Cover the mirrors, open the doors and windows, open the chests, spring the locks, ring the bells, light the candles, lay the dead out on the earth or straw, wash the body with rue, myrtle, mugwort, wash the body with thunder water, make the death shirt without any knots, still all sweeping, spinning, grinding of grain, no work may be done while the dead are at home, wreath branches of fir trees around the head of the dead, leave food and drink, a chair and towel for the spirit, (three days, three nights, three days, three nights), sing continually the songs of the dead, take the coffin out feet first, tell the cattle, fruit trees and bees their tender has died, channel the dead to speak their goodbye and forgiveness, the color of mourning is white, the color of mourning is red, the color of mourning is black and is worn for a year, a year and a half, half mourning is gray and worn for another six months, songs for the dead are sung after death at intervals of three, feasts for the dead held in memory, eat and sing, eat and sing.
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I woke up yesterday dreaming of the dead again. My grandfather died this past spring, and a friend died in the beauty of this early summer. Somewhere in our bodies we remember what to do when someone dies, how to handle the dead, the customs for acknowledging mourning (more than a day, a month, a year). Somewhere in our history there was a time when all mourning was communal, where death dwelt among life in seamless symmetry. When my beloveds died I did not see the bodies. I did not wash them with my hands or sit with them for three days and nights, candles lit. I did not cover the mirrors or adorn myself with mourning colors, though now that I know these old ways, I wish to. I wish to.
The old ways of death are just this, ways. And here in this time, at this place, in this lineage we have lost the ways. The echo: a toast, a song, redwood tables aching for their load of food. But in memorial, as we embrace, we return home—touched/untouched.
I allow the dead to visit me. I put out food for them. I pray to their gods and wreath my fingers with beads they would know. But I do most of this alone. I wonder how the stages of grief might be balmed or assuaged by ritual death customs in community.
How do you wish to be honored when you die?
What do you want done in your memory?
For my grandfather: my young nephew decided he became an eagle (he had an eagle tattoo from his military days) so every time we see an eagle we say hi to him and send him love.
For my friend: a promise to live fully, to reach out to other friends and remember what it is to be connected. To visit a sacred spring and sing her song. To plant seeds, make tea, and round my brow with thistle and oats.
For myself: I wish to be burned on an open air pyre on the plains—such a thing exists in Crestone, Colorado—to have my body set alight at dawn, the smoke of me carried on the wind, my ashes turned to soil, to fertility, to life again. I hope people dance and sing, I hope they weep and recite poetry, I hope they remember that what lives on is only story and remember to learn one by heart.
For now I study these old ways, weaving back what is never lost—within us, all, the dead do live.
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Most of these listed above are from the books Polish Customs, Traditions & Folklore by Sophie Hodorowicz Knab and The Way of the Wise by JT Sibley.
More heart songs, thank you Lara.