Order of the Good Death

graphic flyer for February mortal media club featuring author and death doula Darnell Lamont Walker. Photo of Darnell on lower left

Mortal media club flyer with illustration of a variety of objects that symbolically represent mortality like a skull, hourglass, decaying fruit.

And don’t miss Darnell at our Mortal Media Club, where he’ll dive into his book and his work as a death doula. Become an Order member today: www.orderofthegooddeath.com/membership

Our Fear of Death is Not An Heirloom We Want to Pass On | The Order of the Good Death There’s a freedom in acknowledging that death is a part of life, and in doing so, we give ourselves permission to live more fully.

NEW ARTICLE
Today we’re excited to share an exclusive excerpt from Darnell Lamont Walker’s new book Never Can Say Goodbye: the Life of a Death Doula and the Art of a Peaceful Goodbye.
Read "Our Fear of Death is Not An Heirloom We Want to Pass On" here: www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/our-...

In other traditions, hearts or written sentiments were burned, allowing messages of love & grief to rise as smoke carried them to the dead.
Valentine’s Day hasn’t always been about giving hearts away. Sometimes, it’s about deciding how to hold them in the earth, in the fire, or close to our own.

graphic with beige background, at center is artwork from a medieval manuscript featuring what is known as the 3 living and the 3 dead: on the right are 3 youthful looking women, looking at 3 skeletons in various stages of decomposition. the text above reads let's contemplate our morality, valentine

In the 19th century, writer Mary Shelley was believed to have kept her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley’s heart after his death carrying it with her as an enduring relic of love and loss. annamazzola.com/did-mary-she...

graphic with burgundy red background, at center is a vanities painting featuring a skull with the text let's think about memento mori instead of amore

1. Long before Valentine’s cards, people honored love and grief through the heart itself.
In medieval Europe, hearts were sometimes buried separately from bodies, laid to rest in places of deep devotion. www.mentalfloss.com/history/10-p...

graphic flyer for February mortal media club featuring author and death doula Darnell Lamont Walker. Photo of Darnell on lower left

Mortal media club flyer with illustration of a variety of objects that symbolically represent mortality like a skull, hourglass, decaying fruit.

And don’t miss Darnell at our Mortal Media Club, where he’ll dive into his book and his work as a death doula. Become an Order member today: www.orderofthegooddeath.com/membership

Our Fear of Death is Not An Heirloom We Want to Pass On | The Order of the Good Death There’s a freedom in acknowledging that death is a part of life, and in doing so, we give ourselves permission to live more fully.

NEW ARTICLE
Today we’re excited to share an exclusive excerpt from Darnell Lamont Walker’s new book Never Can Say Goodbye: the Life of a Death Doula and the Art of a Peaceful Goodbye.
Read "Our Fear of Death is Not An Heirloom We Want to Pass On" here: www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/our-...

Legislative Advocacy News | The Order of the Good Death Building a meaningful, eco-friendly, and equitable end of life.

We believe people deserve real, affordable choices.

Learn more on our Legislative Advocacy News Page, "Small Business Challenges Oklahoma’s Unconstitutional Restrictions on Selling Caskets" www.orderofthegooddeath.com/get-involved...

This isn't new. In 2011, 38 monks in Louisiana took on similar laws and won. Courts have repeatedly found that these rules are unconstitutional and exist to shield the funeral industrial complex, not to serve the people. www.theatlantic.com/national/arc...

This is one of the quiet ways the funeral industry maintains control over deathcare, by limiting who can participate, blocking competition, and keeping prices high and choices limited. The result? Many families paying more than they can afford, a major driver of funeral poverty.

Photo of a sign hanging in the casket workshop notifying people that they cannot sell caskets to the public, only a licensed funeral director can sell a casket

An Oklahoma small business is suing the state over laws that ban people from selling caskets unless they’re licensed funeral directors, even if they’re not providing funeral services at all. These kinds of restrictions don’t protect consumers, they protect profits.

Return to Earth: Human Composting Takes Root in Brooklyn Green-Wood Cemetery will start offering a service called Natural Organic Reduction, where a human body is decomposed naturally and turned into soil.

Three years after its legalization, human composting is finally coming to New York www.bkreader.com/lifestyle-cu...

a vintage valentine card featuring a little girl in a purple dress, holding a telephone receiver up to her ear, set against a red heart background. The text, in black reads: hey, valentine, do you want to reform the funeral industry with me?

