Reminiscing About the Late Stephen Levine

Stephen Levine, author, poet and meditation instructor, died Jan. 17, 2016, at the age of 78 following a long illness. He died with his wife and partner, Ondrea, at his side, in Northern New Mexico where they lived in seclusion for many years.

For nearly four decades, Stephen was an iconic figure, revered for his pioneering work around the experience of dying. In the 1970s, in collaboration with Ram Dass’ Hanuman Foundation, he founded the Dying Project to educate others about conscious dying — the process of using the dying journey as an opportunity for deep healing and spiritual awakening. His book, “Who Dies,” was one of the first books to frankly and compassionately discuss how conscious dying is the perfect preparation for living a full and meaningful life. In collaboration with Ondrea, Stephen later authored several other books, including his seminal work, “A Year to Live.”

Stephen and Ondrea spent three decades traveling the world, speaking to people about the art of dying–and living–consciously. As Stephen’s health began to fail, they moved to the desert to continue their work in relative solitude, founding the online teaching center, Levine Talks. Today, Stephen’s work and spirit live on through his website and the Living and Dying Project, now based in Fairfax, California. The Project’s Executive Director and Stephen’s longtime friend and colleague, Dale Borghum, shares some of his thoughts and memories about Stephen below.

Credit: theindiespiritualist.com

My dear friend Stephen Levine was a pioneer, the first person in the West to explore and promote conscious dying — to use the encounter with a life-threatening illness as an opportunity for spiritual awakening. Stephen was a writer, a poet and a publisher, and an inspiration to those who followed his work.

In the early 1970s, Stephen became deeply involved in Buddhist meditation. Then, in the late 1970s, the spiritual leader Ram Dass invited him to teach meditation at a retreat he was leading in Rhode Island. Also present at the retreat was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Elizabeth was also a pioneer — really the first person to openly talk about death in our society, to begin to directly confront the pervasive denial of death in America. She and Stephen connected, and she invited him to come to her dying retreats and teach meditation.

Eventually Stephen began to teach on his own, and after some time Ram Dass invited him to continue his work as part of the Hanuman Foundation. It quickly became apparent to both Ram Dass and me that the work Stephen was doing as director of the Dying Project was the most interesting and transformative project in the Hanuman Foundation, and so we joined him.

As our work progressed, we all decided that, rather than just talking about conscious  dying, we would like to have a physical space where people could come to live and die consciously. So in 1980, we moved from Santa Cruz, California, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the Dying Project continued and the Dying Center was created. During this time Stephen met his wife, Ondrea. Stephen and Ondrea continued selflessly serving the grieving and the dying and their families for decades, often quietly giving money to those in need.

Stephen and Ondrea
(Credit: facebook.com/stephen and ondrea levine)

I can’t begin to guess how many tens of thousands of people Stephen’s compassion and wisdom touched, both directly and through his wonderful and sometimes miraculous writing. The tender sweetness of his heart combined with his tough strength encouraged so many people to touch their own fear of death and even to share it in front of a room full of strangers. Healing happened again and again in so many ways. Stephen was a healer and a friend in the deepest sense of the word.