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Articles on Mourning

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A residential area destroyed by wildfires is shown in Enterprise, N.W.T. on Oct. 11, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

Could the good news story about the ecological crisis be the collective grief we are feeling?

News about the growing ecological crisis may cause people to feel grief and fear. It is understandable to seek relief from these feelings and look for good news. But what if grief is the good news?
Hindu devotees prepare to scatter ashes of the deceased into the sea as part of Ngaben, a mass cremation ceremony, in Surabaya, Indonesia. Juni Kriswanto/AFP via Getty Images

From India and Taiwan to Tibet, the living assist the dead in their passage

Across cultures, death rituals give mourners a chance to grieve. But they also offer one last opportunity to help the deceased as they transition to the next stage of existence.
Reflection Rooms are evidence-based, participatory art installations that help people express emotions about death and dying. (Shutterstock)

Reflection Room: Exploring pandemic-related grief in long-term care homes

Reflection Rooms support people making sense of experiences related to dying and death. They provide an immersive space to read stories written by others and write and share their own stories.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth, questions arise about whose life gets mourned and who does not. Here is the Queen with the Guards of Honour in Nigeria, Dec. 3, 2003, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

About the Queen and the Crown’s crimes (or how to talk about the unmourned) — Podcast

In the middle of the tremendous outpouring of love and grief for the Queen and the monarchy she represented, not everyone wants to take a moment of silence. And there are a lot of reasons why.
Members of the British royal family follow behind the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II as it is carried out of Westminster Abbey after her state funeral. Gareth Cattermole/Pool Photo via AP

Westminster Abbey has witnessed nearly a millennium of British history – but many rituals, like those at royal funerals, aren’t so old

A scholar of British history explains how the ornate church and its significance to the monarchy have changed over centuries.
A wooden effigy of a man is erected each year in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and later burned down. AP Photo/Ron Lewis

Burning Man highlights the primordial human need for ritual

In Nevada, people create a makeshift city toward the end of summer and later burn it down. What’s behind this event, and what makes it meaningful?
Andy Rain/EPA/AAP

Why do we mourn people we don’t know?

Grieving the queen’s passing can be different to grieving the loss of someone we were close to. It’s also complicated by politics, colonialism and the contest about who she really was.
When a person loses a loved one to COVID-19, the mental health effects can be severe. Ol'ga Efimova / EyeEm via Getty Images

1 in 8 U.S. deaths from 2020 to 2021 came from COVID-19 – leaving millions of relatives reeling from distinctly difficult grief

COVID-19 deaths tend to be more unexpected and traumatic than other types of deaths. A sociologist explains the mental health burdens facing the millions who’ve lost a relative to the coronavirus.
A man identified only as Viktor shows his neighbor’s grave in Bucha, Ukraine. It was too dangerous to go to the cemetery. Jana Cavojska/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

How burying the dead keeps the living human

Ukrainian families’ anguish at not being able to bury their loved ones underscores a deep human need, an anthropologist writes.

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