Welcome to your funeral. There are only four things that we can ultimately count on in our lives: birth, change, uncertainty, and death. Death, we might say, is the ultimate change—the ultimate transformation. It can happen at any moment, to any person, and it is probably the most important thing other than birth that we will ever experience. This fact is so thoroughly obscured by the flurry of living, however, that it is oddly easy to forget. Remembering our mortality may be the most important thing we can do, and I've found the Living Funeral Ceremony to be a truly transformative experience that seems to solidify that memory.
Photo by Emily Cross of Steady Waves EOL
What is a Living Funeral Ceremony?
Living Funeral Ceremonies have a modern origin through the Hyowan Healing Center in Seoul, South Korea. There, attendees immediately begin to shed their earthly identities by donning robes and seeing the identical pine boxes that will hold them. Attendees work to further drop the concept of themselves throughout the memorial. Emily Cross, death doula and founder of Steady Waves End of Life Services, encountered this practice in her online research, and knew she needed to bring the practice into her own life and the lives of anyone she could reach. She has developed an adapted ceremony in tandem, thankfully, with a training program to disseminate the process through other practitioners. I'm lucky to call Emily a friend, and feel a huge sense of honor to be among the small, emerging group of Living Funeral practitioners.
As practitioners further adapt the ceremonies based on their personal practices and resources, the way any particular ceremony might look could vary. But in general, the structure is basically the same:
Attendees are guided to contemplate the life they've lived and the identity they've constructed. They behold their own image and trace back their memories.
Then everyone partakes in something not all of us are afforded in actual death: the writing of any final thoughts to leave behind in the world. Any last words?
Finally, wrapped in a shroud, attendees sink into a guided meditation intended to help with grasping the concept of the finality of death—and then even that concept is left behind as they atomize into non-existence, piece by piece.
After a time in the abyss, attendees are guided "back to life.”
When are living funerals useful?
Living Funeral Ceremonies can be useful for someone aware of their actual nearness to death looking to prepare themselves for the imminent, but they are for anyone looking to get in touch with the reality of mortality.
Whether or not we believe we accept the concept of death, most of us do not live out our days fully aware that it could happen at any moment, despite that being the case. Looking at death, then, is a vastly useful experience to shock us into the liveliness we all long to embody.
Other than situations where one's mental health is on shaky ground, and delving deep into contemplation of their own expiration might cause more harm than good (please assess this for yourself or your mental health professional, and if you're unsure, consult with those closest and most supportive of you), it is essentially always a good time to look at the end of our lives. Transitions, crises, and moments of urgent decisions are some such times—as are long years of stagnation and feeling stuck.
The benefits of dying before you die
At the bottom of everything, if you look closely, it may become apparent that the vast majority of how we spend our hours—in busyness and distraction—is a complex method for avoiding the reality that our consciousness has burdened us with: the awareness that we will die. Most of us instinctually avoid looking too closely because the fear and sorrow over our own death is so enormous that we might drown, burn, wither, or be crushed prematurely.
The irony is, this stubborn avoidance only serves to magnify the fear and deepen the trenches that we crawl through, dodging the fateful shot out of the unkown. The gift is what we find by staring into the face of such fear.
While “results” might not be the most ideal object of focus, there are a lot of potential beneficial outcomes of attending a Living Funeral Ceremony, even when they might stem from difficult or painful memories and emotions, or begin a necessary process of healing that is nonetheless taxing.
Gratitude.
Looking at what we've lost and what we still must give up can put us in touch with an all-consuming sense of greif, but what can be found through this work is that the other side of greif is an equally overwhelming gratitude for what we're still granted here and now, no matter how meager. Our little boat amid the sea of non-existance becomes a miracle, and the small joys we encounter are impossibly gracious.
Something like enjoying an orange is laughably luxurious, and the sweetness of our little dog unbearably fulfilling.
Less Judgement, More Compassion
We see with new eyes, even something we may usually judge as insignificant or diminishing, such as scrolling on Instagram, becomes a shining emblem of our desire for connection and belonging, and we see ourselves with compassion and admiration for attempting to satiate such a humble and innate desire.