We believe our deaths should be supported—financially, emotionally, and culturally—in ways our modern culture and death services often fail to do. Learn more about the issues and solutions here:
www.orderofthegooddeath.com/start-here/

Three Astonishing Take Aways from the American Funeral Preferences Survey | The Order of the Good Death Some of the 2025 survey results confirm what people in the funeral reform space have been saying for years. Some of the results shocked even us. Here are three key take aways.

NEW ARTICLE
Partnering with Tanya Marsh of Wake Forest Law School, The Order helped develop questions for an annual survey on American funeral preferences--confirming some long-held beliefs, while uncovering results that shocked even us www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/thre...

Become a Member | The Order of the Good Death Building a meaningful, eco-friendly, and equitable end of life.

Plus: death-positive news, legislation updates, cultural analysis, funeral trends, and events from around the world.

Not a member yet? January is a great time to join! www.orderofthegooddeath.com/membership

The growing popularity of green funerals, & where sustainability ends and greenwashing begins
-A death rights victory in Delaware!
-From playful to poignant: how mourners remembered loved ones during the holiday season
-Why 2025 became a year of collective mourning for disabled communities

photo of a person sitting outdoors seated at a table reading a newspaper

We’re busy putting final touches on the January edition of our Order Member-Exclusive Newsletter!
In this issue, we’ll be exploring:
-How 2025 ended with a wave of mock funerals, & what they reveal about public grief, nostalgia, & protest
-Whether diet culture is just another form of death denial

hiiii 👋🤍

Painkillers, Tickets, Labubu: What China’s Gen Z Is Leaving at Tombs Young Chinese are honoring historical figures with playful, personal gifts tailored to each legend’s quirks and stories.

Painkillers for a warlord’s migraines. Train tickets for a legendary statesman who never made it north. A Labubu for Karl Marx www.sixthtone.com/news/1017531...

In Feb we’re honored to feature Darnell Lamont Walker—author, death doula, & powerful voice in end-of-life care—for a rich discussion on storytelling, liberation, and deathwork.
💀Become an Order Member today & explore the end-of-life with curiosity and care: www.orderofthegooddeath.com/membership

Mortal media club flyer with illustration of a variety of objects that symbolically represent mortality like a skull, hourglass, decaying fruit.

This month we’re focusing on community deathcare, exploring how care, ritual, and collective support can shape our experiences outside of institutional systems.

graphic flyer for moral media club with Liz Dunneback on community deathcare. white background with black and orange text. Photo of Liz on lower left

graphic flyer for February mortal media club featuring author and death doula Darnell Lamont Walker. Photo of Darnell on lower left

Our MORTAL MEDIA CLUB is back for 2026!
MMC is a unique twist on the traditional book club—we gather around short pieces of media that explore death, dying, grief, and engage in discussion with leading experts.

EDA's Indigent Disposition Database Launch | Wake Join us for the launch of the Indigent Disposition Database

Today, meet the volunteers who sourced information about the disparate systems from different counties & get rare insight into the invisible crisis of indigent death in the U.S. & the ways that systems collude to keep this issue shrouded in darkness. www.wake.education/event-detail...

logo for the Equitable Disposition Alliance

Our Good Death Fellow is launching their online database to assist families navigating indigent disposition programs. Each year thousands of people aren't able to achieve disposition via the private funeral industry, whether due to financial reasons, frayed family relations, or no known next-of-kin

Become a Member | The Order of the Good Death Building a meaningful, eco-friendly, and equitable end of life.

Newsletters will be dropping into Order Member's inboxes tomorrow! Become a Member today and get access to a huge archive full of past Year in Death features, event recordings, and MUCH MORE: www.orderofthegooddeath.com/membership

- Some of the most talked-about entertainment this year, from film and tv, to video games, and even musicals, focused on themes of death and grief.

-The biggest social media trends were all about death this year, from #RIPTikTok, to Duolingo’s viral death of Duo campaign, memorial videos set to Bad Bunny’s DtMF, and closing out the year with the funeral theory.

- In 2025, death and grief were shaped not only by personal loss but by policy decisions that placed human lives at risk. In the U.S. and across Europe, immigration systems continued to produce preventable harm through detention, neglect, and indifference.

- While 2024 had us buying up literal representations of death, like coffin beds and popcorn buckets, 2025 was all about “soft goth.”

-The national conversation around sustainable end-of-life options like green burial and human composting continued to gain traction across the U.S.

- AI moved out of the realm of a Black Mirror episode, and into our daily lives, turning up everywhere–including death. From viral videos to funeral scams to grief, and even in courtrooms, AI is being used in increasingly alarming ways that affect our lives and deaths.