ABSTRACT
Unearthing an aesthetic appreciation of responses to death and grief requires an understanding of what has gone before. All journeys into new terrain respond to existing maps, or trace a direction from which new steps might diverge. To understand death and bereavement and to map a fresh topography for counseling conversations, it is useful to start with how the ground beneath our feet has previously been mapped. We ultimately wish to venture into a new language about death and about our responses to it, but we do not start from neutral ground.
