Sunday, May 19, 2024 | 10:00 am – 12:00 pm & 2:00 – 5:30 pm
TRANSITION BY DESIGN: PLANNING AN INSPIRED & INTENTIONAL FUNERAL An offering from One Spirit Learning Alliance in coordination with the NY Open Center, once again all online. Planning for your own death, and getting acquainted with what is both traditional and newly possible in today’s end-of-life rituals, is a spiritual practice that enables you to face your own mortality with serenity and courage. Sadly, people who postpone funeral discussions are too frequently confronted with decisions involving thousands of dollars, a financial burden during the grieving process. Any funeral service today faces challenges posed, not least of which is paying for the funeral service itself. So how can families find greater solace, healing, and empowerment?
Join Amy in this day-long workshop about changes within American funeral service. We’ll learn how to plan an earth-friendly funeral with hands-on involvement, a more meaningful cremation, green burial, or a memorial service on Zoom. We’ll also discuss new ways to honor and remember our loved ones involving altars, music, flowers, dance, and meditative practice. A farewell to a loved one today might entail a sequence of healing experiences instead of just one event. We’ll review every conceivable option, and discuss green cemeteries near New York City, cremation pros and cons, biodegradable casket decorating, blended-faith/alternative ceremonies and more.
To come:
Choosing Music and Language for Funerals, a Zoom call through Green-Wood Cemetery. (Registration information will be posted shortly.) How does one begin to find the right words and music for a funeral or memorial event? Many funerals today involve collaborating with clergy, a secular officiant, or close family members, and yet some decisions can still be ours alone. Through cued musical selections, scripture, poetry and a power point presentation, we will review basic end-of-life ceremony structure (beginninngs, middles, and endings) and contemplate ways to support grief at any gathering, as well as open the hearts of those present. Funeral director Amy Cunningham writes about funeral planning at TheInspiredFuneral.com, and will share resources with folks in attendance that they may print out and save.
Ceremony and Ritual for Pregnancy Loss Join death educator Amy Cunningham and New York City birth and death doula Jae Carey for an evening of reflection on pregnancy loss and many of the complex implications of the times when birthing and dying converge. Amy and Jae have worked together as a doula/funeral director team, and have their own unique perspectives and experiences with pregnancy loss, grief, and bereavement. They'll discuss the healing power of storytelling, ritual, and ceremony, and invite participants to consider how honoring every life, no matter how brief or ambiguous, can awaken and nurture a deeper appreciation for what remains.
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May God support us all the day long,
‘till the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is o’er, and our work is done.
Then in His mercy, may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.
Amen.
—adapted from St. John Cardinal Newman, C.O.
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Highlighted memories
Amy and designer Katrina Spade discuss the greening of the American funeral and Recompose.life at Green-Wood Cemetery, June 8, 2019. Photo credit: Dina Stander
Amy shows a felted wool shroud from Bellacouche.com at her greener funeral talk, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, October 4, 2017.
Amy at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Trade show, October 2016.
Amy was one of three funeral directors called to Atlanta to speak at the National Funeral Directors Association’s “Meet the Mentors” conference, March 6-10, 2020. Happy, thrilling days. One week later, the novel coronavirus crisis shut down New York City.