I want to leave so much love in the hearts of my loved ones that there will be no need to remember me, because I will still be right there with them. I want my life and my after life to be a celebration. A full on, huge spread of food, awesome booty shakin music, lots of laughter goodbye party would be cool too.
leela | 10.28.04 - 3:05 am | #
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 Since doing this thing, I have been thinking about how to be remembered, and I would want some kind of party which invites together all of the disparate parts of my life so they can meet each other: Indians, Irish musicians, Bowen Islanders, facilitators, OST people, the whole works. Then I would love someone to run an Open Space with everyone together, looking at extending these improbably relationships into a world where they might all do some good together.
My death as invitation for collaboration across impossible divides. That would be great. You up for opening that space ash?
Chris Corrigan | Homepage | 10.28.04 - 3:55 am | #
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 i'll be there, chris (even if my own memorial comes first!)
it's funny, i have two pieces of music that are back-to-back on a cd called "the gentle side of john coltrane," and for some reason when i listen to them, i often think, those two songs are all i need for my memorial. they are about feeling it all, and releasing it all into joy. track 11 is "in a sentimental mood," duke ellington's tune, a rare time when coltrane and ellington recorded together. track 12 is called "dear lord," with mccoy tyner back on the keys, & if my life has a theme song, that's it.
since you're taking notes for the event ash, they're both slow-dances 
chris weaver | 10.28.04 - 5:20 am | #
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 hmm... i would want to be remembered for my laughter (maybe play giggle tracks or something), my love, and that no matter what i did, i tried my best and put my everything into it. i want to be cremated, have no wake (dead bodies are not who we are), and perhaps a celebration equal to my wedding, also on the silver sands beach, where people i loved would gather to watch me (or my ashes) fly into the wind and finally get to travel to all the places i've always wanted to see.
becky | 10.28.04 - 3:46 pm | #
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 Wow. At my father's funeral we played his favorite music; displayed hundreds of pictures; I wrote a journal of what I learned from him, etc. His friends remebered him the way he would want to be remembered.
I had a friend call and say, "I don't really know how to say this... and I know it sounds weird, but that is the best funeral I have ever attended."
My father must have been smiling from heaven.
Rick
rick luoni | Homepage | 10.29.04 - 12:09 am | #
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I want to be remembered for encouraging others to live out their full humanity.
Rick
rick luoni | Homepage | 10.29.04 - 12:10 am | #
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 I want to be remembered for being compassionate and for always being honest. Those are things I am constantly working on in my life and I think it would be great if that's what people remembered about me. The older I get, however, the more I realize that we all have different impressions of each other - to some people I have seemed shy and timid, to others loud and bold, yet to others grounded and calm and to some freespirited and spontaneous. I guess I am a little bit of all of these things, like we all are, so I think realistically everyone would have a slightly different way of remembering me. Maybe not mostly my compassion or honesty. oh well. And that is the crazy beautiful thing about life - that reality is not necessarily a shared thing and we all interpret our time here so differently. ( Kinda went off on a tangent there, but thanks for asking my opinion Ashley.
annab | 10.29.04 - 10:57 am | #
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 i want to be remembered only by a select few. opening up my soul is the greatest gift I can offer someone. i want my legacy to be making a genuine effort into investigating the souls of others and finding those that are indeed worthy of an invitation into who i am.
sam | 10.29.04 - 11:35 am | #
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 i want to be remembered in a way that honors the reverence that i have for life. i want for those remembering me to be drenched in joy, appreciation, and gratitude for the opportunity to be alive. i'd love for each person to celebrate their own life in memory of my life, embracing the fullness of their own gifts that they sprinkle throughout the world.
ashley | Homepage | 10.29.04 - 3:02 pm | #
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i love this!
leela, can i borrow from you... leaving such love in the hearts of others that they know we're still right there with them. YES!
corrigan, of course i'd open the space. i got an idea though, let's do one together (with all those people from disparate parts of your life) and then if i'm still around when you pass away we can have at it again. what do you say? it'd be a great model for all of us to follow.
weaver, dancing slowly, feeling it all, releasing it all into joy... i can feel it moving through me now.
beck, do you have some giggle tracks recorded? i'd love one now!
rick, welcome, and keep at the encouragement.. . your blog is most definitely that.
anna, such an annab tangent, thanks for gracing us with your presence. i love feeling all of those different parts of you shining through.
sam, it's great to see you here again... and watch out folks because he is sneaky in his ways of investigating. those eyes just focus right in and......
really, thank you all for sharing here. i love knowing this about you.
with love,
ashley | Homepage | 10.30.04 - 1:43 am | #
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thinking of your comment to chris corrigan, what a very interesting notion...to have an open space event in honor of a person (who is still entirely with us!) just to experience what sparks to life when a self-selecting web of that person's relations comes together face-to-face. how would one word the theme..."play-time in the chris corrigan portal"? sounds worth a trip to me....
chris weaver | 10.30.04 - 7:33 am | #
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I want to come too! An Open Space with an organizing theme of honor (celebration, gratitude, appreciation, love)--what a wonderful attractor. And it's certain that opening space via the "Chris Corrigan portal" would magnetize & draw in an incredible, amazing array of dazzling sparks--I'd love to get to see what would happen!
Christy | 10.30.04 - 1:51 pm | #
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All right...I'll make sure you're all on the invitation list.
But it won't happen for a while 
*knock on wood!*
Chris Corrigan | Homepage | 10.30.04 - 2:41 pm | #
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 Ashley, I'm so glad you asked this question, it really helped me get in touch with some deeper currents in myself.
