Black Cats and Unicorns: Independent Celebrant

21/08/2024

19/08/2024

This is so true.

How true is this? Whether we know it’s coming or it is a shock, no matter how much we think we know or how long we have expected it for, we are never prepared to lose someone. We are never prepared for grief 🙏🏼❤️

17/08/2024

Insta - vomitpants

15/08/2024

😞

I have inside of me a small wounded animal called grief that will not be silenced. It is full of pain and longing but also full of love and memory. I call your name. Always I call your name. Always I listen for your voice to respond. Grief is a plea for the impossible. "Come back. I know you can't but please come back."

15/08/2024

I grew a mushroom! 🍄 and some crystals 🥰

14/08/2024

Sometimes, you’ve just gotta roll with it and let that 💩 go… Tomorrow is a day to travel to London to see friends and a musical. Have you guessed what I’m dressing as yet?

14/08/2024

A little something something from for our special trip. You’re never gonna guess what it’s for!

13/08/2024

Stories are a different kind of magic.

09/08/2024

📣 We're Hiring! Full-Time Funeral Director 📣
Are you a compassionate and dedicated professional looking for a meaningful career? Join our team as a Full-Time Funeral Director, covering our branches across the Leeds area.
🔹 Role: Full-Time Funeral Director
🔹 Location: Leeds and surrounding areas

🔸 What We Offer:
A supportive and compassionate work environment
The chance to make every goodbye dignified and meaningful
Opportunities for professional growth and development

🔸 Responsibilities:
Providing exceptional service to families during their time of need
Coordinating and overseeing funeral arrangements
Ensuring all services meet the highest standards of care
If you have a passion for helping others and want to make a difference, apply now!

💷 Annual salary of £28,920.75
📅 22-25 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays.
💰 Pension Scheme.
🔐 Life Assurance X2.
👔 Free Uniform Provided (Incl. Dry Cleaning).
👨‍🎓 Access to our internal apprentice & personal development schemes.

Click the link below to join our dedicated team.
Applications online only:
👉 https://dignity.kallidusrecruit.com/VacancyInformation.aspx?VId=1033

08/08/2024

This is a missed opportunity.

one of the biggest chains of nationwide funeral directors (Kate T was recently on Radio 4's The Bottom Line with their CEO) has produced a comprehensive report into funeral trends... But they seem to have forgotten something...
😮There is no mention of funeral celebrants!!
😮The report lists florists, vehicles, dress codes and music choices... But who is creating and delivering the service? Not a word on them!
😮They list alternative locations for funerals and celebrations of life and living celebrations....
😮Whilst you won't need a funeral director for a celebration of life or living funeral (there's no body) - you would be wise to have someone to structure, write, deliver and stage-managed the event, be that family member, faith leader or, of course, professional celebrant. ♥️
😮And remember you can book a celebrant directly (no need to go through a funeral director)
♥️Also, there are as many different types of celebrant as there are dead people...
♥️Coffin Club's amazing Celebrant-plus celebrants range from committed atheists, to interfaith, pagan, unspecified spiritual and beyond. We have celebrants with additional skills and qualifications such as end of life doulas or grief counsellors or who specialise in living funerals ♥️
♥️We actually feel really sad that celebrants, who are the heart of a funeral service and an important source of support for bereaved people, were, once again, entirely overlooked.😕
Come on, Co-op, could do better.

Shout out to amazing Lincolnshire celebrant for alerting us to this injustice!!

training

08/08/2024

**𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - 𝗣𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲**

Earlier today, a stray cat was brought into our centre by a member of the public. This entire male Domestic Longhair, approximately 1 year old, has been wandering in gardens around Northgate in Horbury for the past couple of weeks. He is now safe and is being cared for at our centre. Unfortunately he is not microchipped, so we are appealing for any information to try and find his owner.

If you are the owner of this cat or recognise him at all, please get in touch via Facebook message or by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.

08/08/2024

feeling this right now as we lost our beautiful boy this morning. At least he had a wonderful spoiled day with my wife on the bed yesterday, at least he was spoiled every single day and at least he knew he was loved and demanded loving multiple times a day.

It doesn't take away our pain right now.

at least.

i know there are a thousand more that you have heard. i know people don’t have bad intentions. but if you are reading this as someone who has heard “at least”, please don’t try to shrink your grief. if you are someone who has said this, you don’t have to try to fix someone’s pain- it just won’t work.

𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚜 𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝙰𝚖𝚊𝚣𝚘𝚗 ♥

04/08/2024

All set up and ready for business! If you’re in the area, pop down. There’s some lovely stalls here with all sorts for sale! Here from 10-2.

26/07/2024

🥰

Those who know me understand how deeply I strive to care for the families I'm assigned to. I approach this responsibility with passion and dedication.

People often forget that we, too, are human. I carry the weight of each family's grief, and I believe this poem captures that sentiment of what I do and how I feel. ♥️

22/07/2024

They called it addiction after they found out about it.

For a while though it gave me somewhere to go that didn’t hurt.

Somewhere I could go to hear myself, or not.

Something that helped me be around people and feel like I belonged.

Somewhere, anywhere.

After a while, I stopped relying on it to live, and I started learning how to live.

A quiet voice inside me picked me up.

Then I found places that didn’t hurt.

And, I learnt how to hear myself properly.

People, well that may always be a struggle because I have wounds that run deeper and bleed further than even I knew, but I also learnt that I wasn’t alone, and maybe that’s the beginning of belonging.

They called it addiction after they found out about it but for me it wasn’t that, that was just another name, another label.

It was somewhere I went for a while to stop hurting.

In the end it was somewhere I went that somehow helped me find myself.

But they called it addiction this thing I told them about, something that I did for eight months that none of them knew about.

Something they didn’t even notice.

But, perhaps they had never really noticed me.

I told them after I stopped because I was being brave and they were my family.

And without asking why, or what was wrong, or where did I hurt, some of them decided not to, and still don’t speak to me.

Because I went away somewhere and came back on my own.

I came back better than I could have imagined but they didn’t care.

Because of this thing that I had done, this thing they didn’t even know about.

Something in which I didn’t hurt anyone but perhaps for a while, myself.

They didn’t ask a question in love, but in condemnation loudly proclaimed it made me a liar and a drug addict and that was now all I would ever, and could ever be.

It’s been six years.

And I don’t feel bad about it anymore.

I made choices, they made choices.

I can’t change mine, I can’t change them.

I wish them all the best, and will be there if they ever fall because I know what it feels like to fall, and be left alone, to remain unseen.

But live a life feeling worthless and bad because they think I am?

I’ll never do that.

❤️ Trudi Jane

22/07/2024

very true.

19/07/2024

Find me there - Sara Rian
Sara Rian Books

19/07/2024

When our person is poorly and starting to die, they may experience little things that happen to them physically, they may have extra lumps and bumps, a small swelling, their skin may have extra marks, they may have a headache that comes and goes, they may feel poorly a little more at some time of day than an another, they may feel uncomfortable, stiff, hot and cold and generally not right.

All of these things can just be a very natural part of the body shutting down and the process of dying.

We actually experience all these little things all the time. Our bodies are weird and wonderful and do some strange and random things at times. While we are well, we mostly ignore these little inconveniences and carry on. We’ll take an over the counter medication, rub in a cream, change position, keep an eye and wait for it to pass. Which often it does.

We need to learn to do the same when our body is poorly and remember that actually, even if there was something to do about the little things, a dying body can’t heal itself, it’s too poorly. And while we focus on all these little things, we are missing the big things.

We can become so fixated on every minute detail, every ache, every mark that we can miss what is happening. We have to understand that a dying body is on a journey, a labour, and all the little things now can’t be fixed, they can be supported and managed yes, but not necessarily fixed.

Sometimes we have to let the little things go to make sure we can be present for the big things, the important things and the whole person.

Our whole person ❤️

We can use the little things to distract ourselves and feel like if we can fix them we can help, maybe even stop what is happening. It’s understandable and it’s human to feel this way. But we have to at least be aware that there are other things at play here and we have a choice about what we pay attention to 💫

13/07/2024

I think I might’ve found them…

13/07/2024

Celebrating .charity and my friend’s birthday . Looking forward to meeting in person too. ***r ***rcelebrant .

04/07/2024

oooooh this is an incredible opportunity to work in a lovely place.

04/07/2024

So proud of Dead Good Legacies & Katie Costello - Soul Midwife and Funeral Celebrant for their nominations and awards in the industry. All well deserved!🥰