Solaris Reviews: Do I Have to Wear Black

Do I Have to Wear Black: Rituals, Customs & Funerary Etiquette for Modern Pagans by Mortellus

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Llewellyn Publications (February 8, 2021)

  • Language ‏ : ‎ English

  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 344 pages

  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0738765406

  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0738765402

This book can be found through:

  • Amazon in Paperback and Kindle

  • Barnes & Noble in Paperback and Nook

  • Directly from Mortellus, signed

  • and from many local pagan and witchcraft bookstores

For more content by Mortellus, please visit their website www.mortellus.com or follow them on Twitter or Instagram.

A Brief Review

This book is a phenomenal resource, start to finish, and written with the sort of compassion I hope we can one day see death treated with everywhere.

For Funeral Industry workers, this book can seriously help diversify your understanding of the needs of a rapidly changing demographic. Not everyone is Christian and more and more people are comfortable being open with their non-Abrahamic faith. This is a wonderful resource to understand how to better serve those communities, and tend to their final wishes in a way they would truly want.

For Deathworkers, this book has an absolutely massive collection of funerary rituals to aid in times of death and grief, which you can use to better serve your communities, educate them about their death options, and diversify your own toolkit. The best part? Mortellus contacted people who practice in each tradition represented and let them lend their own informed voice. This isn’t someone from the outside gazing in trying to wing it and missing the nuance and importance. Mortellus let them speak for themselves and elevated their voices to the forefront where it matters most.

For Pagans who are faced with death, this is a wonderful book to help learn how to advocate for the wants of their loved ones, what to expect, and how to manage their own grief. There are so many resources inside for support groups, and for that alone I would highly recommend this book.

When it comes down to it, I can’t recommend this book highly enough. While I read this book originally in the Kindle format, as that was most accessible to me at the moment, it is one I intend on getting a copy of for my shelf, to reference while working on funerary rites to serve my own community, as well as to find resources for people who need them the most— and possibly a few extra copies, to give to people in the Death Industry to help broaden their horizons in handling funerary work.

A Look Inside

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Why We Need This Book

Part One: Views of Death and What Comes After
Chapter 1: The Underworld
Chapter 2: Myths and Cycles
Chapter 3: Views on the Afterlife

Part Two: Mortuary 101
Chapter 4: The Modern Funeral
Chapter 5: Advanced Planning
Chapter 6: Restorative Arts and Crafts

Part Three: Customs and Funerary Rites
Chapter 7: British Traditional Wicca
Chapter 8: Crypto-Paganism
Chapter 9: Discordianism
Chapter 10: Druidry
Chapter 11: Eclectic Wicca
Chapter 12: Heathenry
Chapter 13: Hellenism
Chapter 14: Kemetism
Chapter 15: Thelema

Part Four: No Two Deaths Are the Same
Chapter 16: Companion Animals
Chapter 17: A Long Goodbye
Chapter 18: Unexpected Death
Chapter 19: Loss of a Child

Part Five: Grief and Everything After
Chapter 20: Pagan Mourning

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