Honouring Spirit

Introduction

Across the world you will find a variety of ways that we as humans deal with and pay respect to a person’s death, as well as honour the memory of their life.

These practices are special and unique to all the people and cultures they belong to, but what they share is the ability to bind us together in the human experience as we acknowledge death.

Honouring with our Words

Honouring spirit is all in how we choose to remember them and how we speak of them as they live on in the spirit realm. We need to think deeply about the ways we remember or talk about how someone died. It is important to consider all the conditions in which people will pass away and how we could remember and talk of each person’s passing in a way that is respectful and beautiful.

The Power of Language 

Our language has the power to determine the way our loved ones are remembered. Our language can bring us closer to healing and resolving our grief or drift us further away. When we use a language that lends a kindness about our loved ones after they’ve passed, we create space for them to potentially interact and bless us with their presence. If we say our loved one ‘lost their battle’ with an illness, what do you think it might do to the way we remember that person at the moment of their passing?

We can change the narrative on how we speak of loved ones simply by remembering the best versions of them. Whatever the circumstances, ultimately, to honour a spirit is to honour their choice – no matter how it affects you. It’s not how they died that we must remember, but how they lived.

No Battles Exist 

We’ve all at some point heard a variation on the phrase ‘they lost their battle with cancer’. What a terrible way of remembering someone who passed from cancer, to speak of them as if they had been defeated! Cancer is not something that you win or lose; it’s not as simple as that. The best way to honour someone who has passed from cancer or another serious illness is to not imply that they lost anything or fought with anything. Instead you could say something like, ‘they didn’t recover from cancer’. Another term that people have adopted in speaking of someone’s passing is to say that they have ‘rejoined the spirit world’. It highlights that they aren’t experiencing ill health anymore and have been removed from the troublesome body that they laid in for a long time. This could apply to any bodily condition that a person will pass because of. Nobody wins or loses on their deathbed. Nobody is keeping score. You either heal and recover or you don’t.

Honouring with our Actions 

To honour a loved one’s spirit is to celebrate their life, and the best way to do this is to simply remember their role in your own life. It is a soothing practice that helps us deal with grief uniquely. There is so much beauty we can focus on.

Alters

A personal altar is a sacred space that you can set up in your home to pay homage to a soul who has departed. It is one of the most common and effective ways to honour a spirit for who they are today. Altars can be set up on a small table and placed in a communal living space or hallway, or even placed in a special, dedicated room. On the altar you can add items of importance and significance. It can also be a beautiful thing to display photos of the person who passed, if you wish to, as well as candles and other special mementoes that could make the space special and sacred. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to engaging with the altar. Some people spend a set moment every day kneeling at the altar and speaking to their loved ones as if they were in the room. Others only engage with it sporadically.

Offerings 

Some families like to take an offering to their loved ones resting place, on the altar you made for them or wherever their central point of remembrance is. An offering is a token of remembrance to the loved one. Offerings can be for example fruit, flowers, tobacco, a letter or poem, or anything else that you feel is something your loved one would appreciate. Other ways to honour spirit include: tattoos, songs, gardens and benches or chairs.

Exercise 

Make a quick altar with something you have of your loved one at close reach. It could be a photo or even something they gifted you. Put it on a table or in a common space in your home and bless it by writing down one thing you’d like to honour about that person.

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