Posts by Amy Cunningham
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

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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

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Forgive Our Errors

We gather here with ________as she lies here, newly dead.

The force of her life has just left this body that once was full of life, that she inhabited to move, to touch, to work, to love, to dance, to rest.

We give thanks to this body that held ________ through her life, and bore her unto death.

As we prepare to care for her in death, please forgive any errors we may make.

Help us make space to remember her out loud, to cry openly, and to laugh easily, as she would like.

Guide our hands to care for her tenderly, lovingly, and patiently.

Thank you for bringing us together to share in this work of love and service. Amen

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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.

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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

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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

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High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

—John Gillespie Magee

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When Death Comes to Your Door

When death comes to your door

at the end of the day,

what treasures will you hand over to him?

I’ll bring my full soul before him.

I’ll not send him away empty-handed

the day he comes to my door.

Into my life-vessel pours the nectar

of countless evenings and dawns,

of numberless autumn and spring nights.

My heart gets filled with the sight

of endless fruits and flowers,

with the touch of joy and sorrow’s light and shade.

All the treasures I’ve gathered

during my lifelong preparation

I’m now arranging for the last day

to give it all to death –

the day death comes to my door.

——Rabindranath Tagore

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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.

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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

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Shadows

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow, then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:
and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me—

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

—By D.H.Lawrence

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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

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The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
Of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


-- Wendell Berry

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The Imprisoned Soul

At the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,

From the clasp of the knitted locks—from the keep of the well-closed doors,

Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;

With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper

Set ope the doors,

O soul! Tenderly! be not impatient! (Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh! Strong is your hold, O love!)

—Walt Whitman

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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

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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

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