Stephen Jenkinson interviews

Join host Ned Buskirk w/Scott Ferreter, in conversation with Stephen Jenkinson - teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, & founder of Orphan Wisdom - while they talk about approaching the feet of dying, Death etiquette & the case for elderhood in a time of trouble.

2021 April - You're Going to Die Podcast, Ned Buskirk & Scott Ferreter interview Stephen Jenkinson

Culture activist, worker, author ~ Stephen teaches internationally and is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, co-founded the school with his wife Nathalie Roy in 2010, convening semi-annually in Deacon, Ontario, and in northern Europe.

He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work).

Apprenticed to a master storyteller when a young man, he has worked extensively with dying people and their families, is former programme director in a major Canadian hospital, former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school.

He is also a sculptor, traditional canoe builder whose house won a Governor General’s Award for architecture.

Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical/ tent show revival/ storytelling/ ceremony of a show across North America, U.K. and Europe and Australia and New Zealand. They released their Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017 and at the end of 2020, they released two new records; Dark Roads and Rough Gods.

He is the author of Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002). He was a contributing author to Palliative Care – Core Skills and Clinical Competencies (2007).

Stephen Jenkinson is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker (National Film Board of Canada, 2008, dir. Tim Wilson), a portrait of his work with dying people, and Lost Nation Road, a shorter documentary on the crafting of the Nights of Grief and Mystery tours (2019, dir. Ian Mackenzie).

His books, recordings and DVDs are available for purchase at the Orphan Wisdom Shop.

How To Live Full & Die Wise (Stephen Jenkinson)

2018 - Vajra Body Vajra Mind, Jed Ward & Damian Able interview Stephen Jenkinson

An audio conversation hosted by Rachael Rice with Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul.

Stephen is a teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, farmer and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, a teaching house and learning house for the skills of deep living and making human culture. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time ​yet to come.​

A complete transcript of this interview is available at http://bit.ly/theroleofanartist

On The Role of An Artist with Stephen Jenkinson

A conversation with Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise and Come of Age, The Case for Elderhood in Times of Trouble about human culture and elderhood. 

 Intro music by Gregory Hoskins Band from Nights of Grief and Mystery:

https://gregoryhoskins.bandcamp.com/album/nights-of-grief-and-mystery

On Human Culture and Elderhood with Stephen Jenkinson [feat. Gregory Hoskins]

A Night Of Grief And Mystery Stephen Jenkinson

In this episode, author Stephen Jenkinson and CIIS Dean of Alumni Richard Buggs explore what it means to live, and die well.

Stephen Jenkinson: Cultivating Elderhood

The Magical Mystery Tour July 12 2019 Stephen Jenkinson Come of Age: Elderhood in a Time of Trouble

In this episode, I speak with culture activist, teacher, author and ceremonialist Stephen Jenkinson. We discuss his most recent performative project Nights of Grief & Mystery, made in collaboration with “song and dance man” Gregory Hoskins—as documented in the recent short film Lost Nation Road, directed by Ian MacKenzie.

After watching Ian MacKenzie’s short documentary film Lost Nation Road, I finally began to understand more fully the real spirit and essence of Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins’ exquisite and subversive project Nights of Grief & Mystery. By that, I mean the immersive and ritualized nature of this performative act. To describe this act merely as a storytelling/spoken word and musical performance is to reduce the unifying purpose to its individual components. Nights of Grief & Mystery subverts our notions of what performance is and could be in this time of deep trouble, and as Stephen elaborates in this interview, this act taps into something far older than that of theatrical performance—ritual. Ritual engages with the collective, requiring the participation of all involved, which stands in contrast with proper theatrical performance as we often conceive and experience it, which as Stephen expresses, is a disfigurement of ritual, creating an arbitrary division between the “audience” and the “performers.” In subverting our notions of performance, Stephen and Gregory conjure an experience that alludes to the question: In these times of deepening trouble, how do we conduct ourselves? “These are nights in which love letters to life are written and read aloud. There’s some boldness in them. They have that tone. These nights have the mark of our time upon them, and they’re timely, urgent, alert, steeped in mortal mystery. They’re quixotic. They have swagger. What would you call such a thing? We call them Nights of Grief & Mystery.”

// Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/stephen-jenkinson-2

// Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness 

// Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

206 / Our Devotional Act / Stephen Jenkinson

In this episode, I speak with Darcia Narvaez PhD, Professor of Psychology at Notre Dame University. Professor Narvaez is the author and editor of numerous books, including Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, and Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First-Nation Know-How for Global Flourishing. She also writes regularly for Psychology Today with her Moral Landscapes column, which explores her work with parenting, child development, self-development, and morality.

The first time I spoke with Darcia was almost three years ago, back when I was first beginning to do interviews for this podcast. A great deal has changed and happened since then, not only with my work specifically, but in the world at large. In contemplating the roots of the fragmented, disruptive responses the novel coronavirus pandemic has generated, I felt compelled to reconnect with Prof. Narvaez to discuss her insights into this subject. This includes an examination of the contemporary, common child-rearing practices in the West (specifically the United States), and how this informs the ideologies/belief systems people attach themselves to in states of crisis and uncertainty, such as ours.

// Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/darcia-narvaez-2

// Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness 

// Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

248 / Shifting Baselines / Darcia Narvaez

An interview with Bodhi Be, of Maui. Recorded July 2020.

2020 July - A Conversation, Bodhi Be interviews Stephen Jenkinson

A complete and augmented transcript of this interview can be found at: https://marketingforhippies.com/spells/

More interviews with Stephen can be found here:
https://marketingforhippies.com/category/stephen-jenkinson/

Stephen Jenkinson interviews

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