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.
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
Read MoreGo they great way!
The stars thou meetst
Are even as Thyself—
For what are Stars but Asterisks
To point a human Life?
Emily Dickinson
Read MoreOh! 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
Read MoreWhen 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
Read MoreThese 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
Read MoreAnd 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
Read MoreMay 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 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 open the doors,
O soul! Tenderly! be not impatient! (Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh! Strong is your hold, O love!)
—Walt Whitman
Read MoreMay God/Love support us all the day long,
‘till the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is o’er, and our work is done.
Then in His/Its mercy, may He/It give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.
Amen.
—adapted from St. John Cardinal Newman, C.O.
Read MoreGod, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
by Reinhold Niebuhr
Read MoreAfter Derek Mahon
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
—By David Whyte, from River Flow: New & Selected Poems
https://www.amazon.com/River-Flow-Selected-Revised-Paperback/dp/193288727X
Read MoreIn the presence of the metah (body of the deceased):
Source of Kindness and Compassion. Whose ways are ways of mercy and truth, You have commanded us to act with loving-kindness and compassion towards the dead; and to engage in their proper burial. Grant us the courage and strength to perform this sacred work properly – washing and cleansing ________’s body, dressing him/her in shrouds, and burying him/her. Guide our hands and hearts as we do this work, and enable us to complete it with love. Help us to see You in the face of the deceased, even as we see You in the faces of those who share this commandment (duty, sacred act). Source of Life and Death, be with us now and forever.
This can be adapted for any day of the year or for daily practice.
Holy One of Blessing. Spirit of All Life, as I light these Hanukah candles I attune to the soul of my _______ (relationship) ___________(name/names). Beloved _________(relationship), I invite you into my heart and ask for your blessings in my life. Watch over me and my family. May my life express those values you held dear, values that inspire and help me to make the world a better place. If there is a need for more forgiveness and healing between us, may the lights of Hanukah radiate healing and illuminate the capacity for forgiveness between us.
Holy One of Blessing, You who made miracles for our ancestors in days of old, continue to bring more miraculous love, light and healing into our hearts, our homes, our community, and the world. I am grateful to those ancestors whose spirits touch mine and I offer my thanks for your loving wisdom. Amen.
—Reb Simcha Raphael, Ph.D., Founding Director, DA’AT Institute for Death Awareness, Advocacy and Training
Read MoreHail 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
Read MoreDo not hurry
As you walk with grief;
It does not help the journey.
Walk slowly,
Pausing often;
Do not hurry
As you walk with grief.
--Eli Jenkins
Read MoreLie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A deadman’s
float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light - year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
-- Philip Booth
Read MoreShall I cry out in anger, O God,
Because Your gifts are mine but for a while? Shall I forget the blessing of health
The moment there is pain?
Shall I be ungrateful for the laughter,
the seasons of joy, the days of gladness,
when tears cloud my eyes and darken the world and my heart is heavy within me?
Shall I blot from my mind the love
I have rejoiced in when fate
leaves me bereft of shining presences that have lit my way through the years of companionship and affection?
Shall I, in days of adversity, fail to recall the hours of glory You once did grant me?
Shall I, in turmoil of need and anxiety,
Cease blessing You for the peace of former days? Shall the time of darkness put out for ever
The glow of light in which once I walked?
Give me the vision, O God, to see
that embedded in each of your gifts
is a core of eternity, undiminished and bright,
an eternity that survives the dread hours of affliction.
Those I have loved, though now beyond my view, Have given form and quality to my being.
They have led me into the wide universe
I continue to inhabit, and their presence
is more real to me than their absence.
What You give to me, O Lord, You never take away.
And bounties granted once Shed their radiance evermore. —by Morris Adler
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
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
Read More