25 July 1960 – 23 June 2010
It is with great sorrow that we announce the death of our dearly beloved Emma, daughter of Ivor and Gay, sister of Peter, Jamie and Sophie, and friend of so many.
We pray that her beauty is now shining in that better place where she is at peace and free from her suffering.
We ask for your prayers and messages for Emma.
We are heartbroken and are so very grateful for all the love and support we have received from you all. Thank you.
2nd July 2010
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Please click here for Emma’s Art & Poetry
Messages for Emma 
May each soul be the source of as much love as yours has sent forth. Peace be with you.
“Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am a diamond glint on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of birds circling in flight.
I am the stars that shine at night.
So do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there – I did not die.”
Jamie, I think fondly of Emma so often and the rich gifts she gave me. She is embodied in the creative work I do with nurses and healthcare professionals and in my own life. Go well in the richness of your own life. You are a wonderful brother to Emma.
Love and light
Angie
Dear Emma, three years have gone by since you left us at Seaford. I now look out to sea and always remember, often cry and hold you in my heart. I found your painting of “Wild Contented Peace” and I hope you are in wild contented peace, I am sure you are. Love Jamie
http://wp.me/pYI4W-7v
Emma, remembering your birthday, love Jamie
https://emmacoats.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/celebrating-emmas-52nd-birthday/
Remembering you today dear Emma on this the second anniversary of the day you went missing. I am visiting The Abbey and your friends are still here. It is nice to see the cherry trees The Abbey planted in your memory. Love Jamie
https://emmacoats.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/450/
Jamie,
Holding you, Emma, and your family in my thoughts and prayers.
JAS
Emma was a vivid member of a writing group I attended in Twickenham between 1997 and 2001 which was a very memorable and warm group with an extraordinary leader. Emma herself was very lively and I noticed her more than anyone else in the group. She gave me a lift home a few times and mentioned the institute in Islington where she ‘d completed creativity courses – which I then attended.
Emma talked about her NLP which she said she had a ‘love/hate relationship with’. I have often wondered about her since. I am sure she made many friends before and after that writing group. I had a lot of hope for her as I felt she was on the up and up and was well on her way to solving the problems that came up as she read out her writings in the group, often in tears. I would have liked to be a friend of hers but she didn’t seem interested. She was able to show her feelings more than most people in the group and had a lot of perception. She appeared to me a very radical person, I am very sorry to hear that her life has come to an end in such a sad way. Best wishes.
I found the work of Emma full of spontaneity and expresion. Thanks for share her work and thougths!
It has been a year. I miss you.
Thinking about you today, with much love Emma, on this day the anniversary of when you went into hospital. Jamie
Emma left a collection of artbooks that she filled with painting over a dozen years and poetry. Overtime I will publish copies on this website under the Art & Poetry tab.
https://emmacoats.wordpress.com/emmas-art-poetry/
Jamie Coats
We are so grateful for all the love, support and prayers for Emma. Thank you for helping us celebrate her life and for caring for us.
Jamie Coats (Brother) & Alexandra Coats (Niece)
jamie @ coats.net
Dear Jamie,
I sincerely regret the death of your lovely sister Emma. I lived with your family in 1962, while I was studying in The West London College. You and Sophie were not born yet, when I left the United Kingdom, but I kept exchanging letters with your sweet mother for some years and, therefore, I was well aware of your both births. Your parents are the Godparents of my 4th son, José Pedro Letra de Azevedo.
I am now going to read – with great pleasure! – the writings of your sister, also because I write, too.
Please do kindly inform me about your Parents, Peter and Sophie.
My most sincere condolences, although quite in delay.
Maria Letra (Mizita, for your family)
I guess I addressed my message to you as your being James Charles Coats. I am very sorry.
Hannover January 2011
Dear Emma, I have you in my mind always when I look at the pictures on line of the Abbey you on the Lawn,on your birthday 2008 you in your colourfull frock and hat you wheared on that day I took snaps of you.Our conversation whilst you drove me to Didcot Station on my last day at the Abbey,nowadays I see everything in the eyes of a child the older you get and know there is no final end and we all carrey on somewhere and comeback. My thoughs to you,Norbert
Dear family and friends of Emma,
As you know, Emma’s ashes were scattered in translucent river water on Dartmoor on 25 July, on what would have been Emma’s 50th birthday. The ashes lingered in the river, forming a fluid shape that was kissed by the sun, before they dissolved. We were left with the basket which had contained the ashes and, as we walked back from the river, a butterfly landed on it and stayed for a while, sitting quietly on the basket.