Our failures become just a little bit more understandable, as do our greivances with others.
Forgiveness
In the perspective gained in contemplating our own death, we see the plot points of our story in their true position: over, and bound to die with us. We might see our ability to forgive ourselves and others increase even slightly, for it only unnecessarily harms us to hold hatred and grudges to the grave.
Getting out of our heads and into our bodies
Another potential gain from attending a Living Funeral Ceremony might be increased embodiment. Many of us live entirely in our heads, and don't consistently acknowledge the messages of our bodies.
In attending our own memorial, we become acutely and unavoidably aware of the fact of our corporeal forms in all their vitality, fragility, complexity, miraculousness, and temporariness. We mourn the passing of them into oblivion, and sense of the impossible gift of returning to them as we re-enter the world.
We might vow to be better stewards of our bodies, that we might last a little bit longer in this life. Or more acurately, to recognize that stewardship is only an illusion, because we are our bodies; our consciousness is not separate from our body but embedded in it. Our attempt to exile our physical form to a separate room, and then to speak of a mind-body connection, is woefully inadequate to describe their complete unity.
A sense of urgency and looking at priorities
Annie Dillard famously put forth an insight devastating-in-its-mundanity when she said, "how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
The dedicated contemplation of death that comes with Living Funeral Ceremonies might also result in a more honest and raw assessment of our priorities and how we're living; the decisions we’re making. Today counts.
One day, Emily (mentioned above) had an AMA in her Instagram stories, and a few of the questions centered around what she's learned through being a death doula—in spending significant time caring for the acutely dying. One of her answers, astoundingly simple yet bone-rattlingly profound, hit me over the head like a ton of bricks, and has had a place on my bathroom mirror ever since: "Live your life, now."
We don't have the luxury of mindlessness, an infinite set of days to squander in ennui. After a ceremony, we may decide that the endurance we're forcing upon ourselves by remaining in strenuous but changeable circumstances are no longer worth the anguish. The approval we're trying to win is no longer paramount. Going through the motions to approximate lives that others have always invisioned for us isn't what will comfort us on our death beds.
We might realize that that what has seemed like living has merely been existing, or accommodating, and decide to find our way, if clumsily, to something that might be called flourishing. To fully enter into our lives, some of us will have monumental and seemingly endless tasks of difficult healing and overcoming ahead, while some lucky or privileged few may simply need a shift or two in perspective.
Looking at the urgency of living lives we want to live isn’t meant to increase our anxiety, nor shame ourselves for what we’ve done or neglected to do. There's a certain extent to which we must remain aware of the final shoe waiting to drop, not in terror but in dedication to the full scope of possibility of our lives.
"...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 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."
-David Whyte
Why facilitating Living Funerals called to me personally
Perhaps from watching the completely escapable yet thoroughly miserable 40 years of job-hatred my father endured, and the other endless ways myself and loved ones kept themselves trapped and small, this concept of the urgency of living and prioritization of enjoying life has always been vitally close to how I've made decisions.
It has certainly served as my compass and map, and is a foundational pillar—without a doubt—to the inception of Tall Grass Transformation. Our ability to make changes in order to live just a little bit more fully is endlessly fascinating to me, and something I seem to have bottomless energy in exploring in myself and others.
No matter your life or circumstances, consider how it may serve you to think about death, which will come to you. If you don't have the time or energetic resources to attend a Living Funeral, see if you can just spend a few moments each day, or even each week, letting the truth of death's inevitability—and therefore the immediacy of life—wash over you. There is much beauty in the fact that thinking about death can bring us to life. The “purpose” of contemplating death isn’t in order to achieve more vitality, but it often at least plants the seed for this possibility.
Watch for virtual Living Funeral Ceremonies hosted by me, or a myriad of other practitioners during the time of Covid. If you need financial assistance or money is a barrier for your attendance, please get in touch with me or other hosts to see how we might be able to work with you. There are also some offerings for private sessions if you wish for a more personal and individual experience. You can keep up with these and other upcoming Tall Grass events via this site or on Instagram. Eventually, I will host these events in person both in groups and privately.