How we approach death and the dying, how or whether we remember or care for the dead – these questions are inextricably bound up with how we age, or don’t, in the dominant culture of the West – and with the disappearance of elderhood as a skilled function in these times.

I have three cartons of Stephen Jenkinson’s new book in my office pending his appearance in Portland this Fall – but you don’t have to wait. The book is available through your local independent bookseller or the Orphan Wisdom School.

Here’s what early readers have to say:

“This isn’t a book, it’s a kind of divining, the rare breed that can leave the scriber harrowed and the reader blessed.”
—Dr. Martin Shaw, author of Scatterlings: Getting Claimed in the Age of Amnesia

“In these wide-ranging musings, Jenkinson reveals the poverty of a culture in which people are old but not elders while breathing life into the possibility of an elder, forged by the calamities of time, who proceeds with deep courtesy as if he or she is needed.”
—Sikata Banerjee, PhD, professor of gender studies, University of Victoria

“I look around me and see the hunger for convenience, efficiency, ease, freedom, and more, but perhaps we might be better served to open the pages of this book and see if a certain relationship to this old, human hunger might help us conjure the food that the soul of our culture so desperately needs.”
—Tad Hargrave, founder, Marketing for Hippies

“Jenkinson does not blame, indict, nor traffic in solution, rather he elders—with an immense love of life and the world—the long redemptive road where young and old might yet recognize each other and decide to take a little walk. Come of Age has so much respect for your willingness to pick it up that it will ask more of you than you ever thought possible; an unlikely and precious gift that may just change everything.”
—Sean Aiken, author of The One-Week Job Project

“This book transcends ideology and platitudes and takes you deep into ancestral roots and wisdom. Jenkinson is a treasure—a raspy, nonconforming sage who has the rare ability to sneak up behind you with masterful storytelling that compels you to be troubled enough and to wonder (barely in the nick of time) if you are ready to begin to live your life as if you matter. This book brings a deeply learned, insightful, and rare perspective on navigating these troubled modern times.”
—Dana Bass Solomon, Graduated CEO, Hollyhock Centre, British Columbia, Canada