Liminal Time
Blogs & Pods
How to be a… Funeral Game Changer
Isabel Russo is a Contemporary Ritual Designer who has created over 600 funeral ceremonies - including for comedians Terry Jones and Victoria Wood.
She is a Director of the Good Funeral Guide, and along with colleague Fran Hall, has pioneered a transformative framework to help people navigate the period of time between the death of someone they love - right through to the days after the funeral has taken place. This is one of the most inspiring conversations I’ve ever had and I hope you get so much support from Isabel’s wonderful knowledge and work.
**Correction for a misuse of terminology around minute 36, the term ‘assisted suicide’ was used as a mistake and we just wanted to acknowledge that misuse of terminology and the correct terminology is‘assisted death’ Thank you **
Origin Story of ‘The Power of Liminal Time’
Origin Story of ‘The Power of Liminal Time’ Fran Hall, CEO of the Good Funeral Guide
Liminal - occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold; relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process
“A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next’. It is a place of transition, waiting and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us”
Have you experienced the death of someone you love?
If you have, you will understand the meaning of the word liminal - that strange, dreamlike quality that colours the time between the impact of the moment of death and the day of the funeral. Those days or weeks, sometimes even months are uniquely different. You are in between times. Neither before nor after. You are in a transitional time. A liminal time.
Time has a different feeling to it, minutes stretch for ever, while days pass in a blink. The world outside continues tumbling along, unheeding of the inner turmoil and pain that churns and tears at your physical being as your body tries to assimilate the unthinkable, that your person is no more. Or there may be a confusion of emotions battling in your head and your heart that you struggle to accommodate. Relief, guilt, exhaustion, anger, despair, a myriad of other feelings and sensations can flash through your consciousness in moments, confusing and disconcerting you as you try to function normally. Your appetite may vanish, sleep may be elusive, tears may erupt without warning - everything is changed.
And in this newly flayed state, as your mind and body react to the shock of the death (no matter whether it was expected or not, the full stop of a death is shocking) - and as you struggle to regain your balance and your equilibrium, for some reason, in our so called advanced 21st century Western society, we have deemed it necessary to suddenly start making decisions and dealing with officialdom.
Wiser cultures and communities know that death demands attention. Bereaved people need space and time to tend to their loss, the comfort of family bringing food and drink and no expectations of anything other than allowing themselves to be cared for. Rituals and religion provide structures that bring a feeling of safety and familiarity in the strange landscape of loss. Here in the UK, for the most part now a secular society, we have dispensed with the old ways and left ourselves with - nothing. Just phone calls and funeral arrangements.
It is hardly surprising that we have a tsunami of mental health problems washing through our society. People feel unmoored, unsafe, uncertain of the future generally, with the shockwave of the pandemic still rippling and the ever present fear of climate catastrophe approaching. When we lose someone we love, the precariousness of our existence comes into sharp relief, and we have to face our own mortality, a profound challenge to our self-centred, hedonistic nature. But instead of allowing ourselves the time to absorb what has happened into our core being, we are required to be busy, and to make endless decisions. Where should the funeral be? And when? (It will have to fit in with previous commitments of our chosen funeral director of course). Who to invite? Who to lead it? Choose a coffin. Choose the readings. Choose the music. How many cars? What about afterwards? How much can we afford to pay for all this?
Layer on layer of things to think about, to do, to worry about. All at a time when time itself is shape-shifting, bewitching and tricking you.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
We can do this differently.
It is really simple - and at the same time, profoundly deep. There is a way to reach back into the old knowledge you carry within you, from the long line of ancestors who have walked this path before you, whose DNA is in your every fibre. They knew what we need to do. They understood the power of the liminal time.
Something familiar
In 2023, Isabel Russo and Fran Hall, directors of the Good Funeral Guide CIC, a not for profit organisation dedicated to supporting, empowering and representing the interests of dying and bereaved people living in the UK, were approached to present at the Festival of the Good Death in the Czech Republic.
The remit was an open one, the organisers simply wanted to hear about the progressive funeral movement in the UK. But when we began work on the content of the workshop we had been invited to host, we realised that the subject we really wanted to explore was the potential for bereaved people to find a compass to guide them through the churning days after a death had occurred.
As we worked together to explore our thoughts and express half remembered ideas, we found that a model of thinking was taking form. It was like a kind of alchemy, feeling our way into articulating concepts and then seeing a shape emerging that made perfect sense.
We both felt instant confidence and certainty about the model that came into being. The simplicity of the steps involved and the ways of sharing the understanding of the potential of each element that made up the whole idea seemed totally natural. It was as if all of our combined decades of experience working with bereaved people, all that we have learned from those who have studied dying, death and bereavement, all of the teachings we have absorbed - all of this was being distilled into this learning. By working together to form and craft an immersive way of sharing the concept, we had found the ideal crucible to transform our thoughts into teachings.