I took the basket to the Qi Gong camp on Dartmoor where I was camping at the time and where Emma had camped with us in the past. My husband Ewan and I wanted to burn the basket in a small private goodbye, but we struggled a bit at first to find an appropriate time: the camp can be quite lively (with over 100 campers this year) and the central fire tends to be a popular, busy spot.
But on the afternoon of 29 July there was a storytelling circle happening in a large tent nearby, which drew children and adults and which gave us a little space. We felt this was the right time to feed the basket to the camp fire. Some of the people who remembered Emma joined us – as well as a little boy who wanted to know everything about Emma.
While we said some gentle quiet goodbyes and blessings we heard snatches of stories and laughter nearby, and we figured Emma would have liked this. When we released the basket to the fire we got a surprise – it burst into a large wild flame. Immediately after a rainbow emerged, blossoming into colour within seconds.
I imagine we all bring our own beliefs to what happened to Emma’s soul, but I wanted to finish by sharing that a friend of mine in Cornwall did some soul work for her. In early August he wrote to me saying that he believed Emma’s soul had complete her journey and has moved into the light that is the source of everything.
With love,
Mimo
Reflections & Recollections 22nd July 2010
Emma as a Young Girl
By Jane Aitken
I was moved, I felt honoured, to have been asked to say a few words about Emma as a young girl. Thinking back to the mid-1960s, to remember her has given me not only sadness, but pleasure, bitter-sweet pleasures as I remembered many happy times.
Emma often came to stay with us in the country, with or without her family from when she was about six, until she went to boarding school. To me, as a grown-up, she was the perfect guest – she was quiet, ate whatever was on her plate, was never homesick, nor did she whine that she was bored with a plaintive “but there’s nothing to do” – of course there was a lot of giggling and whispering. We called her my fourth daughter – Alex my older daughter was obviously my first daughter, her sister Tona my second daughter, Alex’s best friend my third daughter and Emma, the same age as Tona was my fourth daughter.
When she first stayed, she said that she was not a “country girl” and didn’t like exploring the Common with us. She said that she missed the London pavements – with her adult affection for and appreciation of Dartmoor, she obviously out grew her “cityness.”
I remember her happy and barefooted, dancing, leaping and twirling across our lawn and then doing scary-looking acrobats on the climbing frame.
Their favourite TV programmes were Blue Peter and Belle & Sebastian. Blue Peter was full of ideas for crafts and games and fun things to make – like spiders, using a nutshell with drinking straws, to painted and decorated jars and boxes often covered with coloured Kleenex Roses, made with small used boxes, yogurt pots etc. Emma loved making things; she was enthusiastic, imaginative, and dexterous with nimble fingers and intense concentration.
I don’t think Emma liked our dogs as much as she liked the TV Bernese [I think] mountain dog, Belle, her favourites of our many animals were Oscar and Grunt, the guinea pigs. My daughters each had a pony, Emma didn’t ride but would help them groom, clean the tack, shovel the stalls etc. Then sit on the fence to watch them, sometimes shivering in the cold! She and Tona built a fat snowman and dressed him in a school scarf and hat!
One summer Alex, Tona and I stayed with the Coats at Bainbridge, on the Isle of White. It was a happy holiday, spent mostly on the beach building sandcastles. The nanny at that time could peel an apple round and round so the skin came off in one long curly piece. I think that Emma was the only one who eventually could do it too – slowly, carefully and with great determination.
One day we all went to watch a costumed parade on Bembridge’s High Street (Main Street). The outfits were colourful and fun, the children were very excited. An “Ogre,” with green face, cloak and long green-nailed hands, growled at the children and pretended to grab at them, Tona burst into tears and hid behind me, Alex tried to calm her. Emma, to our surprise and admiration, stepped forward, waved her arms, made a face and said “Boo” loudly to the Ogre – it as surprised as we were! None of us has forgotten it, and how impressed we were with Emma’s spirited defiance.
Our happy holiday and visits from Emma ended when she and Tona went off to different boarding schools, and then we moved to Toronto. Emma will always be in my mind’s eye and heart as my happy, twirling and dancing fourth daughter.
Reflections & Recollections 22nd July 2010
Emma in Greece & England
By Angela Young
Emma leapt into my life in May, 1995, in Atsitsa on Skyros in the Aegean.
Atsitsa is a magical place where we learnt to wind-surf and dance and practise yoga; where we sang and we talked; where we wrote and made art and, every morning, small oikos groups met. Oikos means house or home, and it was in these home groups that we said what was troubling us, or what had given us joy … and I made a friend for life.
