The Adventures of Memento Mori

The Adventures of Memento Mori:  A Skeptic's Guide for Learning to Live by Remembering to Die is a podcast exploring the science, mysticism, culture, and mystery of death. Satirical and philosophical, the show follows host, nontheist Chaplain D.S. Moss, as he attempts to reconcile his own impermanence and live a more meaningful life. Problem is, life keeps getting in the way.

In the podcast finale of The Adventures of Memento Mori, host D.S. Moss travels to the Catskills of New York, Chicago, Harvard, and Hawaii following a calling six years in the making - becoming a nontheist chaplain. Is the understanding that we're not entitled to tomorrow enough to truly put his money where he mic is and take a leap of faith? And is it possible to be both rational and spiritual at the same time? Please join me for one last adventure in the podcast finale - Remember to die.

Can a dinner party help Americans to die better? According to Michael Hebb, creator of Death Over Dinner, it certainly can. D.S. Moss didn't win the "he'll try anything once trophy" for nothin', because that's exactly what he wants to find out. Besides, what's the worst that can happen when you give 8 strangers steak knives, pickle them with wine, and push the boundaries of death dialogue in between politely passing the polenta. Please join Moss as he combines three of his most favorite things: people, parties, and conversations about death in the penultimate episode of Season 2: Death Over Dinner.

As part of the ReImagine virtual festival celebrating Life, Loss, and Love, and in collaboration with Keeper Memorials, Death Doula LA, and Compassion and Choices, The Adventures of Memento Mori hosted a conversation about Medical Aid In Dying. Joining me were two family members whose terminally ill loved ones decided to peacefully end their own lives: Myra Shulman, daughter of Beverly, and Dan Diaz, husband of Brittany Maynard.

Holy Mother Forking Shirtballs! Please join D.S. Moss in a fanboy conversation with Michael Schur, creator of the NBC sitcom The Good Place, about death, the afterlife, existentialism, deontology, utilitarianism, trolley problems, even bigger pandemic problems, and how to keep your sense of humor through it all.

It's amazing the way things come together sometimes. What seems to be a series of random encounters string together over time culminating into a predetermined life-affirming - or in this case, afterlife affirming moment. Fate, as some people call it. This spiritual road trip began with a near-death vision at a compound in rural Virginia, intersected with a death-themed Mardi Gras Krewe in New Orleans, and was steered along by a canoeing Canadian commemorating his uncle. All leading D.S. Moss to Standing Rock Reservation looking for an old stone Memento Mori den. 

How far would you go to honor a loved one who has died? Would you negotiate the distance of four rivers, through the wilderness of 2 countries, 1 province, and 13 states? Would you dedicate your life to a cause? D.S. Moss is joined by Dominique Leboiron, a Canadian who canoed from Saskatchewan to the Gulf of Mexico to honor the life of his Uncle Mitch. This is a story of love. It's a tale of the courage, devotion, and resilience of the human spirit in the dance with our mortality. It's about the process of healing from a broken heart after a loss so deep it could have held the deepest rivers.

It's March 23, 2020, in New York, New York. The world is confronting a novel coronavirus pandemic and the world will be forever changed because of it. To what extreme that change will be we don't know yet. But that is what we're going to talk about. Joining the show is technology and healthcare futurist, geopolitical expert, and novelist, Jamie Metzl. 

D.S. Moss welcomes Mark Manson to the COVID 19 edition of The Adventures of Memento Mori to talk about death and hope in these strange days. Mark is a New York Times best-selling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, Everything Is Fucked: A Book About Hope, and Love is Not Enough. Visit markmanson.net to read more of his work.

As a culture, America does not live well with death. By the very nature of our colonial Protestant roots, this country has an inherent denial of death ingrained in our collective psyche. Throw in the social and psychological effects of the country's expansive size. Mix that with our compulsion to minimize, sanitize, romanticize, homogenize and capitalize – oh, yes – we don't live well with death. There is, of course, an exception - New Orleans, Louisiana.

Have you ever wanted to experience a “near-death experience” without having to experience nearly dying? The Monroe Institute offers a six-day course that claims to generate the same profound insights of an NDE. Participants will discover how to enter into the various states of consciousness associated with the near-death experience, come back safely, and then return to that non-physical world at will. D.S. Moss is skeptical, but communicating with the dead is a superpower he'd like to have and he'll never say no to a good adventure. Hopefully, he comes back alive.

D.S. Moss confronts what it means to pay the ultimate price. In this episode, Moss has been asked by a friend to “talk to” their nephew, who is contemplating enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, which implies talking him out of it. But Moss will not be trying to talk Thomas in or out of anything. His objective is to listen, answer questions, and share his experience honestly. Oh, and he's going to drill into the philosophical and psychological question...does a person who joins the military - particularly one so young - truly understand what they are signing up for?