With our newly shaped workshop, we set about sharing it with others, and we did so in the most challenging of circumstances, in a country neither of us knew, with translators working alongside us and a group of 20, non English-speaking participants from all over Czechia. We also had to navigate unpredictable living arrangements, unnerving last minute timetable changes and an uninviting, functional workspace provided for the workshop, but, despite everything, we both felt a stability and a confidence in the teachings we had to share. Any apprehensions we had swiftly ebbed away as we shared the elements we had identified, and watched the group grasp and absorb our understanding.
By the end of the second day, a transformation in the participants was visible. The learning was embodied in a vibrant hum of conversation and laughter among people who had previously been slightly awkward strangers, united by a curiosity about what we had offered them. It was magical to witness. And the feedback we received was extraordinary. It was clear that the learning that we had all shared was indeed powerful medicine.
The concept that sits at the heart of this model is a 13 step process, a sometimes linear, but always steady, progression through time that acts as a road map for those who find themselves suddenly in the strange, unpredictable land of grief.
The significance of there being 13 steps in our process is one that only became apparent once the shape of the learning had crystallised, and to reclaim the number from any stigma still attached to it feels absolutely right. We realised after creating the model that the 13th card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot is Death, often representing not physical death, but transformation, a chance for change or an opportunity to release what no longer serves us.
At one point during the workshop in Ostrava, it occurred to us that what we were sharing were ideas that had potential to completely change the way our society faces and copes with death - ideas that are powerfully subversive to a dominant status quo of what has largely been patriarchal funeral directors and a whole multi-billion pound industry. The old ways, the simple ways, the ways of taking time to navigate the profound teachings of death, don’t sit easily with the quicksilver commercial opportunities of a capitalist society. The Power of Liminal Time has the potency to redress the balance. And to put the experience and wisdom of death back into the hands of those who are most affected by it.
Understanding the concept of ‘Liminal Time’ and how it can benefit us
In early June 2024 I stumbled across an Eventbrite ad for a full day workshop to explore the “Power of Liminal Time”. What on Earth is Liminal Time? My interest piqued.
I’d never heard about it before; the event details went on to describe how this concept, which has been developed by Isabel Russo and Fran Hall from ‘The Good Funeral Guide’, explores in simple stages the key time between a death occurring and the time leading up to the funeral ceremony.
It refers to a time of transition in our lives, just like you would describe sunrise and sunsets to be liminal (transitional) times of the day.
I was keen to learn more. So I negotiated a full day off from parental duties – and scheduled an entire Sunday to immerse myself in thinking and learning more about these key stages of anticipatory loss, the physical act of death and the time thereafter.
When I arrived, I found an intimate group of strangers.
We were a mix, from all different walks of life, connected by an invisible thread – our mutual interest in death, and how to understand it better.
Some were industry professionals, others had suffered profound loss – or were anticipating it.
We would spend the next seven hours unpicking, reflecting on and exploring our own experiences of loss and grief. It was confronting, we were vulnerable and there was a raw honestly very rarely experienced in the polite conversation we tend to get by with in our day to day lives.
Did you know, on average in the UK it takes around 3 weeks from a death occurring until the funeral ceremony?
Through their vast experience working within the arena of death, Russo and Hall have identified thirteen stages within this period of time, and we spent our day working through each of them one by one.
It was fascinating, thought provoking and eye opening. This period of time, immediately after the death of a loved one is so often fraught with immense pressure – emotionally and physically. And here we were, surveying how when it is recognised, acknowledged and broken down, we can alleviate overwhelm and transform it into one of the most profound experiences of our lives.
We considered how to encourage meaningful conversations before death. How we could communicate sensitively and efficiently with the person dying so that we aren’t left with regrets.
We shared our own grief and laid bare our own struggles in adjusting to lives without loved ones. We contemplated our relationships with family and friends now and then We discussed how we could improve those relationships so that it will benefit us in this life moving forward.
We comforted each other.
Overall, it was insightful and inspiring.
Our little group vowed to stay in touch – and we have.
It was an extraordinary day and I have thought about it a lot since.
Described as ‘a 13 step guide to anchor and support you when someone you love, dies’, Hall and Russo offer the teaching as an experiential workshop or on a one-to-one-basis in personal sessions. They hope to provide the insight as a coping toolkit for those anticipating loss, those who work in end of life care, or those just wishing to gain a better understanding of life and our approach to death.
“It was fascinating, thought provoking and eye opening. This period of time, immediately after the death of a loved one is so often fraught with immense pressure – emotionally and physically. And here we were, surveying how when it is recognised, acknowledged and broken down, we can alleviate overwhelm and transform it into one of the most profound experiences of our lives.”
