Julie Weston - Funeral & Memorial Celebrant

27/07/2024

This will be a wonderful session. Are you dying to know? Get along and get informed! It’s being held by some amazing folks. Unfortunately I’ll be away or I’d be there!

🌟 Mark Your Calendars for Dying to Know Day! 🌟

We’re excited to invite you to a special Dying to Know Day event on Thursday, 8th August 2024. This free community gathering is all about opening up important conversations around death, dying, and bereavement. Let’s come together to learn, share, and support each other in a safe and welcoming space.

Join us at The President's Room, Dolphins Rugby League Club in Redcliffe for a panel discussion featuring experts on:
Palliative Care
Grief
Death Doulas
Wills & Estates
Funeral Arrangements
Writing your own Eulogy

🗓 Date: Thursday, 8th August 2024
📍 Venue: The President's Room, Dolphins Rugby League Club, Cnr Ashmole & Klingner Rds, Redcliffe
⏰ Time: Arrive from 9:30am for a 10:00am start, with the event concluding at 12:00 noon

This is a unique opportunity to gain valuable insights, ask questions, and engage with a community that cares about making end-of-life planning less daunting and more empowering.

Spaces are limited, so be sure to reserve your spot today! Click the link in our bio to register or the ticket link below. We look forward to seeing you there and starting this crucial conversation together. 💬

05/04/2024

Wise words indeed

If you think you should go to the funeral, you probably should, even if you didn't know the person directly.

At the reception after my dad's funeral, a woman I didn't recognize came up and introduced herself to me. It turns out that she was the daughter of a dear friend and colleague of my dad's from decades earlier.

I had never met the woman, or her father, although when she told me his name, I knew exactly who he was. I had grown up hearing stories about him.

The woman's father had died 20 years earlier, but she'd seen the obituary, and recognized my dad's name the same way I recognized her father's. She took the afternoon off work, and came to my dad's funeral, on her father's behalf, to honour the depth of the friendship between these two men, both now dead.

We hugged each other and cried. We cried for fathers, for friendship, and for the village-making beauty of a funeral.

Why her coming mattered to me is almost impossible to put into words. It's a truth that lives in the realm of symbolic soul reality, not logical, linear, material reality. That's the heart-and-soul part of dying, the part that's made real by participation in ritual.

20/02/2024

Beautiful words…..

I had a friend who was very much in denial that she was going to die of cancer. I said to her, “Come on, you have got to make friends with death. Poor death, nobody likes him. They are all trying to avoid him. He is given a very bad press. But actually he is really very compassionate, so kindly make friends. Embrace him, and say, ‘Hello, what can you teach me!”

To her credit, she was very happy about the advice. She laughed and laughed and said, “Yes you are right, I have been avoiding and hating death, and I have to actually embrace and make friends with death.” After that, with her own thinking about it, meditating and reading about it, she began to recognise that we can make friends with the fact that we have to go.

Accepting death doesn’t hasten its arrival, but it means that when we do come to that point, we are not afraid, resisting and fighting — we are relaxing, accepting and letting go. Then our death becomes something beautiful and peaceful, not only benefiting ourselves but all those around us.

- Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Photo: Jetsunma in a warm embrace, smiling peacefully (2009)

17/02/2024

Love this ….

✨

14/01/2024

I’m all for a natural burial. I Love this article. What’s your burial vibe?

Books, boxes and knick-knacks might be stored in your spare room, but in Mary Flynn's home studio is a wooden coffin, which she made herself. She's never been frightened of death and wants to spark conversations about natural burials.

09/01/2024

I love this idea of a living wake.

As John Gilius's partner came closer to dying from terminal cancer, the couple decided to mark the event in a very special, and very joyous, way.

02/01/2024

Death by su***de leaves so many questions and often no answers. Take care, step lightly and be kind to yourself.

We never know what someone is going through. Remember to be kind. My New Year's resolution is to be more patient with people.
Kl 🐻

01/01/2024

Beautiful words……

𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐤

From 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭, 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐥

01/01/2024

A friend who works with grief just posted these beautiful words.

For all who find themselves slammed unexpectedly into the swirling waters of grief, you’re not alone …even though it feels like you are … reach out and speak your truth …. May your new year have a glimmer of hope and joy. Take care xo

If you're here, in the early days of (define "early" for yourself), and the universe has just split open and everything has changed, I'm sorry you're here.⁣⁣⁣
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I remember those early days. When the life you expected to unfold disappears: vaporized. When people talk at you and for you and around you, and not only do you no longer understand what they're saying, you no longer care.⁣⁣⁣
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Your life was normal, and then, suddenly, it was not.⁣⁣⁣
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It's like being in a crowded movie theater. Everyone starts out watching the same picture, exactly the one they bought tickets for, exactly the same one as advertised.⁣⁣⁣
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At some point, the screen rips in two, it shatters, and a whole new film begins. This one is surreal and strange, a horror show where there wasn't one before. The characters have changed, the stage set is wrong.⁣⁣⁣
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But the worst thing -- the worst thing -- is not that the movie has changed, but that no one else has noticed that it's changed. They are all still watching as though nothing has happened.⁣⁣⁣
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If you make a sound, if you say "Wait. WAIT -- this is all wrong now!" They pat your arm and whisper, "Shh. It's totally fine. It's just a movie. It'll work out fine. What a great story, and pass the popcorn please."⁣⁣⁣
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If out-of-order death has shown up in your life, here is what you should know: Early grief is largely this -- crashing again and again into a reality that can't be real.⁣
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It's an impossibility without release. There is no neat-and-tidy road map. There are no answers.⁣
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This is not the time for future plans. This is not the time for discussions about whether you will "be better later." Later is irrelevant. Now is all there is.⁣
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I'm sorry you're here. Others have come before you, but that doesn't really matter now. What matters is that the sky is wrong, and life is wrong, and you need someone to see it, to acknowledge it.⁣
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You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life.⁣⁣⁣
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This sucks. It's all wrong. There's nothing to do but to hold that horror, send love down into that abyss. This is all so horribly wrong. And I'm so sorry you're here.⁣⁣

02/12/2023

I think a natural burial is a wonderful way to honour the planet.

There is a growing movement of natural burial around the world and as the peak advocacy body in Australia, the Natural Death Advocacy Network is dedicated to encouraging the very best practice standards.

07/11/2023

This should be a very interesting event…I’ve got my ticket!