On Monday 29th July, I hosted a zoom session for celebrants and end-of-life doulas on the possible implications of assisted dying legislation. There is a Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament that would legalize a form of assisted dying. What
Speaking to a funeral photo tribute (Obitus)
Most celebrants will be familiar with the various kinds of picture tributes that are now possible at funerals. Obitus, a company that provides music for many crematoriums, can also display photos or pictures on a screen or screens. Their products
Do-it-yourself graduation ceremonies (with celebrant!)
I finished my MSc in End of Life Studies at the end of 2023 and duly enrolled on the July 2024 graduation. For our School, summer graduation takes place on the Dumfries Campus, not at the main Glasgow University buildings.
Dundee Crematorium Refurbishment – update
[Now fully reopened – as of December 2024] I mentioned in a previous blog that Dundee crematorium was closing for refurbishments. To be more accurate, it has closed for services – it will still continue to carry out cremations. Services
Using the staged funeral to inform
Recently I helped lead a project for SICA to stage two funerals for educational purposes. This involved us in conducting ceremonies for imagined people at Brewsterwells Crematorium near St Andrews. I’m now starting to use the footage to help families
Posting for Pride – Transgender Naming Ceremonies
At a recent SICA event, a CPD session on creative writing, I had a chat about naming ceremonies with Elaine Cormack, one of my celebrant colleagues. Of course typically, we tend to think of baby namings in a celebrant context.
Demystifying Death Week – SICA staged funerals
The initiative Good Life Good Death Good Grief organizes a week of activities each May to raise awareness of issues around end of life, death and funerals. It coincides with Dying Matters Week in England and Wales. This year SICA (Scottish
The Lonely Funeral
I’ve been interested for a couple of years in a project called The Lonely Funeral that operates in Belgium and the Netherlands. A “lonely funeral” is one where the person who has died has no friends or family and so
So, what does a celebrant do? Giving advice
This is an occasional series on the different things a funeral celebrant does or can do. You’re probably familiar with a celebrant being the person who conducts a funeral service. They write and deliver a eulogy… read a poem perhaps…
Echoes across the millennia
Some time ago I wrote about my family’s experience of commissioning a funerary urn for my father’s ashes. We had asked Ann Bates, a potter based in Derbyshire, to make the urn with input from us on shapes and colours
Commissioning a funerary urn
It’s almost four years since my father died in October 2017. At the time we weren’t able to have a funeral because dad left his body to medical science. We did hold a memorial service instead, just a couple of
The Sacred Screen
This weekend I attended an online teaching with the Zen Buddhist Upaya Institute. It was led by Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski. Joan is Abbot of the Upaya Monastery and Frank is co-founder of the Zen Hospice in San Francisco