A Celebratory Gathering: Live From the Rowan Tree and the International Space Station

A Celebratory Gathering: Live From the Rowan Tree and the International Space Station How do we publicly acknowledge the lives of those no longer living, beyond the funeral and the obituary? In secular cultures how do we bestow significance on a life and mark the lives of the dead? If what is important about life is how it is lived, how do we collectively judge what is consequential, what counts, what really matters? Equally, how do we move away from anthropocentric views on the worth or value of the life of other species and other organisms? In attempting to address these questions, I invited members of the public to a gathering to celebrate in their own way, friends, loved ones or anyone, any organism or anything no longer in existence and in so doing pay tribute to the full spectrum of life and matter. These tributes could be for the recently or long-since deceased to those that are now extinct, extinguished and forgotten, whether human or not. During the gathering participants shared their contribute through whatever form they wished, whether that be testimony, stories, song, tears, toasts, chanting, recipes, contestation, poetry, imagery, or silence… The aim was to create collectively an audible space for the dead to be with the living; to give participants a chance to celebrate the lives and impact of people or non-human life; to register those that might be overlooked or not considered significant. /////////// This Celebratory Gathering is an attempt to acknowledge and explore different ways of paying tribute through celebratory ritual; to inhabit a time and space in a different way, to be with the dead and the undead; to re-examine how to hold public rituals and reimagine future ancestors. Due to Covid 19 the gathering took place over Zoom on Friday, October 15 at 18.30 GMT (at around dusk). I encouraged individuals to go with their phone to a special place, that may be associated with those they were celebrating, rather than sitting at home. This Borrowed Time Event is part of a research by Michelle Atherton examining our relationships with transience, ecologies of burial and how decomposition is a generative, more-than-human process.