The Call to the Far Shore: Carrying Our Loved Ones Through Dying, Death, and Beyond
This poignant guide by Nancy MacMillan and Robert Sardello invites readers to reimagine our relationship with death. It offers a compassionate framework for supporting loved ones through their final transition, emphasizing spiritual connection and mindful presence. By embracing practices like preparing the body and engaging with the imaginal realm, the book seeks to dissolve fear, foster healing, and integrate death back into life's natural rhythms. Discover how conscious care can be a profoundly transformative act for individuals and the wider world.
Praise for this book
“Nancy MacMillan is an expert observer of dying. The Call to the Far Shore is both remarkable and personal. Her Celtic colors shine through this book with wisdom and insight. For her and hers, death is a homecoming.”
📝 Description: The Call to the Far Shore: Carrying Our Loved Ones Through Dying, Death, and Beyond
📑 What's inside
- Foreword by Robert Sardello Preface: Reimagining Death
- 1 Mum's Breathing Has Changed
- I do not see my mum suffering; I see her dying--The tension between prolonged living and prolonged dying
- 2 Scenes from Frontline Health Care
- Listening as medicine--Become a safe container for your child--The morgue visit--The geriatric unit--What death looks like
- 3 Maybe Even Joyous
- Dying with awareness--Finding the balance between pain and consciousness--Other ways to work with pain and fear--Talking to Mum about bringing her body home after death--Giving my mother space to die
- 4 The Long Decline and the Hard Conversation
- My mum's many moves--Decline into dementia--Become a nonanxious presence--Advance care planning for the elderly--The transition to long-term care--Siblings
- 5 It's a Multigenerational Story
- Gathering the stories of our elders--We are all matryoshka dolls
- 6 The Deepest Dive
- My close encounters with death--Cancer as a force in the world--Fear--Medical treatment, complementary treatments-- You are never alone--What do you want to be alive for?
- 7 A Different Kind of Medicine: The Mythopoetic Story of Inanna
- 8 Becoming an Ancestor
- Tracing back our roots--Who are your people?--A Celtic past--Awakeningm to our ancestors, descendants, and the unborn--Intergenerational trauma
- 9 Continuing Our Connection beyond the Last Breath
- Dad's story--The angel of death--Building a bridge to the dead
- 10 Grief, Communion, and a New Conversation
- Speaking intimately in our dying days--The continuing bond--Complex grief--Building a big-enough story--A distilled essence--Animal death--World grief and a new conversation with Earth
- 11 The Spiritual Road to
- Ars Moriendi
- 12 The Dying Time
- Back to Mum--When stars collide--Letting go of control--Mum's dying days--Behind our dreams
- 13 Look, the Sun Just Came Out
- Keening as lament and grief as praise--Why am I still here?--Mother Mary and the divine feminine--The sun just came out--Excavating childhood and building a fuller story
- 14 A Ripe Completion
- Shedding layers to die--The measure of building character--All is forgiven--A reckoning conversation with Dad--Purpose in being old
- 15 A Good Death?
- Allison's story--No one way for a good death--Caring presence at a distance--Taking our cue from elephants--Indigenous children and unmarked graves--Down into the womb to be born again
- 16 Building a Little Ship for Your Dead
- Principles of green burial--Becoming earth--Closing Time death group--Day of the Dead--Hungry ghosts--Singing for the dying
- 17 Bringing Mum Home
- Jittery nerves--Get the casket now--Letting slow prevail
- Developing a relationship with the local funeral home--Caring for a loved one's body at home--My death care team
- 18 Practicalities and Mysteries
- Excarnating as a process--The life review--Keeping Mum's body cool--Navigating sisterly differences--Vigiling and visitations--Ragged moments--Should the grandchildren come all that way?
- 19 To Carry Our Dead
- Ritual--Funeral service and celebration--The last goodbye
- Postscript: There's Always Grace
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Resources
💎 Expert review
📖 Why choose it
Why this book is worth reading
This book is an essential companion for those who find the modern medicalization of death alienating and wish to reclaim its spiritual depth. It serves hospice workers, grieving families, and anyone seeking to dissolve their fear of mortality by offering practical, compassionate frameworks for supporting loved ones through their final transition. Readers will gain valuable tools for mindful presence and engaging with the imaginal realm, transforming the dying process into a healing act that integrates death back into life’s natural rhythms.
⭐ Reader reviews
Reader rating
Sardello and MacMillan provide a deeply moving guide that successfully humanizes the clinical reality of dying. By emphasizing spiritual connection and conscious care, they offer a refreshing perspective on end-of-life support. However, readers seeking rigid theological doctrines or strictly scientific medical advice will likely find this approach too abstract or vague. It is best suited for those already open to esoteric concepts like the imaginal realm and who desire an emotional, rather than clinical, framework for navigating grief and transition.
❓ Frequently asked questions
📖 Who should read this
If you're supporting a loved one through their final journey, grappling with grief, or simply seeking a more meaningful understanding of mortality, this book offers profound insights. It's for anyone ready to embrace death not as an end, but as a sacred, transformative passage.
🎯 Key themes and symbolism
Mindful Passage & Sacred Care
This book champions an active, intentional approach to accompanying the dying. Moving beyond passive observation, it advocates for practices honoring the individual's spiritual and physical journey. It ensures their passage is met with profound respect, love, and a conscious awareness, transforming a fearful event into a sacred rite of passage.
Transcending Fear of Mortality
Addressing the modern disconnect from death's natural cycle, the text helps readers confront and transform their anxieties. It provides tools and perspectives to demystify dying, allowing for a more engaged and less fearful presence with those nearing the end, ultimately fostering healing and acceptance.
Ancestral Wisdom & Spiritual Ties
MacMillan explores the potent, often overlooked, connection between the living, the dying, and the ancestral realm. It suggests that by opening to this "imaginal world" of dreams, myths, and spiritual influences, we can find solace, guidance, and a deeper sense of continuity that extends beyond physical existence.
📜 Historical context
📚 Glossary
- Imaginal World
- Conscious Dying
- Home Vigil
📔 Questions to reflect on
- How might embracing the "imaginal world" shift your perception of loss and the enduring presence of those who have passed?
- What are your personal fears surrounding death, and how could a more conscious approach to dying help transform them?
- In what ways can you honor the natural cycles of life and death more fully in your own life and community?
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