Bart Windrum

Windrum provides a thoughtful addition to the end of life discussion. He provides firsthand experience coupled with citing existing literature, weaving a story of heartache and triumph.

Unfortunately, Windrum, through his family's dying circumstances, experienced unnecessary trauma at the hands of a mechanical and rigid medical system. Fortunately for the reader, the fire in the belly these experiences have provoked in Windrum have led him to present a thorough, unyielding book that lessens the chances of this happening again.

This book covers the legal, ethical, and traumatic pitfalls of attempting to die peacefully within the existing American medical system. I particularly enjoy how Windrum explains where he didn't know all options for him and his family, and how medical professionals did not provide him with those options without being backed into a corner with rapid fire questioning. Windrum's experiences provide a valuable teaching moment for the reader.

Death is often a touchy subject that sends many individuals running away initially. Windrum's approach to the dying process is personal, intimate, and straight forward. Any reader who is wary of attempting to discuss the dying process should give the book a try - you will be pleasantly surprised at its readability, and will feel empowered by the book's message.

The reader will finish this book being an informed advocate ready to take the next steps in keeping his or her family protected from interruptions in their preferred dying process. The reader will have the information necessary to prepare his/her family for the end.… (meer)

Recognizing “how elusive dying in and at peace has become,” the author of the Promised Landing has created a schematic and vocabulary that outline the landscape of dying, from sudden catastrophic events like drowning to being kept alive by machines in an indefinite vegetative state. His intention is to build “death literacy,” helping readers to take a proactive role in planning for a peaceful demise (our “deathright”) rather than leaving things to luck and trusting a medical system that is incentivized to perform unnecessary procedures and cause trauma to both the dying and their families. The author was driven into this work by his experience with the harrowing in-hospital deaths of both parents (which he recounts in detail, repeatedly). The book is thorough and well thought-out, and will be a useful addition to both personal and professional libraries, with a good resource section at the end.… (meer)

Since I'm the author I'll use this field to display the abstract and endorsements from the rear cover. And also mention that signed copies are available direct from me at www.AxiomAction.com .

The Promised Landing: A Gateway to Peaceful Dying provides a new context for understanding our dying experiences as shaped by western culture. Learn to identify and distinguish between the various dying situations that frame our journey toward, or away from, the peaceful demise we want for ourselves and our loved ones. Participate in a personal (or group) guided recitation, traveling to every way station and destination throughout our dying territory—engaging your heart and soul, where resolve for fulfilling our promises takes root. Then, examine a related set of everyday personal and systemic obstacles to peaceful dying in order to better forecast their impact and adjust glide paths while time yet remains to die in peace, and at peace.

Bart Windrum is one of the most brilliant and original thinkers I know in the citizen movement to improve our experience of death and dying. If you want to avoid pitfalls and improve your odds of a peaceful death—on your own terms, not medicine’s—read this book. — Katy Butler, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door and The Lost Art of Dying

Bart Windrum’s end-of-life lexicon draws out a wide range of ethical, medical, cultural, practical, and family issues. His introduction of language shifts is an important contribution to this complicated dialog and a gift to all of us. — Dennis McCullough, MD, author of My Mother Your Mother: Embracing Slow Medicine

Contemplative aging requires that we learn to identify, recognize, and overcome practical obstacles to peaceful dying that our world, too readily and frequently, sets before us. Bart Windrum deeply illuminates these matters. — Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, former Naropa University Wisdom Chair and author of From Aging to Sage-ing

The Promised Landing lays out a map of our dying territory as a matrix, charts its intersecting paths, and discusses obstructions in the way of a peaceful death. Bart Windrum is a warm writer and has written a smart book which will be useful to all of us who see little of death and dying, until we see too much. — Victoria Sweet, MD, author of Slow Medicine and Gods’ Hotel

Windrum’s Matrix of Dying Terms significantly enhances end-of-life discourse. If widely adopted, the Matrix would advance our ability to talk about these realities, offering insight to policy makers, clinical providers, and citizens in our collective management of dying in America. — Jennifer Ballentine

Thank you for an incredibly rich trove of advice. Your work is a light in the darkness. — Susannah Fox, US authority on technology and health care… (meer)