Musical Midwifery For The Dying with Therese Schroeder-Sheker

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From childhood this accomplished musician was fascinated by monastic music, and later observed death in many forms while working in a geriatric home. These influences came together in her work in "music thanatology," the art and science of easing the passage into death through music, sound and ritual. Combining a medical awareness of physiology and body rhythms with contemplation and compassion in their deathbed vigils, Schroeder-Sheker and her associates are restoring dignity and mystery to death, reinterpreting it as a life experience. "It's not about death," she says, "You learn, a hundred times a day, that doing this work is about living, right now, much more fully." (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

An internationally acclaimed harpist, singer and composer, Schroeder-Sheker is dean and co-founder of the Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, Montana.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• The dream and magic of playing the harp
• A love affair with medieval music
• Lessons about death from work in a geratric home
• Singing people through the dying process
• How a fearful death can become a peaceful one
• Creating deathbed vigils with ritual and music
• How ancient monasteries used music as medicine
• Why silence is as necessary as music
• The surprising power of a lullaby