Funerals

I have collected a selection of poems and readings you may like to use during a ceremony, I hope you will find something suitable. I intend to add more regularly.

The intention

Healing is both an exercise and an understanding,

and yet not of the will nor of the intention.

It is wisdom and a deeper knowledge of the daily swing

of life and death in all creation.

 

There is defeat to overcome and

acceptance of living to be established,

and always there must be hope.

Not hope of healing but the hope which

informs the coming moment and gives it’s reason.

The hope which is each man’s breath,

the certainty of love and of loving.

 

Death may live in the living

and healing rise in the dying,

for whom the natural end is part of the gathering,

and of the harvest to be expected.

 

To know healing is to know that all life is one,

and there is no beginning and no end,

and the intention is loving.

 

Margaret Torrie (1912 – 1999)

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

 

W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939)

No mourning by request

Come not to mourn for me with solemn tread

Clad in dull weeds of sad and sable hue,

Nor weep because of my tale of life’s told through,

Casting light dust on my troubled head.

Nor linger near me while the sexton fills

My grave with earth – but so gay garlanded.

And in your halls a shining banquet spread

And gild your chambers o’er with daffodils.

 

Fill your tall goblets with white wine and red,

And sing brave songs of gallant love and true,

Wearing soft robes of emerald and blue,

And dance, as I your dances oft have led,

And laugh, as I have often laughed with you –

And be most merry – after I am dead.

 

Winifred Holtby (1898 – 1935)

Acceptance

There is an end to grief

Suddenly there are no more tears to cry

No hurt nor break now

But mute acceptance of what will be

Knowing that each move for good or ill

Must fit the whole

Past comprehension

Yet trusted in the design

This way lies peace.

 

Brenda Lismer

Death for one ought not mean death for two

Death for one ought not mean death for two.

We cannot die of grief unless we will.

Love requires us to love life still,

Lest love be less than life and death are due.

We cannot choose but choose for others, too,

For what we choose does what we are distill,

And open fields with inner sweetness fill,

That those who pass might hope or faith renew.

 

So may your love for loved ones that remain

Bring you through this season of despair

To some unquiet, sad, but gentle spring.

Emerging from your chrysalis of pain,

May you find a new world blossomed there

With new songs bittersweet that pleasure bring.

 

Nicholas Gordon

Andrea Jackson The Holistic Celebrant

Contact me by phone or email

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