Antonio Damasio – Self Comes to Mind

“We hypothesized that compassion for physical pain, being an evolutionarily older brain response, it’s clearly present in several nonhuman species – should be processed faster by the brain than compassion for the mental pain, something that requires the more complicated processing of a less immediately obvious predicament and that is likely to involve a wide compass of knowledge.”

“All the above strategies, I submit, began to evolve long before there was consciousness, just as soon as enough images were being made, perhaps as soon as real minds first bloomed. The vast unconscious probably has been part of the business of organizing life for a long, long time, and the curious thing is that it is still with us, as the great subterranean under our limited conscious existence.”

“The spiritual is a particular state of the organism, a delicate combination of certain body configurations and certain mental configurations. Sustaining such states depends on a wealth of thoughts about the condition of the self and the condition of other selves, about past and future, about both concrete and abstract conceptions of nature.” Looking for Spinoza

“Engaging in introspection turns out to be a translation, within the mind, of a process that complex brains have been engaged in for a long time in evolution: talking to themselves, both literally and in the language of neuron activity.”

“Needless to say, they do not really know what they are doing, let alone why. But they do what they do because of their exceedingly simple brains, without any mind to speak of and even less proper consciousness, use signals from the environment to engage one kin of behavior or the other.”

“Knowing as opposed to being and doing, was a critical break. The diference between life regulation before consciousness and after consciousness simply has to do with automation versus deliberation.”

“The ongoing of the digital revolution, the globalization of cultural information, and the coming of the age of empathy are pressures likely to lead to structural modifications of mind and self, by which I mean modifications of the very brain processes that shape the mind and self. Revolutionary arguments of the world.”

“How remarkably hybrid and flexible our mental lives are.”

Aldous Huxley, Foreword to Brave New World, second edition, circa 1947

In the meantime, however, it seems worth while at least to mention the most serious defect in the story, which is this. The Savage is offered only two alternatives, an insane life in Utopia, or the life of a primitive in an Indian village, a life more human in some respects, but in others hardly less queer and abnormal.

Today I feel no wish to demonstrate that sanity is impossible. If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the utopian and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity — a possibility already actualized, to some extent, in a community of exiles and refugees from the Brave New World, living within the borders of the Reservation. In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque cooperative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man’s Final End, the unitive knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle — the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: “How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man’s Final End?”

(source)

End-of-life dreams and visions: a longitudinal study of hospice patients’ experiences.

The most common dreams/visions included deceased friends/relatives and living friends/relatives. Dreams/visions featuring the deceased (friends, relatives, and animals/pets) were significantly more comforting than those of the living, living and deceased combined, and other people and experiences. As participants approached death, comforting dreams/visions of the deceased became more prevalent.

source

Simon Leys – The Hall of Uselessness

In his last work, Kafka described the search for salvation; Flaubert, the quest for meaning. But these pursuits take us into mysteries no mortal can fathom. So, it seems strangely appropriate that death should have intervened, ensuring these heroic explorations remain open – forever.

“The mob reads confessions and notes, etc., so avidly because in their baseness they rejoice at the humiliations of the high and the weakness of the mighty. Upon discovering any kind of filies they are delighted. He is little like us! You lie, scoundrels: he may be (little and vile) anything, but differently, not like you.”

Goethe

“Previously in a letter to Schiller of 9th August 1797, he had pointed out at least one of the causes of the decline: in the larger cities men lived in a constant frenzy of acquisition and consumption and had therefore become incapable of the very mood from which spiritual life arises.” Hans F. K. Günther on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

M

We died at the end of that year.

The place was small and totally new in every sense; neatly prepared in white – to invite all the incoming light to reflect inside.

M was the first 

gentle into that good night

So gracefully that took me with him.

B was coughing blood and had sparse but brutal seizures

His liveliness kept a part of me to take care of him till the very end – four months after M and me.

We are back to the inorganic.

The memories of our lives once infinite

will soon die altogether and our story disappear

The smallness of reality

Collaborative effects of bystander-initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation andprehospital advanced cardiac life support by physicians on survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a nationwide population-based observational study

Hideo Yasunaga, Hiromasa Horiguchi, […], and Tomoaki Imamura

Among 95,072 patients with bystander-witnessed OHCA, 7,722 (8.1%) patients were alive at 1 month, including 2,754 (2.9%) with good performance and 3,171 (3.3%) with vegetative status or worse.

More than 40% of 1-month survivors were classified as vegetative status or de facto brain death.

The combination of BCPR and ACLS by physicians was the best way to improve outcomes.

Life support by physicians without preceding BCPR increased the occurrence of vegetative status or worse.

(Source)

Dissociation debates: everything you know is wrong

Controversy about dissociation and the dissociative disorders (DD) has existed since the beginning of modern psychiatry and psychology. Even among professionals, beliefs about dissociation/DD often are not based on the scientific literature. Multiple lines of evidence support a powerful relationship between dissociation/DD and psychological trauma, especially cumulative and/or early life trauma. Skeptics counter that dissociation produces fantasies of trauma, and that DD are artefactual conditions produced by iatrogenesis and/or socio-cultural factors. Almost no research or clinical data support this view. DD are common in general and clinical populations and represent a major underserved population with a substantial risk for suicidal and self-destructive behavior. Prospective treatment outcome studies of severely ill DD patients show significant improvement in symptoms including suicidal/self-destructive behaviors, with reductions in treatment cost.

Richard J. Loewenstein, MD

Ian Stevenson – Science, the Self, and Survival After Death: Selected writings of Ian Stevenson, edited by Emily Williams

Carl Sagan, a lifelong skeptic of paranormal claims, in his last book (1996) identified Stevenson’s research as one of three areas of potential significance (the others were psi tests with random number generators and under mild sensory deprivation, i.e., the ganzfeld).

Stevenson was drawn to extrasensory communications and phenomena suggestive of survival and reincarnation because, if these processes could be established, they would demonstrate that human beings were more than their physical bodies. Stevenson came to concentrate on reincarnation because he saw that it posed an especially keen challenge to materialistic assumptions. It also had clear implications for medicine. Reincarnation might help to explain, among other things, the origins of individual differences and why a given person developed a given disease, one of the “leitmotif” questions of his career.

Reasoning in Believers in the Paranormal – The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

Reasoning biases have been identified in deluded patients, delusion-prone individuals, and believers in the paranormal. This study examined content-specific reasoning and delusional ideation in believers in the paranormal.

