Odd cremation rite question

[BrotherBuzz]

I stumbled upon an obituary of an old family friend and found this passage interesting. I like the sound of it (and fell strangely comforted by it) but wonder what its origin might be. Any insight?

After rotating her cremated ashes between the seven sections of her garden seven times over the course of 49 days, on Ash Wednesday, March 5, family members and friends will cast Mrs. Doss’ ashes on the outgoing tide at the entrance to the Bolinas Lagoon.

Thanks in advance for any information...

[trof]

1. Numerologists?

whatever

[Padraig18]

2. I once scattered some over a dog pen.

I worked at a funeral home back in high school, and one day a gentleman's cremains (ashes) came back, and we told the widow they were there and requested instructions. She asked that someone come help her scatter them, and specifically mentioned my name as being someone from our place that she liked. My boss sent me over with 'the mister' (as she called him), and she and I went into the yard toward the dog pens. She requested that I scatter the cremains there, and when I asked her why, she replied, "They were the only things he ever loved any way, so it seems fitting."

I did as she requested. :P

[kaos]

3. My good deed of the year...

Margot Doss' life of adventure

By Larken Bradley

Longtime Bolinas resident and conservation leader Margot Patterson Doss, a popular journalist whose passion for the outdoors led readers and television viewers on explorations of nearly every trail, path, and lane in the Bay Area for more than 30 years, died of natural causes Wednesday, Jan. 15 at Marin General Hospital. She was 82


http://www.ptreyeslight.com/stories/jan23_03/doss_obit.html

[BrotherBuzz]

4. That's her...

but what's the deal about the garden and the number seven? I'm curious as to the origin of the ritual..

[kaos]

5. Check first post for more info......

....

[BrotherBuzz]

6. Numerologists?

I don't know...after a bit of a search I found that instead of a funeral, the family planned a series of Buddhist ceremonies that would end on the 49th day after her death. There are no universal Buddhist birth, marriage and death ceremonies (rites of passage) that I could find, and this is one that I've never heard of before. I find it interesting and was hoping someone knew something of it, you know, what the seven points represent, or something along those lines. Nothing more.