Trembling Still: The Awful Clarity of a Mind in Eclipse

"Turbulently brilliant; tuneful and mournful, poignant and funny, heart-rending and mind-grabbing, skillfully improvisational, eloquent and compelling."—Gabor Maté, MD, author of The Myth of Normal

From the award-winning author of Die Wise comes a raw and poignant account of the indiscriminate nature of illness—and what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a diagnosis.

Stephen Jenkinson is perhaps best known for his extensive work helping people navigate grief, death, and dying, both as the former director of palliative care at a major Canadian hospital and afterward, through his Orphan Wisdom School, which seeks to cultivate deep life skills in an age of cultural fragmentation and amnesia.

Now, the unimaginable has descended upon the “Griefwalker” himself. In Trembling, Still, Stephen takes to the page in the wake of his diagnosis with Parkinson's disease - "the Beast," as he comes to know it.

Written as a series of journal entries, Trembling, Still is a lyrical and meditative journey of reckoning that will resonate with anyone who has experienced or witnessed any radical undoing. In illness, there is pain, confusion, grace, dissolution, joy, heart-wrenching grief, light. There’s sorrow. Then there’s the soul’s work.

"Never, once, does the book lose its mesmeric hold. This is not a domestic document. If you seek the unexpected, seek this."—Martin Shaw, author of Liturgies of the Wild

Stephen Jenkinson is a culture activist, worker, and author. He has taught internationally and is the creator of the Orphan Wisdom School, cofounded with his wife Nathalie Roy in 2010. He apprenticed with a master storyteller as a young man and received a master’s degree in theology at Harvard University and a master’s of social work from the University of Toronto. Stephen has worked extensively with dying people and their families, formerly serving as the director of palliative care at Mount Sinai Hospital of Toronto. In 2023, Stephen received a Distinguished Alumni Honours Award from Harvard University for “helping people navigate grief, exploring the liminal space between life and death, and connecting humanity through ceremony and storytelling.” 

Stephen is the author of Reckoning (co-written with Kimberly Ann Johnson in 2022), A Generation’s Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How It All Could Be: A Workbook for Dying People and Those Who Love Them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002). He was a contributing author to Palliative Care – Core Skills and Clinical Competencies (2007). Stephen’s newest book is Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart’s Work (published by Sounds True).