Category: Cultural Expressions

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Not all Americans have a fair path to a good death – racial disparities are real

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What does it mean to “die well”?

The world got an idea recently from the 92-year-old Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who popularized mindfulness and meditation in the U.S. The monk returned to his home in Vietnam to pass his remaining years. Many admired his desire to live his remaining time in peace and dignity.

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego recently did a literature search to understand what Americans might consider to be a “good death” or “successful dying.” As can be expected, their findings varied. People’s views were determined by their religious, social and cultural norms and influences. The researchers urged health care providers, caregivers and the lay community to have open dialogues about preferences for the dying process.

As scholars who study social health and human services psychology, we found something missing in these conversations – how race impacts life span.

It’s important to recognize that not everyone has an equal chance at “dying well.”

Black population and ill health

Take the disease burden of the African American population.

African Americans experience an earlier onset and greater risk of what may be referred to as lifestyle-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes. More than 40% of African Americans over the age of 20 are diagnosed with high blood pressure, compared to 32% of all Americans.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the likelihood of experiencing a first stroke is nearly twice as high for African Americans compared with whites. African Americans are more than two times more likely to experience a stroke before the age of 55. At age 45, the mortality rate from stroke is three times higher for blacks compared to whites.

This disease burden consequently leads to their higher mortality rates and overall shorter life expectancy for blacks compared to whites.

And while the life expectancy gap differs by only a few years, 75.3 for blacks and 78.9 for whites as of 2016, research suggests that African Americans suffer more sickness. This is due in part to the increased prevalence of high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes in this population.

Genetics, biological factors and lifestyle behaviors, such as diet and smoking, help explain a portion of these differences. However, researchers are still learning how race-related social experiences and physical environments affect health, illness and mortality.

Access to health care

factor is that African Americans have historically underutilized preventive medicine and health care services. They also delay seeking routine, necessary health care – or may not follow medical advice.

One study found that during an average month, 35% fewer blacks visited a physician’s office, and 27% fewer visited an outpatient clinic compared with whites.

“The only time I go to the doctor is when something is really hurting. But otherwise, I don’t even know my doctor’s name,” said a young African American male during a research study in Chicago, Illinois.

There are reasons for this mistrust. Researchers who study medical mistrust argue that high-profile cases of medical experiments are still playing a role in how African Americans view health care systems and providers. In the past, physicians have intentionally done harm against people of color. A well-known case is the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in African American men, which lasted from 1932 to 1972.

In this clinical study, 399 African American men, who had already contracted syphilis, were told that they were receiving free health care from the government. In fact, doctors, knowing their critical condition, were awaiting their deaths to subsequently conduct autopsies and study the disease’s progression.

Even though penicillin had been proven to treat syphilis by 1947, these men were denied the treatment.

Why discrimination matters for health

Other studies suggest that regardless of their knowledge of past medical abuse, many African Americans have low levels of trust in medical establishments.

“Doctors, like all other people, are subject to prejudice and discrimination,” writes Damon Tweedy, author of “Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine.” “While bias can be a problem in any profession, in medicine, the stakes are much higher.”

Unfortunately, these fears are underscored by empirical evidence that African Americans are less likely to receive pain medication management, higher-quality care or survive surgical procedures.

In addition, a growing body of literature has established that experiences of discrimination are extremely harmful for physical and mental health, particularly among African Americans.

This research adds to the body of evidence that experiences of discrimination harm people’s health and may contribute to the increased rates of premature decline and death among blacks.

What does it take to die well?

As African American scholars, we argue the “art of dying well” may be a distant and romantic notion for the African American community.

African Americans are also exposed to earlier and more frequent deaths of close loved ones, immediate family members and friends.

Their increased “vulnerability to untimely deaths,” writes Duke University scholar Karla Holloway, shows African Americans’ lack of access to equitable and fair paths in life.

Before defining “a good death,” American society must first begin to fundamentally address how to promote quality living and longevity across all racial groups.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Here’s How You Can Save the Earth, Even After Dying

Traditional funerals are terrible for the environment. But the green burial movement allows people to be kind to the planet, even after they’ve passed.

by &

If you’re planning a traditional Western funeral for a loved one, burial according to industry standards will cost you — in more ways than one. The materials typically used in the process, from embalming chemicals to casket varnishes and sealants, can seep into ground, polluting the water that you use every day.

