Poetry has always played a powerful role in funerals. Celebrants will often choose or ask a family to choose a poem that captures a moment or a life perfectly, and in a few well crafted lines. Sometimes, as in the Lonely Funeral project, a poem is all that remains. Something beautiful created from a few fragments of a lonely life.
One poem that is often chosen is WH Auden’s FuneralBlues. “Stop all the clocks……He was my North, my South, my East and West”. It was read by John Hannah in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, and no doubt that led to its being used at many farewell ceremonies. The final line capturing the anguish of grief: “I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.”
I’ve always admired the poetry of Auden and in thinking about adapting my work to addressing environmental grief, I have been reading some of his work. Not so much to “praise the mutilated world” but to explore the causes of where we are.
Auden lived through the 1930s, a time of dictators. Monsters who promised glory for their peoples and who delivered little more than ruin. Here is perhaps the most succinct description of the “strong” man, Epitaph on a Tyrant. The line about respectable senators busting with laughter at even the most pathetic attempts at humour by the great man rings especially sharply in our age of spectacle.
Epitaph on a Tyrant: written in 1939 and still sadly as relevant today.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It’s a strange co-incidence but it’s also the day that my Ukrainian guest, a refugee from the war, moves out of my flat and into more permanent accommodation in Dundee.
I’m sure everyone remembers those images of columns of implacable Russian forces, tanks, armoured vehicles. The crushing might of an empire bearing down with cohorts, not exactly purple and gold, but certainly like a wolf on the fold.
Of course it didn’t exactly go according to plan. Ukraine is still standing and may even be turning the tide. Russia’s military reputation is in tatters and some of its finest ships now lie safely at the bottom of the sea.
For my part, I reflect on how my guest, one of those “migrants” we are instructed to fear, has looked after my flat and left it impeccable. Has worked hard – not taken “handouts” but found work, often appallingly badly paid, and work that most Scottish people would turn down. Has contributed to our society in other ways, volunteering, generally being a good person, law abiding, caring, thoughtful….
I have my own personal anniversary coming up in a few days. On first of March it will be seven years since I first started working as a funeral celebrant. In that time I have listened to the life stories of many people. Met many families. And most of those people were basically decent good people. Flawed obviously. A few rogues of course.
A quick scan of the headlines reminds us that the people who run our world are mostly flawed rogues – all pretty shitty individuals, the Putins, the Trumps, the “princes“, the “priests”. But most of the ordinary people they rule .. basically good and decent.
Maybe not a very startling reflection after seven years of celebrancy. But it’ll do for me.
I wanted to highlight the work of some celebrant colleagues of mine in the field of death education or death literacy in Scotland. My good friend Gillian Robertson set up the D Word with a mission:
….to increase knowledge and awareness, reduce anxiety and apprehension, and contribute to an increasingly compassionate society where talking about death is a more common and comfortable experience.
The D Word is a resource designed to be delivered by experienced celebrants to groups of any age and stage who would benefit from being supported to become familiar with what to expect when someone close dies. It is perhaps most valuable as a resource for schools. We often think that we have to protect children from the reality of death. Sadly, death is a reality and the D Word can help to build resilience through knowledge and by breaking down the fear of the unknown.
I’m delighted to see the D Word going from strength to strength and today Gillian told me that they have just launched a web site where you can find out more about their work. Gillian and I have worked together on a number of death literacy projects such as a series of staged funerals. I know this is important work and I know that the D Word will play an important role nationally in helping to create a more compassionate society in Scotland.
Very best wishes to Gillian and to Aileen Palmer, Laura Throssell, and Angela Maughan.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published in 1962. It was one of the most significant books of its time and it helped launch the environmental movement. I was very young when it first appeared but I did grow up in the 60s and 70s and I do remember the almost apocalyptic feeling of dread at what was happening to the natural world at that time.
I’m currently working on organizing climate and eco grief circles so I thought I would read the book. Does it still have a message for today’s environmental struggles and activists?
It’s a powerful read. Carson trained and worked as a scientist but she was also a fine writer and she succeeded in marshalling substantial and complex evidence and data, yet at the same time making it accessible to a wide audience. Her key theme was the indiscriminate use of chemicals during the post-war period, mainly in agriculture and forestry, and principally in the USA. These chemicals were designed to kill pests and weeds and maximize crop yields.