In the afternoon of the day we arrived we were told, ‘Emma will join us tomorrow. She’s an old friend of Atsitsa’s.’
I’d never been anywhere like Atsitsa before and I didn’t know whether I would like it, or be liked. But the next day, when I went to change some pounds into drachma, I stood behind a woman with a brilliant red scarf tied round her waist. Somehow I knew it was Emma. When I asked her, she turned a bronzed smiling face to me and said, ‘Yes. I am. Who are you?’
And so our friendship began. We made art from nature and Emma’s delight in the natural world and her enthusiasm for making art from stones and seaweed, flowers and leaves, pieces of wood or bird’s feathers, amazed and delighted me. I’d never met anyone like her before.
Emma was instrumental in forming a group that continued the friendships forged at Atsitsa. We called ourselves the Wild Women (from Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, Women who Run with the Wolves). We met several times a year for weekends of self-discovery and laughter, until September 2000. Angie Titchen is also here, but Carol and MaryAnne are on holiday, although I know they’re here in spirit because Emma’s spirit is here.
Whenever Emma and I met we explored every subject and every emotion under the sun. We often ate noodles after an exhibition Emma had read about, or a movie directed by someone only she had heard of. It was always a discovery. She often said she longed for another way to participate at exhibitions other than just looking. And then, in 2007, she found a piece of work after her own heart. We went to Antony Gormley’s Blind Light at the Hayward: a huge perspex box filled with fog that you walked into. Inside the box you couldn’t see a thing. It took courage not to keep one hand on the perspex wall for safety. We called to each other and challenged each other to let go of the wall and walk into the middle. I doubt if I’d ever have done it without Emma.
And of course we talked (and laughed) about what it all meant afterwards.
Emma worked with art to facilitate change in organisations, chiefly the NHS. The feedback from her workshops was always positive, but it is difficult for an artist to promote herself in the business world and she couldn’t find enough of that kind of work to make a living. But I know those she worked with will never forget her.
And even though Emma never found a way to earn a living through the arts, a deep love of the arts was at her very core. She drew, painted and wrote to explain herself to herself as we’ve all read in her beautiful poem Song of My Heart, Call of the Land. And what I learnt about myself through my friendship with Emma and our mutual love and constant exploration of the arts will never leave me.
I write fiction and she often suggested that instead of wearing three hairshirts and agonising at my computer over a piece of work, I should go for a walk or make time to dream. She said what I needed for a story would always come that way. And, of course, it always does.
She was a beautiful catalyst.
She was a great friend.
She still is.
Reflections & Recollections 22nd July 2010
Emma at the Abbey
By Brad Strachan
So this is a letter from me to Emma
The time we first met ……
You were designing an open day for the Abbey……. Designed, structured, engaged dancers, planned the layout of stalls and exhibitions etc. Meticulous in detail and able to make changes as the weather didn’t quite play ball. You made the whole day work…… Then in the evening as we all relaxed you were pleased with what you’d designed, and a little coy in accepting the praise you deserved. anxious about had you forgotten anything…… Smiling, pleased, relieved, joyous in success. Dancing, light, thanking of everyone for their part, pleased at the praise. Already planning what could be better next time. It was a ‘fun’ evening. There may have been a glass or two of wine involved I remember.
You brought the strengths that created all of that into the Abbey community when you came to live here….. and carried on using your skills. You brought also, so much more – yourself………
Laughing, caring, crying, annoyance at the pace of things, anger at times, always authenticity. I remember you not wanting to be seen as the policeman of health and safety in the Abbey. Always articulate, enjoying poetry and literature, and gradually making more space for this as you settled in here. Enjoying the people and conversation. And sometimes it felt to much. I know that feeling. Your expressions of joy at meeting up with friends from London and from Braziers. Time spent in making of rituals for yourself , [I’ve never been good at recognising and marking moving’s on and changes] your sense and feeling and attachment to nature and the earth. And particularly important your honouring of, and recognition of the sacred Feminine in all of us.
The unfolding of you and moving on of your story is what you were able to bring here in this place. In this community.………….
At times you saw us as a family working well together supporting each other growing, at times seeing us as a family and wondering if we were just dysfunctional.
And most of all I remember how you ‘settled’ into this place and with that came a growing sense of happiness and belonging.
At times you were so pleased to get away and so surprised that you were then pleased and happy to return.
Thank you for things you have done here and most of all for being you in the doing.
You are and will remain my friend.
