In 2017, Amy Slonaker was told she had two years to live. Slonaker, then 45 years old, was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast-to-bone cancer. Head spinning from the prognosis, the Brooklyn lawyer quit her Wall Street job and moved home to Santa Barbara, where she enrolled in a mythological-studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Slonaker studied world religions, explored Jungian therapy, and wrote about the universal collective unconscious—facing her own mortality through intellectual research. She also leaned on her community at Morbid Anatomy, an online journal and educational platform dedicated to the study of death, where she had been a founding member and volunteer from the organization’s start, in 2007. Prior to her diagnosis, Slonaker had traveled to Mexico on three Morbid Anatomy trips to attend the Day of the Dead parade and explore traditional cemeteries. “Interestingly, it took me participating in Morbid Anatomy to appreciate my own backyard: Mexico,” Slonaker says about the proximity to her current home in Goleta.
Seven years later, Slonaker has no evidence of cancer on her scans. She says she’s fundamentally changed; she has a new lease on life, prompted by a new lease on death.
On Saturday, September 7, Slonaker will take the stage as part of Morbid Anatomy’s daylong Memento Mori—Latin for “remember you will die”—Festival in Los Angeles. Attendees will gather at the Philosophical Research Society, a nonprofit library and learning center founded in 1934 for “those seeking wisdom.” The Mayan revival–style library—famously the site of Charles Bukowski’s 1985 wedding—contains some 50,000 books as well as a newly refurbished auditorium that seats 200 people. In addition to Slonaker’s talk, “Stage 4 Cancer and My Night Sea Journey to Wellness,” the nine other presentations include “Death in the Permafrost: Arctic Mementos Mori in the Age of Climate Change” by author Colin Dickey and “Musings on Dead Birds” from Liz Andres, Morbid Anatomy’s mythologist in residence. To wrap up the weekend, attendees will head to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Sunday, September 8, for a “Death Cafe.” There, among the graves of silver screen luminaries Mickey Rooney, Cecil B. DeMille, and Judy Garland, strangers will sip tea and discuss a range of death-related topics—from vegan burials to taxidermy. Nearby, sharp eyes can spot the memorial for Terry, the dog who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz, decorated with a life-size statue of the beloved terrier.
The festival is also a celebration of the release of Morbid Anatomy founder Joanna Ebenstein’s new book, Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life. The 304-page workbook—intended to be completed over 12 weeks—encourages readers to grapple with their own mortality. “Although we cannot change the fact that we will die, we can, with the right tools, change how we feel about it,” Ebenstein writes. The 12 chapters address different facets of the end of life, among them rebirth, immortality, and communing with the dead. Each section concludes with journal prompts and activities, including drawing mandalas, arranging animal bones, and making death dolls.
Joanna Ebenstein joins Alta Live on Wednesday, September 4, at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time.
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Though much of the book is rooted in Jungian psychology—which encourages individuals to attach their own narrative to death to counteract the unbearable enormity of life’s ending—Ebenstein presents perspectives from different scholars, cultures, and histories. The intent is to engage readers with death, something Ebenstein sees as lacking in American culture. She first noticed this years ago on a trip to Europe, where she was frequently confronted by ancient depictions of death in art and architecture. On a Sound of Music tour in Austria, Ebenstein noticed that the altar where the Von Trapps were married in the film contained five tiny bejeweled skeletons—corpses that had been exhumed and then outfitted to resemble saints.
“There [were] all these incredible images in which death and beauty are coexisting in harmony,” Ebenstein says in a Zoom interview from her home in Mexico’s Yucatán. “And I’ve never seen anything like that growing up in suburban California. How have we changed so much that the entire historical record around death is now to pretend it doesn’t exist?”
Early on, Ebenstein had an interest in darkness: growing up in the Bay Area in the 1980s, she kept dead animals in her bedroom and preferred young adult books with tragic endings. She studied intellectual history at UC Santa Cruz and moved to New York City, where she worked as a photographer and graphic designer. In 2007, while curating an exhibition on medical research, Ebenstein started the Morbid Anatomy blog as a way to organize her research. Soon after, she received emails from people around the world who found the blog and were interested in her work. What started as an online research tool evolved into a physical library in the former Proteus Gowanus gallery in Brooklyn and eventually a museum (also in Gowanus) in 2014.
While both spaces have since shuttered, Morbid Anatomy still has a free library on the Brooklyn waterfront that contains hundreds of books on death, life, and the in-between. Its online community remains robust: several thousand members pay to access the digital journal featuring essays and photojournalism on exhibitions or phenomena relevant to the study of death. Morbid Anatomy offers classes almost daily; upcoming sessions include Victorian Hairwork: Mourning, Memory Object, and Craft and Tarot for Turbulent Times. Ebenstein says that the majority of members are women—often widows—who are searching for a space to process grief or prepare for their next act.
“Morbid Anatomy has created community and friendships and relationships with people that have lasted for years,” Sarah Chavez, executive director at the death-positive nonprofit Order of the Good Death, says. Chavez works on legislation for “funeral-industry reform.” Her organization’s mission helps families dodge exorbitant funeral expenses and plan for a “good death”—whether that be water cremation or human composting.
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About 10 years ago, Chavez was experiencing devastating loss: “I was expecting a baby and ended up planning a funeral,” she says. “I was dealing with the silence and avoidance from my caretakers, who were supposed to be providing me with information and options in the aftermath.” But in Morbid Anatomy, Chavez found community members who met her gaze, unafraid to discuss what others considered uncomfortable or taboo.
One of those people was Jim Matthews, who connected with Chavez over his collection of angelito portraits—posthumous photos of infants taken by Matthews, in a practice common for Mexican and Mexican American families who have lost a child. Before his death earlier this year, Matthews gave Chavez several of these images, knowing that she understood the significance of this funerary ritual and the emotional value it carries—especially for parents.
“You know in the scenario where if the house is burning, what are you bringing out?” Chavez explains. “For me, it’s my dog. And it’s the angelitos.”•
The Memento Mori Festival starts Saturday, September 7, in Los Angeles. Alta Journal readers can use promo code MMXALTA20 at checkout for 20 percent off tickets.
Lydia Horne is the research director at Alta Journal. Her writing has appeared in Wired, Racquet Magazine, L.A. Taco, Hyperallergic, and other publications.
