death Archives - The Sacred Hearth

Sisyphus Tricks Death

Morningbird Library, Poems and Prose

Who is Sisyphus this man who struggles endlessly in Hades to push a rock to the top of a mountain, only to watch it roll down again. Who is this man who knows only labor and futility in death. This man who is denied rebirth by Persephone the merciful and denied rest by his very […]

Orpheus and Eurydike

Morningbird Library, Poems and Prose

Orpheus was a bard, a singer of great renown, son of the Muse Calliope and also the King of the Cicones, a tribe that lived in the Rhodope Mountains in Thrace (part of what is now Bulgaria). They say that he was the first to master the lyre that Hermes made upon the first day […]

Where will you go when you die?

Morningbird Rites of Passage

Discussing the recent one-year anniversary of my grandfather’s death, a friend of mine asked me where the old man was buried. As it happens, my grandfather has was not buried. His body was sent to a medical school anatomy lab to help a new generation of doctors learn how the human body works. When we […]

A Burial Rite

Morningbird Book of Shadows, Rites of Passage

The person who has passed may be cremated and presented for burial in a wooden or clay urn or the corpse may be wrapped in cloth for burial. This way, he or she will quickly decompose and nourish new life. It would be ideal for this person to be buried wrapped in a cloth, instead […]

Departing Ceremony

Morningbird Book of Shadows, Rites of Passage

For this ritual, there may be an open coffin, or the deceased may be laid out on a bed or settee for viewing. This should be in a somewhat out of the way place, rather than the centerpiece, as some guests will have no desire to view the corpse. Alternatively and additionally, pictures of the […]

Orpheus and Eurydike

Morningbird Library, Poems and Prose

Orpheus was a bard, a singer of great renown, son of the Muse Calliope and also the King of the Cicones, a tribe that lived in the Rhodope Mountains in Thrace (part of what is now Bulgaria). They say that he was the first to master the lyre that Hermes made upon the first day […]

Sisyphus Tricks Death

Morningbird Library, Poems and Prose, Uncategorized

Who is Sisyphus this man who struggles endlessly in Hades to push a rock to the top of a mountain, only to watch it roll down again? Who is this man who knows only labor and futility in death? This man who is denied rebirth by Persephone the merciful and denied rest by his very […]

Walnuts

Morningbird Food, Kitchen Witch Corner

The walnut is a majestic tree that provides food and shade to those who truly appreciate them and garden-killers that produce a giant mess of stinky fruit to those who don’t. Walnut trees can be grown from walnuts and squirrels plant them often when they fail to collect their entire winter stash. Walnuts are not […]