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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Pagan funeral

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 How a handful of soil holds more than 50 billion life forms | Financial  Times

 Last Rites

 

The graveside service over, people are beginning to turn back to the cars. But there's one more rite to be observed here today.

This is, after all, my mother, and I her firstborn child.

I scoop up a handful of earth from a new grave nearby, and place it on the lid of the coffin. Against the polished wood, the little mound of sandy soil manages to look both shocking, and inevitable.

This is rite as articulate action: symbolism that no one needs to have explained.

Standing at the coffin's foot, I pronounce the traditional words.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 The witches' dance · Alkistis Dimech

Remarks from a Pagan Funeral

 

In his quite remarkable book European Paganism: The Realities of Cult, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Ken Dowden makes the observation that all over ancient Europe, it was customary to end funerals with a dance: specifically, with a round dance, preferably performed around the grave itself.

A funeral ends with a round dance. This is profound and articulate action. Ancient Europe was a large place, much larger than it is today: a place of many peoples, many languages, and many cultures; and yet everywhere, across ethnic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries, funerals ended with a round dance.

A funeral ends with a round dance. Now why, do you think, would the ancestors have done this? Anyone?

[Field responses from people.]

The pagan religions are preeminently religions of praxis: they're about what you do. For pagans, to dance is to pray. (Reporter: Do witches pray? Witch [thinks a moment, then smiles.] We dance.) Among the Kalasha of what is now NW Pakistan, the only Indo-European-speaking people who have practiced their ancient religion continuously since antiquity, the same word—the same word—means both to dance and to pray. Consider the implications of this.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Let us lift up our hands.

 

Dread Lord seated upon the Dark Throne,

the span of whose antlers reaches from horizon to horizon;

Great Lady who descended into Night

because she would know all things, even the mystery of Death;

O you whose love first engendered our people,

along with everything that is:

we your children stand before you this day

and we call to you.

We thank you for the life and deeds

of your daughter, our sister Hilary;

we commend her, body and spirit, to your care.

We ask that the way be open before her,

so that in due course, rested and renewed,

she may return and be reborn once again among our people.

In the name of the Horns and the Wandering Moon

we ask it,

and let us all say:

 

So mote it be.

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Scattering Violets: A New Blog About Death Care and Funerary Traditions

For the past several months, I've found myself struggling with fresh ideas for Hob & Broom, my previous blog here on PaganSquare about hearth and home traditions. While my hearth cult is still a deeply important spiritual foundation for me, I felt that I'd exhausted all my resources for it and there was nothing left to write about. But I think it's closer to the truth to say that my interest has shifted, and has been shifting for quite some time.

 

...
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Opening Remarks

 

My sisters and brothers, we gather here today to commemorate and celebrate the life of Jane Hawkner.

Our rite will consist of three parts: The Rite of the Gates, the Fire Sacrifice, and the Arval Feast.

Our gathering today is not, however, one of commemoration only, but also of transition, which—symbolically, at least—will ease Jane's way from this life to that which comes next. For this, we will need the active engagement and participation of each one of you.

Much of what we do here today will, by tradition, be enacted while standing in respect. Let me add, though, that if you need to sit, please do so. Just be sure to sit respectfully.

Let us begin by acknowledging the Great Circle of Life and Death of which we are all a part, and by joining ourselves to it.

And so we begin.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Ocher and Earth

 Ocher and earth: that's what I want.

Like the ancestors, ocher and earth.

When the time comes, dig me a hole

and lay me in it. Lay me on my side,

limbs folded, like a baby in the womb.

By my head, set the little earthenware goddess

that stands in the garden in summer.

(In winter, check the big cupboard in the pantry.)

Sprinkle me with ocher, head to foot.

(Be heavy-handed.)

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Iron oxide is one of the most common minerals on the planet, found practically everywhere. No wonder we've been using it forever.
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I remember seeing a show on PBS abut the Red Paint People in New England and the Maritime Provence's. Apparently the same culture
  • Rod Thorn
    Rod Thorn says #
    Nice.

Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Parting Gifts

 

This past Saturday, I attended a remembrance circle for a member of one of our covens. It was held on her birthday, about one year after her death. There had been ceremonies immediately after her death, but the passage of time allowed this ritual to focus more upon a celebration of her life than upon loss. Almost everyone present chose to speak about the times that they had shared with her. It is often said that funerary rites are more for the living than for those who have gone ahead. For the most part I agree with that statement, though in this case I believe that there were mutual parting gifts.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Ivo Dominguez Jr
    Ivo Dominguez Jr says #
    Better than I can sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eisW0skJ9fU
  • Byron Ballard
    Byron Ballard says #
    Beautifully sung. Thank you.

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