In addition, U.S. cemeteries contain an estimated 15 tons of casket steel, enough to build almost all of the skyscrapers in Tokyo, according to TalkDeath, an online community dedicated to encouraging positive conversations around death and dying. Even cremation — often considered one of the most environmentally friendly options — spews fossil fuels into the atmosphere.

So what’s an eco-conscious funeral planner to do? A green burial uses biodegradable materials for caskets and shuns the use of chemicals to preserve bodies. That means adopters can help save the planet while saving themselves (or their families) money in the process.

To learn more about green burials, watch the video above.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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This is what it’s like to be a death doula

The founder of Going With Grace, Alua Arthur, shares how she found her way into death work and how she manages not to take her work home with her.

Alua Arthur

By Anisa Purbasari Horton

For many people, the thought of being surrounded by death (and have that be a central part of how they earn their living) can seem quite morbid. But for Alua Arthur, the founder of the end-of-life planning service Going With Grace, it feels exactly the opposite.

Arthur is a death doula—also often referred to as a “death midwife.” Arthur’s journey to becoming a death doula is a profoundly personal one, but she represents a number of professionals who are active in the growing “death wellness” and “death-positive” movement. As Fast Company‘s Rina Raphael previously reported, this movement rests on the notion that having a good death is “part of a good life.”

Fast Company recently spoke to Arthur about her motivations for becoming a death doula and how she copes with work-life balance as she helps others through the grieving (and often stressful) administrative process that comes before and after a loved one’s death. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Helping people become clear on what death looks like

A death doula is a non-medical professional who provides holistic support for the dying person of the family and the family members. I help the people who are close to death on what it looks like. After that, I help family members deal with their affairs.

I also work with healthy people. The way I conceive it, as soon as someone comes into any recognition that one day they’re going to die, that’s the time to start preparing for that, so I help them with an end-of-life plan. It’s where we write down all the stuff that’s going to be a pain. We get clear for what their desires are for life support, and who’s going to make the decisions for them. We walk through important information and documents, like where’s their birth certificate? Where is their retirement account? Where do they bank? 

I also help people who are terrified of death. I find that people are more afraid of the dying process than death itself, so with them, I do death meditations. This looks like us going through the eventual decline of the body, their systems shutting down, and their breathing becoming ragged. It’s an opportunity for the person to lay there with whatever it is they experienced. A lot of times, people experience a sense of peace after going through this process.

The desire to build a career around death

Growing up, I wanted to be lots of things. I really wanted to be an astronaut. I loved to read and immerse myself in another world. I also wanted to be a conductor. I applied to a music conservatory, but I ended up in a liberal arts school that had an okay music program. I got involved in student government and decided to go to law school. I worked in property law, starting with government benefits, and then I moved to domestic violence and then not-for-profit development. I fumbled around for 10 years and started getting really depressed, so I took a medical leave of absence. That’s how I found death work.

I met a woman in Cuba. She had cancer and was traveling, and we bonded. We spent 14 hours on the bus together, and I asked all the difficult questions. What would be undone in her life if the disease killed her? What does she think happens after she dies? Did she live with the recognition of death constantly? They were questions I never really had myself. That was the first time it hit me that death was very real and that we don’t talk about it enough. It became clear that I wanted to spend my career talking about death.

That was solidified when my brother-in-law got sick and died. It showed me how all the ways that we do it now are broken. We had so many questions—how do we transfer the title for his vehicle, and what should we do with his leftover medication? There was nobody to answer them.

A day in the life of a death doula

A typical day always includes a lot of emails. So many emails. The part of my job that stresses me out is the business part. God, it’s the worst! I need to go back to my vision of helping people feel less alone to keep me in clear focus.

I start my day checking on various things—with the people who are dying, how things were over the course of the night. I’ll also check on plans for any funeral procession. I do a lot of phone calls and talk to therapists who work with people that are dying. If I do have clients that are dying, I see them in the afternoon, or I will see my end-of-life planning clients.

These days, I also do a lot of education around death and dying. I’m doing a lot of talks to reach people about how to do this work because we’re all going to have to do it for somebody in our lives.