Through self-inquiry, I realized that my answer reflected both the masculine (agentic) as well as the feminine (communal) impulses of my being--thanks for giving me the opportunity to so intimately touch my truest intentions.
I want to be remembered as a person who consciously conquered fear in the service of creative emergence and Enlightenment, and who used the fruit of this vision to recognize the Beauty, Truth, and Goodness at the heart of every being with the intent to help them realize their true nature and fullfill their soul's "blueprint" as written in flesh.
I want to be remembered as someone worthy of infinite trust, someone with insight sufficient to reject the seduction of equating the occlusions of ego with the always already Great Perfection of vajra (diamond/indestructible) nature.
I want to be remembered as someone who relished every realm of existence, every dimension of being without being identified with any of them, and whose heart beat to the kosmic rythym of joy, joy, joy.
Thanks for helping me attend to my own funeral. I love you.
Brandy | 10.30.04 - 5:58 pm | #
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 I want to be remembered as someone who enjoyed each moment -- unconditionally staying with what is emerging. Someone who sees the best in others and holds that vibration, and can find the fun anywhere -- bring on the party!! I want to be remembered as a mischevious grin on the faces of those who know me! Judi
Judi Richardson | Homepage | 10.31.04 - 12:02 am | #
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Judi...I ALWAYS picture you with a mischevious grin on your face...!
It'll be sooo good to see you again in Halifax!
Chris Corrigan | Homepage | 11.02.04 - 12:20 pm | #
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brandy, you rock.
hi judi! nice to see you here!
love,
chris weaver | 11.02.04 - 11:22 pm | #
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 I would like for anyone to be able to view life through my eyes, just as much as I would want to do the same with others. It would be such a fine parting gift to say, see what I have seen so that you can fully experience who I was! I would like to be wide open for others to discover me. We are universes ready to be explored. There are so many questions that might be answered for us by fully experiencing one another. There is no end to what we can learn. I can see that from all of the responses!! I am not as graceful with words, but I think the main thing for me to leave behind is how much I love people and see how truly special they are. Thanks for the opportunity to speak!
Cathy | 11.03.04 - 10:22 pm | #
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 Ok, ok, here it goes Miss Asheley! My first reply with you! Yeah! Sorry it's took so long, but you know me and my luddite ways....
Reading over others comments before writing, I think may have planted many different seeds and influenced my thoughts. On one hand (like the life I live), I have this idealistic view of how I think I should be remembered (sort of like how I think I SHOULD be living my life). But this is not always congruent with how I will be remembered, or how I do live my life. The two are connected my nature though, seen?
So, like several have said in different ways, I want to be remembered as being a creature of love and one who inspired others to live out LOUD! A person who cared, and was cared for by many equally loving and giving people. I think this answer would have been much different 10 years ago, and will be 10 years from now. Hopefully because of growth. And I think that's the main thing I would want to be remembered for, one who helped others grow in loving and appreciating life. Like Rick described in his reply though, I think the greatest thing someone could say about me after my physical death, is "Wow, what a wonderful funeral!", and say it full of joy and love, not sadness or regrets.
Thank you all for being inspiring Souls...
Don | 01.02.05 - 1:53 pm | #
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 Hi Ashley and all,
Very inspiring!
I would like to be remembered also as one who inspired others to live more fully and authentically. And to be understood as someone who learned how to move from an I to a We.
Thank you all!
Michael DuBois | 03.19.05 - 11:22 pm | #
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 this thread began, right about the time that i went to oklahoma for my grandfathers funeral. this experience bought a great inner peace deep inside of me. for the first time i truly felt what it was like to be a part of a family. as i listened to the memories of my grandfather what was common to all of the stories was how loved each grandchild/child felt by my grandad. and how supportive and what a big fan he was of anything that his grandchildren were into to. through this experience something inside of me shifted greatly and i feel like there is this fire of happiness inside of me. when i returned home everyone commented on how shiney or sparkely i was... i want to be remember in the same supportive, nurturing and loving light. and those behind me shining and sparkling.
Tracy | 03.21.05 - 6:50 pm | #
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 my funeral would be a ramshackle shuffle of warm bodies milling around some favorite dive of mine, maybe The Sunlight Cafe, or maybe the lobby of The Harvard Exit.... people there would have a chance to compare notes on chris the freak, chris the open heart, and chris the broken soul. somebody would find some half-written script of a movie idea i scribbled down in my journal based on a recent reverie i had while snuggling with my current love and listening to the snow fall. the reverie entails me behind the wheel of some souped-up hot rod waiting out a red light in heavy traffic, antsy to get someplace. a news reporter sticks their mike in my open window to ask me a question about the giant honey pots in the back seat. "their for the bear," I say, not taking my eyes off the light. "bear? what bear?" says the newsperson, incredulous. "if you don't know, i can't tell you," i say, and peel off down the street. final shot: two bumperstickers on my rear bumper: "got suffering?" next to: "honey inside."
ash -- it's been such a gift to know you this past year. you and your many wonderful friends teach me so much about climbing on board this electronic superhighway and setting up nothing more than a lemonade stand....
i'll attend your funeral if you attend mine
Chris Fiset | Homepage | 11.30.06 - 10:04 pm | #
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 Chris Fiset, I so love the way you pull to the surface colors of reality that have never been seen before...
I am pretty fixated on gratefulness these days...I want to be remembered as one of those people who was full of appreciation for every small and large thing.
Speaking of which, dear Ashley, thank you for all the many ways you invite imagination and conversation and connection. You are a living blessing-being!
lots of love,
christy | Homepage | 12.07.06 - 9:12 pm | #
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