OneWorld Offers Tips on How to Display an Urn at Home
by Wendy Jacobson
"Feng Shui Desain Interior" by Anna Hape*
After a loved one passes, there are many different ways to honor and inter their remains. Many people decide to be cremated, and cremation offers many benefits, but it also raises several questions.
One issue I often hear mentioned is what to do with the ashes once they are “home.” Surviving family members have the option of displaying a cremation urn in their home in order to feel close and connected to the deceased. This may have you wondering how to display an urn in your home.
Deciding exactly where to put an urn at home so that it feels just right requires some thought and planning. In this blog, we offer advice for those interested in how to display an urn at home using feng shui as a guide. For those not akin to feng shui, we provide other planning tips on deciding where to place an urn.
Can feng shui influence the placement of a cremation urn?
Although feng shui has assumed a place of influence in our current American culture, it can be traced back several thousand years to its origin in China. The very first use of the practice was to bury deceased elders in a certain location, facing the “correct” direction so that future generations would prosper. Today, with the popularity of cremation on the rise, adaptations to feng shui can be incorporated when determining placement of a cremation urn.
According to Amy Theisen of Infinity Life Design of Minneapolis, “When incorporating feng shui principles in the placement of an urn in the home, we want to put the cremation urn in the most auspicious (positive) area.” The direction or orientation of your home and urn placement are important in how the chi or energy flows in and around your home.
“Although every case is different, in general if your home faces north, south, west or northwest, you want to place the urn in a north or south room in the house,” said Theisen. “If your home faces northeast, southeast, southwest or east, you want to place the urn in a northeast or northwest room in the house. Regardless of the room, display the urn prominently and beautifully. The urn should not be placed in a drawer or cupboard.”
Not only does this advice apply to a human loved one you may have in your home, but it can also apply to keeping pet ashes at home and using feng shui. Having an urn display case can ensure that your loved one is protected and yet also visible to everyone and anyone who comes to your house.
Other tips for finding the right spot for a cremation urn
When thinking about urn display ideas, deciding where to place the urn in the home is a big decision, but it doesn’t need to be a difficult one. Primarily, consider the following:
- Location
- Style
Thinking about these will point you in the right direction. Below we’ve outlined more specifics.
Location in your home
You might first ask: “Will the cremation urn sit in a cabinet in the bedroom, family room or den, or will it be on the mantle in your living room, or on a window sill in the kitchen?”
Think about which rooms were especially important to your loved one, and where he or she liked to spend time. Also, think about spaces in the home where favorite memories were created. If the deceased loved to cook, a spot in the kitchen might be a loving place.
Style
Once the location is determined, consider style when choosing a cremation urn. It’s important to keep a few things in mind, including:
- What are the color schemes, décor, ambience, and personality of the room in which the urn will be located?
- Is the style formal, relaxed, modern, classic, chic, country, or a mix?
- What was the style preference of the deceased?
Wherever it is displayed, you don’t want the cremation urn to stick out like a sore thumb, so the setting of the room is important.
What other items are located in the room? A wooden cremation urn has a different feel and visual component than a metal urn. Check out our guide to materials used in cremation urns. You want to ensure whichever cremation urn you choose will blend in nicely with the décor of the room in which it is displayed.
You also want to keep the style of your loved one in mind. If the deceased was an outdoors enthusiast, for instance, perhaps a wood cremation urn makes the most sense. If he or she were an artist, you might want to consider artisan urns, or the distinctive hand-blown glass cremation keepsakes.
It can be easy to get caught up in the style of the room and forsake the style and personality of your loved one. But those factors are just as, if not more, important than ensuring the urn fits within the space.
The placement of a cremation urn ideally provides comfort, closeness and a connection that will endure for a long time. When you find that perfect place in your home, you will know it in your heart and there the urn will reside.
Being Happy with the Placement of Your Loved One
While a crematorium offers a wide variety of services, the decision about what to do with the cremains is up to you. If you have decided that your loved one will be kept in your home, you have plenty of options for choosing a meaningful, respectful display that honors their life and memory.
At OneWorld Memorials, we offer a variety of designs and styles to commemorate many altar ideas. Decades of expertise, experience and craftsmanship are displayed in the urns and other keepsakes we offer. We work directly with manufacturers in order to find exquisite items at a cost below what a funeral home would offer.
Contact us today. We love hearing about people’s loved ones and what made them so special. We can help honor their memory and bring you peace through the grieving process with a thoughtful memorial display or an urn that matches your room’s décor and the style of your loved one.
Wendy Jacobson is a freelance writer living in Minneapolis with her husband, two kids and dog. She helped market her mother’s book, “Hands Off My Hope: Life Lessons on my Journey with Breast Cancer,” at the request of her mom, who died two weeks after publishing it in 2008. She also is the editor of Minneapolis Happening, a digital lifestyle magazine about what’s happening in Minneapolis and the surrounding area.
Comments
I too am in a similar situation. My mother-in-law I miss her and love her dearly. My husband has her urn on the nightstand next to his bed. And I’ve told my husband many times with all due respect it’s just very uncomfortable for me to see it there every day I go to sleep and I get up. What I was thinking today. I am going to put her earn where all the family pictures are and display it beautifully. I think hope I believe that will work 🙏🏻😊
To reply to Nyce Nz:
It seems like you have more of an issue with his father’s spirit latching on to your husband and still being “alive” through him than then urn.
You’re going to have to put your foot down and do a cleansing of the house and cast out his father’s spirit, regain power and control of your own place of residence.
You may have to do this more than once as the ashes are acting as a anchor and unfortunately you can’t get rid of them.
Best of luck to you.
In need of some help with an Urn and ashes? The ashes are of my father-in-law and placed right now on a high on a mantle Shelf in the center of my house which would be health. This has inadvertently become an issue with my husband and I greatly. I’m not allowed to touch it and to me i feel and see how it’s displayed and has become an overwhelming sadness plus depression of an issue with my husband. Its so strong in presence that an altered Personality change is occuring. As as spiritual as I am and how I hold and respect my Fung shui, others don’t always feel its real nor my beliefs. But 4 several months now I have been experiencing it first-hand and For that, my husband hasnt quite been himself either. Seems to me he has taken on the Persona of his father from his earlier years but yet my husbands spirit feels very different. I am rather confused and not sure where to properly placet it within my home.
Since I have also strip down all of my feng shui couple of , I seem to be having more enormous issues now with the displacement of the urn. Removal of all of my Feng shui is leaving me with a bitter divorce and sour words when I think I’ve been slightly blindsided and in effort to help not be divorced I wanted to find another placement for it elsewhere in the home with still holding respect to him and his father. I need stronghold back for balance but what I really need to know is where do i put this urn?
Its been veey dominating in our marriage when typically it wasn’t as relevant before but similar. I realize I could be up against something far greater than just an urn with my Fengshui but im hoping things fall back into normal greif soon. If anyone has a reasonable answer or a quick fix placement of the urn to alleviate some stress I would greatly appreciate it ASAP. I have been practicing for many years, yet emotions and a new house and moving and in-laws involved I stripped everything. I have a set of my own spiritual beliefs also dealing with in-laws in the household now has been an even greater challenge in and of itself but now I’m challenged with the living and the dead. Please help let me know what can be done and how I can approach it with my husband. Also I prefer not this not to be published publicly or maybe the scenario used to help others answer this question to. Any help ASAP would be greatly appreciated thank you so much