My daughter just died, so many questions...

[honeyeyedchild]

I was never able to have children due to autoimmune diseases. The good new is, kids have never been my cup of tea. I've always communed w/ nature *much* more...naturally, even as a little, tiny soul. No surprise, then, that my daughter, a Shiba Inu, came to me a little over 14 years ago and gave me the gift of motherhood.

As life would have it, she'll be my only child.

I brought her up in the spirit of very, very elemental panpsychism animism (really not so much a part of any particular religion.)

My family knows this is who I am and what I've always shared with my little one.

Why, then, should it get my hackles up when my parents are referring to my sister's family's religious beliefs and customs re: my little one's passing?

I'm grateful she's being honored, but it feels really dismissive of something very spiritually intimate that my little one and I shared over the full course of her life.

The anthropologist in me is trying to be fluid and open-minded. The mom in me is hurt.

I guess you can't celebrate a life too much.

I'd really appreciate hearing some other thoughts on the matter.

Thanks so much!

P.S. How could the term "anima mundi" be updated to reflect all life, all matter across the cosmos and not just the consciousness of all things on earth/in the world?