When it comes to work-life balance, I do things like meditate daily, exercise regularly, and drink a gallon of water every day. I just got my nails done. I don’t deny myself pretty things.

On death and relationships

I talk about death all the time with my friends and family. I think sometimes I can be a little bit annoying because I want people to be authentic in their decision-making. I tend not to tell people what to say or do, and I listen actively. My best friend and I, we always have challenges because she always wants to tell me what to do. It is a struggle for my friends who have a hard time with the concept of their own mortality, because I’m talking about it all the time.

I don’t push the issue with my friends who are uncomfortable, but with my family members, I do. For my dad, he first had to come around to the idea that I wasn’t going to be practicing law anymore. Being an African parent, he wanted me to be either a lawyer, doctor, or engineer. I was like, how about death? He was like, how about what? That was a little tricky. But eventually, we got around to talking about it. After all, I’m the one who’ll have to deal with it when it happens.

I think people actually want to talk about death, but they feel like they don’t have permission to do so because it’s “heavy.” Well, it’s a regular part of living. Without death we wouldn’t have life. It’s funny: when I meet someone for the first time and I tell them I’m a death doula, so many of them say, “Oh, when x died, I wish that you had been there.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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People in western China smoked marijuana to bury their dead 2,500 years ago

— the oldest evidence of weed smoking in human history

In a tomb in western China, scientists discovered human remains and evidence of marijuana use from 2,500 years ago.

By Aylin Woodward

It appears people have been smoking weed for more than two millennia.

Researchers reported on Wednesday that they’ve found some of the earliest evidence of ritual cannabis smoking in the archaeological record.

The evidence comes from stone-filled braziers — a device used to burn a plant and fill the air with its vapors — that were unearthed in eight tombs at the Jirzankal Cemetery in the Pamir Mountains of western China.

Preserved in the 2,500-year-old braziers were traces of cannabinol (CBN), the compound that forms after tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) comes in contact with the air. THC is the most potent psychoactive agent in marijuana.

This wooden brazier with burnt stones in the center provides some of earliest evidence of ritual cannabis smoking.

The authors published their findings in the journal Scientific Advances. The chemical signature of THC residue in the tomb, they said, indicates that people in this region of China likely smoked marijuana during burial ceremonies, perhaps as a way to communicate with the dead.

“It’s the earliest strong evidence of people getting high” on marijuana, Mark Merlin, a botanist at the University of Hawaii, told USA Today.

This marijuana was potent

Marijuana is one of the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world today, but the legacy of its use and cultivation spans millennia. The earliest known cultivation of cannabis plants occurred in Eurasia roughly 6,000 years ago, but it was used as a food crop and for hemp material — not smoked for psychoactive effects.

Previous evidence of ancient cannabis smoking came mostly from historical anecdotes, not archaeological evidence. Greek historian Herodotus wrote about ritual and recreational pot use around the same time that these braziers were buried in distant China.

Scientists also found cannabis seeds in a different 2,500-year-old Chinese tomb in 2006, but there was no evidence of smoking

Usually, wild cannabis ( Cannabis sativa) has lower levels of THC than its cultivated counterparts. But the residue in these Chinese braziers indicates that the type of cannabis smoked in them had higher THC levels than wild plants. It also had higher amounts of THC than the cannabis grown in ancient Eurasia, the authors of the new study noted in a press release

The authors aren’t sure whether the cannabis used in this region was intentionally cultivated to have higher amounts of THC (as it is today), or whether the people who conducted this burial had some other way of seeking out more potent plants.

Either way, they appeared to be aware that not all cannabis is created equal when it comes to its psychoactive qualities.

These tombs had evidence of human sacrifice

In the Jirzankal Cemetery, the archaeologists also found skulls and other bones with signs of fatal cuts and breaks, which they interpreted as signs of human sacrifice. They found a harp as well — an important musical instrument in ancient funerals and sacrificial ceremonies.

These clues from the past indicate that the burials had a ritual quality to them, and that smoking marijuana played a role in commemorating the dead.

The excavation of the tomb M12, in which evidence of the oldest ritual smoking of cannabis was found. In the photo, the cannabis brazier can be seen at the middle bottom edge of the central circle.

