Notes:
This parting ceremony outline was developed in 2007 from passing rites I led prior to that date. This particular outline is one that is suitable for use in a crematorium. I hope it may prove useful for others. Blessings, Potia.
Parting Ceremony outline
Entry Music
Welcome by Celebrant:
Celebrant:
Let us begin with peace. Let there by peace in our lives, let there peace in the lives of those we know, let there be peace in the lives of all in the world.
We stand at a gateway now, a gateway that each of us must step through at some time in our lives. Name has stepped through this gateway already. His/Her soul is immersed in the shining light that is the mother and father of us all. The sadness and pain that we feel now is in our knowledge and our experience of the fact that we ourselves cannot yet cross that threshold to be with him/her until our time has come.
Celebration of Life: – Information about the departed and what he/she achieved and left behind.
Music for Reflection
Reading
Prayer
Grant unto us, I ask, the power of the spirit to bring brilliance of the eternal splendour to one who has now entered the invisible. Wherever he/she may be, and on whatever plane, he/she may now pursue his/her ideal, let him/her be blessed with a divine rest and an utter cessation from strife.
Celebrant:
Physical death is for the person experiencing it, a birth, a freeing of the self from the limitations of the body so that the soul can grow and learn and move in a brighter world. Name is in this brighter world now and it is time for us to give thanks for his/her time on earth, for the joy, laughter, love and wisdom which he/she experienced and which he/she gave.
Second Reading
Celebrant:
Let us have a moment of silence in which we each, in our own way, give thanks to Name for all that he/she gave us.
Pause
Celebrant:
As the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, so too are each of us born and so too do each of us die. But just as each evening brings with it the memory of the day before and the promise of a new day to come so too do we carry in our hearts the memories of a dearly loved mother/father/sister/brother/aunt/uncle/cousin and friend. In our minds we carry the lessons we have gained through knowing Name, and in our bodies and in how we live our lives the immortality of inheritance. Now, Name go safely, go well, go surely. Our hearts are with you. And you remain in our hearts.
Committal music
May our hearts and minds hold what we have shared here today. In Peace we began so let us end in Peace and carry our Peace into the World.