Blue Ridge Threshold Choir

05/16/2025

Another good read. I’ve thought of doing this, too, but not sure I’m brave enough.

Living with uncurable Stage IV cancer, I think about a gathering where last memories would have more meaning for everyone

05/01/2025

The long read: In a Danish palliative care unit, the alternative to assisted dying is not striving to cure, offering relief and comfort to patients and their families

01/11/2025

Expected Death ~ When someone dies, the first thing to do is nothing. Don't run out and call the nurse. Don't pick up the phone. Take a deep breath and be present to the magnitude of the moment.

There's a grace to being at the bedside of someone you love as they make their transition out of this world. At the moment they take their last breath, there's an incredible sacredness in the space. The veil between the worlds opens.

We're so unprepared and untrained in how to deal with death that sometimes a kind of panic response kicks in. "They're dead!"

We knew they were going to die, so their being dead is not a surprise. It's not a problem to be solved. It's very sad, but it's not cause to panic.

If anything, their death is cause to take a deep breath, to stop, and be really present to what's happening. If you're at home, maybe put on the kettle and make a cup of tea.

Sit at the bedside and just be present to the experience in the room. What's happening for you? What might be happening for them? What other presences are here that might be supporting them on their way? Tune into all the beauty and magic.

Pausing gives your soul a chance to adjust, because no matter how prepared we are, a death is still a shock. If we kick right into "do" mode, and call 911, or call the hospice, we never get a chance to absorb the enormity of the event.

Give yourself five minutes or 10 minutes, or 15 minutes just to be. You'll never get that time back again if you don't take it now.

After that, do the smallest thing you can. Call the one person who needs to be called. Engage whatever systems need to be engaged, but engage them at the very most minimal level. Move really, really, really, slowly, because this is a period where it's easy for body and soul to get separated.

Our bodies can gallop forwards, but sometimes our souls haven't caught up. If you have an opportunity to be quiet and be present, take it. Accept and acclimatize and adjust to what's happening. Then, as the train starts rolling, and all the things that happen after a death kick in, you'll be better prepared.

You won't get a chance to catch your breath later on. You need to do it now.

Being present in the moments after death is an incredible gift to yourself, it's a gift to the people you're with, and it's a gift to the person who's just died. They're just a hair's breath away. They're just starting their new journey in the world without a body. If you keep a calm space around their body, and in the room, they're launched in a more beautiful way. It's a service to both sides of the veil.

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Wow - what insight on something so rarely talked about. Once upon a time the women would have gathered to clean and prepare the body and it would have been laid out in the home until the funeral. It’s become a very sterile business these days and the rituals have been lost. So it’s great to share this wisdom from Sarah.
With love
Fiona
www.earthmonk.guru

Sarah Kerr, Ritual Healing Practitioner and Death Doula.
Art by Columbus Community Deathcare

12/27/2024

Blessings. Comfort. Peace.

11/28/2024

10/30/2024

This is a difficult, but important truth to accept when trying to support a grieving person:

There is nothing you can do to take away their pain.

Getting your person to “cheer up” is not a realistic goal and trying to make it so can cause a lot of problems:

1. Your grieving person may feel like they need to put on a happy or brave face for you.
2. Your grieving person may receive your attempts to “fix things” as judgement that they aren’t grieving “correctly” in your eyes.
3. Your grieving person may find your attempts to “cheer them up” hurtful because (even though you may not realize it) your words and/or gestures of “comfort” come across as dismissive.

The result of these scenarios is:

1. They feel stress (on top of their grief).
2. They feel shame (on top of their grief).
3. They feel anger (on top of their grief).
They do not feel better. They feel worse.

No matter how good your intentions are and how much you try, if you approach grief support with the goal of cheering your person up, you are setting yourself up for failure.

So, let’s redirect that care and energy towards a different goal:

Assure your grieving person they are not alone.

Be there for them. Be there with them. It may not seem like much, but it’s the most important thing you can do.

For more, visit: https://speakinggrief.org/get-better-at-grief/supporting-grief/be-authentic

Speaking Grief is produced by WPSU with philanthropic support from the New York Life Foundation.

10/22/2024

As Samantha Hodge-Williams waited on the operating table for emergency surgery, she felt alone and scared. Then the anesthesiologist appeared.

09/26/2024

09/14/2024

Ian Loeppky's words are encouragement for every choral singer!🌟 :: "Singing in a choir is an absolutely unique experience. It is one of the most important things in the world. Where else do you have everyone doing the same thing at the same time, without the use of especial equipment, and for a greater purpose, and no one is sitting on the bench?"