In the conclusion of this adventure, D.S. Moss confronts his food consciously and directly. But, is hunting the most ecologically benign way to feed himself? And even if it is, could I pull the trigger? Should he just say the hell with it and go find a local symbiotic farm? So. Many. Questions. Join him as he tries to answer them all beginning in Vermont with a conversation about hunting mindfulness with Tovar Cerulli. Then off to Seattle for more education with hunting celebrity Steven Rinella, and finally into the mountains of Idaho with a couple more Mosses and a German banker.

Do you know how much death is in your diet? Neither did D.S. Moss. Wanting to face his food consciously and directly, Moss leaves no stone unturned to discover how much death is on his plate. He goes from Vegetarian to Vegan to Mindful Hunter to Conscientious Carnivore. This episode comes with a warning: If you're a human being who eats food it may make you uncomfortable because as D.S. Moss would quickly discover - food - particularly as it relates to death - is an incredibly emotional and complex topic. Please join his journey into the ethics, emotion, and truth of living at the expense of other life. Special Guest: Steven Rinella

Believe it or not, suicide has been the most requested podcast topics for The Adventures of Memento Mori. However, D.S. Moss has been purposefully avoiding it. He likes to have a natural way into an issue, and he just never had the first-hand experience with suicide. Plus, it's a hard topic. But, after learning that suicide has been steadily on the rise in the United States for the last twenty years, trying to understand why is worth the awkward conversation. And think how dull life would be if we only had the easy conversations. So we invite you to join us and suicidologist John Gunn for a cup of coffee and an awkward conversation.

Are you the happiest version of you you can be? Are negative thoughts and feelings keeping you from this?  What if I were to tell you the only thing keeping you from living your true bliss is you! In this episode D.S. Moss gives you the secret of how the practice of Memento Mori will help you achieve happiness beyond your wildest dreams. The happiness you can feel with every single breath you take. The happiness, my friends, that you deserve. Guests include Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way and Oliver Burkeman author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.

This episode is about Texas, a boy and his dog and the unthinkable and inevitable decision that comes to almost all pet owners. D.S. Moss confronts “How do you know when it's time to make the decision to say goodbye?”  to a four-legged family member. If you're a person with a pet, know a person with a pet, or just like a sad ‘ol country song - this episode confronts the toughest conversation yet and provides insights for those that must eventually face that same decision.   

Ever written an obituary? Yeah, neither had D.S. Moss. In this episode, Moss is asked to write a memorial to his grandfather with the challenge of a limited word count. How do you capture a person's life in two paragraphs? And, what exactly is the purpose of an obit? Is it a matter of record or a legacy statement? To make it even more awkward, his grandfather is actually still alive and will be proofreading. Worried he'll fuck it up, Moss enlists a professional NY Times journalist to help write his first obituary.   

The three-part series into religions and their beliefs in the afterlife comes to a close with the Abrahamic traditions. The conversation begins with NYU's Islamic Chaplain where Moss revisits the draw to change his life and become a chaplain. Still faithless, he talks with a mystic Rabbi who literally wrote the book on the Jewish beliefs in the afterlife.  In this surprise ending, Moss takes the biggest leap of faith yet.

The adventure into the afterlife continues with Hindu and Vodou. In this episode, D.S. Moss sits down with a former Vedic monk and a bottle of mezcal to discuss the divine consciousness and taking monumental leaps of faith. Then Moss heads down to the city of New Orleans to chat with a Vodou (Voodoo) priestess where he discovers things are rarely as they seem.

While on his imagined death bed, Zen Buddhist Chaplain Trudi Hirsh-Abramson suggests D.S. Moss would make a good chaplain. And since his most significant life decisions are made from peer pressure, dares and flattery, he is actually considering it. The problem is - and it's a big problem - Moss is religionless. In a three part mini-series, Moss sits down with a priest, pastor, priestess, monk, imam and rabbi to explore their religious belief systems, views on the afterlife and if, in fact, he can find a religion of his own. He begins with Jesus and the Buddha.

After discovering that the fear of death is the worm at the core of the human condition, D.S. Moss stands quivering on the threshold of psychological oblivion. He figures the best way out of this state of anxiety is to actually experience his own passing (obviously). In this episode, Moss crawls into his deathbed and is taken to total body failure with the hope that upon return he'll have a new perspective on life.

D.S. Moss comes back from the jungle for more adventures in death, yo. Life coach turned death coach, Devin Martin, gets filled in on Moss' post-psychedelic reflections. This leads Moss to the ultimate question: how to live life with psychological anxiety of knowing you're going to die? To help answer this question, Moss gets social psychology professor and egghead crush Sheldon Solomon on the horn to discuss if the fear of death truly is the worm at humanity's core.

Part two of the podcast finale joins D.S. Moss in the jungles of Peru at the Temple of the Way of Light where he attempts to kill his ego through a series of seven ayahuasca ceremonies. Life Coach turned Death coach, Devin Martin, returns to guide Moss in his intensions for what turns out to be the finale of finales. If you're even slightly curious as to how a psychedelic experience sounds, listen to this new podcast.