“We can start to piece together an image of funerary rites that included flames, rhythmic music, and hallucinogen smoke, all intended to guide people into an altered state of mind,” the study authors wrote.

Merlin told The Atlantic that this discovery does not suggest ancient Chinese people were into recreational drug use. Instead, he said, it was likely a spiritual practice — part of ushering the dead into the afterlife and helping the living commune with deities or the deceased.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Could Trees Be the New Gravestones?

A California start-up wants to “redesign the entire end-of-life experience.” The answer to “eternity management”? Forests.

By Nellie Bowles

Death comes for all of us, but Silicon Valley has, until recently, not come for death.

Who can blame them for the hesitation? The death services industry is heavily regulated and fraught with religious and health considerations. The handling of dead bodies doesn’t seem ripe for venture-backed disruption. The gravestone doesn’t seem an obvious target for innovation.

But in a forest south of Silicon Valley, a new start-up is hoping to change that. The company is called Better Place Forests. It’s trying to make a better graveyard.

“Cemeteries are really expensive and really terrible, and basically I just knew there had to be something better,” said Sandy Gibson, the chief executive of Better Place. “We’re trying to redesign the entire end-of-life experience.”
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And so Mr. Gibson’s company is buying forests, arranging conservation easements intended to prevent the land from ever being developed, and then selling people the right to have their cremated remains mixed with fertilizer and fed to a particular tree.

The Better Place team is this month opening a forest in Point Arena, a bit south of Mendocino; preselling trees at a second California location, in Santa Cruz; and developing four more spots around the country. They have a few dozen remains in the soil already, and Mr. Gibson says they have sold thousands of trees to the future dead. Most of the customers are “pre-need” — middle-aged and healthy, possibly decades ahead of finding themselves in the roots.

Better Place Forests has raised $12 million in venture capital funding. And other than the topic of dead bodies coming up fairly often, the office is a normal San Francisco start-up, with around 45 people bustling around and frequenting the roof deck with a view of the water.

There is a certain risk to being buried in a start-up forest. When the tree dies, Better Place says it will plant a new one at that same spot. But a redwood can live 700 years, and almost all start-ups in Silicon Valley fail, so it requires a certain amount of faith that someone will be there to install a new sapling.

Still, Mr. Gibson said most customers, especially those based in the Bay Area, like the idea of being part of a start-up even after life. The first few people to buy trees were called founders.

“You’re part of this forest, but you’re also part of creating this forest,” said Mr. Gibson, a tall man who speaks slowly and carefully, as though he is giving bad news gently. “People love that.”

Sandy Gibson, the chief executive of Better Place Forests, in the start-up’s Santa Cruz location.

Bring Your Dog, Forever

Customers come to claim a tree for perpetuity. This now costs between $3,000 (for those who want to be mixed into the earth at the base of a small young tree or a less desirable species of tree) and upward of $30,000 (for those who wish to reside forever by an old redwood). For those who don’t mind spending eternity with strangers, there is also an entry-level price of $970 to enter the soil of a community tree. (Cremation is not included.)

A steward then installs a small round plaque in the earth like a gravestone.

When the ashes come, the team at Better Place digs a three-foot by two-foot trench at the roots of the tree. Then, at a long table, the team mixes the person’s cremated remains with soil and water, sometimes adding other elements to offset the naturally highly alkaline and sodium-rich qualities of bone ash. It’s important the soil stay moist; bacteria will be what breaks down the remains.

Because the forest is not a cemetery, rules are much looser. For example: pets are allowed. Often customers want their ashes to be mixed with their pets’ ashes, Mr. Gibson said.

“Pets are a huge thing,” Mr. Gibson said. “It’s where everyone in your family can be spread. This is your tree.”

“Spreading” is what they call the ash deposit. The trench is a “space,” the watering can is a “vessel,” the on-site sales staff are “forest stewards.” When it comes to both death and start-ups, euphemisms abound.

Available trees are marked with ribbons. Multiple ribbons indicate type and size of the trees.

