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THE MEMENTOS AT Albert Reynolds’ funeral this week, including a tin of dog food, a racing card and a copy of the Downing Street Declaration was a poignant display of the place that ritual holds in our modern society. In our cultural worship of busyness and speed where sometimes ‘I’m too busy to Comment so a Like will do’, many of our ancient rituals and rites of passage have all but disappeared. A spectrum of ceremonies around births and marriages initiate men and women into being godparents and spouses – but the space for consciously marking subtler transitions in life, like puberty, leaving home or becoming an elder, have largely disappeared.
However, there is still one ritual that strongly unites a community and invokes a collective response – the funeral. In spite of our increasingly de-ritualised society, this honouring of a life that has passed and the full acceptance of resulting grieving emotions remains an anchored aspect of our culture.
Navigating transition
Grief is a fierce and unpredictable emotion and with few opportunities to overtly express it, the environment of a funeral offers release for dormant grief or shadowy emotions. A funeral provides a space for the community to gather and offer support, assisting the living in navigating their transition from life with the deceased, to life without them. Through offering the mourners relief and assistance in accepting death, they can then safely explore their love and recent separation of that love, through the new lens of loss.
The spiritual ceremony also connects people with their previously deceased loved ones and, if needs be, gives them an arena to tie up any unfinished business with their faithful departed. The former Taoiseach’s life no doubt held different meanings for different people and the funeral gave his entire community an opportunity to honour not only the man himself, but also any personal loss they were processing. In a way, every funeral is a re-honouring of the community’s previous losses.
Celebrating life
‘Modernity sees death as an end whereas the traditional world sees death as a transition’ is how Malidoma Somé, author on grief and ritual, puts it. Seeing death as a transition, from one world to the next or simply from living to not-living, calls for celebration of the life lived in order to remember those passed at their best and send them on their way with appreciation and respect.
It can be bittersweet, often with solemn laughs and appreciative sighs when a eulogy refers to a favourite piece of music of the deceased, or their humorously annoying habit, or how long their family had lived in the local community or a moving insight into their private life. This posthumous view into the departed’s life can be terribly sad but also cathartic, sharing stories and hearing new ones helping mould the final memories.
The beauty of permission
Death provides a unique opportunity to unleash the incredible healing power of grieving, which although may not be comfortable, ultimately brings peace, acceptance and rejuvenation. Communal grieving creates a container greater than the sum of its parts, as the traditional Irish practice of keening used to illustrate. ‘Keening’ was where specific women in the community lead a vocal lament with weeping and wailing in order to invoke the emotions of grief in everyone present – a kind of ‘fake it till you make it’. The effect of the women infusing the funeral atmosphere with their professional grieving would be an awakening of mass grief, which then gave the mourners a permissive period of time to fully express themselves.
At the essence of what a funeral provides is permission: permission to engage with the darker emotions and not try to change them, permission to not feel good, permission to allow whatever is present inside a person’s heart to just be there.
On the death of Nelson Mandela last December, a friend living in London went to the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square to sign the book of remembrance. Despite thousands of mourners having passed through the embassy and the staff amidst their own grief at the loss of Madiba, the room was laid out immaculately with beautiful, fresh flowers on the table. She was spoken to attentively and invited to take a look around the office, sit down and feel free to take as much time as she needed. Humbled by the peace and care in that remembrance room, she is still moved by the dignity and appreciation that was given to her own grief.
An abundant send-off
Not everyone receives a letter from the Pope when they pass over, nor leaves an international legacy of peace and inspiration, but whatever the situation when the time comes to move from this life to the next, a good send-off is key. A funeral, abundant with ritual and community, gives all involved a graceful, permissive space within which to experience the beauty of this final transition.
Lydia Kiernan is a change catalyst, facilitator and founder of National Grieving Day – a day dedicated to hosting grieving events around the globe on November 22nd 2014. Check out www.nationalgrievingday.com
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Makes no difference who you vote for, You still get the WEF government
@087 bed: WEF? – World Economic Forum?
