"Griefwalker"

Griefwalker is a National Film Board of Canada feature documentary film, directed by Tim Wilson and produced in 2008.  It is a lyrical, poetic portrait of Stephen Jenkinson’s work with dying people.  Filmed over a twelve year period, Griefwalker shows Jenkinson in teaching sessions with doctors and nurses, in counselling sessions with dying people and their families, and in meditative and often frank exchanges with the film’s director while paddling a birch bark canoe about the origins and consequences of his ideas for how we live and die.  A few of the themes appearing in the film: Where does our culture’s death phobia come from?  Is there such a thing as good dying?  How is it that grief could be a skill instead of an affliction?  Who are the dead to us?  How can seeing your life’s end be the beginning of your deep love of being alive?

The film in its entirety may be watched for free on the National Film Board of Canada web site.