A total of 174 members of the Society for Psychical Research completed a delusional ideation questionnaire and a deductive reasoning task. The reasoning statements were manipulated for congruency with paranormal beliefs. As predicted, individuals who reported a strong belief in the paranormal made more errors and displayed more delusional ideation than skeptical individuals. However, no differences were found with statements that were congruent with their belief system, confirming the domain-specificity of reasoning. This reasoning bias was limited to people who reported a belief in, rather than experience of, paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that reasoning abnormalities may have a causal role in the formation of unusual beliefs. The dissociation between experiences and beliefs implies that such abnormalities operate at the evaluative, rather than the perceptual, stage of processing.

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 192(11):727-733, Lawrence, Emma; Peters, Emmanuelle

Research on Experiences Related to the Possibility of Consciousness Beyond the Brain: A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Scientific Output – The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease


This study aims to conduct a search of publications investigating experiences commonly associated with the possibility of the existence of a consciousness independent of the brain held on the main scientific databases that are Pubmed, Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO, Science Direct, and Scopus.

Of the 9065 articles retrieved, 1954 were included (598 near-death experiences, 223 out-of-body experiences, 56 end-of-life experiences, 224 possession, 244 memories suggestive of past lives, 565 mediumship, 44 others). Over the decades, there was an evident increase in the number of articles on all the areas of the field, with the exception of studies on mediumship that showed a decline during the late 20th century and subsequent rise in the early 21st century. Regarding the types of articles found, with the exception of past-life memories and end-of-life experiences (mostly original studies), publications were predominantly review articles. The articles were published in journals with an impact factor similar to other areas of science.

The presentation of the mind-brain problem in leading psychiatry journals

Alexander Moreira-Almeida,1 Saulo de F. Araujo,2 C. Robert Cloninger3
1Departamento de Clinica Medica, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil. 2Departamento de Psicologia, UFJF, Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil. 3Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.


Objective: The mind-brain problem (MBP) has marked implications for psychiatry, but has been poorly discussed in the psychiatric literature. This paper evaluates the presentation of the MBP in the three leading general psychiatry journals during the last 20 years.
Methods: Systematic review of articles on the MBP published in the three general psychiatry journals with the highest impact factor from 1995 to 2015. The content of these articles was analyzed and discussed in the light of contemporary debates on the MBP.
Results: Twenty-three papers, usually written by prestigious authors, explicitly discussed the MBP and received many citations (mean = 130). The two main categories were critiques of dualism and defenses of physicalism (mind as a brain product). These papers revealed several misrepresentations of theoretical positions and lacked relevant contemporary literature. Without further discussion or evidence, they presented the MBP as solved, dualism as an old-fashioned or superstitious idea, and physicalism as the only rational and empirically confirmed option.
Conclusion: The MBP has not been properly presented and discussed in the three leading psychiatric journals in the last 20 years. The few articles on the topic have been highly cited, but reveal misrepresentations and lack of careful philosophical discussion, as well as a strong bias against dualism and toward a materialist/physicalist approach to psychiatry.

(source)

One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted –
One need not be a House –
The Brain has Corridors – surpassing Material Place

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting
External ghost
Than its interior Confronting
That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop
The Stones a’chase-
Than Unarmed, one’s a’self encounter –
In lonesome Place –

Ourself behind ourself, concealed –
Should startle most –
Assassin hid in our apartment
Be Horror’s least.

The Body – borrows a Revolver –
He bolts the Door –
O’erlooking a superior spectre –
Or More –

Emily Dickinson

“The therapeutic orthodoxy that the patient should learn to engage with the larger world on the world’s terms.”

J. M. Coetzee, The Making of Samuel Becket

Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill

Virginia Woolf

Illness is a part of every human being’s experience. It enhances our perceptions and reduces self-consciousness. It is great confessional; things are said, truths are blurted out which health conceals.

Finally, among the drawbacks of illness as matter for literature there is the poverty of the language. English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. It has all grown one way. The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare, Donne, Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry. There is nothing ready made for him. He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the inhabitants of Babel did in the beginning) so to crush them together that a brand new word in the end drops out.

Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain

Jimo Borjigin, UnCheol Lee, […], and George A. Mashour

These data demonstrate that cardiac arrest stimulates a transient and global surge of synchronized gamma oscillations, which display high levels of interregional coherence and feedback connectivity as well as cross-frequency coupling with both theta and alpha waves. Each of these properties of gamma oscillations indicates a highly aroused brain, and collectively, the data suggest that the mammalian brain has the potential for high levels of internal information processing during clinical death. The neural correlates of conscious brain activity identified in this investigation strongly parallel characteristics of human conscious information processing. Predictably, these correlates decreased during general anesthesia. The return of these neural correlates of conscious brain activity after cardiac arrest at levels exceeding the waking state provides strong evidence for the potential of heightened cognitive processing in the near-death state. Though neurophysiology at the moment of cardiac arrest has not been systematically studied in human cardiac arrest survivors, surges of electroencephalographic activity (measured by bispectral index) have been reported in humans undergoing organ donation after cardiac death. The consistent finding of a high-frequency EEG surge reflecting organized neurophysiologic activity in nine of nine rats undergoing cardiac arrest should prompt further studies in humans. Importantly, the essential results of increased gamma power and coherence were confirmed with an alternative mode of death. Use of these unique experimental paradigms will allow detailed mechanistic dissection of neurophysiology of the dying brain in animal models, which could provide guidance for research on NDE after cardiac arrest in humans.

NDE represents a biological paradox that challenges our understanding of the brain and has been advocated as evidence for life after death and for a noncorporeal basis of human consciousness, based on the unsupported belief that the brain cannot possibly be the source of highly vivid and lucid conscious experiences during clinical death. By presenting evidence of highly organized brain activity and neurophysiologic features consistent with conscious processing at near-death, we now provide a scientific framework to begin to explain the highly lucid and realer-than-real mental experiences reported by near-death survivors.

(Source)

The meaning of life-threatening disease in the area of the head and neck.

The revelation that one has a life-threatening disease creates a sentient flood of emotions that infuse the patient with fear, confusion and depression. It contains the spectrum of pain, suffering, deterioration of life-style, crippling and possible annihilation. This burden falls first on the patient and his family, and then on his doctor. The drama is a dilemma of cure or palliation wrapped about the emotional core of that person with science, drugs, technology, mysticism and hope. The ongoing process is the most dynamic encounter of being alive, and before it is finished will have used and drained a large percentage of the vulnerable emotions that identify our humanness. An overview of these involvements as they relate to the area of the head and neck shows how complex the process has become, the remoteness of its solution and the truth of its experience.

Conley J.