Reflections & Recollections 22nd July 2010
Emma in the Desert
By Stephen Bushell
I am humbled to be invited to offer some words in this service remembering Emma. First of all I would like to convey my heartfelt sympathy to Emma’s family and friends as you each begin to find your way without Emma. I know that sympathy is shared too by my nursing and medical colleagues at the Warneford hospital who, like me, were shattered by Emma’s death.
I have probably known Emma for the least time than anyone else here today. I knew her for the last months of her life when she was a patient at the Warneford. I met Emma in my capacity as one of the hospital chaplains where my task is essentially to accompany people in their journey through crisis, breakdown, illness – whatever labeling we use for those times in our lives when meaning collapses and purpose seems futile. We aim to journey in attentive openness to signs of the re-emergence of meaning and try to make sense of times that hold little hope of sense; when that journey comes to a sudden and abrupt end the process of making sense goes on for a long time afterwards.
When I met Emma I felt she was in the desert; a place empty and arid, where the horizon is so far to reach. She was in that place that has captured many spiritual seekers down the ages. In the 4th century hundreds of men and women left towns and cities in the near east and went to live solitary lives in the deserts. Their reports to us – found in their writings – teach us (amongst other things) that the desert is as much a condition of the human heart as it is an outer reality.
With hindsight I can see how the sacred thread of life had run its course and had brought Emma to this harsh place of extreme separation. I must add though that even in this arid place Emma remained intensely grateful for all the contact she had with family and friends. When last week Emma’s brother Jamie showed me a photograph of Emma from last summer, taken by a friend on a walk along the Sussex downs I felt some sense of why, perhaps, Emma had chosen to leave this life in the way she did. The photograph shows Emma walking confidently along the coast path – the wide open sea against the chalk cliffs.
The sea, in our deepest evolutionary memory is the birthplace of all life; in the book of Genesis the Spirit of God moves over the face of the waters awaiting the creative word of God to fill the sea with a multitude of life. In the gospels, Christ walks on the water and stills the storm-whipped sea: a sign of the renewal of all creation. And in Greek mythology the sea is the birthplace of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. For reasons that can at best be speculation, Emma’s ultimate renewal is beyond this life: symbolised by that place where earth meets sea; the place brooding with the creative renewal of God was where Emma chose to enter into her journey of ultimate renewal. A journey into the eternal love and embrace of God who will bring Emma to that further shore whose waves of love break upon the arid interiors of our own lives and where – within that love – you who have loved Emma will always remain connected with her.
Reflections & Recollections 22nd July 2010
Emma is the Butterfly
By Jamie Coats
Emma is in the light. Emma was brave. Emma prays for us. Emma asks our help to create a church of light. Emma is the Butterfly.
Emma’s room at the Abbey was adorned with many images of the Madonna and Child, including one of herself with her new born niece Clara, taken last summer.
When I took Emma out of the Warneford Hospital in March she asked to go to a church and we went to St Mary Magdalen’s and she prayed to Mary, the Mother of God, and told me afterwards she prayed for me too.
When Emma was taken from the John Radcliffe Hospital Trauma Unit back to the Warneford, she was terrified and in her wheel chair she prayed the Hail Mary.
Her last words in her note book were “Help me goddess Mary, help me Mary, to call my soul fourth, help me, HELP.”
So I have prayed to Mary to try to say some words.
Emma is in the light.
While Emma was at the John Radcliffe I had a vision of Mary which I told Emma about:
I was swimming in the river of life itself, it was stormy and turbulent. Then I realized next to me, held two feet under water was my sister, Emma, held by two bonds, one male, one female to a stone at the bottom of the river. Mary, the Mother of God appeared on the bank of the river, and began to wade in. With something unseen she cut the bonds and lifted Emma and carried her to shore on the edge of the river of life and stood her upright. For a long moment I thought Emma was dead. Total fear and anxiety gripped me. Then Mary breathed into Emma, and she choked alive. Emma still was bound around with ropes, Mary began to peel these cords and I saw Emma writhe in agony, the bonds had cut so deep.
When Emma went missing I saw Mary cradling her dead body in her arms. I knew then that when the binding ropes had been cut Emma’s body had fallen apart. I knew that Mary had lifted Emma completely out of the river of life.
When I prayed for words for today Mary said, “Assure them Emma is in God’s peace, she was in total agony, she is absorbed into me and you may say, “Hail Mary … blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Emma.” There is no sacrilege in that, whatever old patriarchs of dust might think.”
Emma is in the light. Emma was brave.
