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Call to the Far Shore: Carrying Our Loved Ones through Dying, Death, and Beyond [Pehme köide]

  • Formaat: Paperback / softback, 256 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 229x152x18 mm, kaal: 308 g
  • Ilmumisaeg: 22-May-2025
  • Kirjastus: Destiny Books,U.S.
  • ISBN-13: 9798888501092
  • Formaat: Paperback / softback, 256 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 229x152x18 mm, kaal: 308 g
  • Ilmumisaeg: 22-May-2025
  • Kirjastus: Destiny Books,U.S.
  • ISBN-13: 9798888501092
""How to care for the dying for their healing, ours, and the world's"--Provided by publisher"-- Provided by publisher.

How to care for the dying for their healing, ours, and the world’s

• Explores how to carry our loved ones through death, how to honor their bodies and spirits, and how to awaken to the ever-present help of our ancestors

• Reveals the healing and closure that can be brought about through the process of washing and preparing a body for a home vigil or funeral

• Offers guidance on advance care planning, grieving, and forgiveness as well as green burial

Having become disconnected from the natural cycles of life, we have lost the fundamental knowing of what death looks like, and fear fills the void. How can we transform our fears surrounding death and be with the dying more fully and more consciously?

Through her work with the dying, Nancy MacMillan reveals the very real imaginal world where nature, myth, dreams, ancestors, and those yet to be born whisper from the far shore, a place beyond our last breath. She reminds us that caring for our dying consciously is a transformative act, radical even, in restoring meaning to our place and purpose in the universe. She explores how to carry our loved ones through death, how to honor their bodies and spirits, and how to awaken to the ever-present help of our ancestors. She shows how the practice of caring for the dead can help both those grieving and the newly dead, and she reveals how healing and closure can be brought about through the process of washing and preparing a body for a home vigil or funeral—a ritual she provided for her own mother.

Sharing personal stories, Nancy offers guidance on advance care planning, grieving, and forgiveness as well as green burial. Through her own close encounters with the specter of death, the author shows how to follow the ancient wisdom of "learning to die before you die" and find a seaworthy passage to the far shore.

Arvustused

Nancy MacMillan is an expert observer of dying. The Call to the Far Shore is both remarkable and personal. Her Celtic colors shine through this book with wisdom and insight. For her and hers, death is a homecoming. * Diana Beresford-Kroeger, Ph.D., author of To Speak for the Trees and Our Green Heart and creator of * The Call to the Far Shore is well written, deeply personal, level-headed, thoughtful, and fueled by compelling storiesthe authors own and those of others. Nancy MacMillan proves to be a most knowledgeable and compassionate guide on the journey we all eventually will make to the other side. * Lawrence Scanlan, author of A Year of Living Generously * You must read this book, and you must make sure that those you love read it, because it offers profound spiritual wisdom and practical, empathic guidance for navigating the inevitabilities of death. Beautifully written, this is as essential a resource for helping the dying as Spiritual Midwifery was for assisting birth. Sure to be a classic. * Perdita Finn, author of Take Back the Magic and The Way of the Rose * Nancy walks us through the deeply sacred journey of her mothers death, capturing the essence of home funerals while inspiring the reader to imagine caring for the dead in a slow and loving way. Her stories are artfully woven together while poignantly painting a picture of the incredible healing and feeling of completeness when grace prevails. I highly recommend this book for both those unfamiliar and those experienced with death; it is a loving guide to assist all who want to connect with the rituals that can be created at this portal. * Jerrigrace Lyons, founder of Final Passages: Institute of Conscious Dying, Home Funeral & Green Buri * This book brings a great lesson and healing to the world. One can feel the impact of what it will bring to so many people who are suffering because of disconnection from life itself, hence a fear of dying. When we realize that we are one and that we are connected deeply through the breath we take in, life is inevitable and death is the transformation of it. Nancy describes this phenomenon very beautifully in this inspiring book. * Efu Nyaki, author of Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and Somatic Experiencing * The Call to the Far Shore invites us to share Nancys experiences and the hard-won insights about the transformative aspects we can have around death and dying. If you choose to walk with her on the journey we all take, you will find fresh perspectives and resources that can strengthen you in your own encounters with the richness and restrictions of this mortal coil. You can begin to experience the wisdom of the deep embrace life holds us in as we struggle with fear, pain, and loss. She navigates and interweaves the physical challenges with the emotional and spiritual dimensions as one who has gone through the fire herself and found the light and warmth that is generated as the old, stiff wood is consumed. * Kenneth McAlister, M.D., founding member of the Canadian Anthroposophic Medical Association * What a weight in gold the pages of this book The Call to the Far Shore offer us! In this new gospel of the natural response to death, we witnesses of MacMillans soul experiences are invited to walk beside her as she shows us the mansions of grace to be experienced in following her call to us to be present and awake in the mysteries of life, death, and transition. This book must be available to all who walk the earth and will depart from it. * Phyllida Anam-Aire, Irish poet, psychotherapist, and author of A Celtic Book of Dying, The Last Ecst * I enjoyed this reflection on life and dying. It is an interesting mix of narrative and contemplation. I have worked in geriatric medicine and palliative care for thirty years and got new perspectives on aging and death from the book. * Chris Frank, M.D., professor of medicine at Queens University and clinical lead of specialize *

