Altars and Children

I thought I would share with you my most recent ceremony as it intersects the learnings and lessons from our two speakers in our Connecting Our Community series. Saturday's Celebration of Life was for a 44-year-old husband and father of two children (11 and 8 year olds). Our ritual involved a Nature Altar inspired by Day Schildkret of Morning Altars.

Based on the wife's idea that there were seasons of life for her husband, we created a circle mandala rimmed by pinecones and evergreen sprigs to symbolize legacy and the evergreen nature of love, we divided the circle into four quadrants: childhood, husband-hood, fatherhood and this last "season" of stars and continuing light. The children spent quite a bit of time selecting one object that would be emblematic of their dad in each season of his life. (This connects to the amazing evening with Joe Primo who talked to involving the children in a ritual for the loss of their parent.)

They chose his childhood stuffed monkey Mono for the first quadrant, a Lego creation that represented camping for husband-hood, the book he would read to them when they were younger and a hockey puck for the fatherhood quadrant, and finally a plant in the fourth quadrant to symbolize continuing life. His parents placed the monkey in the first quadrant and lit the first votive, and his wife placed the Lego piece and lit the second, his daughter placed the book and his son placed the hockey puck in the third quadrant and then they lit the candle in honor of his fatherhood season and his son placed the plant and lit the votive for the fourth quadrant.

At the end of the ceremony, we did a Transfer of Light ceremony where we retired his walking stick on the altar and each one blew out the candle that they had lit and transferred the light from the sacred center of the altar to the sacred center of their hearts carrying his light forward.

Finally, we took all the biodegradable items on the table and brought them to the next day’s graveside to add to the soil for the tree dedication and his inurnment.

It was a very moving tribute, and it meant a lot to the kids who were glad to contribute to such a meaningful ritual-- several attendees told me how much the ceremony meant to them. I highly recommend signing up for Joe's session so you can access the recording and take advantage of his years of experience and guidance and I highly recommend attending Day's Connecting Our Community session on June 11th.

Benjamin Martin, Executive Director of Natural Transitions Institute (NTI). Benjamin holds an M.A. in Curriculum Development and Instructional Technology from the University of Colorado. After decades of executive leadership in the software industry, Benjamin transitioned into full-time celebrancy in 2021. He is the author of Love Songs from the - Between, a collection of daily poetic and contemplative reflections, and currently facilitates the funeral celebrancy certification course for NTI and crafts one-of-a-kind ceremonies for his clients.