LEGACY OF WISDOM www.legacyofwisdom.org wisdom@legacyofwisdom.org
Project Directors:
Jay Goldfarb Tom Valente
Mostackerstrasse 11 7350 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 214
4051 Basel, Switzerland Sarasota, FL 34231, USA
Tel/fax +41- 61-361 5375 Tel. +1-941 927 5907 Fax 923-3205
Team & Sponsors: Ram Dass, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Roshi Joan Halifax,
Harry Moody, Dr. Sarita Bhalotra, Dr. Rodolfo Musco, Mickey Lemle, Judy Goggin
The current generation has been quite pro-active in facing what is often seen as a taboo subject. Death has been challenged to be recognized as a more normal process of life. Nevertheless, it remains a topic fraught with anxiety, denial and drama.
How can I work with the effects of aging and dying in those nearest to me like family and close friends?
YouTube Video: Legacy of Wisdom - Mary Catherine Bateson -End of Life
Preparations
YouTube URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e_3l1NEedA
Length: 5:30
(www.marycatherinebateson.com)
(born December 8, 1939) is a writer and cultural anthropologist who divides her time between
New Hampshire and Massachusetts. A graduate of the Brearley School, Bateson is the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Since
1960, she has been married to Barkev Kassarjian, a professor of business management at Babson
College. She has written and co-authored many books and articles, lectures across the country and abroad, and is president of the Institute for
Intercultural Studies in New York City. Until recently she was the Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and
English at George Mason University, and is now Professor Emerita.
Since the Fall of 2006 she has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Aging &
Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College and is a special consultant to the
Lifelong Access Libraries Initiative of the Libraries for the Future, with an emphasis on conceptualization, testing and implementation of her Active
- 1 -

LEGACY OF WISDOM www.legacyofwisdom.org wisdom@legacyofwisdom.org
Project Directors:
Jay Goldfarb Tom Valente
Mostackerstrasse 11 7350 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 214
4051 Basel, Switzerland Sarasota, FL 34231, USA
Tel/fax +41- 61-361 5375 Tel. +1-941 927 5907 Fax 923-3205
Team & Sponsors: Ram Dass, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Roshi Joan Halifax,
Harry Moody, Dr. Sarita Bhalotra, Dr. Rodolfo Musco, Mickey Lemle, Judy Goggin
Wisdom model for community dialogues as a signature program of the
Initiative. Her new book is “Composing a Further Life”.
- 2 -

LEGACY OF WISDOM www.legacyofwisdom.org wisdom@legacyofwisdom.org
Project Directors:
Jay Goldfarb Tom Valente
Mostackerstrasse 11 7350 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 214
4051 Basel, Switzerland Sarasota, FL 34231, USA
Tel/fax +41- 61-361 5375 Tel. +1-941 927 5907 Fax 923-3205
Team & Sponsors: Ram Dass, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Roshi Joan Halifax,
Harry Moody, Dr. Sarita Bhalotra, Dr. Rodolfo Musco, Mickey Lemle, Judy Goggin
How can I work with the effects of aging and dying in those nearest to me like family and close friends?
Well, I have been with 3 different people in their dying. In each case they had decided that they didn’t want additional medical interventions. They had a living will. They accepted that they were dying. In each case somebody had to sit by the bed and make sure that those intentions were respected. And that…..
And so I have given a good deal of thought to this issue.
I think it is very important to have a living will. And it’s important to think out what constitutes being alive from your point of view. That is up to what point do you want them to do what they can do to keep you going; because they are going to want to do more. So I think that this is something we have to think about, talk about. It’s an extraordinary privilege to care for someone you love who is dying. I suspect it is a privilege to be cared for by someone you love. It’s very intimate. You are dealing with physical stuff, yucky stuff.
But just as I think that it has made a great difference in this country when men started being present in the delivery room and their wives were fully conscious in the delivery room so that they shared together in the birth; which is a bit yucky too.
I think the same is true of death; that in a real sense if death is a part of life we need to make friends with death. We need to stop concealing it, avoiding it, pretending it isn’t going to happen. We need to think through what it means, prepare ourselves in whatever tradition makes sense to us.
I remember my mother taking me to the viewing of Ruth Benedict, a very famous Anthropologist, who was incidentally very beautiful, who had died, when I was 7. And she was so beautiful in her coffin. And that was at a time when grown ups didn’t take children to see dead people, didn’t take them to funerals. She took me to the funeral too. And I regard that as one of the really
- 3 -

LEGACY OF WISDOM www.legacyofwisdom.org wisdom@legacyofwisdom.org
Project Directors:
Jay Goldfarb Tom Valente
Mostackerstrasse 11 7350 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 214
4051 Basel, Switzerland Sarasota, FL 34231, USA
Tel/fax +41- 61-361 5375 Tel. +1-941 927 5907 Fax 923-3205
Team & Sponsors: Ram Dass, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Roshi Joan Halifax,
Harry Moody, Dr. Sarita Bhalotra, Dr. Rodolfo Musco, Mickey Lemle, Judy Goggin important things she did for me. That she allowed me to see death and know
that it could be beautiful. I still have that.
- 4 -