<p>Joanna Ebenstein&#39;s latest book, <a href="https://www.joannaebenstein.com/memento-mori" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Momento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life</a>, is the culmination of her almost 20 years of research into the human experience of death. In this episode, Joanna and I discuss the afterlife and its importance not just historically but as a felt, embodied experience. This is especially true for those who may not have inherited explicit beliefs or practices around death. We talk through how we developed our understanding through research and experience, in particular, cultivating acceptance that we cannot know, in a rational sense, what happens after we die. Joanna mentions <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-08336-000" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">The Other Side of Sadness by George A. Bonanno</a>, <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor</a>, her <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/36475418" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">interview of Christina Pratt</a>, and <a href="https://www.lilydaleassembly.org/event-details/memento-mori-and-beyond-tiffany-hopkins-joanna-ebenstein" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">our upcoming class</a> and the <a href="https://www.morbidanatomy.org/grand-tour-archive/p/the-town-that-talks-to-the-dead-a-morbid-anatomy-grand-tour-to-lily-dale-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Morbid Anatomy Grand Tour of Lily Dale</a>. </p><p><br></p><p>Joanna Ebenstein is the founder and creative director of <a href=" https://www.morbidanatomy.org/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Morbid Anatomy</a>. An internationally recognized death expert, she is the author of several books, including Anatomica: The Exquisite and Unsettling Art of Human Anatomy, Death: A Graveside Companion, and The Anatomical Venus. The descendant of holocaust survivors, she traces her lineage back to Judah Loew ben Bezalel, credited with creating the Golem in sixteenth-century Prague. </p>