It’s all pretty low-tech: mix ashes in with dirt and put a little placard in the soil. But there is a tech element: For an extra fee, customers can have a digital memorial video made. Walking through the forest, visitors will be able to scan a placard and watch a 12-minute digital portrait of the deceased talking straight to camera about his or her life. Some will allow their videos to be viewed by anyone walking through the forest, others will opt only for family members. Privacy settings will be decided before death.

Death Is a Growth Industry

As cities are running out of room to bury the dead, the cost of funerals and caskets has increased more than twice as fast as prices for all commodities. In the Bay Area, a traditional funeral and plot burial often costs $15,000 to $20,000. The majority of Americans are now choosing to be cremated.

“The death services market is very big — $20 billion a year — and customer approval is low,” said Jon Callaghan, a partner at True Ventures, an investor in Better Places. “The product is broken.”

The firm’s other investments include Blue Bottle, Peloton and Fitbit, and Mr. Callaghan sees consumers of those products as ones who would be interested also in Better Place trees.

“Every industry seems to have its time when things get wild,” said Nancy Pfund, the founder and a managing partner at DBL Partners, which led early funding. “It’s been mobile apps, it’s been cars, it’s been fake meat, and now it is death care,” she said.

“But we have to come up with a better name than ‘death care.’ Maybe it’s legacy care,” she added. “Maybe it’s eternity management.”

Around 75 million Americans will reach the life expectancy age of 78 between 2024 and 2042, Better Place suggests. The company’s pitch is that tree burial is good for the environment, the location is more beautiful than a traditional graveyard — and it’s cheaper as well.

Ms. Pfund also sees these forests as a way to monetize conservation. Actively managing a forest is expensive, so much so that financially strained state park systems are having to turn down gifts of land. Conservation easements, an agreement between an organization and the government to preserve land, have become more popular as a solution.

“No one has really made a big business monetizing conservation, nothing that could scale,” Ms. Pfund said. “So a bell went off when we heard this pitch.”

Where’s Grandma?

Those tracking the death services industry are more skeptical about how disruptive it will be.

John O’Conner, who runs Menlo Park Funerals, said more than 90 percent of his clients opt for cremation.

“Most of my people scatter on their own,” Mr. O’Conner said. “They just go at night, scatter grandma, have a cup of champagne, and every day they drive by that park they know grandma is there. Why would they pay $20,000 to go to a memorial grove when they can scatter at any little park they want to for free?”

That act is, technically, illegal.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Mr. O’Conner said. He said he knew of a few golf courses in the region that had to put up signs imploring people not to scatter guest remains there.

Ben Deci, a spokesman for California’s Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, said Better Place Forests’ activities do not fall under the bureau’s purview.

“It looks to me like they’ve just purchased large tracts for forest land and are allowing people to disperse their ashes, and they say here ‘This’ll be your tree or whatever,’” Mr. Deci said. “You don’t need our approval to do that.”

Mr. Gibson does have a permit from the state verifying him as a cremated remains disposer. “But that’s not quite the right way to think about it,” he said.

How to Choose the Right Forever Tree

One recent day, Mr. Gibson walked through his 80 acres of Santa Cruz forest where about 6,000 trees are available, many wrapped in different colored ribbons, waiting to be chosen.

“The last major innovation in cemeteries was the lawn cemetery in the ’50s and ’60s, basically so they could get a lawn mower through easier,” Mr. Gibson said.

To claim a tree, customers walk through the forest and find one that speaks to them. The Better Place brochure also guides them: Coastal redwoods are “soaring and ancient,” tan oaks are “quirky and giving,” while a Douglas fir is “stately and reverent.”

“Some people want a tree that is totally isolated, and some people really want to be around people and be part of a fairy ring,” Mr. Gibson said. “Some people will come in and they’ll fall in love with a stump.”

“People love stumps,” he said, pointing out a few trees people bought just for the nearby stumps. “They’ve got a lot of personality.”

Younger people often choose younger trees because they like the idea of growth.

Debra Lee, a retired administrative assistant in San Jose, felt immediate kinship with the madrone tree she chose.

“She’s about 60 years old, and I’m 63,” Ms. Lee said of the mature evergreen with dark red bark. “Looking at her growth pattern you can see things have been hard at times because she’s kind of curved, but she made it to the top to get to the sunlight.”

When a customer chooses her tree, as Ms. Lee did, she cuts the ribbon off in what Better Place calls the ribbon ceremony.