Memento mori

Simon Leys, The House of Uselessness – Collected Essays

Do you grieve at the thought that your life must come to an end? The alternative could be worse – Swift showed it convincingly in Gulliver’s Travels. Arriving in Luggnagg, Gulliver heard of the existence of “Immortals” among the local population. From time to time a child is born with a large round mark on his forehead, a sure sign that he is a “Struldbrugg”: he will never die. This phenomenon is not hereditary; it is purely accidental – and extremely rare. Gulliver is transported with wonderment: so, there are some humans that are spared the anguish normally attached to our condition. These Struldbruggs must be able to store a prodigious wealth of moral and material resources through the ages – a treasure of knowledge, experience and wisdom! In the face of Gulliver’s enthusiasm, his hosts can scarcely hide their smiles. Though the Strudbruggs are indeed immortal, they do age: after a few centuries they have lost their teeth, their hair, their memory; they can barely move; they are deaf and blind; they are hideously shrunken with age. The natural transformation of language deprives them of all means of communication with new generations; they become strangers in their own society; burdened with all the miseries of old age, they survive endlessly in a state of desolate stupor. The progress of medicine provides us today with good illustrations of Swift’s vision.

We never cease to be astonished at the passing of time… This shows clearly that time is not our natural element: would a fish ever be surprised by the wetness of water? For our true motherland is eternity; we are the mere passing guests of time. Nevertheless it is within the bonds of time that man builds the cathedral of Chartres, paints the Sistine Chapel and plays the seven-string zither – which inspired William Blake’s luminous intuition. “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

The Real Point is Control: The Reception of Barbara McClintock’s Controlling Elements

Nathanael Comfort – Journal of the History of Biology 32: 133–162, 1999.

Of McClintock’s much-vaunted interest in the paranormal, her friend Evelyn Witkin said it wasn’t belief, but that “she just felt we were at a point of profound ignorance, that we were overestimating our understanding of the way things worked.”  The reference was to nature, but it might have been to the nature of science.

Henry Michaux



I am afraid
– afraid that,
once dead,
I shall have in some sense
to live even longer.
(Henri Michaux, Note sur le suicide)


One travels against.
To rid oneself from the native land,
his attachments of every kind
and everything that clings to oneself,
despite oneself.
Voyages of expatriation.
To travel in a sense to purge oneself:
Not to acquire anything.
To impoverish yourself.
That is what one needs.
(Henri Michaux, Interview)

Nano-intentionality: a defense of intrinsic intentionality

I suggest that most discussions of intentional systems have overlooked an important aspect of living organisms: the intrinsic goal-directedness inherent in the behaviour of living eukaryotic cells. This goal directedness is nicely displayed by a normal cell’s ability to rearrange its own local material structure in response to damage, nutrient distribution or other aspects of its individual experience. While at a vastly simpler level than intentionality at the human cognitive level, I propose that this basic capacity of living things provides a necessary building block for cognition and high-order intentionality, because the neurons that make up vertebrate brains, like most cells in our body, embody such capacities. I provisionally dub the capacities in question “nano-intentionality”: a microscopic form of “aboutness”. The form of intrinsic intentionality I propose is thoroughly materialistic, fully compatible with known biological facts, and derived non-mysteriously through evolution. Crucially, these capacities are not shared by any existing computers or computer components, and thus provide a clear, empirically-based distinction between brains and currently existing artificial information processing systems. I suggest that an appreciation of this aspect of living matter provides a potential route out of what may otherwise appear to be a hopeless philosophical quagmire confronting information-processing models of the mind.

W. Tecumseh Fitch

Body of Knowledge

The Body of Knowledge Matrix emerged as members of ADEC’s Credentialing Council, Body of Knowledge Committee, and Test Committee reflected on efforts to put into operation a valid exam measuring knowledge considered foundational to thanatology. The six categories (Y-axis) and ten indicators (X-axis) appearing below are considered fundamental to the understanding of thanatology. The examples in the various cells below are illustrative of topics considered probable when categories and indicators intersect.

Indicators/
Categories Cultural/Socialization Religious/Spiritual Professional Issues Historical Perspectives Contemporary Perspectives
DYING perspectives on dying, health care interactions, family roles facing death, rituals, meaning, suffering, impact on treatment decisions, afterlife, legacies self care, boundaries, compassion fatigue, burnout, attitudes toward dying hospice, causes and patterns of death in Western societies, influential theories global causes and patterns of death and lifestyle choices, gender issues, impact of technology, influential theories, death attitudes, role of complementary/alternative therapies
END-OF-LIFE DECISION- MAKING advance care planning, ethnic issues, values and attitudes, gender advance care planning, values and attitudes, beliefs and doctrines, suffering, sanctity of life, quality of life communication, understanding patient’s rights landmark legal cases, attitudes toward final disposition, evolution of advance care planning options and choices, impact of medical technology, impact of media and internet
LOSS, GRIEF, & MOURNING factors affecting experience of and expression of grief, impact on mourning practices meaning making, impact on mourning practices burnout, compassion fatigue, awareness of personal loss history, coping strategies, self assessment, self care, boundaries, clinical competency influential theories, post-death activities influential theories and models, post-death practices, media and internet, intervention strategies
ASSESSMENT & INTERVENTION advance care planning, cultural competence, communication, meaning of death components of spiritual assessment, interventions, facilitating integration of meaning and value of one’s life appropriate components of assessments, communication, professional liability and limitations, determining appropriate interventions in concert with evidence and client characteristics, professional responsibilities changes in determination of death, intervention theories prior to 1990 current assessment models, current therapeutic strategies, controversy about efficacy of interventions, complicated grief, gender considerations, pathologizing of grief
TRAUMATIC DEATH cause of death, meaning making, advance care planning, ethnic issues, values and attitudes, gender meaning-making, rituals, impact of religion appropriate training, professional response, commemorative activities, vicarious traumatization previous major traumatic occurrences recent/anticipated future traumatic occurrences, impact of communication systems, organ and tissue donation, current approaches
DEATH EDUCATION different death systems, diverse views about death diversity of religious beliefs, diversity of meaning making, diversity of spirituality evaluation of knowledge, criteria for an effective educator, methods, training specific to parameters of practice, media and internet attitudes towards death, history of thanatology as a discipline, historical eras advance care planning, influence of media and the internet, social concerns, components of death education

