Our Story
History of the Living/Dying Project:
In 1976 Stephen Levine founded The Dying Project as part of The Hanuman Foundation. Shortly after founding the first organization in the Western world to actively promote conscious dying, Stephen was joined by Ram Dass, Dale Borglum, and Ondrea Levine. The Dying Project offered conscious support to people with life-theatening illnesses and also included a national call-in consultation hot-line. For many years after its inception, the Project was the only organization here in the West which advocated seeing the dying process as an opportunity for spiritual awakening and using caregiving for those with life-threatening illness as a spiritual practice.
In 1981, as part of the Hanuman Foundation Dying Project, the Dying Center in Santa Fe, NM, was created. This was the first residential facility in the West to care for clients who wished to see their confrontation with death as an opportunity for awakening, rather than seeing death merely a tragedy. From 1981-1984 Dale Borglum, the founding Director of the Dying Center, guided the facility in which approximately 85 people were served free of charge.
In 1986 Dale relocated the Project to its present location in Marin County and changed the name to The Living/Dying Project.The Open Circle program of the Project offers free-of-charge emotional and spiritual support to people with life-threatening illnesses and to those who care for them. As well, the Project has an educational component whose mission is to explore healing in the context of a life-threatening illness. Dale has trained thousands of hospice care workers, nurses, therapists, doctors, and volunteers in palliative care.
