I recently heard artist and activist Persephone Pearl on the radio show Tapestry.
It was an affecting interview, where Persephone shared that she wanted a way to acknowledge the multitude of species that are dying off daily. She saw ritual as a way to engage and deal with our grief about these tremendous loses in a way that could be honouring and meaningful.
The premise is that we have no rituals for coping with extinction, ecological destruction and environmental loss.
Pearl didn’t push the grief under or ignore it and instead sought to share it. In 2011, she organized the first-ever Remembrance Day for Lost Species in partnership with a theatre group in England. The day has become an outlet for activists, artists and mourners to find creative ways to share their grief for extinct species – and reinvigorate their love for the natural world.
There are many Remembrance events now happening around the world, and organizers hope the day can function as a funeral does for humans. The events vary from a full-on procession, to a small gathering of folks for a poetry reading, to a dinner tribute to the dodo bird.
You can make the event your own, for your own community, small or large. It can include story-telling about how the losses first affected you and continue to affect you. There can be drawing out your grief and telling the stories of your drawings. There can be candle lighting, meditation, prayers. It is yours to create.
The event takes place across the world on November 30 and I put the date in my calendar.
Do you want to do the same? Let’s together join on that day to celebrate those species we’ve loved and lost and are losing.
Share your ideas for how to mourn on the day.