These Tidings first came to you from Jamaica where I spent time with two artists in their family "yard"or compound in Oracabessa.  You'll hear Rani Carson talk about her journey from growing up Jewish to becoming a Rasta artist.

            

Ras Ibrak, intuitive Jamaican artist, talks about the philosophy and beliefs of Rastafari and what it means to live the life of a Rastamon.

            

Please follow the links to see more of their work. (Rebroadcast on WPKN on August 10, 2016. Produced by Tony Ernst.)

Bob Jester returns to North Fork Works seven years after our first conversation.  Three years ago, Bob was in a terrible accident and this time he talks about his altered life, what he has learned about unremitting pain and how virtual reality has helped. (Broadcast on WPKN April 3, 2019 and produced by Tony Ernst.)

Glynis Berry, architect, planner and water activist talks about water conservation, describes the existential threats to Long Island’s aquifer and explains why Southold’s water consumption is not sustainable. (First broadcast on WPKN radio on Sept.5, 2018 and produced by Tony Ernst.)

https://ia601408.us.archive.org/34/items/GlynisBerryNorthForkWorks090518/Glynis%20BerryNorth%20Fork%20Works%20-%2009-05-18.mp3

Michael Zweig, recently retired Stony Brook professor of economics, author, veteran activist in the labor and union movement and many other causes including Labor Against War and Poor People's Campaign.  Michael lives in Peconic, on the North Fork. (First broadcast on WPKN on July 4, 2018 and produced by Tony Ernst.)

https://ia601509.us.archive.org/0/items/MichaelZweigNorthForkWorks070418/MichaelZweig-NorthForkWorks-07-04-18.mp3

Poppy Johnson, assistant library director at Greenport's 100-year old Roger Memorial Library, talks about how she and the library became what they are and what role the library plays in the community.  (First broadcast on WPKN on April 4, 2018 and produced by Tony Ernst.)

https://ia601509.us.archive.org/19/items/PoppyJohnsonNorthForkWorks040418/PoppyJohnson-NorthForkWorks-04-04-18.mp3

Laura Klahre, scientist, bee farmer, owner of Blossom Meadow Farm and Southold resident, talks about pollination, native bees and their existential importance.  (Re-broadcast on WPKN March 2, 2016.  Produced by Tony Ernst.)

https://ia800204.us.archive.org/12/items/LauraKlahreNorthForkWorks030216/LauraKlahre-NorthForkWorks-03-02-16.mp3

Steph Gaylor of Invincible Summer Farms and Long Island Regional Seed Consortium speaks frankly about what she has learned about farming and food and seed production since our first interview in 2012,.  Steph's analysis goes well beyond her own experience to what she has learned from historical and global research and what she understands about the development of policies and best practices.  (Broadcast on WPKN January 3, 2018 and produced by Tony Ernst)

https://ia601502.us.archive.org/15/items/StephGaylorNorthForkWorks010318/StephGaylor-NorthForkWorks-01-03-18.mp3

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

For a few months now I have been wondering what does it feel like to be dying?  We can describe our own hunger, joy, pain, fear, excitement, fatigue, so why shouldn’t we also be able to describe our own dying?

I now realize that this is an aggressive maybe even an impertinent question.  People turn away when I tell them I’m looking to answer it. It’s not that dying is a provocative subject like

 

Gaza or tipping or beggars or eating animals where it’s easy to engage people.  No, it’s that dying is a  profoundly disturbing, taboo subject in our culture and not one that easily invites exploration or conversation.As I did the research for this program I wondered if the experience of dying might be beyond language although Leo Tolstoy gave lie to that idea in his brilliant short story “The Death of Ivan Illyich,” which he completed in 1886.   Poor Ivan Illyich!  How much less wretched his dying would have been had he had access to a 21st century hospice program!

Although I don’t know if Tolstoy based his harrowing account of dying on observation or intuition or books, in my search I turned to three women, each of whom have spent considerable parts of their professional lives with dying people.I am grateful to Sarah Zimmerman, Nancy Gray and Vicky Cortese, who live and work in eastern Long Island as I do, for the generosity with which they gave me their time and shared their experiences and thoughts. Most of what we know about how dying feels is what we have inferred from the behavior of dying people: we can observe and describe the changes we witness in the dying person but can only guess whether that’s also what it feels like. Please tune to the podcast in which you will hear more about them and where you can listen to each of them as they help me answer my question: what is dying like?

Here is a summary of the insights and observations you will hear:  The enormity of it for some, the denial of it for others;  the subtle move to the interior, the beginning of withdrawal from the world;  the unpredictability of individual differences; dying as a process of divestment, which brings with it a distillation or purification.  The potential for misunderstanding what dying people are communicating because they may express themselves an obscure or unexpected way, sometimes in symbols or dreams or what we might describe as visitations, visions or hallucinations.  We hear about dying people who seem to have control over the timing or circumstances of their death--waiting for something or somebody or simply turning away to die;  the mysterious way in which a person dies at the very moment that family members have briefly left the bedside or the nurse has left the room.

Looking back on what I’ve learned, I see that Sarah, Nancy and Vicky were each reluctant at times to generalize when I pressed them for conclusive answers.  I realize now that much of their knowledge is intuitive, coming as it does from working with people on an individual, one-on-one level. They also share a willingness to acknowledge the mysterious,  to be comfortable with the unknown and with perhaps never knowing the answers.

Perhaps, I told myself more than once, it’s presumptive and intrusive to ask the question,  to enquire any more closely into it than I did. Maybe what it’s like to be dying is a question that can’t be answered and maybe that’s the answer.