As Mr. Gibson hiked across the Santa Cruz forest in a sweater and work boots, he noticed a rhododendron, his mother’s favorite flower, growing out of a stump.

Both his parents died when he was young, and, at 12, Mr. Gibson was adopted by his half brother. He is now 36, and, since then, he has spent many afternoons in Toronto at his parent’s grave site, set on a noisy corner, with a shiny black headstone that reflects traffic.

“You remember them dying, you remember the memorial service, and you remember the image of their final resting place,” Mr. Gibson said. He was haunted by that badly designed grave site. “It’s comically bad.”

Visiting their grave in 2015, he decided to quit his job running a marketing automation company. He would make a better graveyard.

“A lot of investors laughed at us when I first pitched this,” Mr. Gibson said. “People don’t really like thinking about this.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Going To A Death Café Taught Me About Being Alive

By Nicola Appleton

“My name is Nicola and I’m here because… I’m frightened of dying,” I say to the group of strangers sat around the table in front of me. But that’s not what I mean, not really. What I meant to say is that I’m here because I’m frightened of not living – there’s a difference. I’m smiling but my heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty. I’m deeply uncomfortable.

It’s a dark and rainy Bank Holiday Sunday and I’m at my first death café meeting, held at the atmospheric Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol. Until a few years ago, I shut down any thoughts I had about myself and those I loved dying. I was actively disconnected from death, the truth was too painful a prospect to consider.

But then both of my grandmothers passed away. They were 86 and 79 respectively, one had dementia and heart failure while the other had terminal breast cancer, yet their deaths had come as a huge shock to me. I had so fiercely avoided considering that death was even a possibility – let alone a probability – that I didn’t even say goodbye. I still grapple with this, along with the idea that two women that I had loved so much, who had been so vital in life, could one day just… cease to exist.

The death café, a not-for-profit social franchise, is the brainchild of a British man called Jon Underwood. It was Underwood’s belief that Western society doesn’t ‘do’ death particularly well. We have a tendency to avoid and ‘outsource’ it, handing over the handling of our loved ones in their final days to doctors, nurses and undertakers.

Inspired by the Swiss Café Mortel movement that aimed to removed the ‘tyrannical secrecy’ out of topic of death, Underwood wanted to create a place where people could drink tea, eat cake and talk about dying. And so, the first death café event was held in 2011 at his kitchen table in Hackney. His mum, Sue Barsky Reid, a psychotherapist, held the meeting. It was a huge success and, together with his mum, Jon wrote a guide to holding your own death café in 2012. There are now death café events held in 65 countries all over the world.

The objective of the death café is to ‘help people make the most of their (finite) lives’ and regain the control over arguably the most significant aspect of being alive. This message is made all the more poignant when I learn that Jon passed away suddenly two years ago, aged just 44.

In my family and friendship circle, we hardly ever broach the subject of death and if we do, it’s with a certain amount of gallows humour. When my mum asked my dad if he would like to be buried or cremated, he suggested she just put him out with the recycling on big bin day. We laughed, and quickly dropped the subject. I still don’t know what his wishes would be at the end of his life. I don’t know what the wishes are for anyone close to me for that matter, not even my own.

While the organisers of the death café carefully stipulate that this isn’t grief or bereavement counselling, everyone has their own personal reasons for attending. Some have lost someone close to them, others have started to think about the end of their own lives and others are simply curious.

My own reasons are that I had reached the age of thirty having never really acknowledging that people die. I mean, I knew, but until that point it remained a fairly abstract idea. When my grandmothers passed away, with their deaths came the realisation that at any point in the near or distant future, my life – along with those of everyone I love – will one day expire. This knowledge can sometimes feel like a crushing weight. Am I making the most of my life? Am I doing enough living?

The meeting is held by a facilitator, but she doesn’t set an agenda. Instead, the twelve of us sit around a table nursing teas and coffees and she allows the conversation to ebb and flow naturally. The strangers gathered are made up of a broad range of ages, genders and ethnicities, and we all hold varying ideas about what death means. Yet the meeting remains respectful, confronting and moving all at once.

