Back to theEarth part 2

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As mentioned in Back to the Earth part 1, the idea of returning to the earth is a powerful one. Often during committal services, the sign of the cross is traced in sand on the casket, and a powerful ritual in the Jewish faith involves sprinkling dirt into the grave of a loved one. I have seen and facilitated wonderful variants on these rituals. When an elderly woman in my town passed away, her family wanted some of the earth from the family farm to accompany her into her grave. It was important for them to know that she was resting in the same earth that had been such an integral part of her life and family history. They brought a pail of that soil to the committal service, and when it was over, I invited first the family, and then friends to sprinkle some of it on her casket. The family started, some a little shy about it, but after a few people participated, everyone wanted to be a part of this ritual. I'm grateful that the family brought enough for every one to sprinkle in a handful. The lesson I learned from this was just how moving the acknowledgement and engagement of her connection to her earth was, and how healing participation can be for family and for friends.

Tragically, little more than a year later, the woman's son passed away. When I suggested sprinkling the earth on his casket, the family said that he didn't have the same connection to the family farm. The powerful connection this man had was to the local baseball field. He had grown up across the street from it, played there, watched games there, and coached his sons and students in baseball there. We processed out of the church the day of his funeral singing 'Take me out to the ball game' and out into the churchyard where family and friends will always remember that they sprinkled sand from the baseball field into his grave.

Back to the Earth part 1

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For many, the idea of returning our bodies to the earth is a sacred and appealing concept. Those of us with a special bond to a particular patch of earth have found ways of making this return even more meaningful. I'll never forget working with a family whose mother was from Lithuania. She raised two boys during WWII, and they travelled as refugees throughout Europe during the war. At one point, they were in Germany, and one of the boys was close to death. In the gray depressing starkness of wartime Germany, the boy's one wish was to have or even see an orange again. The mother was walking to see her young son, for what she thought might be the last time, and a truck full of GI's drove by. One of the soldiers had a bag of oranges and for whatever reason, was compelled to throw one out to her. The boy survived and the family emigrated to the US. At the Hospice Center in Wisconsin where she died, the mother's things were all set out for her funeral and burial. Along with her clothing was a jar of earth. It was labeled in an old fashioned shaky hand that this was earth from the graveyard where her father and all of her brothers were buried, and it was to be buried with her.

Follow the link for Part 2