What struck me most forcefully in reading the accounts of one disaster after another was the sheer toxicity of the chemicals used. Today we quite understandably worry about the insidious nature of environmental pollution. How tiny amounts can accumulate over time in our bodies. And this certainly was happening back in the 50s as well. But the effects of crop spraying could be almost immediate. A plane would fly over, spraying the fields (and residential areas, towns, lakes, rivers – it was often “blanket” spraying of entire areas) and within hours, people would find their yards full of dead and dying birds. The chemicals killed the target insects…. and everything else, even pets and livestock. And since they killed all the things that ate the insects, sooner or later the pests would return, often in greater numbers than before.
Lots of people, ordinary people as well as scientists, were aware of these disasters. But Carson’s book seems to have acted as a channel or a catalyst for action. Much of the protest and action against pollution, as well as the legislation that was enacted to limit or ban the use of these chemical, stemmed from Carson’s book.
Reading it after all these years triggered a lot of thoughts. Memories of growing up in an industrial landscape scarred by mining and heavy industry. Becoming aware of the natural world – and of the threats that it faced from pollution. The struggle of the young environmental movement against well funded business interests. The slow but real progress that was made in banning the most toxic of the chemicals and of indiscriminate spraying.
But there was also a sense of weariness as we see today the same struggles having to be made. Legislation and norms to protect people are being rolledback.
And I was deeply struck by the Afterword in my edition. Written in 1998 by Linda Lear, it details how fiercely Carson was attacked at the time. The chemical lobby threatened to sue to prevent publication. They financed an expensive PR campaign to discredit Carson. It will come as no surprise that her gender was a focus for attack, she was, after all, a “hysterical woman”. One critic wrote that: “Silent Spring … kept reminding me of trying to win an argument with a woman. It cannot be done.” I suppose that’s a sort of compliment, though hardly intended as such. Tellingly, Carson was a “fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature” and (of course) she kept cats…. Some things, it seems, never change.
But despite those attacks, this important book did change minds and did usher in a new awareness and a willingness to act, even at the highest political levels. Things may look pretty bleak at the moment but I like to hope that the ultimate message of this book is that the hard difficult truth can, when presented with eloquent passion, change the world.
I just wanted to say thank you to Tracy Chalmers and Willow Meili of The Grief Well. I’ve just completed a six-month course of facilitator training: “A six-month embodied journey to cultivate the skills for holding space and witnessing grief.”
I’ve enjoyed the course and especially interacting with Tracy and Willow and all the participants. I feel much more confident about leading grief groups, grief cafés, grief circles now. Specifically I want to focus on earth or eco grief and the sense of loss we are feeling as we witness climate change.
My first event will take place on 5 March this year: “Making Space for Climate Grief“. I doubt if I would have been able to do this without the resources that the course has given me.
So thank you again and I’m sure we will collaborate again soon!
In March this year it will be seven years since I started to work as a funeral celebrant. Recently I have been examining how I can use some of the skills I’ve acquired to make a change of direction. Specifically I want to look at creating events where people feel able to talk about the grief and anxiety they feel about climate change and environmental loss – eco grief.
Most people are well aware that things are not right with our world. Of course, many folk “deny” that the climate is changing…. or accept that it is but refuse to believe that we have any part in it. But I think that deep down we mostly do accept the evidence we can see all around us, and recognize that our way of life has led to this.
But this is frightening and overwhelming. Last year the UK government published a report on national security and biodiversity. I write “published” but in fact they were pressured into doing so by a freedom of information request as the Guardian’s GeorgeMonbiot reports. Without that pressure the report might never have surfaced. Its opening line is “Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity. [likelihood: HIGH]”. Monbiot suggests that this report has been compiled by the joint intelligence committee. I’ve no idea who might sit on such a committee but I suspect not too many blue-haired vegan wokerati (sadly). And they speak of “national security” and even…(whisper it) “prosperity” being threatened. Now that is serious.
But it always feels like it’s just too much. So that when we most need to act, we can’t. We feel overwhelmed.
I wonder if maybe, as well as data and information and argument, we need to explore how we feel about this. Admit that we feel overwhelmed. Or scared. Or bewildered. Just acknowledging these feelings can sometimes be a prelude to action. It can help us feel less alone and isolated.