Indicators/ Categories Life Span Institutional/Societal Family & Individual Resources & Research Ethical/Legal
DYING
normative developmental tasks, developmental concepts of death, special populations hospice, palliative care, impact of politics, interacting with the healthcare system, special populations gender roles, communication, cultural impact on family roles, family history, coping strategies current significant research findings, organizations and journals, media and internet allocation of resources, ethical principles, legislation/medical practice
END-OF-LIFE DECISION- MAKING impact of age on decision-making, determining competency to make decisions advance care planning, health care legislation, public/mass media and political impact on decision-making advance care planning, treatment decisions, communication, family systems media and internet, professional organizations, current significant research findings principles of medical ethics, advance directives, landmark cases, legal planning, decision-making processes
LOSS, GRIEF,
& MOURNING impact of developmental stage on loss experience, specific types of loss and impact on grief and mourning media and internet, school/workplace grief, public deaths, political systems family life cycle, communication, impact of illness trajectory, grief styles, normative grief responses, impact of type of loss empirical research on current theories, research on effectiveness of intervention ethics and working with the bereaved, legal aspects of death
ASSESSMENT & INTERVENTION developmental considerations impact of death system, impact of societal infrastructure, contributions of grief support services family systems theory, gender issues, assessment of risk factors for complicated/prolonged grief, determining appropriateness of specific interventions evidence of effectiveness of assessment and intervention, community programs determination of death, informed consent, ethical principles, legal parameters around death, professional responsibilities
TRAUMATIC DEATH death patterns, issues specific to each developmental phase meaning making, role of the media and internet, infrastructure, types of traumatic deaths, impact on specific populations impact on experience of grief, types of traumatic deaths, coping strategies, individual differences, vicarious traumatization, social support major national organizations, current significant research findings criminal justice system, impact on larger society, ethical intervention issues
DEATH EDUCATION teaching across the life cycle, issues specific to each developmental phase, impact of life transitions influence of media and internet, varied educational settings, impact of larger systems, military formal, informal types of resources, understanding the research, importance of evidence-based practice, certification, professional organizations impact of legal system on death, understanding a professional code of ethics, applying principles of ethic
Association for Death Education and Counseling
400 S. 4th Street, Ste. 754E
Minneapolis, MN 55415 USA
Phone: 612-337-1808
adec@adec.orgMonday – Friday 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Join Membership Earn Certification

Body of Knowledge Matrix

Body of Knowledge Matrix

The Body of Knowledge Matrix emerged as members of ADEC’s Credentialing Council, Body of Knowledge Committee, and Test Committee reflected on efforts to put into operation a valid exam measuring knowledge considered foundational to thanatology. The six categories (Y-axis) and ten indicators (X-axis) appearing below are considered fundamental to the understanding of thanatology. The examples in the various cells below are illustrative of topics considered probable when categories and indicators intersect.Indicators/
CategoriesCultural/SocializationReligious/SpiritualProfessional IssuesHistorical PerspectivesContemporary PerspectivesDYINGperspectives on dying, health care interactions, family rolesfacing death, rituals, meaning, suffering, impact on treatment decisions, afterlife, legaciesself care, boundaries, compassion fatigue, burnout, attitudes toward dyinghospice, causes and patterns of death in Western societies, influential theoriesglobal causes and patterns of death and lifestyle choices, gender issues, impact of technology, influential theories, death attitudes, role of complementary/alternative therapiesEND-OF-LIFE DECISION- MAKINGadvance care planning, ethnic issues, values and attitudes, genderadvance care planning, values and attitudes, beliefs and doctrines, suffering, sanctity of life, quality of lifecommunication, understanding patient’s rightslandmark legal cases, attitudes toward final disposition, evolution of advance care planningoptions and choices, impact of medical technology, impact of media and internetLOSS, GRIEF, & MOURNINGfactors affecting experience of and expression of grief, impact on mourning practicesmeaning making, impact on mourning practicesburnout, compassion fatigue, awareness of personal loss history, coping strategies, self assessment, self care, boundaries, clinical competencyinfluential theories, post-death activitiesinfluential theories and models, post-death practices, media and internet, intervention strategiesASSESSMENT & INTERVENTIONadvance care planning, cultural competence, communication, meaning of deathcomponents of spiritual assessment, interventions, facilitating integration of meaning and value of one’s lifeappropriate components of assessments, communication, professional liability and limitations, determining appropriate interventions in concert with evidence and client characteristics, professional responsibilitieschanges in determination of death, intervention theories prior to 1990current assessment models, current therapeutic strategies, controversy about efficacy of interventions, complicated grief, gender considerations, pathologizing of griefTRAUMATIC DEATHcause of death, meaning making, advance care planning, ethnic issues, values and attitudes, gendermeaning-making, rituals, impact of religionappropriate training, professional response, commemorative activities, vicarious traumatizationprevious major traumatic occurrencesrecent/anticipated future traumatic occurrences, impact of communication systems, organ and tissue donation, current approachesDEATH EDUCATIONdifferent death systems, diverse views about deathdiversity of religious beliefs, diversity of meaning making, diversity of spiritualityevaluation of knowledge, criteria for an effective educator, methods, training specific to parameters of practice, media and internetattitudes towards death, history of thanatology as a discipline, historical erasadvance care planning, influence of media and the internet, social concerns, components of death education

Indicators/ CategoriesLife SpanInstitutional/SocietalFamily & IndividualResources & ResearchEthical/LegalDYING
normative developmental tasks, developmental concepts of death, special populationshospice, palliative care, impact of politics, interacting with the healthcare system, special populationsgender roles, communication, cultural impact on family roles, family history, coping strategiescurrent significant research findings, organizations and journals, media and internetallocation of resources, ethical principles, legislation/medical practiceEND-OF-LIFE DECISION- MAKINGimpact of age on decision-making, determining competency to make decisionsadvance care planning, health care legislation, public/mass media and political impact on decision-makingadvance care planning, treatment decisions, communication, family systemsmedia and internet, professional organizations, current significant research findingsprinciples of medical ethics, advance directives, landmark cases, legal planning, decision-making processesLOSS, GRIEF,
& MOURNINGimpact of developmental stage on loss experience, specific types of loss and impact on grief and mourningmedia and internet, school/workplace grief, public deaths, political systemsfamily life cycle, communication, impact of illness trajectory, grief styles, normative grief responses, impact of type of lossempirical research on current theories, research on effectiveness of interventionethics and working with the bereaved, legal aspects of deathASSESSMENT & INTERVENTIONdevelopmental considerationsimpact of death system, impact of societal infrastructure, contributions of grief support servicesfamily systems theory, gender issues, assessment of risk factors for complicated/prolonged grief, determining appropriateness of specific interventionsevidence of effectiveness of assessment and intervention, community programsdetermination of death, informed consent, ethical principles, legal parameters around death, professional responsibilitiesTRAUMATIC DEATHdeath patterns, issues specific to each developmental phasemeaning making, role of the media and internet, infrastructure, types of traumatic deaths, impact on specific populationsimpact on experience of grief, types of traumatic deaths, coping strategies, individual differences, vicarious traumatization, social supportmajor national organizations, current significant research findingscriminal justice system, impact on larger society, ethical intervention issuesDEATH EDUCATIONteaching across the life cycle, issues specific to each developmental phase, impact of life transitionsinfluence of media and internet, varied educational settings, impact of larger systems, militaryformal, informaltypes of resources, understanding the research, importance of evidence-based practice, certification, professional organizationsimpact of legal system on death, understanding a professional code of ethics, applying principles of ethic

