"Shall we go hiking biking through the hills?"

Kinthissa has taken leave of us and joined the vast calm ocean. Next Wednesday 10th December we shall consign her body to the beloved earth.

At 12:30 for 13:00, in a natural burial ground in snug woodland under a wide sky, at Sheepdrove Organic Farm near Lambourn in Berkshire. Please see directions.

If you could arrive by 12:30, you would have time to become orientated in the wood with a brief meditation. There is no dress code. Or rather, the dress code is to have wellington boots and waterproofs, either on or available in the car. It is only a 5 minute walk to the burial ground so you can leave them in the car and dash back for them if it starts raining. And don't forget hat, scarf and gloves, as it is December and we are in a sometimes windswept landscape, shaped by the retreating glaciers of the last ice age; the northern slopes of the hills are a plethora of U-shaped valleys gouged out and scoured by the ice as it retreated northwards.

The farm staff very kindly said they'd bring some sprigs of rosemary for us to scatter. They will also provide a rather beautiful wheeled bier, and spades.

The rest is up to us. Well, we do not have to completely fill up the grave, but let us begin, and signal to the trees that we have laid to rest a new guest in their midst, and ask them to send their friendly roots to embrace.

My original idea, indeed expectation, was that the whole thing would be pretty austere. No director of ceremonies, no eloquent tributes, not even any eloquent laments. Maybe just some chanting, and singing. Then, in the fading December afternoon light, we gently take our leave of each other and go in many directions, while the woodland starts its nightly murmuring.

And then ... much later ... slowly, softly, using all the magical resources for online communication that we have these days ... we communicate.

I have to say, that idea was greeted with howls of disapproval. One should not, cannot, ask people to savour austerity when many are wishing to celebrate a wonderful life lived, traveling from far to do so. She gave so much to so many people. But please consider ...

For months Kinthissa dreamed and spoke about the river, and the ocean, and in particular the place where the mouth of a river joins the ocean. This is not just imagery, although it is that too, it is the description of a process of inordinate reality. She is now in the middle of it ... unless she has already passed through.

While we are in the woodland, our task is to help free her of any last remaining vestiges of attachment to the accoutrements of her past life in this world. While we are in presence of her precious body let us not ensnare her with talk of the past. Let us speak, of course, I am not envisaging silence, but let us speak without making speeches, and with a simple awareness that in her life she set a good example ... no need to elaborate further. I am confident that if enough of us are brave enough to try, we can do this.

In response to an earlier version of these notes, a dear friend wrote,

Wordless convergence on the downs and dispersal to the winds, as it were an iron age burial, sounds beautiful, I hope we do that. Winterlands now summerlands later.

And later? Later let us celebrate the living of a life well lived.

And maybe to foreshadow that, my angelic sister is organizing a tea party at three o'clock in a snug pub in Lambourn, opposite the church. The name of the pub is The George. I confess that I had looked out to see if there were a pub in Lambourn called The Gravedigger's Arms, but inexplicably there is none such.