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Welcome to the SevenPonds.com blog – a community-driven extension of SevenPonds.com! I hope you find comfort and community in the resources and stories featured here. I’m always happy to hear from readers and can be reached at suzette@sevenponds.com.
FEATURED
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Final Messages of the Dying: Finding meaning in metaphors and symbolic language -
Will I Die in Pain?: For patients living with a terminal illness, the fear of pain is very real -
When A Child Has A Terminal Illness: Reflections on a short, full life, part two
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Categories
Tag Archives: Cultural Perspectives
Why Have Epitaphs Been So Popular For So Long?
A look at the origins of epitaphs and why they are often found on the graves of lost loved ones
When a person walks around a cemetery, it is quite common to see a good portion of graves or plaques marked with epitaphs. The word, “epitaph,” itself stems from the Greek word “epitaphios,” which means “a funeral oration over tomb.” … Continue reading
Guatemalan Funeral Traditions
A look into traditional Guatemalan beliefs about death and funerals
Guatemalans follow many traditional Catholic customs regarding death and funerals. When a person dies, there is a sense of urgency to prepare and bury the body. Shortly after a death, someone arrives to prepare for a burial by bathing and … Continue reading
The Tulafale’s Role: Samoan Oratorial Traditions for Death and Funeral
Appointed family orators facilitate the process of death and funeral in Samoan culture
The Samoans, one of the largest Polynesian populations in the world, cherish the importance of storytelling and tradition by appointing a select family member as an orator chief, known as a “tulafale.” The tulafale holds the major responsibility of spreading … Continue reading
“The Drowned Brother” by Brendan Constantine
Brendan Constantine looks at how bureaucracy helps us cope with loss in "The Drowned Brother"
“The Drowned Brother” is a eulogy-like poem that explores the revelation of the death of a brother in Brendan Constantine’s latest poetic novel “Calamity Joe”. In the poem, the narrator Calamity Joe relates the impersonal actions of the police and … Continue reading
Funeral Rites in the Buddhist Tradition
Exploring the ways Buddhists embrace death
Buddhists take a positive stance when it comes to death: the best way to approach it is without fear. On Buddhanet, you can find an abundance of information focusing on the beliefs about death and dying in the Tibetan Buddhist … Continue reading
Afterlife Beliefs in Africa
Traditional African perspectives on afterlife and burial
In some traditional African perspectives on afterlife and burial, it is believed that the dead are nearer to a “singular supreme being” than the living. Certain afterlife beliefs in Africa hold that reward and punishment are experienced in this life … Continue reading
