Who Dies? is the first book to show the reader how to open to the immensity of living with death, to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next. The Levines provide calm compassion rather than the frightening melodrama of death.

 

The Fruitful Darkness

Joan Halifax

In this “masterwork of an authentic spirit person” (Thomas Berry), Buddhist teacher and anthropologist Joan Halifax Roshi delves into “the fruitful darkness”—the shadow side of being, found in the root truths of Native religions, the fecundity of nature, and the stillness of meditation. In this highly personal and insightful odyssey of the heart and mind, she encounters Tibetan Buddhist meditators, Mexican shamans, and Native American elders, among others. In rapt prose, she recounts her explorations—from Japanese Zen meditation to hallucinogenic plants, from the Dogon people of Mali to the Mayan rain forest, all the while creating "an adventure of the spirit and a feast of wisdom old and new” (Peter Matthiessen). Halifax believes that deep ecology (which attempts to fuse environmental awareness with spiritual values) works in tandem with Buddhism and shamanism to discover “the interconnectedness of all life,” and to regain life’s sacredness. Grove Press is proud to reissue this important work by one of Buddhism’s leading contemporary teachers.

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Being with dying

Books for practioners and those accompanying the dying

 
 
 

Being with dying

Joan Halifax

Understanding the Buddhist approach to death can benefit people of all backgrounds and religions. After decades of working with the dying and the ill, Joan Halifax provides deep wisdom for those who walk alongside death and those considering their own mortality. 

 

The Five Invitations

Frank Ostaseski

These Five Invitations show us how to wake up fully to our lives. They can be understood as best practices for anyone coping with loss or navigating any sort of transition or crisis; they guide us toward appreciating life’s preciousness. Awareness of death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life, and letting go of regret. The Five Invitations is a powerful and inspiring exploration of the essential wisdom dying has to impart to all of us.

Standing at the edge

Joan Halifax

Joan Halifax has enriched thousands of lives around the world through her work as a humanitarian, a social activist, an anthropologist, and as a Buddhist teacher. Over many decades, she has also collaborated with neuroscientists, clinicians, and psychologists to understand how contemplative practice can be a vehicle for social transformation. Through her unusual background, she developed an understanding of how our greatest challenges can become the most valuable source of our wisdom―and how we can transform our experience of suffering into the power of compassion for the benefit of others…

 

Awake at the bedside

Koshin Paley Ellison

This book isn’t about dying. It’s about life and what life has to teach us. It’s about caring and what giving care really means.

In Awake at the Bedside, pioneers of palliative and end-of-life care as well as doctors, chaplains, caregivers and even poets offer wisdom that will challenge, uplift, comfort—and change the way we think about death. 

 

To Bless The Space Between Us

John O’Donohue

John O’Donohue, Irish teacher and poet, has been widely praised for his gift of drawing on Celtic spiritual traditions to create words of inspiration and wisdom for today. In To Bless the Space Between Us, his compelling blend of elegant, poetic language and spiritual insight offers readers comfort and encouragement on their journeys through life. O’Donohue looks at life’s thresholds—getting married, having children, starting a new job—and offers invaluable guidelines for making the transition from a known, familiar world into a new, unmapped territory. Most profoundly, however, O’Donohue explains “blessing” as a way of life, as a lens through which the whole world is transformed…

 

Cultural guides on living and dying

These are a few great books from cultures around the world that illustrate practices around dying and care for the dying. 

 
 
 

Tibetan Book of Living and dying

Sogyal Rinpoche and Patrick Gaffney

“A magnificent achievement. In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying] is an inestimable gift.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

20th Anniversary edition and the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. 

 

The Egyption Book of The Dead

Ogden Goelet, Raymond Faulkner, Carol Andrews

#1 Amazon Best Seller. This is the first time in 3,300 years that the book is seen in its full form with 74 pages highlighting the practices around death for some Egyptions. The Papyrus of Ani is the best preserved, most beautiful and complete showcase of ancient Egyption religious and philosophical thought known of today.

 

The American Book of Living and Dying

Richard Groves and Henrietta Klauser

For most people, the thought of dying or caring for a dying friend or family member creates fear and questions around whata “good death” looks like and how do we prepare. This nondenominational handbook inspires  comfort and hope while helping to guide the dying and their caregivers through nine archetypal stories illustrating the most common end-of-life worries. 

 

The Celtic Book of The Dead

Caitlin Matthews

Your guide to the mystical worlds of the Celtic otherworld bringing forth personal potential. Includes a book explaining the Celtic Otherworld, a deck 42 beautifully illustrated cards, and a celtic cross spread-cloth

 

Our own mortality 

Beautiful books of inspiration and poetry

 
 
 

Being Mortal

Atul Gawande

//Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune, now in paperback with a new reading group guide

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.

Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients' anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them.

 

How we die

Sherwin Nuland

A runaway bestseller and National Book Award winner, Sherwin Nuland's How We Die has become the definitive text on perhaps the single most universal human concern: death.  This new edition includes an all-embracing and incisive afterword that examines the current state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus.  It also discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.

Shewin Nuland's masterful How We Die is even more relevant than when it was first published.