But how to do this? I’m aiming to run some climate or eco “grief circles”, initially on Zoom. These offer a safe and non-judgmental space where people can talk about their feelings. It could be sadness at the loss of something local and personal like a wood or a green space in a town. It could be that sick feeling you get at 3am when you wonder if the world itself is dying. And it could also (and this is important too) be the feeling of joy and renewal that you feel in nature, by the sea, listening to the birds.
To help in this work I’ve been studying with a team in Canada – Tracy Chalmers and Willow Meili of the Grief Well. Over the past few months they have been helping me translate the skills I’ve acquired as a celebrant. Talking to friends and families of people who have died, when grief is very raw and yet action is required in arranging a funeral that will honour and mourn their loss. Adapting those skills to help facilitate groups where people are experiencing profound pain at the loss of their worlds.
This is new for me but I’m ready to start and here are the details of my first event, scheduled for 5 March.
In the meantime I’d love to hear your thoughts on this or any aspect of eco or climate grief. Please contact me here.
As part of my shift to working with the grief that stems from environmental loss, I recently interviewed my friend Rita Freitas. We were both students on the University of Glasgow’s End of Life Studies MSc programme. Rita is from Portugal. She lives in Lisbon but has a house in a rural area of the country called Castelo Branco.
This summer the village was threatened by wildfires. Mercifully the village itself emerged undamaged but all around were scenes of devastation. Trees, crops, vines, beehives, livestock pets…. terrible losses.
I asked if I could interview Rita and I have made our conversation into a little video. In it, Rita explains how these were not just material losses. They deeply affected these communities that are so connected to the land. Ancient fruit trees and vines can never be replaced. They represent something of the very identity of the people.
Here is the video. It is my tribute to the communities affected by the fires and my way to acknowledge their loss.
As a man of 66, I can say that much of my life has seen “dark times”. I remember as a little boy, looking at a photo of an elephant mutilated by poachers. I couldn’t quite understand then what I was seeing in the magazine my mum had bought to nurture my love of animals. I remember at school watching a film about the death of a polluted river. I remember, vaguely, the unease we felt about Silent Spring. There was a hole in the ozone layer. Acid rain. And now, half a century later we watch the continued descent of our world with mounting horror.
And the temptation is to run away. Switch off the damned news. Take solace in the wide range of anaesthetics available today. For a time, especially in this most difficult year, I have done just that. I have, after all, my own worries and my own peace of mind to consider.
But the niggling whispers don’t go away. Suffragettes and Stonewall rioters. Rainbow Warriors. Older voices. Calling us to remember something I heard at a Upaya Centre talk just this weekend:
WE WERE MADE FOR THIS WORK.
So…. what can I do? A 66 year old semi-retired man from Scotland who looks after his mother. Well, six of those years I have spent as a funeral celebrant: working with grief, channelling grief, giving voice to grief. But also praising and celebrating lives. Perhaps I have learned something in those years that I might apply to a wider world of grief – dying glaciers, dying communities, dying democracies. Is there still something to praise in this mutilatedworld?
I’ve just conducted a funeral service at Dundee Crematorium. It’s the first I have done there since it re-opened recently. I had previously written to say that the chapel was closed for ceremonies. This was for refurbishment of the chapel itself – the cremation facilities themselves were unaffected and an arrangement was in place for families to hold services in a nearby hotel.
Now I can report that things are completely back to normal and everything is fully functional again.
When I visited Steven Stewart Funeral Directors’ new offices in Newport, Fife, recently, Rhys Small suggested that I also speak to his colleague Lynn Smith. So I drove over last week to the main office in Cupar and chatted with Lynn, the newest member of the team.
Lynn Smith
I started by asking my usual opener of how Lynn entered this world of funerals. And like so many of the people I ask, Lynn replied that she had always had a fascination for all things related to death. Some people might find that “morbid” but, in my experience, it often gives people a sharper appreciation of life.
But in Lynn’s case there was a twist. Although she had the funeral fascination, she was advised by someone connected to the profession “not to try to become a funeral director”. Because, they told her, “as a woman, you’ll never get ahead”.
So after leaving school, Lynn first went into retail management and then took a job in a GP practice, rising to practice manager. But her interest in the funeral world never really left. So when a job came up at Brewsterwells Crematorium, near St Andrews, Lynn applied. It was a great introduction to this world, especially as Brewsterwells was brand new and Lynn joined right at the start.
