i thank You God for this amazing day

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-- e.e. cummings

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Burial, Ash Scattering, Physical GatheringAmy CunninghamBefore Death, Final Resting Place
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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Living Memorial, At Home, At the Crematorium, Ash Scattering, At The Funeral Home, At The CrematoriumAmy CunninghamBefore Death, Commemorative Event
I Have Withdrawn From This World

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world’s tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song.

—By German poet Frederick Ruckert, 1788-1866

This poem was set to music by Gustav Mahler. Have a listen!

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First Year Milestones, Burial, At the CemeteryAmy CunninghamFuneral music, Final Resting Place, Final Resting
The Jewish Viduy Prayer

I acknowledge before You, Lord my G‑d and the G‑d of my fathers, that my recovery and my death are in Your hands. May it be Your will that You heal me with total recovery, but, if I die, may my death be an atonement for all the errors, iniquities, and willful sins that I have erred, sinned and transgressed before You, and may You grant my share in the Garden of Eden, and grant me the merit to abide in the World to Come which is vouchsafed for the righteous.

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At The BedsideAmy CunninghamBefore Death
How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning,  Sonnet 43

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Living Memorial, At Home, At the Crematorium, At the Funeral HomeAmy CunninghamBefore Death, Commemorative Event
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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At The Crematorium, At the Crematorium, At the Cemetery, At The Bedside, At HomeAmy CunninghamAt Death, Moving The Body, Commemorative Event, Final Resting Place
On Death

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

-- Kahlil Gibran

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Ash Scattering, Burial, Group Readiness, Immediately After Death, Physical GatheringAmy CunninghamAt Death, Dying, Final Resting Place
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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At Home, At The Bedside, At the Cemetery, At the Funeral Home, At The Funeral Home, Burial, Green Burial, Last BreathAmy CunninghamAfter Death, Commemorative Event, Final Resting Place
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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At Home, At The Bedside, At the Cemetery, At the Funeral Home, Physical Gathering, Living Memorial, Holidays, First Year MilestonesAmy CunninghamAt Death, Final Resting Place, Final Resting, First Year Milestones, After Death, First Anniversary, Commemorative Event
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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At the Crematorium, At The Crematorium, Holidays, Physical Gathering, Ash ScatteringAmy CunninghamAfter Death, Final Resting
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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At The BedsideAmy CunninghamBefore Death
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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Ash Scattering, Green Burial, Holidays, Living MemorialAmy CunninghamFinal Resting Place, Commemorative Event, First Anniversary, First Year Milestones
Shadows
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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At The Bedside, At Home, Last BreathAmy CunninghamBefore Death
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 open 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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At Home, At The BedsideAmy CunninghamDying
The Original Serenity Prayer

God, 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

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At The Bedside, At the Cemetery, At the Crematorium, Group Readiness, Making ReadyAmy CunninghamBefore Death
Everything is Waiting for You

After 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

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Amy CunninghamBefore Death
Bathing Prayer

In 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.

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Washing and Dressing, Washing And Dressing, Making ReadyAmy Cunningham