Foreword by Robert Sardello

Preface: Reimagining Death

1
Mums Breathing Has Changed
I do not see my mum suffering; I see her dyingThe tension between prolonged
living and prolonged dying

2
Scenes from Frontline Health Care
Listening as medicineBecome a safe container for your childThe morgue
visitThe geriatric unitWhat death looks like

3
Maybe Even Joyous
Dying with awarenessFinding the balance between pain and consciousnessOther
ways to work with pain and fearTalking to Mum about bringing her body home
after deathGiving my mother space to die

4
The Long Decline and the Hard Conversation
My mums many movesDecline into dementiaBecome a nonanxious
presenceAdvance care planning for the elderlyThe transition to long-term
careSiblings

5
Its a Multigenerational Story
Gathering the stories of our eldersWe are all matryoshka dolls

6
The Deepest Dive
My close encounters with deathCancer as a force in the worldFearMedical
treatment, complementary treatments You are never aloneWhat do you want to
be alive for?

7
A Different Kind of Medicine:
The Mythopoetic Story of Inanna
Playing chess with the devilInanna, our guide through the dark
unknownDescent, death, feeding the corpse, resurrectionTo die before you
dieGreek mysteries of Eleusis and psychotropic plant medicine

8
Becoming an Ancestor
Tracing back our rootsWho are your people?A Celtic pastAwakeningm to our
ancestors, descendants, and the unbornIntergenerational trauma

9
Continuing Our Connection beyond the Last Breath
Dads storyThe angel of deathBuilding a bridge to the dead

10
Grief, Communion, and a New Conversation
Speaking intimately in our dying daysThe continuing bondComplex
griefBuilding a big-enough storyA distilled essenceAnimal deathWorld
grief and a new conversation with Earth

11
The Spiritual Road to Ars Moriendi
Heart and soulSearching for more than a trickle of spiritA short story of
Christianity and GnosticismWe all pray to somethingBuddhist instructions
for dyingArs moriendi: Learn to die and you shall liveRudolf Steiner: The
dead are always with us

12
The Dying Time
Back to MumWhen stars collideLetting go of controlMums dying daysBehind
our dreams

13
Look, the Sun Just Came Out
Keening as lament and grief as praiseWhy am I still here?Mother Mary and
the divine feminineThe sun just came outExcavating childhood and building a
fuller story

14
A Ripe Completion
Shedding layers to dieThe measure of building characterAll is forgivenA
reckoning conversation with DadPurpose in being old

15
A Good Death?
Allisons storyNo one way for a good deathCaring presence at a
distanceTaking our cue from elephantsIndigenous children and unmarked
gravesDown into the womb to be born again

16
Building a Little Ship for Your Dead
Principles of green burialBecoming earthClosing Time death groupDay of the
DeadHungry ghostsSinging for the dying

17
Bringing Mum Home
Jittery nervesGet the casket nowLetting slow prevailDeveloping a
relationship with the local funeral homeCaring for a loved ones body at
homeMy death care team

18
Practicalities and Mysteries
Excarnating as a processThe life reviewKeeping Mums body coolNavigating
sisterly differencesVigiling and visitations
Ragged momentsShould the grandchildren come all that way?

19
To Carry Our Dead
RitualFuneral service and celebrationThe last goodbye

Postscript: Theres Always Grace

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Resources
Nancy MacMillan is a registered psychotherapist and retired certified spiritual care practitioner with masters degrees in education and theology and experience working in palliative care, intensive care, geriatrics, and bereavement. She lives outside of Kingston, Ontario.