Illuminating Life’s Journey with Legacy Lamps
By Meg Newhouse
I’ve been looking for inspiring and do-able legacy projects that might appeal to people who feel overwhelmed by the genuinely “huge” challenges facing our country, not to mention the world, today.
Not long ago, I wrote about Ron McCormick’s Book Nest Project. Here I want to share an artistic counterpart – The Illumignossi Project conceived of by David Moss, MD. (I know, it’s a challenging name, combining the Latin (illuminare) and Greek (gnosis) words for light/enlightenment/wisdom.)
“We’re all about illuminating the journey of life,” David explains.
An emergency physician in Madison, Wisconsin with an entrepreneurial bent, strong creative impulse and artistic talent, David Moss, 69, was spurred recently to legacy work by his seriously ill patients, his understanding of integrative medicine, and no doubt his own aging process.
He became convinced of the physical and emotional benefits of engaging in creative legacy work, supported by academic research as well as his experience with participants in his nascent Illumignossi Project.
David has created a workshop that provides a venue, an educational context and community, plus materials and instruction for creating beautiful individualized legacy lamps. Participants reflect on the meaning of their lives and the legacies they wish to pass on, and decorate their lamps accordingly, mostly using materials from nature. They also write a note that goes with their lamp and explains its meaning.
What makes a legacy lamp unique is that, as David says, “it harnesses the potent symbol of light — with its many meanings — with an inspiring reminder of who we were and what we loved. Our light shines on.”
Jhames Finlayson helps his father craft a lamp. (Photo: Mary Lou Lamonda © All rights reserved)
The idea itself is a legacy, inspired by David’s beloved aunt.
“My Aunt Lil was a beautiful dynamo who lived a rich, active life and generously gave to the Milwaukee community. Her life was filled with blessings and deep losses – her husband and only son lost in a plane crash, her only daughter lost to cancer. Yet she remained grateful and buoyant, calling herself the luckiest, unlucky lady,” he says.
“On her 83rd birthday I made her a handmade paper lamp, symbolizing the light she radiated. She was actively involved in its creation – picking out the paper and finding decorative branches. In subsequent years, dementia took its toll, until her vocabulary was reduced to three words, used freely with deep sincerity: ‘I love you.’”
Aunt Lil’s lamp was gifted back to David when she died. “Sure, I have photos, some poems and a set of elegant shot glasses that remind me of happy gatherings,” he says, “but gazing at her lamp links me to her deepest legacy – her deep, fierce love.”
David envisions offering legacy lamp-making workshops through retirement communities, hospices, faith communities and other organizations. Pilot versions have produced special lamps and delighted participants.
Because he has provided kits that are easy to assemble, making legacy lamps is not a daunting process. Few of participants are artists or artisans.
Like David Moss, I love the symbolism of letting your light shine on in a physical way, and because I am not able to take his workshop, I’ve been thinking about how I might adapt it. Fortunately, I don’t have to improvise a lamp; I just learned that Dr. Moss has created user-friendly lamp kits through his website for ordinary people like me.
(Nicky Teweles (left), 92, fashioned a lamp reflecting freedom, hope and security that commemorates her arrival in the United States in the early 1940’s as a Jewish refugee from Holland.)
(Photo: Mary Lou Lamonda © All rights reserved)
A participant reads a poem during the lamp lighting/dedication ceremony. (Photo: Mary Lou Lamonda © All rights reserved)
