The lights go down, people settle. A violin starts to play. Stage left, an elderly man walks onstage, alone, in a suit and tie, wearing a hat. This is John Cartwright, aged just 87 - The Performer. In this episode, we consider what performance means – on life as performance, and performance as life. How performance brings us alive, stretches us and helps us to grow. Punctuated by his poetry, John Cartwright provides a meditation on ageing, on the body, on movement, and what it means to be alive in this world. A refraction from within the kernel of a particular existence, turned outward and inward, shared. A mirror of life and death. The lights dim, the curtain closes… we applaud. We shuffle out, head our separate ways, holding the memory of the experience. We’re reflecting on what things mean. On who we love, and how we might do better. The stars in our own little life show, silently reciting our lines. Perhaps we sense a flickering curtain. Or can register the fading light. Or perhaps we’re entirely unaware that this is it, that life is no rehearsal…
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The lights go down, people settle. A violin starts to play. Stage left, an elderly man walks onstage, alone, in a suit and tie, wearing a hat. This is John Cartwright, aged just 87 - The Performer. In this episode, we consider what performance means – on life as performance, and performance as life. How performance brings us alive, stretches us and helps us to grow. Punctuated by his poetry, John Cartwright provides a meditation on ageing, on the body, on movement, and what it means to be alive in this world. A refraction from within the kernel of a particular existence, turned outward and inward, shared. A mirror of life and death. The lights dim, the curtain closes… we applaud. We shuffle out, head our separate ways, holding the memory of the experience. We’re reflecting on what things mean. On who we love, and how we might do better. The stars in our own little life show, silently reciting our lines. Perhaps we sense a flickering curtain. Or can register the fading light. Or perhaps we’re entirely unaware that this is it, that life is no rehearsal…
The lights go down, people settle. A violin starts to play. Stage left, an elderly man walks onstage, alone, in a suit and tie, wearing a hat. This is John Cartwright, aged just 87 - The Performer. In this episode, we consider what performance means – on life as performance, and performance as life. How performance brings us alive, stretches us and helps us to grow. Punctuated by his poetry, John Cartwright provides a meditation on ageing, on the body, on movement, and what it means to be alive in this world. A refraction from within the kernel of a particular existence, turned outward and inward, shared. A mirror of life and death. The lights dim, the curtain closes… we applaud. We shuffle out, head our separate ways, holding the memory of the experience. We’re reflecting on what things mean. On who we love, and how we might do better. The stars in our own little life show, silently reciting our lines. Perhaps we sense a flickering curtain. Or can register the fading light. Or perhaps we’re entirely unaware that this is it, that life is no rehearsal…
Zodwa Mabusela works for Khululeka, the only organisation in South Africa focused on children's grief. In this episode, she explains why it’s often difficult to help children in their grief, and what we can do about it. She shares her experience of working in some of our poorest communities, and what all children go through when it comes to death and loss of a loved one, regardless of your circumstances. Zodwa also shares - with great courage and candour - the story of the loss of her own daughter, and how she has dealt with her own grief, using this experience to strengthen the vital work she does.
Dion Chang is a well-known trends analyst who has trained as a death doula. He uses his skills and insight both in the world of work and as a companion to those experiencing something called disenfranchised grief, which is often associated with the loss of a cherished animal companion. In this episode, he describes his journey, offering invaluable perspective on cycles of life and death in several domains. He's a super-interesting guy with great ideas, who shares what it's like to enter the third age of life, and why he chooses rewirement over retirement.
Arabella Tresilian is an interpersonal mediator working in the medical care and end-of-life environment. She helps families find acceptance with each other and the challenges they face. Arabella’s nuanced understanding of how emotions manifest in people stems from an awareness of what’s at stake for people. She has a wonderful ability to integrate different stories into a bigger picture to help people move forward that is both inspiring and consoling. Discerning between empathy and the more radical effects of compassion, Arabella shares a range of insights in this episode, the tools and techniques that she uses to help people communicate deeply and arrive at a common understanding.
Rhiannon Thomas has learnt a new way of doing law. Guided by purpose and values, Integrative Law a radically different approach to the win/lose adversarial approach of traditional law. Instead, here is a process that is collaborative and reflective, integrating psychological, spiritual and cultural aspects of a person to discover what motivates their wishes and their actions. Because encountering the law is always an emotional thing - especially when it comes to those deathly bits - wills, guardianship, end-of-life care. Here's a better way to do those things...
In this fascinating episode, Warrant Officer Stephné Le Roux of the South African Police Service (SAPS) provides intimate detail of her work identifying skeletal remains. Frequently, this means determining whether these are perhaps from an ancient burial site or a more recent crime scene. In a country where endemic violence and poverty, migration, substance abuse and other factors tear families apart, many of our dead are unidentified, unclaimed. What is the story they tell?
Stephné discusses the challenges she faces, sharing good ideas to improve the systems that often make her work so challenging. With consistent humour and modesty, she shares detail of the techniques she uses to analyse human remains, and speaks candidly of how her work has influenced her attitude to life.
A whopper of an episode with an extraordinary guest, outgoing Emeritus Professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Cape Town Medical School, Dr Graham Louw. We discuss body donation and what it’s like for students to apprehend their first cadaver, and take a trip under the skin, besides discussing a whole pile of other things that Graham has learnt over his long career - a career which has benefited many thousands of people.
