WELCOME TO OUR BLOG
Welcome to the SevenPonds.com blog – a community-driven extension of SevenPonds.com! I hope you find comfort and community in the resources and stories featured here. I’m always happy to hear from readers and can be reached at suzette@sevenponds.com.
FEATURED
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Our Annual Seven Holiday Gifts for Someone Who Is Grieving, 2024 Edition: Gracious gifts that spread love and beauty -
“Making Mobiles” by Karolina Merska: An artist’s manual on how to create beautiful Polish pajaki -
“Hands Up to the Sky” by Michael Franti & Spearhead: A surprisingly upbeat song about acknowledging both loss and the beauty of life
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Categories
Tag Archives: Paris
“A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway
We revisit Hemingway's classic to contemplate how the deaths of WWI hovered over Paris' "roaring" years.
I’d never meditated on “A Moveable Feast“’s relationship with death. Sure, I’d thought of Ernest Hemingway’s classic as a book about the obvious: hunger and gratitude, honesty and unrelenting love. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were champions of the latter … Continue reading
Death in Tahiti: Gauguin’s “Spirit of the Dead Watching”
Paul Gauguin made many paintings in his beloved Tahiti — but one stands out above the rest for its fixation on Tahitian death beliefs
Artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) fell in love with Tahiti. A native Parisian, the painter’s productivity thrived in a setting that provided an otherwise unimaginable landscape filled with inspiration. What makes his oeuvre unique is not only its integral role in … Continue reading
Behind Death Masks: A History of How a Funeral Decoration Transformed Into a Tool to Improve Lives
The ancient funerary art of death masks allows us to look through the eyes of our ancestors
The practice of creating death masks to remember those who have passed is a ritual that can be traced back to ancient Egypt and Rome. The most recognizable death mask comes from the tomb of Tutankhamun himself. The likeness of … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Perspectives
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, CPR, Death and art, Death mask, effigy, Forensic science, king tut, life mask, Paris
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A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir
In writing on her mother's death, French writer Simone de Beauvoir touched on palliative and end-of-life care questions long before her time
The most remarkable thing about Simone de Beauvoir’s A Very Easy Death (1964) is its author’s deft choice to seek the ordinary. Beauvoir’s is not a story we haven’t heard before — mother is diagnosed with cancer; children struggle by … Continue reading
The Catacombs of Paris: Unique Burial Site of Ancient France
The history behind the creation of one of the world’s most famous burial sites
Prior to a 1785 ban on future burials within the center of Paris, an abundance of church cemeteries existed throughout the city. A combination of greed and neglect in performing proper burials led to human remains being placed in church … Continue reading
Coping With Death: Pierre Bergé and a Life in Objects
Bergé's partner, Yves Saint Laurent, died from a terminal illness in 2008 -- but Bergé says it wasn't just a disease that made his life cancerous
Friday, June 6th 2008 – the streets of Paris were brimming with citizens, all gathered to pay their respects at the funeral of couturier Yves Saint Laurent (YSL). Along with Chanel, YSL is known as one of the great bookends … Continue reading
Posted in Soulful Expressions
Tagged Bergé, Cancerous, Coping with Death, France, French couture, Grief, Paris, Pierre Bergé, terminal illness, When a loved one dies, Yves Saint Laurent
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