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Die Wise

A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul

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Die Wise

By: Stephen Jenkinson
Narrated by: Stephen Jenkinson
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About this listen

 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.

Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it.

Table of Contents
The Ordeal of a Managed Death
Stealing Meaning from Dying
The Tyrant Hope
The Quality of Life
Yes, But Not Like This
The Work
So Who Are the Dying to You?
Dying Facing Home
What Dying Asks of Us All
Kids
Ah, My Friend the Enemy Death & Dying Grief & Loss Personal Development Relationships Social Sciences Sociology Dream Medicine

Critic Reviews

“Stephen Jenkinson’s elegant and sorrow-freighted book brings prophetic insight rather than pastoral affirmations. A true story-man, Jenkinson paints image after image on the cave wall of his parchment. Die Wise is a formidable body of work, road-tested in ways most of us hope never to know about. Stay with it, hold the sorrow as the gift it is, savor in small, immense chunks. Every word is an invitation to trade fantasy for imagination. There isn’t a book like it.”
—Dr. Martin Shaw, author of Snowy Tower: Parzival and the Wet, Black Branch of Language
All stars
Most relevant
Just a lovely and much needed view of the wholeness missing from western culture. Kind of like an invitation to live with our death, instead of hiding from and hating it.

So Beautiful

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Beautifully narrated by the author, giving the message in this book the clarity it deserves. A must read for everyone who is or who will die and anyone who attends the dying.
This is a thought provoking and challenging book. I will listen and read it again.

Deep Wisdom

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Could not stop listening to this. It was a superb mix of anecdotes and thoughts.
I do not necessarily agree with Stephen's words regarding culture, but certainly take his words onboard and appreciate them.
Wonderful book. I think most will get a lot out of this.

Fascinating

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There's a lot of truth in this book that isn't often spoken in our 'death-phobic' society. It's a long meandering, thought-provoking, rewarding listen. As someone who is dying a 'slow death', I found this book incredibly liberating. I felt it gave words to the half-formed ideas I couldn't properly express. I feel it has given me ownership of my experience in a new way. Can recommend for the dying & for those who would like to learn more.

Highly recommend

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Steven is a word turner of the highest order, only a craftsman like he can tackle this subject. Someone had to. Thanks

Needed to be said

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