Ceremonies for Scattering Ashes

Creating a funeral ceremony, memorial or scattering ceremony that reflects you - your ideas, beliefs and feelings - will become increasingly clear. As you begin to find your way through the exercise of confronting your own mortality by planning your personalized funeral ceremony, be bold. Displaying symbols of your life at the funeral or memorial ceremony might help your family remember what you liked and what you did, so get creative when planning a funeral ceremony.

Props alone will not give them a sense of what they loved about you, however. Having your golf clubs displayed at the head of your casket will certainly spark thoughts about your enjoyment of golf to your family and friends, but that alone can never crystallize the childlike energy and beautiful sense of awe you experienced when you hit that solid sweet spot and saw the ball sail down the fairway. Arrange your funeral ceremony, therefore, to bring your family and friends that experience. Have golf balls given to the scattering ceremony attendees with the request they take it to a tee and hit it in your memory. Or have the funeral at the golf course and make hitting the ball part of the scattering ceremony.

As you plan, try to give others a sense of your experiences in life. If your grandchildren were the center of your life, organize the funeral or scattering ceremony around their play activities, or a meaningful natural setting wherever you have it, such as in a daycare center or at a playground. You can arrange to have the funeral ceremony any place you loved: a park, lake, the woods, a restaurant, an athletic field, on a boat, in a bar, at the beach, your home, or whatever location will have meaning for your family in remembering you as they knew you in life, not death.

Bringing favorite things to the gathering gives others a chance to share and remember. In what creative ways can you display a loved one's interest?

Some Scattering Ceremony Ideas

These beautiful surroundings were a favorite place for ________ and it was their desire to have their physical earthly remains cast to the elements. I say physical remains, because __________’s spirit and memories will live on in us, as the waves they made in this life time resonates and flows into the future. The trails they followed in life are now still here for us, as their personality and traits will be past on from generation to generation.

PAUSE

In casting the ashes of __________ to the four winds on this very special ground, we think again of all that our dear ___________ has  meant and means to us. We dedicate this simple plot, amid these natural surroundings, to every beautiful and precious memory. We cast these ashes back to the gentle earth, which has been the chief support of humankind, since first they walked beneath the sun. To all human beings, to all living forms, the soil has ever provided the sustenance that is the staff of life. To that good earth we now commit the ashes of our friend. To the air that now lifts our spirits.

Now for the scattering. 

The family may now takes turns scattering the ashes, each in their own way and speak some thoughts.

We hereby cast these earthly remains, now purified by fire, lifted by the winds and returned to the earth, now and forever into eternity.

When there is death there is always new life, and now _________ will plant some wild flowers on this now sacred land. As we water these new seeds of life may the water purify this earth and nourish the spirit of _________.

Thank you all again for allowing me to be a part of this final tribute to a very special person. Thank you.

Service For The Scattering of Ashes

We have come here today to scatter the ashes that are all that now remains of the body of ________________. In a beautiful and ancient rite, we gave his/her body to the flames. Fire is the visible form of energy, which is the real stuff and true essence of all that appears in this world where we express ourselves through bodies and minds. A funeral pyre is like a candle burning... the candle's tallow disappears in the emerging form of the candle's glow. In the funeral pyre the fire of life in haste to call life forth again when life has faltered consumed and transformed the clay that we entrusted to it, returning all that was radiant to the radiance of the Spirit that gave it form, until at last all that is left is this handful of ash and earthiness we must now commit to the earth from which it came. These ashes were not ___________. They are merely what remains of the body s/he wore at the close of his/her sojourn here on this earth. ___________ had many bodies. First s/he had the body of a babe, then of a girl/boy, then of a grown wom/man, and finally, this body that in the funeral pyre we have returned to the fire, to the air, to the waters of the earth and to the earth itself. The ancients taught that there are four elements in the world and of these all that is - everything - is composed. These four are earth, water air and fire. Modern science confirms the findings of our fathers. It divides all things into four forms; solids, liquids, gases and energy. When you think about it, you see how true this is - we all have qualities like earth, like water, like air, like fire. There was much in ___________ that was like fire. Now all that was fire, fiery, the living fire that beat in the heart and ran in the veins, this the funeral fire has made one again with the fire that burns in the sun and stars and in every unseen, singing, dancing, fiery particle of being. There was much in ___________ that was like air. All that was like air--airy, light and irrepressible--the fire has carried upward into the encircling air to become the breath of life for living things. There was much in ___________ that was like water. All that was like water, watery, the fire has diffused into the skies, to be one with the watery vapors of the air, with clouds and rain - a renewing source of life for all living things. Finally, there was that in ___________ that was like earth. Now that which was of the earth, earthy, lies here in these few ashes. These we now return to the earth, into the cradle endlessly rocking, the womb of the world from which we were all brought forth. (Scatter the ashes, ask those present to pray silently for ____________ as you scatter the ashes). Life is a process in which we are all linked. We merge and reemerge. That which was earth returns to earth. That which was air returns to air. That which was water returns to water. That which was fire returns to fire. But we are more than earth and water, air and fire. We are Spirit. In us is the Spirit of God and that which was Spirit returns to God who gave it. "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8:38.39) So let us all join at this moment of leave taking in speaking aloud together, as a blessing and farewell for ___________, our Unity Prayer for Protection. ___________, The Light of God Surrounds You The Love of God Enfolds You The Power of God Protects You The Presence of God Watches Over You Wherever You Are, God Is. Or as a final word, you can ask all to speak the foregoing paragraph and then the minister alone can repeat THE TRAVELER ___________ has put on invisibility. Dear Lord, I cannot see - But this I know, although the road ascends And passes from my sight, That there will be no night; That You will take him gently by the hand And lead him on Along the road of life that never ends, And he will find it is not death but dawn. I do not doubt that You are there as here, And You will hold him dear. Our life did not begin with birth, It is not of the earth; And this that we call death, it is no more Than the opening and closing of a door - And in Your house how many rooms must be Beyond this one where we rest momentary. Dear Lord, I thank You for the faith that frees, The love that knows it cannot lose its own; The love that, looking through the shadows, sees That You and he and I are ever one!

In the warm sunshine of that spring day, we scattered Bill's ashes at his beloved Dalonegah station. In the cool, soft rain of the night, he returned to the mountains that he adored. No longer bound by this world, but a part of it. No longer tied to one place, one time, but free. Every time you feel the warm sunshine on your face, Every time you hear the rain softly falling outside your window, No matter where you are, no matter how far you travel in this big, wide open world, Remember.

Litany: When We Remember Her or Him

One: At the rising of the sun and at its going down. . .

All: We will remember her.

One: At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter. . .

All: We will remember her.

One: At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring. . .

All: We will remember her.

One: At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer. . .

All: We will remember her.

One: At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn. . .

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