Between Worlds: Communication Perspectives of Female Funeral Celebrants in British Columbia Sandra E. Ollsin Royal Roads University 2012 An interactive, multimedia presentation

"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” Friedrich Nietzche

A funeral celebrant provides funeral, memorial or celebration-of-life services that are highly personalized, and reflect the beliefs, personality and lifestyle of the person who has died.

“The visual has implications not only for the discourses of modernity and ethnographic practice, but also for our understandings of the individuals who are the subjects of ethnography” (Pink, 2006, p. 16).

The Celebrants Pamela Harte – Celebrant, Retired School Counsellor, Palliative Care Volunteer, Brentwood Bay, B.C. Susan Breiddal – Celebrant and Hospice Counsellor also in private practice, Victoria, B.C. Joyce Murphy – Celebrant, Retired Nurse, Victoria, B.C. Norma Wellwood, past Celebrant and Funeral Director, Vancouver, B.C. (audio only by request)

IN THE EVENT OF DEATH: Witnessing, Following, and Engaging With the Process

Entering the unknown

Witnessing what unfolds

Trusting in, and being open to the process

Supporting the process

Using intuition and precognition

Holding strong emotion

Reading body language and other signals

Being in the now

Realizing vital aspects of the work

Grieving as a process

THE LIMEN AS CREATIVE SOURCE: Companioning Mourners at the Threshold

limen: a sensory threshold or subjective state between two different existential planes; characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, and disorientation from established structures and hierarchies (Van Gennep, 1909; Turner, 1967) liminality: characterizes the passage through the limen

“The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life’s joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death. The conquest of fear yields the courage of life.” (Campbell, 1988, p. 188)

Crossing the threshold

Experiencing liminal states

Connecting with those in liminal states

Understanding liminal spatiality, temporality and speed

Healing potential of liminal states

Living in the tension

Channelling creative energy through the limen

Constantly facing the limen/death

Affecting and being affected

Everything is relationally constituted (Thrift, 2004)

THE ART OF (IRRETRIEVABLE) PERFORMANCE: Facilitating Affective, Participatory Ritual

All performances are encounters with the not-yet-known, aided by our intuition (Deleuze, 1983; Dewsbury, 2000)

“That whole problem of breaking out of the field of waking consciousness into a field of dream consciousness is a basic problem of ritual… I would say the main function of ritual is to orient an individual to the dream consciousness level, which is the productive level… Dream consciousness is further in, and it’s a creative consciousness, whereas waking consciousness is a critical consciousness.” (Campbell, 1990, p. 60)

Bridging states through rites of passage

Knowing that ritual needs a structure, yet has a life of its own

Preparing

Allowing for sacred space

Integrating loss through storytelling and mirroring

Holding the container

Employing multimodality

Making ritual participatory

Being moved through participating

Respecting limits

The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Rumi (from Barks, 2004, p. 109)

To all those we’ve loved and lost who continue to affect the fabric of our being.

Special thanks to: Susan Breiddal Pamela Harte Joyce Murphy Norma Wellwood and Robert Birch Michael Real Phillip Vannini Thanks also to Dan Anthon at Royal Roads University’s Audio/Visual Department ★ Video/audiotaping by Don Ollsin ♪Music by Jonn Ollsin ☐Photographs by Sandra E. Ollsin

References Barks, C. (2004). The essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Campbell, J. (1988). The power of myth. New York: Anchor Books. Campbell, J. (1990). The hero’s journey: Joseph Campbell on his life and work (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) . Novato, CA: New World Library. Deleuze, G. (1983). Nietzsche and philosophy, translated by H. Tomlinson. London: Athlone Press. Dewsbury, J.D. (2000). Performativity and the event: Enacting a philosophy of difference. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18, 473-496. doi: 10.1068/d200t Pink, S. (2006). Future of visual ethnography: Engaging the senses. New York: Routledge. Thrift, N. (2004). Intensities of feeling: Towards a spatial politics of affect. Geografiska Annaler 86(1), 57-78. doi: 10.1111/j.0435-3684.2004.00154.x Turner, V. (1967). The forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. Van Gennep, A. (1909). Rites de passage. Paris: Emile Nourry. Translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee as The Rites de Passage, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960, with an introduction by S.T. Kimball.