Stephen Jenkinson – spiritual activist, author, teacher and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, Ottawa Canada is coming to Wales for the first time in November to teach two weekend workshops in Newport, Gwent and at the Small World Theatre Cardigan, Ceredigion in conjunction with Holy Hiatus.

Pembrokeshire based artist Ruth Jones set up Holy Hiatus, a not for profit community interest company to bridge the space between art and spirituality. Having seen the film “Griefwalker”, a lyrical and poetic portrait of Stephen’s work with dying people, Ruth invited Stephen Jenkinson to come to Wales, in conjunction with Newport based therapist Keith Hackwood, as part of the project “The Quick & the Dead”, exploring birth and death rites and relationships between the living and the dead.

Stephen worked for thirty years in palliative care, as the leader of a grief counselling team at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. He has been at the bedside of over 1000 dying people, and teaches that accepting death and transcending our fear of it is the key to embracing our humanity in all its joy and grief. He has made it his life's mission to change the way we die - to turn the act of dying from denial and resistance into an essential part of life. He says ‘a good dying is nothing less than cultural subversion…It is an act of love and of revolution. Knowing death well and being useful when it comes is a redemptive thing’. Critical of death-phobic cultures that believe that the endless pursuit of growth and personal happiness can stave off the political, economic and ecological crises that we face collectively, Stephen has developed a philosophy around deep living and dying well and now teaches all over the world in his charismatic and inspiring bardic style.

The first workshop titled “The Meaning of Death” in Tredegar House, Newport Gwent on 22nd and 23rd November will explore care of the dying. “Death - the cradle of your love of life” will take place on 29th and 30th November at Small World Theatre, Cardigan and will explore our relationship to grief and address the complex relationships we have with those who have died before us.

Tickets cost £160 per weekend including lunches, concessions for those on low incomes are available on request. Online booking is available at www.holyhiatus.co.uk or for further information email Ruth holyhiatuswales@gmail.com

In addition there will be a screening of the film Griefwalker with a Q & A with Stephen on Friday 28th November 6-8 pm at Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan. Tickets cost £10.50 / £9.50. Book via Theatr Mwldan