 

The four things that matter most

Ira Byock

Four simple phrases -- "Please forgive me," "I forgive you," "Thank you," and "I love you" -- carry enormous power. In many ways, they contain the most powerful words in our language. These four phrases provide us with a clear path to emotional wellness; they guide us through the thickets of interpersonal difficulties to a conscious way of living that is full of integrity and grace. 
In The Four Things That Matter Most, Dr. Ira Byock, an international leader in palliative care, teaches us how to practice these life-affirming words in our day-to-day lives. Too often we assume that the people we love really know we love them. Dr. Byock reveals the value of stating the obvious and provides insights into how we burden ourselves by hanging on to old grudges unconsciously and unnecessarily. He shows us how to avoid living with those awkward silences and uncomfortable issues that distance us from the people we love and erode our sense of well-being and joy. His insights and stories help us to forgive, appreciate, love, and celebrate one another more fully…

 

Die Wise

Stephen Jenkinson

Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever.

 

Books on Grief

Books on grief and grieving.

 
 
 

It’s Okay That You’re Not Okay

Megan Devine

In It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides―as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner―Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, "happy" life, replacing it with a far healthier middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it.

 

On Grief and Grieving

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler

Ten years after the death of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, this commemorative edition of her final book combines practical wisdom, case studies, and the authors’ own experiences and spiritual insight to explain how the process of grieving helps us live with loss. Includes a new introduction and resources section.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying changed the way we talk about the end of life. Before her own death in 2004, she and David Kessler completed On Grief and Grieving, which looks at the way we experience the process of grief.

 

The Wild Edge of Sorrow

Francis Weller

Noted psychotherapist Francis Weller provides an essential guide for navigating the deep waters of sorrow and loss in this lyrical yet practical handbook for mastering the art of grieving. Describing how Western patterns of amnesia and anesthesia affect our capacity to cope with personal and collective sorrows, Weller reveals the new vitality we may encounter when we welcome, rather than fear, the pain of loss. Through moving personal stories, poetry, and insightful reflections he leads us into the central energy of sorrow, and to the profound healing and heightened communion with each other and our planet that reside alongside it.

 

When Things Fall Apart

Pema Chodron

Pema Chödrön's perennially best-selling classic on overcoming life's difficulties cuts to the heart of spirituality and personal growth--now in a newly designed 20th-anniversary edition with a new afterword by Pema--makes for a perfect gift and addition to one's spiritual library.

 

Books on and for Death Doulas and Death Midwives

Books for those interested in or already working as death doulas and death midwives.

 
 
 

The Art of Death Midwifery

Joellyn St Pierre

Winner of the 2009 USA Best Books Award and the 2010 International Book Award, The Art of Death Midwifery: An Introduction and Beginner's Guide, by ordained interfaith minister Joellyn St. Pierre, is a compelling and comprehensive manual for family, clergy, hospice volunteers, or medical staff engaged in the field of death and dying. In this poetic and powerful book, the author reminds us that society has thrown a veil of mystery over the process of death, thereby depriving the dying from the dignified and fearless departure they so deserve. Based on the tenet that death is neither the enemy nor a finite state, St. Pierre gives all helpmates the necessary tools to become a death midwife. That is, someone capable of acting as a spiritual guide as the dying transition from this life into what awaits them after death. Unlike many books on death and dying, this guide is leading-edge, based on the author's long experience both in lay and clergy. It is a sensitive and lyrical reminder that the dying deserve to feel empowered as they leave this life.

 

Accompanying The Dying

Deanna Cochran

Accompanying the Dying describes the human skill and art of companioning someone through dying. There is a wide gap in this knowing (of how to accompany the dying), which is why this book is timely and needed at this juncture of the "death positive" movement. The book is meant to empower us as a society to understand how to die well in this modern age. Deanna describes the newly emerging role of the "end-of-life doula," which is a nonmedical role that provides practical, emotional, and spiritual support to the dying and their family. This role is a powerful solution to the looming crisis in health care as our baby boomers and their elders age and die in the oncoming years.

 

Caring For The Dying

Henry Fersko-Weiss

Caring for the Dying describes a whole new way to approach death and dying. It explores how the dying and their families can bring deep meaning and great comfort to the care given at the end of a life. Created by Henry Fersko-Weiss, the end-of-life doula model is adapted from the work of birth doulas and helps the dying to find meaning in their life, express that meaning in powerful and beautiful legacies, and plan for the final days. The approach calls for around-the-clock vigil care, so the dying person and their family have the emotional and spiritual support they need along with guidance on signs and symptoms of dying. It also covers the work of reprocessing a death with the family afterward and the early work of grieving.

 

Cultivating The Doula Heart

Francesca Lynn Arnoldy

Loss is difficult...and universal. What do we say? What do we do?

Part how-to guide, part hopeful manifesto, Cultivating the Doula Heart provides a clear framework for supporting those facing hardship, grief, and loss. Succinct and straightforward, this "work of heart" covers: Components of Doula Care, Aspects of Loss, Ways of Being/Ways of Doing, Grief Support, and Contemplative Exercises.