HIGHLAND CEREMONIES
Funerals and Farewells
We would like to express once more our heartfelt thanks to you for your exemplary and compassionate service, both in the preparations of, and conduction of D's touching and most memorable ceremony. We greatly appreciate all your care and attention.
Arranging a funeral or a memorial service for someone close to you will probably be the most difficult thing you've ever had to face. It may be that you had an opportunity to talk with your loved one about the kind of funeral ceremony they wanted to have, but if not, we'll work together to ensure whatever ceremony you want to create is as individual as the loved one whose life you're celebrating.
Historically, funeral services were officiated by religious ministers from a local Church, but families prefer a much more personalised service these days, focussing on their loved one rather than religion: a celebrant led ceremony gives you that flexibility. For many people, life isn't quite as clear-cut as declaring you either have no beliefs whatsoever, or that you are affiliated to a particular religion. A funeral ceremony run by a celebrant will enable you to commemorate a loved one's parting in whichever way you deem fit whether that is entirely non-religious, or perhaps by recognising that there is something after this life (but you're not quite sure what that is), or by being quite traditionally religious. It is a ceremony that will reflect the wishes of the family and of the person who has died, and is a highly personal and individualised tribute.
You may wish for a burial to take place in a particular spot - perhaps close to where other members of a family have been laid to rest. Your whole service can take place at whichever site you have chosen.
The option to have a natural burial, usually in a designated woodland, is more and more popular nowadays.
Cremation is still one of the most common options and the ashes can be scattered in a garden of memoriam or in a place special to you and your family.
Another option is to have a direct cremation, after which the remains of your loved one are scattered following a memorial service in a place which is special to you.
“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top,then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”