Dandelion Clock Transitions

11/15/2025

What if

Discover Billie Eilish's top songs & albums, curated artist radio stations & more. Listen to Billie Eilish on Pandora today!

11/14/2025

Closer Than We Think

Our departed loved ones
are closer than we think.
Not gone,
but transformed,
woven into the quiet moments
of our lives.

Love, once given,
does not disappear.
It changes form,
softens,
and lives within
the spaces between us.

If we grow quiet enough,
if we let the world rest
for a moment,
we can feel it,
not as memory,
but as presence.

They are here,
just beyond the veil of sight,
breathing through the spaces
love once opened,
reminding us,
with every stillness,
that nothing truly loved
is ever lost.

~ 'Closer Than We Think' by Spirit of a Hippie

✍️ Mary Anne Byrne

~ Art by Olamik

11/12/2025

11/10/2025

11/08/2025

I am southern Virginia's first certified Death Doula.

I support the cultural shift toward the “death positivity movement” -which encourages open conversations about mortality and reclaims death from institutionalized settings.

I offer support and education so death can be less overwhelming.
For generations, death was not talked about or prepared for in a way that lets people grieve properly.
Now, most people don't face it until they absolutely have to be involved and I've seen it wreck their whole world to where they aren't the same again. It doesn't have to be this way.

If you have questions, ask me.

If you want to prepare and need help, I can do that.

If you have an unexpected death, call me, I can manage all the responsibilities that come with that shock which then gives you time to process and grieve in a healthy way (which most people haven't been taught how to do).

If you are navigating an after death situation and have questions or find it overwhelming and need help, I can do that too.

Complete death care means start to finish- from learning about what to do, to how to do it, and how not to be scared of it.
Dying happens to all of us but we have become a world spending billions on staying young and never facing aging or death.

Knowing that our time is limited makes the time we do have extremely special.

- with love and support,
Sarah

Find out how death doulas are changing the landscape of end of life care in America, promoting a culture of death positivity and support.

11/06/2025

The earth opened her arms and welcomed a daughter home. 🍃

A natural burial at Eloise Woods, just outside Austin, Texas. 🌼

No embalming, only gentle care.

Her body was bathed with lavender soap, wrapped in soft bamboo fabric, and adorned with flowers and greenery.

Surrounded by love, her family helped lower her into the earth and returned the soil by hand.

11/02/2025

11/02/2025

Happy Day of the dead 🧡💔

11/01/2025

A mother's grief 😔

“I Didn’t Feel It Break”

I didn’t feel it break
not the way people think.
It wasn’t one big shatter.
It was slow.
Cruel.
A ripping from the inside out.

I was still breathing when it happened,
still standing,
still moving,
but something inside me
was screaming so loud
the world went quiet.

My heart didn’t just crack
it splattered.
It burst under the weight of a name
I still whisper every night.
His name.
My child.

I tried to hold it together,
press the pieces to my chest
so I wouldn’t lose another part of him.
But it cut me
over and over again.
And the blood isn’t blood anymore
it’s memory,
it’s pain that never clots.

They say time heals,
but time only reminds me
how long it’s been
since I heard his voice.
Healing?
No.
I just got better at pretending.

People look at me
and see a mother surviving
but I’m not surviving.
I’m haunted.
I walk around holding a heart
that’s no longer mine,
just the remains
of what love looks like
after it dies.

And every shard that falls
still bleeds his name.
Every piece still screams,
“I miss you.”

Written by: Marlena L Bowdery
Many Phases And Faces Of A Mother's Grief

11/01/2025

💔 Kodokushi — The Death No One Notices

In Japanese, it means “lonely death.”

It happens when someone dies quietly in their home and no one comes looking.
No family. No friends. Just silence.
Days pass. Then weeks.
Until the smell begins to seep through the walls — the only signal that someone once lived there.

In Japan, more than 76000 people living alone were found, with some time passing after they had died, just in 2024. Three-quarters of them were over 65. Some were discovered only when their bank accounts stopped paying rent automatically.

But Kodokushi isn’t only Japan’s story — it’s a warning to all of us.
This is what happens when loneliness becomes ordinary… when society moves so fast, it forgets to stop and care.
Because no one should leave this world unnoticed. 🕯️

When I realized this was a real problem for many locally and a real fear for some who have limited family interaction, I came up with a few ways to help.
We offer different options to fit your individual situation, as involved or uninvolved as you'd like,
so if you'd like more information, please call.

10/31/2025

10/30/2025

The time for reconnecting with love ones long gone 🩶💔