Blessing for Separation

O Thou,

The Cause and Effect of the whole universe,

The Source from whence we have come

And the Goal toward which all are bound

Receive this soul who is coming to Thee

Into Thy parental arms.

May Thy forgiving glance heal his [her, their] heart.

Lift him [her, they] from the denseness of the earth.

Surround him [her, them] with the Light

Of Thine own Spirit.

Raise him [her, them] up to heaven

Which is his true dwelling place.

We pray Thee, grant him [her, them] the blessing

Of Thy most exalted Presence.

May his [her,their] life upon earth

Become as a dream to his [her, their] waking soul

And let his [her, their] thirsting eyes behold

The glorious vision of Thy Sunshine.

Amen

--Hazrat Inayat Khan

It is Hard to Sing of Oneness...

It is hard to sing of oneness when our world is not complete,
when those who have once brought wholeness to our life have gone,
and naught but memory can fill the emptiness their passing leaves behind.
But memory can tell us only what we were, in company with those we loved;
it cannot help us find what each of us,
alone, must now become.

Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words,
and what they did is part of what we have become.
We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully,
even in the shadow of our loss.

Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe

-Jewish Prayer for High Holidays

May the Arms of God

May the arms of God/Love raise her from the darkness of this planets' earth and surround her with light;

If she is thirsty, give her water in the clearing.

If she is hungry, give her food in the clearing.

May her life on this Earth and the pain of her passing become as a dream to her waking soul,

and let her eyes fall upon every lovely sight; let her find her family and friends that have been lost to her,

and let everyone whose name she calls call her in return.

Goodnight

Goodnight; ensured release,
Imperishable peace,
Have these for yours,
While sea abides, and land,
And earth’s foundations stand,
and heaven endures.

When earth’s foundations flee,
nor sky nor land nor sea
At all is found
Content you, let them burn:
It is not your concern;
Sleep on, sleep sound.

—A.E Housman

Excerpt from "The Little Prince"

If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-blossom with flowers.

And at night you will look up at the stars. Where I live, everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better like that. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all of the stars in the heavens. They will be your friends.

All men have the stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, these stars are guides. For others, they are no more than little lights in the sky.

But all these stars are silent. You – you alone – will have the stars as no one else has them and in one of the stars, I shall be living. In one of them, I shall be laughing when you look at the sky at night.

And when your sorrow is comforted, for time soothes all sorrows, you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, just for that pleasure.'

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Go thy great way!

Go they great way!

The stars thou meetst

Are even as Thyself—

For what are Stars but Asterisks

To point a human Life?

Emily Dickinson

Epitaph

By Merrit Malloy

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on in your eyes

And not your mind.

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

By letting bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.

I'll see you at home

in the earth.

Life after Death

These things I know:

how the living go on living

and how the dead go on living with them

so that in a forest

even a dead tree casts a shadow

and the leaves fall one by one

and the branches break in the wind

and the bark peels off slowly

and the trunk cracks

and the rain seeps in through the cracks

and the trunk falls to the ground

and the moss covers it

and in the spring the rabbits find it

and build their nest

inside the dead tree

so that nothing is wasted in nature or in love.

—Laura Gilpin

The Wheel

Time is a wheel: the day that we met
Is still there:
Everything changes but nothing is lost:
All that we shared,
All that we ever loved, belongs to us still:
Time is a wheel
Whatever has ended is just about to begin
All that we feel,
All that we ever felt, will come back again
Time is a wheel
The sound of your laughter, the rain in your hair,
Your hand in mine,
Your knock at the door, your step on the stair -
All are still there
Because time is a wheel and death will come round
As birth will come round
As love will come round, as peace will come round,
As joy will come round,
As life will come round, because time is a wheel
Bringing back even yet,
All that we ever shared , and the day that we met.

--Susan Stocker

Amy CunninghamJanuary 24, 2021Commemorative Event, Final Resting Place

Blessed Are Those Who Give Meaning to Our Lives

Blessed are those who give meaning to our lives;

holy and precious is the example they leave behind.

We pray: May our sorrows diminish as we recall their strength.

May their wisdom protect us and help us to live.

Let our grief be transformed into tenderness for those who are still with us.

-- Jewish prayer

Peace, my Heart

Peace, my heart, let the time for
the parting be sweet.
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into memory and pain
into songs.
Let the flight through the sky end
in the folding of the wings over the
nest.
Let the last touch of your hands be
gentle like the flower of the night.
Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a
moment, and say your last words in
silence.
I bow to you and hold up my lamp
to light you on your way.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Hail the Traveler

Hail the Traveler! We commit you back from where you came — to the arms of your ancestors. May there be peace where there was anger. May there be healing where there was hurt. Go quickly to the place that your old ones called home. For those who grieve for your passing, let there be healing. For those who grieve for who you were, let there be healing. For those who grieve for what you could have been, let there be healing. Hail the Traveler. We celebrate your journey. —Reprinted with the kind permission of Quetta Garrison-Madsen

Marge Piercy's Kaddish

Look around us, search above us, below, behind.
We stand in a great web of being joined together.
Let us praise, let us love the life we are lent
passing through us in the body of Israel
and our own bodies, let’s say amein.

Time flows through us like water.
The past and the dead speak through us.
We breathe our children’s children, blessing.

Blessed is the earth from which we grow,
blessed the life we are lent,
blessed the ones who teach us,
blessed the ones we teach,
blessed is the word that cannot say the glory
that shines through us and remains to shine
flowing past distant suns on the way to forever.
Let’s say amein.

Blessed is the light, blessed is the darkness
but blessed above all else is peace
which bears the fruits of knowledge
on strong branches, let’s say amen.

Peace that bears joy into the world,
peace that enables love, peace over Israel
everywhere, blessed and holy is peace, let’s say amein.

-- Marge Piercy

Death is Not the End

Death is not the end

But the beginning

Of a metamorphosis.

For matter is never destroyed

Only transformed

And rearranged –

Often more perfectly.

Witness how in the moment of a caterpillar’s death

The beauty of the butterfly is born

And released from the prison of the cocoon

It flies free.

-- Peter Tatchell

Return This Body

This body that has borne her all her life from birth to death, that gave her breath to live and sight to see, that has served her every need, that has shown you the beauty of her unique person in its eyes and made you aware of her presence in your heart, and without which she would be a mystery to you; we now return to its source with the grace it deserves from us, without our attachment to it but with our lasting love for her.

At the Cemetery, At the Crematorium, Ash Scattering, BurialAmy CunninghamSeptember 30, 2017Final Resting Place

There is Sacredness in Tears

There is sacredness in tears.

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.

-- Washington Irving

At the Cemetery, At The BedsideAmy CunninghamSeptember 8, 2017Final Resting Place, Preparing The Body

Reading, Ecclesiastes 3, vv 1 - 14

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

A Prayer

May perpetual light shine upon

The face of he who rests here.

May the remembering earth

Mind every memory he brought.

May the rains from the heavens

Fall gently upon him.

May the wildflowers and grasses

Whisper their wishes into the light.

May we reverence the village of presence

In the stillness of this silent field.

-- Adapted from a poem by John Donohue

At the Cemetery, At the Crematorium, BurialAmy CunninghamSeptember 8, 2017Final Resting Place

Mourner’s Kaddish in English Translation

Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will.

May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored andlauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

Burial, At the CemeteryAmy CunninghamAugust 22, 2017Final Resting Place

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

-- Philip Larkin

Group Readiness, BurialAmy CunninghamJuly 25, 2017Before Death, Final Resting Place