Family & Community Rituals

Whether it is a personal ritual to set forth your heart-sourced intentions, or a communal gathering as a shared life experience of great joy or the depths of grief, ritual is a tool that brings the visible and invisible worlds together to elevate and activate the integration of deep human feelings and desires.

I work closely with individuals, families, and groups to create unique and meaningful rituals that matter. Providing ritual services throughout the Hudson Valley and Capitol Region of New York. I am often called upon directly by an individual, a couple, or their family who have attended ritual events over which I presided, and liked what they experienced.

If not contacted directly, for weddings, I am often recommended by event planners who know I am creative, collaborative, reliable and have served many traditional and LGBTQIN2S+ couples, and complex compound family configurations.  For funerals, memorials and celebration-of-life rituals, I am often recommended by the funeral director the family has selected to handle their loved one's body. For green disposition options of body disposition, I am usually found through word of mouth and google searches and bring in the funeral director to accommodating New York State legal requirements.

After Death Officiant/Celebrant/Ritualist Services

Your “First Call” after someone has been declared dead is to the Officiant (sometimes also referred to as Celebrant or Ritualist). The earliest gathering of stories and understanding the values, dreams, and contributions of the loved one from friends and family contributes to unique honoring services.

Whether for a Living Wake Celebration, Family-Guided Home Funeral, or Conventional Funeral or Memorial Services, I will work with you and your family/friends to create a personalized and memorable experience. If I am involved even earlier in the planning and transition process we have an added advantage of deeper familiarity, knowledge, and appreciation.

Officiant services can be the creation and delivery of a meaningful stand-alone speech, or can be accompanied with other services like facilitating the creation of “Memory Photo Boards,” “Memory Tokens,” “Ritual Activities,” “Legacy Video or Animated Still-Image Presentation,” and so much more. Please see Resources and Services.

Living Wake Celebration

Consider creating a Living Wake Celebration for yourself or someone you love. This trend in preparing for death is creative, empowering, and rich in loving connection for healing closure and preparation for farewell. There you would have your favorite people, favorite foods, special music, readings and sharing. It can take on any form that has strong personal appeal––from a twist on a classic Irish Wake, to a Sunday Brunch Reunion, to a Big Bash Party, to a Sail on the River or Picnic in the Woods, a Ride through the Golf Course, Family Gathering. What can you imagine? Too many times I have heard guests at memorial services exclaim, "Why did it take [insert name] to die to bring us together again?" A Living Wake moves up the connection to a time when everyone can be together when the dying one can most enjoy it.

Home Funeral Guidance

Importantly, in the state of New York, Home Funeral Guides work closely with a licensed Funeral Director has the responsibility of adhering to all legal requirements related to the death, transportation, and disposition of the body. I work with several funeral directors in the our area. Since 2015, I have been an active member of the National Home Funeral Alliance with designated proficiency and knowledge of best practices and many creative options.

For a sacred deathcare Home Funeral, an individual dies at home (or is brought home) to be lovingly cared for by family and friends for 1-3 days. It is important that this process is guided by a an experienced guide. During the Home Funeral, the family can do as much or as little as they are able, but they unequivocally witness that their beloved is safe and well cared for.  It is a final act of love. It gives grief someplace to go, allowing healing to begin.

The scope of Home Funeral Guide services can range from the most basic to quite elaborate and highly orchestrated. 1. ceremonial ritual washing as a loving way to say goodby and honoring the body before it is released to the funeral director within a few hours. 2. It can be ritual bathing, anointing, body preparation and cooling techniques for the family to manage their loved one's afterdeath care privately by themselves, or 3.  it can be a fuller service where the guide serves as ritualist, educating and guiding the family throughout the 1-3 day process. There may be a dress rehearsal ahead of death. The guide supports the family with sacred washing, anointing, preparation, dressing of the body, creating a beautiful and personalized body altar, arranging a special environment attuned to the interests of the family with the personality of the deceased, and guidance of managing the body cooling. It may also include providing support for a friend and family vigil schedule and more.

I have served some clients who plan for their own or their loved one's at-home afterdeath care well in advance. They have specific wishes for how they want their body cared for and presented. They may want special ritual objects in their environment, particular lighting or candles, changing of clothing, and a specific visitation schedule throughout the three days. These clients often want to witness a dress rehearsal training of their chosen family and friends.  In these situations, the planning itself of their afterdeath care is empowering, creative, and a part of graceful albeit bittersweet closure to physical life. Everyone involved is forever changed with a depth of compassion and understanding not found any other way.

After the few precious days (1-3 days) have given the family and friends their own time to truly honor their loved one and each other, an especially personalized and collaborative home funeral takes place. The ceremonial gathering can take place in the home and/or at the gravesite or other chosen location for sacred body disposition.

Natural "Green" Disposition

After the home funeral, the body remains are respectfully disposed of according to the wishes of the dead. It may be natural burial in a special cemetery or a designated piece of garden or forest–––with the body carefully wrapped in a shroud, in a plain or hand-decorated box, or as part of the root ball of a tree.  The choice may be cremation with ashes held in a legacy urn, scattering at sea, planted in a garden, or transformed into crystal memento jewelry. Or, the loved one's body may be honored through the newly available form of natural decomposition and return to nature called "recomposing", "terramation" aka Natural Organic Reduction (NOR), or perhaps Alkaline Hydrolysis,

Conventional Funerals and Religious Traditions

Choices for conventional funerals and religious traditions are also always respected. For some, family, religious, and cultural traditions may play the largest role in the choices they make. Perhaps there is a family cemetery plot. There may be expectations involving specific sacraments, prayers, rituals, washing, wrapping, embalming, viewing, interment in casket or mausoleum, or cremation. Even if the choice is conventional, there are many opportunities for personalization

Act of Love

Caring for the dead is our final act of love. Caring for our environment is a wise act of continuing to contribute even in death as part of the natural cycle and toward a healthy relationship with Earth for generations that follow.

Home funerals are a loving, legal, eco-friendly, family-centered, and financially-responsible option that feels very natural and normal. Family-directed home funerals allow family and friends precious time to honor their loved one, accept and integrate the loss, say goodby in their own time and in their own way.

“Once you are done with your body, the choice is preservation, disappearance, or reintegration.” (C.A. Beal, Natural Burial Company in UK.)

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” (Mother Teresa)

Unlike in many cultures of the world, in the U.S. death has largely been kept out of site and away from the home.  death by keeping old ones out of sight and immediately whisk away dead bodies into institutions. We use code words for death, like “he passed” and “she’s gone,” perhaps even telling a child “grandma just went to sleep forever.”

The view of death as something un-natural, avoidable, and separate from life may play a part in human estrangement from our inherent relationship as part of Nature. This affects our ability to fully live while we can through our natural cycle of life and to heal through authentic, deep bereavement. Our contemporary culture not only denies death, it defies it. But this is changing. Our choices for final care matter.

The Children Are Watching

Whether sacred or secular, green or conventional, the most important intention is creating aa meaningful,  enriching, love-filled, supportive, healing environment for all involved. This context gives time to safely, deeply reflect into what matters most in life. For younger ones it provides education and experience about how, together, we naturally care for each other in death. See Planning.

See Resources.