@087 bed: see https://conspiracychart.com for all things NWO, chemtrails, chipping, and replacement theories.
I wonder if the same secret service would protect Netanyahou…. That could solve a lot of problems
@Dominic Leleu: and potential assassins should be vetted by the NRA to ensure a more positive outcome. Might be an idea to invite putin, xi, orban and others
@Alan: agreed
When thinking about Simon Coveney , this a verbatim quote
Owning your own home is not a bad aspiration, but if there was more certainty in the rental market in Ireland, you would see more people choosing to rent and to invest in rental property,” said Coveney.
“The attitude towards long-term rental is changing in Ireland and we need to respond to that with market conditions that reinforce and encourage that change of mindset.”
@Andrew Kiely: what’s your point?
@SYaxJ2Ts: His point is, that Coveney’s prophecy, hope & implementation of same came through in Govt policy & is part of the problem today. It wouldn’t affect you Kevin as a Govt lackey on a big salary, but it affects thousands of young working Irish people who are paying extortionate rent & who can’t buy or afford a home in Ireland today.
@SV3tN8M4: context is key here, and I don’t know when this quote is from, but surely certainty in the rental market is a good thing, albeit aspirational rather than real? You know, some security of tenure, rent certainty, that kind of thing. Anything to add here? Or are you just going to sling insults
@SV3tN8M4: and any chance of backing up your claim from yesterday that SF will introduce sleight of hand legislation to increase granting of asylum applications? I’ve asked twice already. Surely you’ve managed to find the relevant evidence by now
@SV3tN8M4: I suppose all those people the Gardai have charged were all working very hard to buy a house and provide for their families. Most of them staying in the city centre at the taxpayers cost
@Peter Byrne: Wouldn’t know Peter, don’t have anything to do with them, too busy working trying to make ends meet & pay my mortgage. You must be a happy man today that you & your buddies got a top up of 750,000, you might get your bumper Exit package & NDA now. Harris likes to reward Deceit & Incompetence, some of those in your organization are no better than those you judged above.
@Andrew Kiely:
I’ve just spent a week in Metz France.
As in other European cities all accommodation within the city is in apartments. Apartments cannot be used for property speculation. If an apartment is unoccupied for an extended period it has to be sold back to the freehold company (owners association).
If you want to live in a house – to go to a village 10 -20 km out.
Buttimer has repeatedly been rejected by the cork electorate, and now finally by his own party. Maybe this time the penny will drop
@mickey mac: Once Fine Gael learned that Buttimer was attending pro-Palestinian events that was end for him.
Simon Coveney looked well, which is important in politics. But after that he lacked leadership. He fronted up the ‘ same-s marriage’ referendum by parroting the party line and adding in his own daughters. One of them might be that way.
Fair point but not compelling. let them have all the rights of marriage, but call it something else. Marriage always meant man and woman.
Neologisms are used every day to overturn the established order.
For example – gender was a grammatical term to distinguish three different forms of a noun. Male and female got into it because they were two obvious categories. But there was never a case of an obvious male having a female noun form or visa versa.
Generally a neuter gender noun is a noun that denotes a lifeless thing. A thing which is neither male nor female.
But as anyone who learned French knows a pen and a pencil have different genders even though they both are technically neuter.
La plume de ma tante
Le crayon de ma tante
In fact there is no neuter gender in French. An omission which the French chattering class are struggling to cope with.
Anyhow this is a long way from Simon Coveney – other than to point out that weak leaders are easily pushed into fronting up anything which a mob (nowadays a Twitter mob) wants.
There is certainly a FG seat in Cork SC, especially as it’s now a 5 seater. Going to a battle royal between Úna McCarthy and Shane O Callaghan to whose ahead after the first count. That’s vital. As it’s extremely unlikely both will get elected
have your say