I struggle to articulate my feelings around death without getting overcome with emotion. But I listen to the fears, hopes and beliefs of these strangers who share so honestly and freely, and we all laugh when I tell them I worry that if I die unexpectedly that my sons might one day read the half-finished novel lurking on my desktop before I’ve had chance to properly edit it. What if my legacy is just a few crap chapters of a yet-to-be completed book?

My head is still in the meeting long after I get home. I stand in the kitchen and look out at the tree in the middle of the garden. I recently learnt that the previous owners had planted it many years ago to commemorate the birth of their son, but he had sadly passed away. And so, as my own children play in the shadow of the tree that was planted in celebration of a life that has already ended, my mind wanders as it invariably does to this person, this stranger. How can he be dead if he’s alive in my thoughts? How can he cease to exist if those that loved him in life, love him still in death? My grandmothers might have passed away, but I feel them with me every day. To say that they no longer exist is simply not true.

There is still the fear, there is still the existential dread. But after my first meeting –and I plan on attending more – there’s also a renewed urgency to my life. We’re all here for a finite amount of time. Ignoring that fact doesn’t buy you a few extra years. We’re all born and we all die, but it’s the bit in the middle that really counts.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Exactly Is a ‘Mushroom Suit’?

Eco-Friendly Burial Options Explained.

By Danielle DeGroot

Going green with natural burial options. 

The tragic passing of longtime television heartthrob Luke Perry a few months ago put a spotlight on the subject of green and eco-friendly burial options. It was recently revealed that the late actor was buried in a mushroom suit, a special burial suit designed to aid in the natural process of decomposition, but more detail on that later.

Though it may not be a topic many of us are comfortable talking about – perhaps one we only think about when faced with a loss – knowing what is out there, and understanding eco-friendly burial, is worth some thought.

Why Go Green?

Burial in a casket and cremation are the most common methods of burial, however, these options actually have a significant negative impact on the environment. Burial in a traditional casket made of metal or plastic prevents the natural process of decomposition. These caskets can use chemical-based finishes, toxic plastics, and chemicals, like formaldehyde, that are used for traditional embalming, which is a carcinogen and poses a risk to those who work with it regularly.

Cremation, or a traditional-style casket, is often considered an eco-friendlier option due to the lack of land use. The process of cremation itself requires the burning of natural gas and, in turn, releases harmful greenhouse gases. Additionally, other harmful chemicals such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and hydrofluoric acid are released into the air. There is an eco-friendly process for cremation that has been developed, such as bio-cremation or water resolution, which is a process using water, heat, pressure, and potassium hydroxide to accomplish a cremation without toxic or harmful chemicals.

Green burials are burial practices that have a low environmental impact. Leaving a smaller, less harmful footprint on the planet as one’s last act conserves natural resources, preserves the environment, and also benefits the health of those who work in the industry by not using conventional embalming. The Green Burial Council is made up of two nonprofit organizations working together to further the green burial movement, support and develop more sustainable practices, and continue to honor those who have passed with respect for their lives, treating both the earth and the grief and burial process with respect.

A natural burial, in industry terms, specifically means a burial where the body is interred in the ground without the use of a vault, a traditional casket, or any chemicals. The deceased is wrapped in a biodegradable shroud or uses a pine or woven wicker casket. The options continue to grow as cemeteries around the country have begun to offer natural burial grounds.

Natural and eco-friendly burial options have been growing in popularity over the last 20 years or so. Pine, cardboard, bamboo, and willow are all earth-friendly material used to make caskets that leave less of an impact on the environment. Urns have been fashioned out of biodegradable materials, such as seashell shaped urns made from recycled paper and clay, designed to break down once placed in a body of water, and cornstarch, which eventually biodegrades completely. The options continue to grows as interest in environmentally friendly burial grows.

About That Suit

Luke Perry chose to be placed into eternal rest wearing Coeio’s “Infinity Burial Suit”, a burial garment made with totally natural and biodegradable components, including microorganisms and mushrooms with a job to do. The specially designed suit has three goals: to help in the decomposition process, to neutralize toxins from the body, and to transmit nutrients back into plant life, thus completing the process by restarting life. The company plants two trees for every suit and shroud sold, another step in its goal to continue the cycle of life. The suit costs $1,500 and is available for order online.

