Rethinking our Western traditions around death, grief and loss. The great shaman from Burkina Faso @malidoma_patrice_some says:
“I have witnessed funerals where wounded people in great need of healing (through ritual) are the ones actually planning and taking care of the funeral arrangements.
These are people who need someone to help them in their own grief who are burdened with creating ritual space for themselves as well as others.
We are facing here some kind of flawed process of self-caretaking. Who can create ritual in its proper space and sequence when there are no elders? Who is there who remembers the old ways, the ancient ways, the ways of the heart, the ways of the spirit that reach to the depths of the soul in its grief? It is better not to do a ritual at all than to do one the wrong way.”