One open door sometimes leads to another. Earlier this year, Lynn was asked by Steven Stewart if she’d like to become a funeral director. It was the opportunity to follow the career she’d always wanted.
In a small independent company like Steven’s, everyone gets to do a bit of everything. Just days into the job Lynn was driving a hearse! It means that each day is incredibly varied.
And Lynn has brought her creative skills to “bear” in the team! Specifically, she makes handcrafted memorial bears. These beautifully made small bears are not just a comfort in themselves at a time of loss. Each one comes with a little tin heart that can hold some of a loved one’s ashes. They are a unique and highly personal memorial for the bereaved.
Lynn explained that she had always been highly creative and interested in craft. She had also loved to collect bears. Now she gets to combine these skills and interests with her passion for her chosen profession.
Thank you Lynn for sharing your story, proving that you certainly did get ahead in this business, and for showing me your beautiful memorial bears.
Every now and then I write a little piece on my local funeral directors. I’ve featured Steven Stewart Funeral Directors before – twice in fact… back in 2020 and a follow-up in 2021. But I decided to take the occasion of them opening a new office in Newport-on-Tay to post an update on their business. And this time my host was Rhys Small rather than Steven himself.
Rhys and Steven
Rhys has worked in the business for around five years. When I first did the rounds of the funeral directors in Dundee and Fife to introduce myself as a celebrant, it was Rhys who spoke to me at their main office in Cupar. Since joining he has been a key member of the team.
I asked how he had first come to work in the funeral business and he explained that he’d been working as a bar manager but was looking for something different. “My wife, Kaylie, runs a florists business called Oor Fleurs. Inevitably, she works a lot with funeral directors and she told me that Steven was looking for someone to join the business. I met him, we got on, and he offered me a job. I didn’t have any formal qualifications as a funeral director but Steven trained me in every aspect of the business”.
Since then Rhys has taken an important role in developing the business. He has helped to introduce new online systems and to build up their social media. He’s working on revamping their website, soon to be relaunched. And he has played a big part in preparing and opening the new office in Newport.
Family room
The office is in a central location on the High Street and is bright and welcoming. “It will make it much easier for families in north Fife and Dundee to visit us. We have an attractive family room where we can discuss funeral wishes and make arrangements in comfortable surroundings.”
Rhys and I chatted about how the Scottish funeral continues to develop and change. One challenge for independent funeral directors is the rise of the direct cremation. Pure Cremations and other big companies are relentlessly advertising these – mainly by stressing how much money people can save. But as Rhys explained, a reputable funeral director can also arrange direct cremations. And in the case of Steven Stewart, they have a service room in Cupar, so can host a respectful ceremony, arrange music, engage an officiant (whether ministers, priests or celebrants). And still offer a competitive price and personalized service.
Greater choice is all very well but in the aftermath of bereavement it can be overwhelming. Recognizing this, Steven Stewart like most funeral directors, offer ways to plan ahead. It can help your family with one set of decisions when you’re gone. Of course, most funeral directors offer “funeral plans” (Steven Stewart work with Golden Charter) but these are essentially financial packages and not everyone wants to, or can, commit to a plan. Rhys wanted to stress that they will talk to people about their “funeral wishes”. A way of exploring options without commitment and in a relaxed environment. He’s currently working on an online form that can help people to think about choices and safely record them. As a celebrant, I’m especially keen that people have choices in the person they want to lead their ceremonies and we talked about a possible link-up to the Scottish Independent Celebrants’ Association (SICA).
Congratulation to Steven, Rhys and all the team on the new offices in Newport and thanks for taking the time to speak to me.
BLIPS – Brief Limited Intermittent Psychotic Symptoms. If these episodes are a part of your own life, how might you explain them to other people? Well, you could download an article from a medical journal. You could just describe your feelings, your experience.
Or you could do as Margot Mansfield does in her powerful show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and try, through the energy of her intensely personal performance, to immerse her audience in a direct experience of her reality as she lives it. This is not an easy show – a jarring, jangling soundscape assaults the ear. Margot confronts us with some of her deep fears and Siri-regulated paranoia.
And she uses her circus skills to create striking physical images of precariousness and of life only just in balance. The driving need to keep things in frantic motion just to stay upright.
Such an emotional and brutally honest performance could overwhelm…. but Margot, with circus instinct, deftly employs humour to keep us in balance. Hugely recommended.
