Stephen Jenkinson

Stephen Jenkinson is a cultural activist, teacher, author, and ceremonialist. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010.

With Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work), he is revolutionizing grief and dying in North America. Stephen is redefining what it means to live and die well. Apprenticed to a master storyteller, he has worked extensively with dying people and their families, is former programme director in a major Canadian hospital, former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school, consultant to palliative care and hospice organizations and educator and advocate in the helping professions. He is also a sculptor, traditional canoe builder whose house won a Governor General’s Award for architecture.

He is the author of Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions – a live recorded teaching (2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – a live recorded teaching (2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002), and former contributing author to Palliative Care – Core Skills and Clinical Competencies (2007).

Jenkinson is also the subject of the feature-length documentary film Griefwalker (National Film Board of Canada, 2008), a lyrical, poetic portrait of his work with dying people.

The Orphan Wisdom School is for anyone with a desire to be useful to those who will inherit an endangered and often dangerous world. It is for those who have an instinct and a desire to be an ancestor worthy of being claimed. It is for those wishing to learn something of the skills of grace in a graceless time, of mentorship and fierce and exemplary compassion. It is for elders in training.

Young people need and deserve real recognition of their worth and purpose in life and a living example of enduring discernment and courage for the hard and often empty times that are upon us all. The esteem of parents and friends can only go so far: elders must bring the rest. Grandparents must be grand not only for their children’s children but for all the young ones coming into the world now. Their status as grand people comes from having wrangled wisdom from experience, and from having become elders more than senior citizens. Grandparents must now be elders even – especially – when no one asks it of them.