When I met Emma at the Trauma Unit she said looking down, “I am damned, you must be so disappointed in me, angry.” Somehow I scanned my body, not a trace of anger, not a trace of disappointment did I find. Emma had called me fourth to love like I never had before. I said, “Emma, I love you, nothing has changed I have but one regret, that as your brother I have not expressed my love more clearly and firmly before, but I say it now “I love you, you are beautiful.”” It was hard to connect. Then I said to Emma, “Jesus, as he died on the cross said, “Eli Eli lama sabachthani?”, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” and she looked up, we connected and she said, “I understand.” She had become his female counter part on the cross.
Emma’s pain from what she called, her “wounded roots,” was so great but she had a brave determination to stop the pain, to name the pain and on no account pass it on. She refused to have children, she was worried she’d hurt them. She could say quite hurtful things and did to some of you. When murderous thoughts arose she went into hospital to be held. She did not want to hurt. As she became more dependent she was traveling back in time to a place of pain that our individual love could not solve. When pain is in the roots, it is underground. You cannot pull up the roots to save. Only universal love can reach that deep. Do not blame yourselves. You could not have done more; you loved her as best you could.
Inside Emma was a last remaining strength of adult anger at the agony at the root of her life. With that final strength she figured out how to walk away from institutions, family, and friends, in order to carry away the anger and to take it into light, to ensure its end. She stepped off a white cliff into universal love.
And Mary said, “Emma handed me the ax of anger she feared she’d use on others, with it I cut the bonds of pain that held Emma under, I called her soul fourth into my love. She was brave enough to step into my arms. She is held in total love for this sacrificial act.”
Emma is in the light. Emma was brave. Emma prays for us.
Emma wrote amid her despair recently, “I honour and bless, my father, my brothers and sister, my friends, the hospital, all who give me support and I bless Mary.” Long lists of blessings fill pages of her Warneford art-book. She prayed for us.
There is pain of generations and as historians will tell you continuity of pain is often stronger than any change that brings new life. Emma worked to stop this continuity of pain through the generations. She was always “Opening doors on creativity.” In her words “I specialize in creative approaches to continuing organizational change.”
Mary said, “Emma saw my son Jesus as her brother in life. She was like him, a confrontational non-violent rebel against a system that holds people in pain. She shared his compassion.”
Emma’s journey asks us to forgive our parents, our grandparents, and great grandparents and so on and let in God; God as our father and mother in our lives or “the creative spirit” as she would say – a spirit that can the stop the mindless continuity of pain and allows new birth to happen. In her poem Emma said, “She is entranced, fascinated by the powers of imagination and life.”
That strength of Emma’s final act has pierced my heart, as I am sure it has yours. I experience Emma’s prayer for me and her final act as a lance piercing a boil of anger deep in my heart that had made me perpetuate the pain that I received and pass it on. With the boil burst I now better hear Emma’s profound prayers of compassion for us, she did not blame us, she celebrated the beauty of life, and she calls us to see that beauty in all of us.
Emma is in the light. Emma was brave. Emma prays for us. Emma asks our help to create a church of light.
Mary son’s body went missing. God knows what happened to Jesus’ body. Whatever happened, whatever you believe, the apostles did the right thing. They spread out, they said that love is more important than pain and they did not just tell it to their blood brothers and sisters, they told it to their adopted family and to strangers, to people in foreign lands. As we searched for Emma we started to do the same all the way to telling strangers via the media, and fliers to businesses all over Oxford.
A friend asked me on day seven of the search, “How do you keep it up?” “Church” was the word that entered my mind. Emma was not a church-goer, she saw a church where patriarchs had hidden abuse, denied women power, wounded the roots of the very church itself. In her life work and through her radiant beauty Emma called for new forms of church and today as we are gathered here we that church of light Emma asks us to create.
We will dance in this church with joy, for sister Emma, a Christ figure for me and I hope for all of you. We have to forgive ourselves, honour Emma’s agony and the pure joy of creativity that she called fourth, and let us feel it in the rhythm of the song that my brother has chosen to celebrate her life.
And Mary said, “Go, sisters and brothers of the sister in my womb, go tell the story that must be told and let it touch the hearts of all throughout the world.”
Emma is in the light. Emma was brave. Emma prays for us. Emma asks our help to create a church of light. Emma is the butterfly.
The butterfly, an early Christian symbol of the resurrection, was Emma’s symbol. It featured strongly in her work to bring in Emma’s words “resources to awaken creative working.” A painting by herself of a butterfly was the treasured image she had at the Warneford.
Recently I found myself in prayer for Emma in a Monastery chapel that is dedicated to Mary and this is what came to me:
There is a wasp, called an ichneumon wasp that lays its eggs in the caterpillar of a butterfly. The caterpillar in time turns into a chrysalis and begins its metamorphosis. You can see in the chrysalis a fully formed butterfly. Something hatches within and eats the butterfly alive from inside. A wasp appears intent on destroying more lives.