The average casket cost anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000, though the price tag can top $10,000. The cost of cremation is about $1,000, and none of those estimates include funeral services. So while a $1,500 price tag seems steep in comparison it is actually on the less pricey side of the choices. 

The choice to be interred in a mushroom suit was not about fashion or headlines, it was a choice an individual made to give back in a unique way. Due to his celebrity status, that choice brings awareness to this delicate subject.

Keeping It Local

We have plenty of options for going green in the afterlife right here in Colorado, and most are locally owned businesses and products. Here is a breakdown of some of the green and natural burial options the Centennial state has to offer.

  • Roselawn Cemetery in Fort Collins and Evergreen Memorial Park in Evergreen are two of the cemeteries that offer a range of green and natural burial options in Colorado.
  • Crestone Cemetary Natural Burial Ground located in Crestone, Colorado, is the state’s first and only natural burial ground to be Green Burial Council certified.
  • Nature’s Casket out of Longmont creates handcrafted caskets using pine trees killed from pine beetles. Repurposing these trees into blue-stained pine caskets, their products are 100 percent biodegradable and use all non-toxic materials. Though these caskets are only available in Colorado, the company also offers a selection of intricately handcrafted pine urns and provides free shipping on them nationwide. 
  • The Natural Funeral is an independent local funeral home located in Lafayette that specializes in green and natural funeral methods. Using locally produced and naturally made products, they offer a variety of green funeral options, including pine caskets from Nature’s Casket, cardboard caskets, handmade and painted pine urns, and custom crafted painted gourd urns. Living urns, seed pods, and water urns are also offered as are bamboo burial shrouds.
  • Goes Funeral Care in Fort Collins is another local funeral business that works with the Green Burial Council and offers a range of green burial options at either Crestone or Roselawn Cemetery.
  • Seven Stones Chatfield is a botanical gardens cemetery located in Littleton. Seven Stones offers many different burial options and is very different than the somber rows of headstones one might find in a traditional cemetery. An artistic and peaceful place, Seven Stones offers artistic memorials and tributes made individually to honor everyone laid to rest there. Cremation gardens with sculptures and walking paths, waterfalls, and quiet spots to sit and remember. Green burial options are available and growing, with a Meadow of tall grass and natural granite boulder markings. There is even a spot to remember our furry family members with green burial and a pet memorial area. A unique and intriguing place Seven Stones also celebrates life by hosting events such as art, music, and nature festivals throughout the year.

Donate Your Body to Science

For some people, this can be a final act of giving back, perhaps too old or sick to donate organs; some will choose to let their body be used for medical and academic research. This is actually far more common than one might think, and there a plenty of options here in Colorado.

If you are one of those people who may want to give back by letting your body be a research tool, you can do it at no cost. Science Care Colorado has a donor registry where people can sign up and pre-register to become a donor.

Most of the major universities have donor programs, as well, and work with the State Anatomical Board to use these gifts to learn and better serve patients. The University of Colorado School of Medicine at Anschutz Medical Campus holds an annual Donor Memorial Ceremony each spring to remember, honor, and thank those who have given of their bodies in this way. It is a highly emotional event and brings together the community, the families of the deceased, and those who have learned from them.

Former Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and former Dean of the school of Medicine Richard D. Krugman, MD offers this statement on the donor memorial:

“I have always been impressed that the Anatomical Donor Memorial Service is one of our most emotional events. Just what this service means for students and donors’ families and friends really resonated in a letter I received last week from a woman who wrote, ‘I was the ancient, white-haired lady in the second or third row weeping through most of it.  Not just sadness, but a lot of gratitude, empathy and happiness. It was so well done – the prayers, the Arrhythmias (our student a capella group), the student bagpiper, and the very touching speakers … It was emotional, full of respect and in every way, it meant a great deal of closure for me.'”

Preserving the planet goes far beyond recycling soda cans and not using plastic straws. And all of us, celebrity or not, can make a difference in this unexpected way. Though it is an uncomfortable subject, it is one we will all face at some point, for ourselves and for loved ones.

Have you thought about green and natural burial options? Is there an option or place that you know of here in Colorado that we missed? Please share your thoughts and sentiments with us in the comments below.

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