Association for Death Education and Counseling

400 S. 4th Street, Ste. 754E

Minneapolis, MN 55415 USA

Phone: 612-337-1808adec@adec.org

Monday – Friday 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Tristan Tzara, The Death of Guillaume Apollinaire

“We know nothing
We know nothing of grief
The bitter season of cold
Ploughs long furrows in our muscles
He would have rather enjoyed delight in victory
We wise beneath calm sorrows caged
Unable to do a thing
If the snow fell upwards
If the sun rose among us during the night
To warm us
And the trees hung there in a wreath
– The only tear –
If the birds were among us to be mirrored
In the tranquil lake above our heads
WE MIGHT UNDERSTAND
Death would be a long and beautiful voyage
And an endless holiday for the flesh for structure for bone.”

Jack London, The White Silence

“Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity, – the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heavens artillery. But the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life
journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggots life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him, – the hope of the Resurrection and the life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence, – it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.”

The Animals Came Dancing – Native American Sacred Ecology And Animal Kinship – Howard L. Harrod

Experiences of the actual slaughter of domestic animals for food are available only to a minority and the generation that has memories of such experiences becomes smaller and smaller over each year. Television and advertising supply our experience with typifications of these animals but they are so cartoon like that they obscure from view the systematic and massive slaughter that occurs daily.

It is probably impossible for persons even to imagine the amount of blood, feathers, hair, and entrails that are by-products of this killing process. Equally unimaginable is the scale upon which individual animal sentience is confined under “factory farms” and then is efficiently extinguished without thought about the deeper meaning of such acts. For these reasons, food animals have a mostly shadowy relation to us. The connection between neatly packaged meat in the supermarkets and a once living animal is further obscure by a food culture that has shaped our tastes in a manner that is largely disconnected from a sense of primary relation with the natural world. That further diminish the possibility that animals will be understood to possess qualities that constitute them as sentience beings with relative autonomy and internal dimensions that are not fully known. Notions of their “spirit”, their internal complexity, and their religious or moral standing in relation to the human world become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. -Henry Beston

The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

“In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption in cortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in non-human animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness. Evidence that human and non- human animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.”

“Muito Paz e harmonia para com toda a obra da criacao. Esteja ela onde estiver. O mistério sagrado da existencia, so hoje eu o advinho. Ao ver que a alma tem a mesma essência. Quer guarde um berço, quer guarde um ninho.” Guerra Junqueira, O Melro (original in Portuguese)

Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

He was seized with that lust of conquest and thirst for the power of knowledge which every worker in the realm of thought, no matter how humble a drvidge he may later become, has surely felt once in his life, though for only one brief hour. Which one of us all, whom a kind fate has given the opportunity to care for the development of our own minds, has not gazed rapturously out over the boundless sea of knowledge, and which of us has not gone down to its clear, cool waters and begun, in the light-hearted arrogance of youth, to dip it out in our hollow hand as the child in the legend? Do you remember how the sun could laugh over the fair summer land, yet you saw neither flower nor sky nor rippling brook? The feasts of life swept past and woke not even a dream in your young blood; even your home seemed far away—do you remember? And do you also remember how a structure rose in your thoughts from the yellowing leaves of books, complete and whole, reposing in itself as a work of art, and it was yours in every detail, and your spirit dwelt in it? When the pillars rose slender and with conscious strength in their bold curves, it was of you that brave aspiring and of you the bold sustaining. And when the vaulted roof seemed to be suspended in air, because it had gathered all its weight, stone upon stone, in mighty drops, and let it down on the neck of the pillars, it was of you that dream of weightless floating, that confident bearing down of the arches; it was you planting your foot on your own.

In this wise your personality grows with your knowledge and is clarified and unified through it. To learn is as beautiful as to live. Do not be afraid to lose yourself in minds greater than your own! Do not sit brooding anxiously over your own individuality or shut yourself out from influences that draw you powerfully for fear that they may sweep you along and submerge your innermost pet peculiarities in their mighty surge! Never fear! The individuality that can be lost in the sifting and reshaping of a healthy development is only a flaw; it is a branch grown in the dark, which is distinctive only so long as it retains its sickly pallor. And it is by the sound growth in yourself that you must live. Only the sound can grow great.

Evolution of the neocortex: Perspective from developmental biology by Pasko Rakic

The enlargement and species-specific elaboration of the cerebral neocortex during evolution holds the secrets of humans’ mental abilities; however the genetic origin and cellular mechanisms generating the distinct evolutionary advancements are not well understood. If any organ of our body should be substantially different from any other species, it is the cerebral neocortex, the center of extraordinary human cognitive abilities.

This article describes how novelties that make us human may have been introduced during evolution, based on findings in the embryonic cerebral cortex in different mammalian species. The data on the differences in gene expression, new molecular pathways and novel cellular interactions that have led to these evolutionary advances may also provide insight into the pathogenesis and therapies for human- specific neuropsychiatric disorders.

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Functional anatomy of visual search: regional segregations within the frontal eye fields and effective connectivity of the superior colliculus

The ability to find targets embedded within complex visual environments requires the dynamic programming of visuomotor search behaviors. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to image subjects while they visually searched for targets embedded among foils.

Visuomotor search activated the posterior parietal cortex and the frontal eye fields. Both regions showed a greater number of activated voxels on the right, consistent with the known pattern of right hemispheric dominance for spatial attention. The superior colliculus showed prominent activation in the search versus eye movement contrast, demonstrating, for the first time in humans, activation of this region specifically related to an exploratory attentional contingency. An analysis of effective connectivity demonstrated that the search-dependent variance in the activity of the superior colliculus was significantly influenced by the activity in a network of cortical regions including the right frontal eye fields and bilateral parietal and occipital cortices. These experiments also revealed the presence of a mosaic of activated sites within the frontal eye field region wherein saccadic eye movements, covert shifts of attention, and visuomotor search elicited overlapping but not identical zones of activation. In contrast to the existing literature on functional imaging, which has focused on covert shifts of spatial attention, this study helps to characterize the functional anatomy of overt spatial exploration.

