Blessings Be Upon The Dead

Blessings Are A Two-Way Street

Throughout history and during current times many paths and religions have various forms of blessing the dead, those who have passed from this plane of existence.  Some of these blessings are strict rituals that follow certain protocols and steps.  Various items will be deemed to be absolutely necessary. Some of the blessings are just verbal and can be very broad, not following any special guidelines.

From the perspective that I see it, it should not matter what one does if they choose to bless the dead.  This is a personal type of thing and any blessing is based upon intent and heart condition.  Should one petition a God(s) or Goddess(es), these deities will know your intent and heart condition and will act accordingly.

Many shun such talk of blessing the dead as it deals with death.  Death is a certainty that we all must accept.  Death is always moving closer and closer to each of us with every passing moment.  It is reality.  Talking about or focusing on death, such as in blessing for one who is deceased, actually will make the acceptance of death easier for those doing the blessing.  It opens doors to the mind, heart and soul.

The below blessing is very general and not focused on any specific path, tradition or religion.  It is designed to bless all of the dead that may lay at rest in a specific location.  As you read the blessing you will see how it can be used. Feel free to use this blessing as it is written, or use it as a guideline and create your own.

Blessings Be Upon The Dead

Blessings be
Upon the silent houses
Upon this city
As I enter the graveyard
To commune with the dead.

The city is too alive tonight
I need the silence
Of the unthinking dead
I need the peace
Only death offers.

I wander among the tombstones
Sit to brush my fingers
Over worn inscriptions
Memories of lives I've never known.

What stories could they tell me?
What wisdom can they offer?
Here, in this meeting house
Of those who've gone before us?

So much has been lost
To the future generations
I watch teenagers this day
And stand appalled.

Surely I was never that way
But I was, I know that
My youth, my childhood
Was as wild and undisciplined
Yet they seem, somehow
More formless than I ever was

Less connected to the world
Less connected to each other

I cannot speak to the living tonight
I must speak to the dead
And offer blessings on lives
Perhaps badly lived
But given love in marble monuments
A place for the living to come
And remember times that have gone before.

Blessings be upon you, gentle dead
Pour out your blessings upon me
Give me a reason
To see the dawn
If only because
You will never see another.

The dead stay dead
The living only wait to join them.
But the spiral, great and sacred
Will spin me back again.

I wander through the graveyard
Seeking my former selves
Wondering how many of my bodies lie here
Silent and all unknowing.

And how many of my selves
Lie in foreign lands
Sacred ancestors to those
I will never know again.

Lives lived and lost
But I give blessings
To see the dawn

When I leave the silent dead
To join the living once again.
Prepared by their silence and peace
Given strength by the dead
Knowing I too one day
Will walk amongst the tombstones
Seeking out the secret runes
That tell me I too lay here.