For a few months now I have been wondering what does it feel like to be dying?  We can describe our own hunger, joy, pain, fear, excitement, fatigue, so why shouldn’t we also be able to describe our own dying?

I now realize that this is an aggressive maybe even an impertinent question.  People turn away when I tell them I’m looking to answer it. It’s not that dying is a provocative subject like

 

Gaza or tipping or beggars or eating animals where it’s easy to engage people.  No, it’s that dying is a  profoundly disturbing, taboo subject in our culture and not one that easily invites exploration or conversation.As I did the research for this program I wondered if the experience of dying might be beyond language although Leo Tolstoy gave lie to that idea in his brilliant short story “The Death of Ivan Illyich,” which he completed in 1886.   Poor Ivan Illyich!  How much less wretched his dying would have been had he had access to a 21st century hospice program!

Although I don’t know if Tolstoy based his harrowing account of dying on observation or intuition or books, in my search I turned to three women, each of whom have spent considerable parts of their professional lives with dying people.I am grateful to Sarah Zimmerman, Nancy Gray and Vicky Cortese, who live and work in eastern Long Island as I do, for the generosity with which they gave me their time and shared their experiences and thoughts. Most of what we know about how dying feels is what we have inferred from the behavior of dying people: we can observe and describe the changes we witness in the dying person but can only guess whether that’s also what it feels like. Please tune to the podcast in which you will hear more about them and where you can listen to each of them as they help me answer my question: what is dying like?

Here is a summary of the insights and observations you will hear:  The enormity of it for some, the denial of it for others;  the subtle move to the interior, the beginning of withdrawal from the world;  the unpredictability of individual differences; dying as a process of divestment, which brings with it a distillation or purification.  The potential for misunderstanding what dying people are communicating because they may express themselves an obscure or unexpected way, sometimes in symbols or dreams or what we might describe as visitations, visions or hallucinations.  We hear about dying people who seem to have control over the timing or circumstances of their death--waiting for something or somebody or simply turning away to die;  the mysterious way in which a person dies at the very moment that family members have briefly left the bedside or the nurse has left the room.

Looking back on what I’ve learned, I see that Sarah, Nancy and Vicky were each reluctant at times to generalize when I pressed them for conclusive answers.  I realize now that much of their knowledge is intuitive, coming as it does from working with people on an individual, one-on-one level. They also share a willingness to acknowledge the mysterious,  to be comfortable with the unknown and with perhaps never knowing the answers.

Perhaps, I told myself more than once, it’s presumptive and intrusive to ask the question,  to enquire any more closely into it than I did. Maybe what it’s like to be dying is a question that can’t be answered and maybe that’s the answer.

Suggested reading:Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, The Revised edition: New Spiritual Classic from One of the Foremost Interpre...

A Tidings conversation about hospitality, friendship and loyalty with Raza Rumi, a Pakistani journalist, blogger, author of Delhi by Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani traveller and follower of Sufi thought.  The subject of hospitality holds a certain irony for Raza who is now in exile, forced to flee from his country after narrowly missing an assassination attempt on his life in Lahore which tragically killed his driver. (Re-broadcast on WPKN on October 14, 2015)

Dr. Ramzy Baroud talks about growing up in an UNRWA-managed refugee camp in Gaza, the significance of the Trump administration's recent retraction of UNRWA funding to the Palestinians and why this amounts to an existential threat to Palestinians’ Right of Return.  (Broadcast on WPKN radio October 10, 2018 and produced by Tony Ernst.)

You may also be interested in our earlier conversation  about Palestinian women on WPKN's Evening Report.

 

Dr. Baroud's most recent book is  The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story

Dr. Ramzy Baroud talks about growing up in an UNRWA-managed refugee camp in Gaza, the significance of the Trump administration's recent retraction of UNRWA funding to the Palestinians and why this amounts to an existential threat to Palestinians’ Right of Return.  (Broadcast on WPKN radio October 10, 2018 and produced by Tony Ernst.)

You may also be interested in our earlier conversation  about Palestinian women on WPKN's Evening Report.

 

Dr. Baroud's most recent book is  The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story

 

Tim Johnston, co-author of His Own Man: the biography of Otto Peltzer, Champion athlete, Nazi victim and Indian heroA remarkable story about a gay Olympics athlete living through Germany’s Weimar and Third Reich eras. An exceptional man living in extraordinary times.  (First broadcast on WPKN December 14, 2016.  Produced by Tony Ernst)

Otto Peltzer as a young man

 

 

Tim Johnston, co-author of His Own Man: the biography of Otto Peltzer, Champion athlete, Nazi victim and Indian heroA remarkable story about a gay Olympics athlete living through Germany’s Weimar and Third Reich eras. An exceptional man living in extraordinary times.  (First broadcast on WPKN December 14, 2016.  Produced by Tony Ernst)

 

Jim Sterba talks about his book Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds  in which he examines the last five hundred years of wildlife plundering, deforestation, conservation and suburban sprawl along with our "denatured" life have led to unmanageable wildlife populations including the deer plaguing our region.

I reviewed Sterba's book for the East Hampton Star (January 23, 2014) because I believe the proliferating wildlife population is not only a local but a regional and national manifestation of our uneasy relationship to the natural world.

Today, these words sound rather naive, reflecting my simplistic understanding four or more years ago.  I don't think I was alone.  Since then, life among unmanageable wild life populations has become an increasingly familiar  experience although solutions are still not widely shared, accepted or implemented.

(First broadcast on WPKN on January 29, 2014)