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Superior Colliculus, vision, mind, self

The superior colliculus is an important provider of visual maps and even has the ability to relate those visual maps to auditory and body-base maps. The inferior colliculus is dedicated to auditory processing. The activity of the superior colliculi may be a precursor of the mind and self processes that later blossom in the cerebral cortices.

Antonio Damasio

“No less important, art became a way to explore one’s own individuality and the individuality of others, a means to rehearse specific aspects of life, and a means to exercise moral judgement and moral actions. Ultimately, because the arts have deep roots in biology and the human body but can elevate humans to the greatest heights of thought and feeling, they became a way into the homeostatic refinement that humans eventually idealized and longed to achieve, the biological counterpart of a spiritual dimension in human affairs.” Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying – Afterlife in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Finally, the social institution controlling the  maintenance of the death concept has to harmonize its notions about the substance of death continuously with other significant slices of reality as  well, namely, with some changes of society and  culture. Consider the debates on reanimation and  euthanasia in the second half of the twentieth century. These debates constrained the Christian pastoral power to create its own standpoints, and to  partly rewrite some details of the Christian concept  of death such as other-worldly punishments of the  suicides.  These examples demonstrate that the complete  freedom of the attribution of meaning in the con-  struction of death concept is a mere illusion. This  freedom is significantly limited by the fact that these  beliefs are social products; in other words, that the  factors indispensable to the successful social process  of reality construction — to make a belief a solid and  valid reading of the reality for the "newcomers in  socialization" — are generally fairly limited. 
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Propaganda

“If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.” (Howard Zinn)

“When he recites his propaganda lesson and says that he is thinking for himself, when his eyes see nothing and his mouth only produces sounds previously stenciled into his brain, when he says that he is indeed expressing his judgment – the he really demonstrates that he no longer thinks at all, ever, and that he does not exist as a person.” (Jacques Ellul)

“Classic propaganda, as one usually thinks of it, is a vertical propaganda – in the sense that it is made by leader, technician, a political or religious head who acts from the superior position of his authority and seeks to influence the crowd below. Such propaganda comes from above. It is conceived in the secret recesses of political enclaves; it uses all technical methods of centralized mass communication; it envelops a mass of individuals; but those who practice it are on the outside. (Jacques Ellul)

“…propaganda…eliminates anxieties stemming from irrational and disproportionate fears, for it gives man assurances equivalent to those formerly given him by religion. It offers him a simple and clear explanation of the world in which he lives – to be sure, a false explanation far removed from reality, but one that is obvious and satisfying. It hands him a key with which he can open all doors; there is no more mystery; everything can be explained, thanks to propaganda. It gives him special glasses through which he can look at present-day history and clearly understand what it means. It hands him a guide line with which he can recover the general line running through all incoherent events. Now the world ceases to be hostile and menacing.” (Jacques Ellul)

“To warn a political system of the menace hanging over it does not imply an attack against it, but is the greatest service one can render the system. The same goes for man: to warn him of his weakness is not to attempt to destroy him, but rather to encourage him to strengthen himself… I insist that to give such warning is an act in the defense of man, that I am not judging propaganda with Olympian detachment, and that having suffered, felt, and analyzed the impact of the power of propaganda on myself… I want to speak of it as a menace which threatens the total personality.” (Jacques Ellul)

Pregnancy and Prostitution

Midwife Jane Sharp explains that if the cervix is ‘too often and unreasonably opened by too frequent, or in over moist bodies, or by the whites, it makes women barren, and therefore whores have seldom any children.

As Cornelia intimates, too much sex means too much fluid in the womb, and so it was assumed to be too wet and slippery for a pregnancy to survive. As Sharp’s modifier makes clear this assumption is only partially reliable and the reason whores only ‘seldom’ conceive. Sharp repeats this assertion in her later section on infertility, ‘too frequent use makes the womb slippery, and therefore whores have but few children.

Pregnancy and Prostitution

Social Control

“By and large, experimental science explains the world in terms of mechanisms, more or less eternal and independent of time and context. Historical reasoning explains the world through the three C’s: context, contingency, and cause-and-effect through time.

Context means that science doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It mattered that Nazi Germany arose after Progressive-era Americans had advanced a scientific program of sterilization and institutionalization of the defective. The Germans, sensing the power of rigid social control founded on scientific authority and finding that authority in American eugenics, modeled their infamous sterilization law of 1932 on Harry Laughlin’s “Model Sterilization Law” of 1922. Contingency means that it matters who did what when. Contingency says, “It could have been otherwise: Why did things turn out as they did instead of some other way?” And by continuity and change I mean that when a historian tries to understand the present in terms of the past.”

Reiner Sorries, Vom Guten Tod


Determining the time and nature of one’s own death and maintaining control of one’s own life and dying to the last – that is what many, especially the seriously ill, wish for. The book summarizes the answers of palliative medicine, psychiatry, medical ethics, and philosophy in dealing with death wishes and explains why there can be no socially accepted and propagated form of suicide assistance. It shows perspectives on what a good handling of death wishes can look like.


“How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on man and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death.” -Nietzsche, The Gay Science


In 1967, Thanatopsycology was part of an interdisciplinary field of research called thanatology. It was initially used to train doctors and nurses with the aim of improving communication with dying people. Gradually, however, attempts have been made to convey the scientific findings in schools and adult education in general terms. For this, the term “death education” arose. While in the USA in a third phase after 1967 Death education began to become popular under the influence of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the beginnings of similar efforts in this country can be recorded much later. Both terms – Death Awareness and Death Education – were difficult to translate into Grman when similar ideas began to be implemented in Germany as well.

At least since Immanuel Kant, autonomy has been regarded as the decisive criterion of human dignity.

Even if the forces then dwindle and the physical decay may make death welcome, Jorgmeier does not allow the talk of death to be regarded as redemption and exposes it as a “molecular sleight of hand tha destroys the extinction of existences as natural part of life”. One can only leave death for what it is: death is death. Life is life. And in between there would be no bridge, no sentences, no “meaningful ideologies that overcome death and suffering.

But we die alone, we do not die at the same moment. And therefore we must endure what is never tolerable: the death of others, the death of strangers and known, the hated and loved, the farthest and the next human beings. A face solidifies, and we stand helplessly beside it. Two eyes go blind, and we see the rupture. A man is falling apart, and we continue to know how he was called.

