Green funerals often feel different, too. Mourners at Larkspur tend to walk the trail to the burial site wearing denim and hiking boots, not black suits. 'Instead of observing, they’re actively participating.... We invite them to help lower the body into the grave with ropes, to put a handful or shovelfuls of soil into the grave' and to mound soil, pine boughs and flowers atop it afterward. Then, they might toast the departed with champagne or share a potluck picnic....
Hey, that reminds me. I was just rereading a book I'd remembered loving when I was about 20 — "In Watermelon Sugar" by Richard Brautigan. (Full text here. Audiobook on Spotify.) There's some very interesting burial described in that book:
The tomb was being put into the bottom of the river. That's how we bury our dead here. Of course we used a lot less tombs when the tigers were in bloom. But now we bury them all in glass coffins at the bottoms of rivers and put foxfire in the tombs, so they glow at night and we can appreciate what comes next.
I saw a bunch of trout gathered together to watch the tomb being put in. They were nice-looking rainbow trout. There were perhaps a hundred of them in a very small space in the river. The trout have a great curiosity about this activity, and many of them gather to watch.
The Tomb Crew had sunk the Shaft into the river and the pump was going away. They were doing the glass inlay work now. Soon the tomb would be complete and the door would be opened when it was needed and someone would go inside to stay there for the ages.
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32 comments:
Plant an apple tree over it and you can turn into apples.
The Left wants to control our lives even in death.
Burial at sea is even more environmentally correct and probably cheaper.
One of my neighbors tried to bury her husband in her back yard. She couldn't do that so she ordered a full size granite tombstone and installed it instead.
I personally find the Parsee Tower of Silence method to be the most appealing.
There's a green burial place, Bluestem Conservation Cemetery, just north of me in NC where I walk once or twice a week; woodland trails and native grassland, with large piles of pine straw over the graves and (usually) no headstones. It's very pleasant; much more enjoyable to stroll around in than the barren, closely mowed monument clusters closer to town. It's still expensive to be buried there.
Bigwig:
Of course it is expensive. There's always a Green premium to separate the libs from their money.
Well, this is a revelation. My wife and I have been discussing funeral and burial options as we progress through our 70's and nothing had appealed to me...I hated the thought of a mausoleum, or a cremation or the traditional embalming, casket, cemetery, gravestone methods. I found through Grok there are a number of companies and organizations locally, including the first modern conservation burial ground in the U.S., certified by the Green Burial Council.
Thanks Althouse. Now I know how I will spend my decomposing years!
The cemetery industrial complex is a complete rip off. Their whole job is to separate you from your money when you are completely vulnerable. Whether it's for you, or a loved one. My family has some niches in a mausoleum, both sets of grandparents, plus my mother, and my step mother is buried in the ground nearby. My father originally planned to have his ashes split between my mom and my step mom. But along came my crazy sister. My father 93, has sometimes complained about the niche my mom CHOSE which was very high off the ground and my dad cannot lift his head to see it. So my sister takes my dad to the cemetery office, where they saw them coming a mile away. They sold my sister on behalf of my father a plot next to my step mom to be the family plot (which no one says they will be buried in except maybe my sister). In which they would remove my mothers ashes from her current niche, and place them in that plot next to my step mom. NOT where my mom chose to be. Next they sold them a new urn for my moms already contained ashes with a plaque on top. No one will ever see this. Oh, and an in ground headstone which will be overgrown and not visible in a few years. All of this cost over $13,000.00!!! We all (sisters and brothers) protested, and my sister said "I'M PAYING FOR IT!" No, she had zero money. My dad ended up having to pay for it all out of the proceeds of the sale of his house. I'm so angry about the whole thing. No one, is going to visit these graves when we are all gone. There are no grandchildren. At least none that care, and none of them are having children. My sister talked my father with dementia into all of this. BTW, for very little money, they will put your ashes in with the other family already located in the mausoleum). My point here is this is all a rip off. No one cares, better to have your body either green buried, or burned and the ashes scattered - which is what my wife and I plan on doing. Egyptians and Catholics really started this silly industry. Catholics by misinterpreting the bible thinking you need an actual body for God to raise you up (remember they even outlawed cremation until very recently saying you couldn't get into heaven if you were cremated!). You might as well just set your money on fire. It will achieve the same effect.