I am certain that the butterfly in the chrysalis has a choice. It can struggle mightily inside and if it knows the wasp is winning it can make itself die and with it the wasp so that no more butterflies will be hurt.
Emma has a beauty inside which we all deeply love. Never have I experienced such love support as I have from all of you, friends of Emma. What a circle of loving-life she brings about.
Emma is the butterfly, especially for every woman whose beauty of her soul has been denied.
I will forever honour her struggle against the wasp, stopping its cycle of life, and for being the butterfly who reminds each of us that we are as beautiful as flowers and in our darkest heart is the love-giving nectar of life.
Alleluia, Emma is love, Emma is courage, Emma is compassion, Emma is family, Emma is risen. Alleluia.
Emma is in the light. Emma was brave. Emma prays for us. Emma asks our help to create a church of light. Emma is the butterfly.
Halleluiah!
Denise 24 July 2010
I’m profoundly moved by the messages written here and by the Service of Remembrance at Sutton Courtenay. I didn’t know Emma as well as many of you, but our lives touched in a way that will make her unforgettable to me. We met in the mid-1990s – long before she lived at The Abbey, but at an Abbey’s Summer Gathering when she was in her 30s and I in my 50s – though age seemed to make no difference and I always thought of Emma as an ageless sort of person. We took to each other and saw much of what was happening around us from a similar viewpoint; we shared a sense of humour, walked and bathed in the nearby river, and shared too a love of seeking out the Truth in every situation and we understood how this could cause pain to ourselves and others – for Truth is like a sword cutting through the chaff, and is no respecter of persons.
Emma was then working in London. She was creative and innovative and took risks to work in the creative arts field that nurtured and sustained her. We both tried to ‘follow our dreams’ by being in the charitable sector and living on the challenging and proverbial shoestring.
We met once in Richmond Park – being halfway for both of us – and had a lovely walk, taking a picnic which we had under a tree of Emma’s choosing – she took ages to find the right tree and we sat down reverently in the shade of a mighty oak.
When she told me she was joining The Abbey community, I was delighted for her. She had been a wise confidante to me when I had myself been exploring joining previously – and we had endless talks about The Abbey. It was not going to work out for me, but for Emma I had great hopes it would answer some of her needs. And I’m sure it did.
Receiving the kindly written letter sent to Friends and Members of The Abbey, was a great shock as well as sadness. I was not so much in touch with Emma recently and didn’t know she had been in hospital. It is incredibly difficult – if not impossible – to really help someone else tread the thin line between so-called madness and so-called normality, and I do not believe blame or self-reproach is necessary for those left behind. I am convinced the compassionate Emma would agree. I send sympathy to her direct – and wider – family and thank her brother Jamie for telling us much about Emma which helped to illustrate why she took the steps she did. I admire her steadfast courage right to the end.
I have had a totally unexpected blessing after hearing the devastating news: a renewed sense of joie de vivre and gratitude to be alive. Thank you Emma for that, and I send you love and joy, and ask God’s blessings on you now that you are Home and safe. As Mother Julian says “all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well”.
Fragility strength
Emma beautiful flower
Graceful attunement
I dedicate the most beautiful part of my garden to you, dearest Emma, my Wild Woman friend and critical-creative companion, to honour your very significant gift to healthcare, nationally and internationally. Here in this garden and at the lake at Blenheim, we danced, painted, meditated and talked into life the beginning of our journey; the bringing of creative imagination and expression into healthcare practice development and inquiry. I thank you for your soulful support of our collaborative inquiries and the first conference at which we, with others, launched the use of creative arts alongside the critical mind. I honour your gentle, embodied wisdom, deep understanding and multiple intelligences that still speak softly to my heart and mind as I work with myself and others.
Wing tips brush the stream
As changing self changes others,
Ripples in a pool
Love & Light now forever, Angie xxx
Dear Emma,
your journey on earth is complete.
I greet you, I salute your spirit.
Thank you, Emma, for opening up to me on our brief journey together. Seldom have I witnessed suffering like yours, when I found you in utter despair and darkness at times.
Yet, what treasure, light kept breaking through like rays of sun through clouds! I saw your beauty in a loving gaze, in your appreciation of goodness in life, in a knowing smile or in a playful moment of laughter – how I loved us laughing together!
And there were moments of stillness and peace, like a promise that suffering would end.
These were the openings when pain did not obscure your true essence, Emma.