Death is a scandal, a vicious piggy bank! Say this every day before breakfast, scream in your ears, the legislator, yourself. They will refute you, they will tame you, because you all have to die. (Bazon Brock, 1965)

“The lifeless was there earlier than the living. (Sigmund Freud)

“Then he throws the shackles off himself, and he does not just do so in extreme need: but as soon as fate begins to become suspicious of him, he carefully consults with himself whether he should immediately put end to it.” (Seneca)

Charles Ives

“That grueling process, which consumes much of one’s time as a composer, has little to do with history, Freud, gender, or the theory, but with ear and intuition and soul and stubborn patience, and all the other indefinable but irreplaceable quality that make good art good. So it was with “The Unanswered Question.” (Jan Swafford)

Los Motivos del Lobo, Rubén Darío – translated and original


The man who has a heart of lis,
soul of a cherub, heavenly tongue,
the minimal and sweet Francis of Assisi,
he is with a rude and grim animal,
fearful beast, of blood and robbery,
the jaws of fury, the eyes of evil:
the wolf of Gubbia, the terrible wolf,
enraged, he has devastated the surroundings;
cruel has destroyed all the flocks;
he devoured lambs, he devoured shepherds,
and the deaths and damages of him are countless.
Strong hunters armed with irons
they were smashed. The hard fangs
they realized the bravest dogs,
like kids and lambs.
Francis left:
he sought the wolf
in his hole.
Near the cave he found the beast
enormous, that upon seeing him launched itself fiercely
against him. Francisco, with his sweet voice,
raising hand,
to the angry wolf he said: ?Peace, brother
wolf! The animal
He looked at the man in the rough sackcloth;
he left his surly air,
he closed the open aggressive jaws,
and he said: “Okay, brother Francisco!
How! ?exclaimed the saint?. Is it law that you live
of horror and death?
the blood that sheds
your diabolical snout, mourning and fear
that you spread, the crying
of the peasants, the cry, the pain
of so many creatures of Our Lord,
shall they not contain your infernal rancor?
Do you come from hell?
Has he instilled in you his eternal rancor
Luzbel or Belial?
And the great wolf, humble: ?Winter is hard,
and hunger is horrible! In the frozen forest
I did not find what to eat; and I looked for the cattle,
and sometimes I ate cattle and shepherd.
The blood? I saw more than one hunter
on his horse, carrying the goshawk
to the fist; or run after the boar,
the bear or the deer; and I saw more than one
to be stained with blood, to injure, to torture,
from the hoarse trumpets to the deaf clamor,
to the animals of Our Lord.
And it was not by hunger, they would hunt.
Francis responds: ?In man there is
bad yeast.
When he is born he comes with sin. He is sad.
But the simple soul of the beast is pure.
You are going to have
from today what to eat.
you will leave alone
flocks and people in this country.
God bless your wild being!
?Okay, brother Francisco de Asís.
?Before the Lord, who binds and looses everything,
in faith of promise give me the leg.
The wolf gave his paw to the brother
of Assisi, who in turn extended his hand.
They went to the village. people saw
and what he looked at almost did not believe.
After the religious went the fierce wolf,
and, head down, still I followed him
like a home dog, or like a lamb.
Francisco called the people to the square
and there he preached.
And he said: Here’s a friendly hunt.
Brother Wolf is coming with me;
he swore to me to no longer be your enemy,
and do not repeat the bloody attack of him.
You, on the other hand, will give their food
to the poor beast of God. ?So be it!,
All the people of the village answered.
And then, as a sign
of contentment,
The good animal moved head and tail,
and he entered the convent with Francisco de Asís.
*
For some time the wolf was calm
in the holy asylum
His coarse ears heard the psalms
and his clear eyes grew moist.
He learned a thousand thanks and played a thousand games
when he went to the kitchen with the legos.
And when Francisco made his prayer,
the wolf licked the poor sandals.
He went out into the street
he went through the mountain, descended into the valley,
he entered the houses and they gave him something
to eat. They looked at him like a tame greyhound.
One day, Francisco was absent. And the Wolf
sweet, the meek and good wolf, the fair wolf,
disappeared, returned to the mountain,
and they began their howling and fury again.
Once again the fear was felt, the alarm,
among the neighbors and among the shepherds;
the surroundings were filled with terror,
the courage and the weapon were useless,
Well, the wild beast
He never gave rest to his fury,
as if he had
fires of Moloch and of Satan.
When the divine saint returned to town,
everyone looked for him with complaints and tears,
and with a thousand complaints they gave testimony
of what they suffered and lost so much
by that infamous wolf of the devil.
Francisco de Asís became severe.
he went to the mountain
to look for the false butcher wolf.
And next to his cave he found the vermin.
?In the name of the Father of the sacred universe,
conjure you? he said ?, oh perverse wolf!,
to answer me: Why have you returned to evil?
Answers. I hear you.
As in deaf struggle, the animal spoke,
the foaming mouth and fatal eye:
?Brother Francisco, don’t get too close…
I was calm there in the convent;
to the town he went out,
and if they gave me something I was happy
and meek ate.
But I began to see that in all the houses
There were Envy, Fury, Anger,
and in all the faces the embers burned
of hate, of lust, of infamy and lies.
Brothers to brothers made war,
The weak lose, the bad win,
female and male were like dog and bitch,
and one fine day they all beat me up.
They saw me humble, I licked my hands
And feet. I followed your sacred laws,
all creatures were my brothers:
the brothers men, the brothers oxen,
star sisters and worm brothers.
And so they beat me and kicked me out.
And her laughter was like boiling water,
and within my entrails the beast revived,
and I suddenly felt like a bad wolf;
but always better than those bad people.
and I started fighting here again,
to defend me and feed me.
As the bear does, as the boar does,
that to live they have to kill.
Leave me on the mountain, leave me on the cliff,
let me exist in my freedom,
go to your convent, brother Francisco,
follow your path and your holiness.
The Saint of Assisi said nothing to him.
He looked at her with a deep look,
