Any ceremony that accompanies a funeral or burial is as flexible as your imagination.
I’ve been honoured to work both with people on planning their own funerals and with the recently bereaved looking to celebrate the life of a beloved. In either case I offer the space for people to explore what living and dying means in a spiritually fulfilling way, and how they would like to celebrate their end of life, or the life of their loved one.
To discuss that rite of passage, in advance, offers a chance to step consciously towards death, prepare how you want your life to be celebrated, how to mark your departure for those left behind. It can be a point of coming to terms with the end of an illness or old-age.
It can also alleviate the stress for others who have to plan and prepare at the disorientating time of grief.
I can write anything for the ceremony, help you to write something, read it or merely orchestrate the ceremony while others read and speak.
My eight years of coaching gives me the skills and depth of experience to ensure we will plan the ceremony you want. My interest lies in you expressing your life and anticipation of death. How you want to do this and who you want involved is the focus of our meetings. I would hope to meet any family or friends you would want to participate to ensure the smoothest experience for us all.
I have offiated at natural burials and cremations.
The Dalton Woodlands Burial Ground, near Burton-in-Kendal Cumbria UK, is a 30 acre mature woodland, a quiet and restful place to be buried. Francis Mason-Hornby, the registrar there, is a straight talking, compassionate man, open-minded and accommodating to what people want.
Natural burials are a growing alternative to cremations in offering a non religious burials. If you love the idea of returning smoothly to the world that made you, a woodland burial is the chance to take a quiet embrace at the end of your life.