On our last meeting you asked me many questions about my life, what moves me, what connects me to the world. I was touched by that. Was this yet another opening, from one human being to another? Despite your unimaginable pain you showed me how much you cared and could still see those who cared about you.
I feel privileged to have known you.
May infinite love envelop you
may you be safe
may you be happy
may your Being be at ease.
Blessings,
Uschi
Emma, your postcard from last summer is still on my kitchen wall. You signed off, ‘to the dance and the turning of life’. It’s hard to believe that you’re gone and that there will be no more dances, when once you were so vital, so here, so alive. I remember you with love and salute the grace of your spirit.
Dearest Emma – such a sensitive, playful, poetic and creative soul, with a fine, delicate energy and a bright mind. Dancing spirit, you lived lightly on the earth and honoured it. You often expressed a yearning to be in the wilderness and the elements and now you are free to be one with all that is.
Its eight years ago in June that we met at the women’s circle and I was drawn to you straight away. You have a gift for connecting with people of all ages and creating community, usually being at the heart of it and often the backbone too. Our oldest member was in her nineties and you were so patient and tender with her when she was in a lot of physical pain and not always lucid. Elinor trusted you and there was a bond. You were also kind and reassuring to someone who could be very anxious and I know you understood what that was like.
The last time you came to the circle was at the end of 2008 and like a flower in glorious bloom you were confident, relaxed and happy, rooted in and loving being at the Abbey. I really miss your presence at our monthly gatherings, thank you for always being open and sharing deeply of yourself, your vulnerability and your strength.
Your passion for the arts, poetry, books, dance and theatre, music and singing, alchemy, mythology and ritual was inspiring. We used to walk and talk through some of the London parks together and have a cup of tea afterwards. You lived fully and vividly on a shoestring and you reminded me of the beauty and magic of life. It must have been excruciating for you when the colour and joy drained out of the world and nothing called you to continue living. I wish you were still with us but more than that I wish you peace that passes all understanding.
With love to you and your grieving family and friends, with sorrow at a precious life ended and with gratitude for the blessing of your friendship. My life is richer for having known you.
To Emma’s Family
You were very blessed to have had such a wonderful daughter and sister. I had the priviledge to love her and share many happy times with her when she was a young woman. She was a superbly ethical and decent person, great fun, intelligent, adventurous and full of love and affection.
I have been in a state of shock since I heard on Sunday about the terrible events which had developed over the last few months. I cannot imagine what sadness must have filled her for her to begin to see life as she did at the end. It seems so much out of character to the person I knew.
I can only take some consolation in knowing she was happy at other times. She was such a lovely shining light of kindness to all her many friends and those who loved her.
My thoughts are with Sophie, Jamie and Peter and Ivor and Gay. If there is a God then surely he must be a God of love and forgiveness and surely he must have taken her into his protective arms and healed her with his love. Because I can vouch for the fact that if ever there was a sweet adorable person who deserved the love and forgiveness of God it was her.
I have a powerful memory of Emma on this medicine walk that she writes of. I sat in a silver birch grove, not quite in the right place for myself. I could see Emma curled up, further away, looking out over the hills, and she looked to me as if she was being held completely in the right place on the land, a deep resting. It was beautiful to read her poem, and remember how our paths crossed on those journeys in the myth world. She had a clarity and deep wisdom that was a joy to be around. I send her love and wishes for deep resting on her way. Love, Rebecca.
Dear Jamie, Sophie, Peter, Mr & Mrs Coats,
What a wonderful poem dear Emma. I feel so deeply touched by your sensitivity for the earth’s mystery.
I did know Emma from our Women’s circle in London, but have had little contact with her since she moved to the Abbey.
In November 2007 our women circle fell on the eve of Guy Fawks night. After we had finished, Emma, my friend Caroline and myself went to watch a bonfire and the fire works in a South London park. Caroline and Emma hit it off straight away. They joked and fooled around like I have never heard Emma laugh so much with huge irruptions of belly laughs. She also made checky comments of the sort I would not have expected of her. It was such a surprise to see this side of Emma. Her laughter helped mevto forget about my cares at the time. What a sense of humor, what a capacity to laugh! I will always remember Emma for that.
Dearest Sophie
I am so very deeply saddened to hear of Emma’s death and deeply saddened too at such pain and suffering during her last months. My heart goes out to you and your family at this loss and I send you heartfelt wishes for courage and strength to bear it and that many comforts may come your way to help you. You will be so much in my thoughts and prayers.
I have been sifting through my inner images of Emma as I knew her some years ago and, although I know she had many struggles, the images that have appeared to me are of her smiling and laughing. I am sure that she is now in a place of joy, light and peace.