and he left with tears and grief,
and he spoke to the everlasting God with his heart.
The forest wind carried his prayer,
which was: Our Father, who art in heaven…
El varón que tiene corazón de lis,
alma de querube, lengua celestial,
el mínimo y dulce Francisco de Asís,
está con un rudo y torvo animal,
bestia temerosa, de sangre y de robo,
las fauces de furia, los ojos de mal:
el lobo de Gubbia, el terrible lobo,
rabioso, ha asolado los alrededores;
cruel ha deshecho todos los rebaños;
devoró corderos, devoró pastores,
y son incontables sus muertes y daños.
Fuertes cazadores armados de hierros
fueron destrozados. Los duros colmillos
dieron cuenta de los más bravos perros,
como de cabritos y de corderillos.
Francisco salió:
al lobo buscó
en su madriguera.
Cerca de la cueva encontró a la fiera
enorme, que al verle se lanzó feroz
contra él. Francisco, con su dulce voz,
alzando la mano,
al lobo furioso dijo: ?¡Paz, hermano
lobo! El animal
contempló al varón de tosco sayal;
dejó su aire arisco,
cerró las abiertas fauces agresivas,
y dijo: ?¡Está bien, hermano Francisco!
¡Cómo! ?exclamó el santo?. ¿Es ley que tú vivas
de horror y de muerte?
¿La sangre que vierte
tu hocico diabólico, el duelo y espanto
que esparces, el llanto
de los campesinos, el grito, el dolor
de tanta criatura de Nuestro Señor,
no han de contener tu encono infernal?
¿Vienes del infierno?
¿Te ha infundido acaso su rencor eterno
Luzbel o Belial?
Y el gran lobo, humilde: ?¡Es duro el invierno,
y es horrible el hambre! En el bosque helado
no hallé qué comer; y busqué el ganado,
y en veces comí ganado y pastor.
¿La sangre? Yo vi más de un cazador
sobre su caballo, llevando el azor
al puño; o correr tras el jabalí,
el oso o el ciervo; y a más de uno vi
mancharse de sangre, herir, torturar,
de las roncas trompas al sordo clamor,
a los animales de Nuestro Señor.
Y no era por hambre, que iban a cazar.
Francisco responde: ?En el hombre existe
mala levadura.
Cuando nace viene con pecado. Es triste.
Mas el alma simple de la bestia es pura.
Tú vas a tener
desde hoy qué comer.
Dejarás en paz
rebaños y gente en este país.
¡Que Dios melifique tu ser montaraz!
?Está bien, hermano Francisco de Asís.
?Ante el Señor, que todo ata y desata,
en fe de promesa tiéndeme la pata.
El lobo tendió la pata al hermano
de Asís, que a su vez le alargó la mano.
Fueron a la aldea. La gente veía
y lo que miraba casi no creía.
Tras el religioso iba el lobo fiero,
y, baja la testa, quieto le seguía
como un can de casa, o como un cordero.
Francisco llamó la gente a la plaza
y allí predicó.
Y dijo: ?He aquí una amable caza.
El hermano lobo se viene conmigo;
me juró no ser ya vuestro enemigo,
y no repetir su ataque sangriento.
Vosotros, en cambio, daréis su alimento
a la pobre bestia de Dios. ?¡Así sea!,
contestó la gente toda de la aldea.
Y luego, en señal
de contentamiento,
movió testa y cola el buen animal,
y entró con Francisco de Asís al convento.
Algún tiempo estuvo el lobo tranquilo
en el santo asilo.
Sus bastas orejas los salmos oían
y los claros ojos se le humedecían.
Aprendió mil gracias y hacía mil juegos
cuando a la cocina iba con los legos.
Y cuando Francisco su oración hacía,
el lobo las pobres sandalias lamía.
Salía a la calle,
iba por el monte, descendía al valle,
entraba en las casas y le daban algo
de comer. Mirábanle como a un manso galgo.
Un día, Francisco se ausentó. Y el lobo
dulce, el lobo manso y bueno, el lobo probo,
desapareció, tornó a la montaña,
y recomenzaron su aullido y su saña.
Otra vez sintióse el temor, la alarma,
entre los vecinos y entre los pastores;
colmaba el espanto los alrededores,
de nada servían el valor y el arma,
pues la bestia fiera
no dio treguas a su furor jamás,
como si tuviera
fuegos de Moloch y de Satanás.
Cuando volvió al pueblo el divino santo,
todos lo buscaron con quejas y llanto,
y con mil querellas dieron testimonio
de lo que sufrían y perdían tanto
por aquel infame lobo del demonio.
Francisco de Asís se puso severo.
Se fue a la montaña
a buscar al falso lobo carnicero.
Y junto a su cueva halló a la alimaña.
?En nombre del Padre del sacro universo,
conjúrote ?dijo?, ¡oh lobo perverso!,
a que me respondas: ¿Por qué has vuelto al mal?
Contesta. Te escucho.
Como en sorda lucha, habló el animal,
la boca espumosa y el ojo fatal:
?Hermano Francisco, no te acerques mucho…
Yo estaba tranquilo allá en el convento;
al pueblo salía,
y si algo me daban estaba contento
y manso comía.
Mas empecé a ver que en todas las casas
estaban la Envidia, la Saña, la Ira,
y en todos los rostros ardían las brasas
de odio, de lujuria, de infamia y mentira.
Hermanos a hermanos hacían la guerra,
perdían los débiles, ganaban los malos,
hembra y macho eran como perro y perra,
y un buen día todos me dieron de palos.
Me vieron humilde, lamía las manos
y los pies. Seguía tus sagradas leyes,
todas las criaturas eran mis hermanos:
los hermanos hombres, los hermanos bueyes,
hermanas estrellas y hermanos gusanos.
Y así, me apalearon y me echaron fuera.
Y su risa fue como un agua hirviente,
y entre mis entrañas revivió la fiera,
y me sentí lobo malo de repente;
mas siempre mejor que esa mala gente.
y recomencé a luchar aquí,
a me defender y a me alimentar.
Como el oso hace, como el jabalí,
que para vivir tienen que matar.
Déjame en el monte, déjame en el risco,
déjame existir en mi libertad,
vete a tu convento, hermano Francisco,
sigue tu camino y tu santidad.
El santo de Asís no le dijo nada.
Le miró con una profunda mirada,
y partió con lágrimas y con desconsuelos,
y habló al Dios eterno con su corazón.
El viento del bosque llevó su oración,
que era: Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielos…

Christoph Willibald Gluck – Melody from the opera Orpheus and Eurydice

To Lose a Dog is To Know Grief

“The deepest bonds I’ve had in my life have been with my dogs. I have been in love, I have had friends who have mattered more than others, I have been married and divorced, I have found love again, and I’ve found the joy of becoming an uncle to a beautiful niece and nephew. I adore and love those relationships completely, and value them beyond belief.”

“Yet, the yearning, enduring relationship of spending your life with a canine companion is one that no human companion can match. I don’t write that to dismiss the relationships I’ve had in my life, but rather to accentuate the difference between a bond between a human and a dog. There’s something genuinely unique and special about that kind of companionship, and it’s within Dean Spanley that that relationship, in its purest form, is depicted.”