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The Last Dance
Innocence and existence entwined in one last dance.

Dina Stander
Jul 17, 20233 min read


Soft Time: the handmade shrouds of Dina Stander
A remarkable conversation about the work and why of shrouding with documentary film maker Jan Sturman.

Dina Stander
Sep 7, 20211 min read


kvelling
I wander out and bend into mercy, pushing away leaves to find a purple coyote amongst the detritus.

Dina Stander
Mar 12, 20210 min read


Safe home Lawrence Ferlinghetti ~ 2/23/21
... he was hanging something up on a wall, pounding a nail, laughing, he looked over his shoulder at the camera. There was a spark.

Dina Stander
Feb 23, 20211 min read


On Radical Kinship
Radical kinship, acting from the heart of our relationship with all things, is the best way I know to wake myself from numbness.

Dina Stander
Feb 17, 20211 min read


A Solstice Ramble on Shadows and Loss
I am watching a winter sunset and welcoming the evening after a big snow. More than a foot fell. The woods are quiet. I woke up with my...

Dina Stander
Dec 17, 20203 min read


poem: just asking
after ... when it is safe

Dina Stander
Nov 25, 20201 min read


As Death Becomes Us
A meditation about our end-of-life is not the same as being our own Endling. Death is a trickster in traveling shoes. We do our best.

Dina Stander
Sep 11, 20205 min read


Poem: shout!
sometimes I feel
the weight of what
is yet to come
and instead of
pushing it off
I open my heart

Dina Stander
Aug 17, 20201 min read


Waiting for the Drought to Break
There is nothing quite as exquisite as anticipating spine surgery. You know that you will wake up feeling like you got kicked by a horse.

Dina Stander
Aug 4, 20203 min read


Prayer to Bless the Earth Receiving Burials at Hart Island
May each breath be a solace and may remembering bring a blessing.

Dina Stander
Apr 20, 20202 min read


covid ~ anguish ~ 'last touch'
How to reach for connection when devices can't 'hit the spot'... and you're trying to convey a life time of love through a puny phone.

Dina Stander
Apr 11, 20204 min read


Dancing With the Bones: Distanced Grieving
It is ok not to be ok. We are here to companion distanced grieving because human beings are in crisis... so I took my question to the trees.

Dina Stander
Apr 7, 202017 min read


By Donation/Pay As You Can
I made a decision today, based on my commitment to radical kinship. From now on my services are offered for a pay-what-you-can donation.

Dina Stander
Mar 25, 20204 min read


Each to their island... March 2020
There is no normal to retreat to. I stop, sit, take a breath and let it go. Wiggle the toes, accept not knowing, do my best and be here now.

Dina Stander
Mar 23, 20202 min read


Companioning the Dying: say what?
However you embrace or wrastle with your own mortality, companioning the dying will bring you (as my own old dead dad would say) toe to toe

Dina Stander
Feb 26, 20207 min read


A Treatise on EOLDs and Sliding Fee Scales
In a society that commodifies everything, alternative paradigms will sometimes be considered radical. Welcome to my world, Doula friends!

Dina Stander
Feb 20, 20206 min read


Click Clack
I go out into the cold, stand close to a tall oak and listen to it commune with the cosmos, feeling my smallness to the marrow of my bones.

Dina Stander
Jan 31, 20202 min read


Solstice Blues (then & now)
I went looking in my archives for Solstice writing and offer this updated reflection on optimism and coping skills for dark times.

Dina Stander
Dec 22, 20196 min read


On Suffering
In which Dina describes to a roundtable of religious colleagues how she (an atheist) makes sense of the human predicament...

Dina Stander
Dec 14, 20197 min read
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