Dying and death pathways

We live in a time when many folks agree on “no funeral”, saying “Mom didn’t want anything.” “We can’t afford it.” all of which is understandable. Still, the human life in transition deserves, and requires, meaningful attention.

Carving out a space and time away from the working world to host an honoring service for the person who is new to being dead and for those being left to grieve is crucial to each person’s well-being and their ability to integrate their experience.

An honoring service, like a funeral ( with the body present) or a memorial ( without the body present) details the web of life that defined the person who died, and the brokenness of the web is the grief of those who remain. Naming the grief and honoring the life help everyone invloved adjust to their new reality.

A Home Funeral

is family/community-led deathcare. This practical and reverential process of applying love and grief into the gaps between the living and the dead restores the continuum of Life. The tending applied in those spaces is physical, psychic, spoken, and felt messages into the multiple dimensions of Life/Death/Life.

The human heart knows no time or space. Practices of connecting to those in the afterlife are always open and available as long as we are.

Rituals that make sense to our family and community contain both personal markers and universal signposts, that bring cohesion and draw strength from the truth-telling stories our grieving bodies need to express.