In part one of the podcast finale, D.S. Moss physically & mentally prepares for his psychedelic ego death trip. Psychologist and psychedelic guru Dr. Neal Goldsmith, author of Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development, joins the show to discuss how death influences the psychedelic experience - from tribal rites of passage to end-of-life therapy to death of ego. Devin Martin, life (and death) coach extraordinaire returns and cracks open the Moss shell to expose the gooey caramel center where his heart used to be and crafts the 7 ayahuasca ceremony intentions that will (hopefully) reprogram Moss's less than healthy approach to LOVE and SUCCESS. It's like a blissful car crash.

D.S. Moss unplugs from the steady stream of media fuzz to go on a spirit journey in the Peruvian jungle and My God was it sweet! However, after two weeks of peace, quite and psychedelics, he feels compelled to go home and feed his dog.  Once reconnected into the fuzz, he's caught off guard by the unrelenting reports and images of death in the news. Has the world become more violent? What effect does seeing death in news have on our behavior? And, is it his responsibility as a global citizen to bear witness to images of death across the world even if its at the expense of his own happiness?

What? Death being positive? How can that be? Still hungover from Mass Extinction, D.S. Moss goes in search of some positivity and discovers the movement that's sweeping the nation; Death Positivity.  The quest takes him to a death-centric open mic, tea time at the Morbid Anatomy Museum,  the home of a progressive funeral director and an intellectual baptism into The Order of the Good Death. Put on a happy face and have a listen.

Finally! Something clicked. It took everyone on the planet dying – the end of the human race – for D.S. Moss to emotionally comprehend his own death and feel the preciousness of life. The feeling, however, isn't all good. Now he's forced to reconcile being part of a species that would create nuclear warheads, biowarfare, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and more CO2 than any of the previous mass extinctions. Well, he asked for it.

In this two part episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori, D.S. Moss goes on a scientific adventure into the past, present and future of humanity to find out what will be the most likely cause of human extinction. After exploring the threats of asteroids, super volcanos, aliens and the wrath of God, D.S. Moss learns that the most probable cause of the next mass extinction - humanities extinction will be caused by either Artificial Intelligence, nuclear war or climate change. Turns out humans are the biggest threat to themselves. Are you surprised?

Who would've thought a porn star could lead to such a profound inquiry into the nature of human existence in a digital age? As D.S. seeks to distance himself from his digital doppelgänger—a porn star who chose “Devin Moss” as his nom de plume—he is led down the digital rabbit hole of what happens to our internet identities after we die. D.S. talks to experts about curating a thriving social media presence from beyond the grave, managing his digital assets, valuing his digital estate, and securing his online presence. Begging the question, what sort of digital legacy do you want to leave behind?   

In this two part episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori, D.S. Moss travels out west to San Francisco for an interview with Thoughts in Passing artist Claudia Biçen. Convinced that the dying would have the answer to how we should be living, Claudia spent two years interviewing 9 people on their deathbed about their lives while drawing a life-size portrait of each of them.

In this two part episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori, D.S. Moss travels out west to San Francisco for an interview with Thoughts in Passing artist Claudia Biçen. Convinced that the dying would have the answer to how we should be living, Claudia spent two years interviewing 9 people on their deathbed about their lives while drawing a life-size portrait of each of them.

In the fifth episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori, D.S. Moss sits for coffee with photojournalist and documentarian Micah Garen, co-author of American Hostage, who recounts his kidnapping in Iraq and his struggle to survive - All leading to how this traumatic experience has changed the way he lives his life today. It's good stuff. Listen. Episode Corrections: This is not the first Interview Micah Garen has given about the kidnapping Nick Berg was beheaded not hanged  

Sandra Oh joins D.S. Moss on an adventure into the mind where portals (may or may not) open to past lives. After being told by a palm reader that he'll never find true love in this lifetime because of karmic debt, Moss enlists the help of hypnotist and regression therapist, Daniel Ryan to regress him way back back back to search for answers. No matter what you believe his regression is certainly a trip.     

In the third installment of The Adventures of Memento Mori, D.S. Moss goes on the road in the Immortality Bus with Presidential hopeful Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party and gets educated on the jaw dropping, mind blowing, and venture capitalist funded movement in the science of living forever.       

In this episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori, D.S. Moss enlists the help of medium and intuition coach, Psychic Betsy to conduct a seance in hopes of summoning a particular spirit to reconcile a mysterious twenty-year-old question. What he receives instead only pulls him deeper into the quest for enlightenment.

The inaugural podcast episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori finds D.S. Moss administratively making death preparations. Who keeps the dog? When to pull the plug? What will happen to his body, and who will DJ his funeral?  Special guests include Everplans.com, Cynthia Beal of Natural Burial Company, and life coach Devin Martin.