With much love
Anna
Dear Emma,
Thank you for touching my life with your capacity to know and to be seen in moments of profound stillness, great joy and more recently unimaginable darkness, and for allowing me to be with you in those moments. Your life and your passing have been a wake up call and inspire me to share the gift of creative expression wherever I can. You had such an enthusiasm for being creative and sharing that with others.
Ever since the moment I heard that you had disappeared from the Warnford I felt a consistent sense of calm. I was speaking of this to Anna before we had confirmation that you had died. She said that she had passed through your room at The Abbey and experienced a quality of great joy. As she spoke, I too felt a burst of joy and light inside; it felt real and luminous and continued for many hours after.
I believe your life has touched many and will continue to do so in many ways. Thank you Emma for carrying and experiencing such a fullness of being with such sensitivity, courage and intelligence. I enjoy the memory of how much Richard made you laugh – you totally lit up!
I bow to your presence with great respect and love and give thanks for all that you have given us through your living and your dying. May the light that you lit live on and touch many.
Your presence is alive in my heart.
Wren
Emma, we remember you. Dancing, drumming, laughing, listening, living near the heart and the bone of life. We remember the clarity of your gaze and the gentle precision of your voice. We remember your tenderness and your courage, your creativity and your skill. We remember getting our feet wet with you in the Aegean, and on the dewy grass of Dartmoor. We remember a day at the zoo, a walk along the sea, a birthday song – and, above all, long conversations, joint enquiries, sharing the raw places of the soul.
Mary Oliver writes:
“To live in this world
you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
It’s hard to let you go, precious warrior friend.
E Energetic, Eye for detail,
M Mindful,
M Modest,
A Accomplished, an Asset to the Abbey.
C Caring, capable,
O Observant, Open minded,
A Able, Aware,
T Thoughtful,
S Sadly missed by all who knew her.
I only knew Emma for a short while but I recognised some of her qualities which I have listed to match the letters of her name.
I enjoyed working with her as I tried to explain the intricacies of accounting when we looked at the monthly accounts, and I was impressed by the determination Emma showed to ensure we set an accurate financial budget.
I hope her Spirit is at peace and her family will remember her as a vibrant, lovable person, who can live on in their memories.
Dear Jamie:
Ginger and I are so very sorry for your painful loss, and want you to know that you and your family are close to our hearts and in our prayers. Keep in touch when you can.
Love, Bob
Dear jamie, Sophie, Peter, Mr. & Mrs. Coats,
How sorry I am to hear about Emma’s passing. I enjoyed knowing her, if only briefly, when Jamie first moved to Boston and you all visited. I can still picture her bright, open face with it’s joyous smile. There is no comfort for this loss but take what comfort you can from the messages here. So many friends loved Emma as you all did. Peace be with Emma and peace be with you.
Dear Jamie
You asked that I share some of what I wrote to you with others, to help with the healing and integration of Emma’s death.
I am so sorry not to be able to accompany you to Dartmoor: this feels to be truly the most beautiful way to remember, honour, celebrate and say goodbye to Emma. It fills my heart and soul with warmth and love to read of this final pilgrimage – and I will go myself one day. It feels as if she is being restored to us through the extraordinarily courageous and beautiful way in which you and others are healing through acts of pure love.
I had and have very great love for Emma – and this grew through the ups and downs of living and working together in the sacred intimacy of The Abbey. It was heartbreaking to witness and know her suffering, to want to take it away or at least to help her bear it, and to be unable to. It also took me to edges I have never known – and some of the last moments I shared with Emma felt truly blessed. Beyond the darkness, there was an inner peace and sitting in that together, there was no doubt that “everything was ok” and would be ok, no matter what happened on the surface of life. I was, I am, truly glad, blessed, to have known her. I have been initiated into another perspective on life through her, both through her love of nature, the laughs and the unsentimental reality that cut through “fluff” (mine!) and through her suffering and the courage and discipline she showed even in the midst of such acute feelings of fear and despair. She was a Warrior – this would possibly be the last thing she’d say of herself, but I never doubted the steely inner strength that may have contrasted with the deep inner fear, but which held her in alignment with her own integrity and truth, and final choice.
None of us will ever forget her, and I feel her love for us will also find its way to us as time goes on. Death is not really an ending – a huge, huge change and one which, in Emma’s case, involves great pain, but the pain can heal, can be transformed and I know that we are all working with our share and in so doing offering deep healing to her, ourselves, each other and the world beyond. Her life and death, indeed her Being are bringing great awakening.