Memorials are communal sacred space

Grieving is a natural and healthy process of an embodied life.  Loss, change, death are all things we become embodied to experience in undiluted form as such things are rare and diffuse within the Akashics.  When everything is recorded and retained in Spirit, when everything is eternal and fully integrated and interconnected, strong emotions, lack, loss, and death are foreign concepts.  Part of being embodied is learning what these are first hand, how to deal with them when they occur, and becoming the wisdom that we gain form that experience. In current First World countries grieving has become something to avoid. Public grieving, ceremonies and displays are to be avoided unless they have some political value or serve some course or goal.  Celebration of life, honoring death, supporting each other through loss, creating new connection with the departed, celebrating change, these things have fallen away with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and modern medicine which sees death as a condition to be remedied or avoided and the body as a mechanism to be mended or replaced. This has made the transitioning process more attenuated for some souls and heightened the instances when souls linger to support and comfort those left behind.

Memorials are created through individuals or groups of citizens to create a means for publicly remembering individuals who have died.  Memorials are a means by which we publicly grieve over death and loss, mourn as a community, and continue the living connection between those who remain and those who have gone before us. Public cemeteries are set aside as sacred space for the remains of our ancestors and our beloveds creating a place where we can honor each individual for their suchness but also consider the larger issues symbolized in geography that enfolds the dead.  Public cemeteries, like forests or plains or wetlands, are self-contained geographical locations that speak to the eternal while acknowledging the ever-changing nature of all things.  Time lies heavy there with names and dates inscribed in stone juxtaposed with the transient beauty of flowers and grass.

Public memorials provide a means for the community, in its broadest definition, to connect with the embodied experience of their fellow citizens who are related to the deceased, to the fallen.  In an age where community is defined not just by physical location, but by technology choices, social networks, interest groups, economic states, career, nationality, education, language and culture, memorials help unite us, remind us of our similarities and our frailties and bring us together in shared purpose.

Memorials contain meaning without political message.  They are expressions of emotions, communication with loved ones, signs of respect and continuations of relationships declared in public and witnessed by community.  Most memorials, whether planned or spontaneous, illicit offerings from the participants.  Like with altars we place symbols of our selves, of our feelings, of our intent and message at the memorial thereby forming sacred space to honor and support our ongoing conversation with the deceased.  We care, we empathize, and we reach out in order to complete a circuit which has been abruptly broken.  Memorials are about individuals and their distinct feelings.