Eric Adjetey Anang grew up playing in his grandfather's carpentry workshop in Accra, where he learnt how to make the distinctive Ghanaian abebuu adekai - or 'boxes of proverbs.' These are the fantastic customized coffins pioneered by his grandfather, Kane Kwei, who made the first one in the shape of an airplane for a neighbour who had always wanted to fly... In this episode, you'll learn why you can't just order whatever shape you like, and when and why a death can be celebrated in Ghana.
Kirsty Horn is a Breast Cancer Warrior, no mere 'survivor.'
In this episode, she shares extremely useful insight gained during her diagnosis and treatment journey, with candour, energy and a great sense of humour. Tips for self-care, family relationships, support group formation for the help with the explicit nitty-gritty... as well as insider perspective to what kind of friendship and care helps best - this is an amazing resource for anyone who is starting this journey, or who wants to support someone they love.
Karen Borochowitz founded Dementia South Africa over 20 years ago, after caring for her mother who had Alzheimer's Disease. She shares a lifetime's worth of wisdom and insight into how to care for someone living with a dementia, how it impacts families and what they can do, and discusses stigma and the challenges experienced in South Africa.
Jill Katz is the person you want by your side to help navigate all the stuff a loved one leaves behind. Both super-practical and compassionate, Jill is blessed with intuition and a deep understanding of neurodivergent behaviour, and how we can all get stuck and overwhelmed. She provides a set of simple systems that help guide you through the clutter, and clear things away – materially, emotionally and cognitively – to unlock your true potential.
Keshnie Mathi is the Grief Companion - a human compendium of diverse emotion, humour, compassion and wisdom, wrapped in the professional ability to listen. In this episode, she details how she supports people in their grief. And at the end of the episode are a few ways you too can support someone experiencing the pain of loss.
Dr Ivan Schewitz is a veteran explorer of the thoracic cavity, having saved and improved many lives in his long and pioneering surgical career. In this episode, he reflects on what a lifetime's work has taught him about life and death, and the responsibility that he carries. He shares intimate experience about what it's like to save a life, and to lose one, and how best to communicate this to a family. A warm and affable man with great experience, related with humility and kindness.
Adriaan Bester has a clear eye and a steady hand, in a business that provides a service as old as time. His insight, compassion and sensitivity is perfectly suited to this culturally diverse country, steeped in traditional rites and rituals about death and dying. Yet Adriaan is an innovator, unafraid to introduce new technologies and new options for people who have lost a loved one. His experience is unique - and he relates it with kindness and warmth.
Dr. Mary Ryan is a priest and soul carer, someone with great experience at providing spiritual care at the end of life. In this episode, she discusses her journey toward priesthood, and the challenges she experiences as a woman and feminist. She explains what is meant by soul care, and what it's requirements are, as well as sharing a useful model of the stages of dying which helps us understand the needs of the dying person. Mary is a teacher and the inspiration behind the Soul Carers Network, an affiliation of soul carers with many different skills and aptitudes based in South Africa.
Ela Manga is an integrative medical doctor, highly attuned to the relationship between different systems in the body. She has a deep experience of death, and how breath plays a leading part in how we live and how we die. Her work is radical and gentle, profound and compassionate. In this episode, she shares her insight and experience with us, and some of the secrets to using a healing tool that's right under our noses.
Veteran teaching midwife Ciske van Straaten has vast experience of helping to bring life into the world, and has also been intimately involved in death. What has this taught her? What have these two moments got in common? How do they relate to each other, in the cycle of life?
Author of 'Crossing the River Styx - Memoirs of a Death Row Chaplain,' Russ Ford shares his experience of accompanying those condemned to die in their final years, months and earthly moments. This is a story of unlikely redemption in the face of self-righteous carnage and fear, a story of humility and courage. It is also a powerful testament to the institutionalized savagery of the death penalty as enacted in the state of Virginia, the first southern state to abolish the death penalty in 2021. Yet some want it back... here and elsewhere too. Russ's testament is a record and a guide to why this must never happen.
Who has the right to decide how someone else should die? In this episode, Sean Davison explains some of the terms involved in his quest to help legalise assisted dying in South Africa, and makes a compelling case to advance this option for all South Africans. It's nothing less than a human right: the right to die a death with dignity, on one's own terms.
An in-depth look with leading experts at the pioneering technology that enhances natural decomposition of human remains, helping get you back into Mather Earth where you belong.
The lights go down, people settle. A violin starts to play. Stage left, an elderly man walks onstage, alone, in a suit and tie, wearing a hat. This is John Cartwright, aged just 87 - The Performer. In this episode, we consider what performance means – on life as performance, and performance as life. How performance brings us alive, stretches us and helps us to grow. Punctuated by his poetry, John Cartwright provides a meditation on ageing, on the body, on movement, and what it means to be alive in this world. A refraction from within the kernel of a particular existence, turned outward and inward, shared. A mirror of life and death. The lights dim, the curtain closes… we applaud. We shuffle out, head our separate ways, holding the memory of the experience. We’re reflecting on what things mean. On who we love, and how we might do better. The stars in our own little life show, silently reciting our lines. Perhaps we sense a flickering curtain. Or can register the fading light. Or perhaps we’re entirely unaware that this is it, that life is no rehearsal…