Give me a traditional, with all the trimmings.
Just kidding. Few things are more ridiculous than The American Way of Death, even many decades after the exposure.
Green Burial Council sounds promising.
In some Himalayan cultures, the deceased's body is placed on a mountain top, and left there for the scavengers to consume. Eco-friendly!
Sounds like the ultimate virtue-signal.
--Chris@841AM
IKWYM!
I still like the idea of leaving my body to Ignorance.
Lady at door talking to garbage man about corpse of her husband in the trash, "It's not that easy, Mrs. Wilson."
In certain parts of Tibet and other remote, mountainous areas the dead are left out for vultures. These seems to be part a Buddhist practice from beliefs similar to the desires that motivate green burials (return the body/vessel to nature and all that) and part necessity. There is little wood and the ground is hard.
Hoist me into a tree.
The vulture thing is all well and good until you see a vulture fly by with a strip of meat hanging from its beak. Is that... Dad?
By the way, I saw a TikTok video that said vultures have such fantastic eyesight they could read a newspaper a mile away. Impressive, if true. And they're not really reading. At most, they're skimming. I doubt if they understand the hard words and the nuance. Start them out with the New York Post. Later, they can move onto the NYT.
Once you die, the thing called you is no longer in your remains, except in the sense that your DNA molecules still encode your biological individuality. Your remains have potential forensic and medical uses, and can be used for ceremonial purposes to in some way or another reaffirm the dignity and purpose of your life and the family and community of which your life was a part. All of this should take a few days. After that, there is no rational reason to care.
Burial at sea is a bit harder than you might expect. It is regulated by the EPA (naturally), and requires a perforated metal casket so that your remains don't end up washing ashore. An old propane tank with a bit of work would do nicely.
I Arizona it is not uncommon for ranchers to have a private graveyard for family.
When posting the gravesite flags for Memorial Day a couple years ago I noticed this at our National Cemetery.
"When two people are going to be buried in the same plot, the first person’s casket will be buried about 12 feet deep. It will be placed inside of a burial vault and then put into the plot deeper than it normally would be to make room for the second person’s casket."
Loved ones buried together.
Ahhh, get mulched!
I was hoping to be cremated and then put me in the top dress hopper for when the golf course aerates. Does that make my burial…green?
"Just stand me out in the trash with my hat on"
On a tourist expedition in Nepal we witnessed a ritual cremation on a pyre. Supposedly, ashes are scattered into the sacred river . . . but I can tell you from experience there were more clumps and stumps than ashes. I don't care how sacred the ritual, I would not want to be filling my canteen downstream.
Ann Althouse said...@ 9:04
OK that's funny.
I'm getting cremated. I told my kids to make my ashes into a glitter bomb and leave me on the porch in a FedeX box.
Everyone makes mistakes. It's so easy to mistake a reversible coma for death, especially in a busy ICU unit. Frequently when they exhume a body, they find scratch marks on the inside of the coffin. This happens a lot more than you would think. Embalming gives you that extra level of assurance that you won't wake up inside your coffin where it's pitch dark and no one can hear your frantic screams.
Start them out with the New York Post. Later, they can move onto the NYT.
Ever the elitist, Althouse.
I’m 79 now and have titanium knees and assorted titanium screws and pins inside me (I drive metal detectors crazy and was grateful when our favorite airport — Dulles— went 100% to x-ray scanners). There’s a funeral home not far from here which recycles titanium knees and other medical implants after cremation. Sounds right to me. My sons can scatter my ashes someplace meaningful to our family. Maybe if I and enough other folks recycle our implants we can help bring down the cost when Gen-Z and Millennials start needing metal knees and hips.
Zoroastrianism burial practices are interesting. I should say funeral practices, burial not involved. It includes vultures. It is recycling, that's for sure.
A few years (decades?) back I read of another way to dispose of the body. Involved freezing it, liquid nitrogen levels of cold, then shaking the corpse until it's powder, then dehydrating the remains. Which could be mixed into the ground anywhere. Doesn't seem to have become a thing. Seemed to me to be the ultimate in "From ashes to ashes, from dust to dust." solution.
There’s always the option of being a head in a jar à la Futurama.
Vultures unlikely to waste time on NYT, they see too much carrion already
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