WELCOME TO THE TOWN OF THE DEAD

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For 75 years, Colma, Calif., has been steadily collecting bodies and it’s constantly getting deader. As of 2009, the city had 1,500 living residents and 1.5 million marked graves. Seventy-three percent of Colma’s land belongs to the dead with the rest occupied by people who have a great sense of humor. The town’s motto: “It’s Great To Be Alive In Colma.”

 

Complete Article HERE!

The Hungry Mourner

From funeral biscuits to cemetery picnics to parsley crowns, here’s how the world marks death with food.

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Funeral biscuits, a Los Angelitos celebration, a cemetery picnic
Funeral biscuits, a Los Angelitos celebration, a cemetery picnic

Our relationship with food is almost as complicated as the one we have with death. Food can bring comfort, be tied to feelings of guilt or pleasure, and can evoke memories and feelings as powerful as any song. It’s no wonder that throughout history and across cultures, people have used food to help honor loved ones who have died. Here are some ways in which it’s been done.

1. Dumb Supper

During this feast — thought by some scholars to be a precursor to modern Halloween — a table is laid out all in black, with places for both the living and the dead. No one speaks to allow for communion with the dead. Guests bring with them a letter written to a loved one who has passed. When the meal is over the unread letters are burned and one by one the messages within are thought to be carried into the spirit world. Believed to have roots in ancient Celtic tradition, the dumb supper was brought to Appalachia by American settlers. Some living in the region still hold the suppers. It is also observed on Samhain, one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, by Pagans and Wiccans.

2. Telling the Bees

One old English custom also practiced in America in the early 19th century — and a risky one, to be sure — involved going out to the beehive to deliver the news that a family member had died. The messenger would tap on the hive and whisper, “Little Brownies, your mistress is dead.” Families would attach an invitation to the funeral on the hive and bring food from the funeral feast to the bees. This was a way to show gratitude and respect for the bees and their gifts of honey, beeswax and pollination. Fail to do so, and you would risk offending the bees, which might choose to move on to a more appreciative family.

3. Fave dei Morti (Beans of the Dead) 

During ancient Roman times, the souls of ancestors were thought to reside in fava beans. At Roman wedding feasts, beans were presented to the bride and groom, who would eat them in hopes of attracting the souls of male ancestors to carry on the family bloodline. (Eating beans on your wedding day — that’s risky in a different way.) As a bonus, beans were also believed to ward off ghosts and vampires, who were easily tricked into thinking the beans were living people. And on All Souls Day in Italy, it is common to consume bean-shaped cookies, or fave del morti. There are many different variations, but the most popular resembles a macaroon-like cake in appearance, but with a rich, buttery texture and sweet almond flavor. More traditional versions are shaped like kidney beans and flavored with almond flour and extract. Here’s a recipe.

4. Obon Figures

Obon is a series of festival days in Japan when the souls of the departed are thought to visit their living relatives. Horses and cow figurines are made from vegetables placed on altars. It is believed that the spirits of the visiting ancestors ride the animals between worlds of the living and the dead.

5. Funeral Biscuits

Funeral biscuits first appeared in 1600s Europe, and were also commonplace up until the early 1900s in America. They were sometimes taken door-to-door and served as a funeral invitation or handed out as a keepsake after the funeral. According to Barts Pathology Museum’s curator Carla Valentine, funeral biscuits were wrapped in a paper that bore a poem or prayer with the name of the deceased, then sealed with black wax and stamped with a skull or hourglass.  Should you want to make a batch, here’s a recipe.

6. Lemons 

In Switzerland, male mourners would wrap a lemon in a handkerchief and place it into their hat. The hat would be carried under the left arm for the duration of the funeral. At the end of the service, the lemons were placed on the grave to symbolize the “sharpness” of their grief.

7. Los Angelitos 

During Mexico’s Days of the Dead, a sacred observance when spirits of deceased family members are believed to return to the earth for a family reunion with the living, one day is set aside to welcome the spirits of children, or Los Angelitos (The Little Angels). Altars are decorated, and food is offered up in miniature portions and served on tiny plates, often with a little glass of milk.

8. Journey Cakes 

A staple of cuisine in the American south is a little corn cake, known as a Johnny Cake. The term “Johnny” was derived from the corn cakes’ original use as “Journey Cakes,” among some African tribes. They were placed in coffins to provide sustenance for the deceased during their long journey to the afterlife.

9. Parsley 

After ancient Greeks dedicated this herb to the goddess Persephone, who reigns over the land of the dead, it became a staple during funeral rites. Parsley was planted over graves and athletes donned crowns of parsley during Funeral Games. The games, depicted in the Iliad, were played in the deceased’s honor and are recognized as the precursor to the Olympics. They included chariot races, wrestling, boxing, discus throwing and running.

10. Cemetery Picnics

During the Victorian era when cemeteries were cultivated as parks and gardens, people came to enjoy a day of leisure, to partake of a meal with loved ones no longer with them or even dine on the family’s prepaid plot. In America, the practice took on a more practical purpose: when communities would come together to help clean and maintain the cemetery grounds. Graves would be tended to, trees and flowers planted, and repairs made. Once the work was done, families would set out their potluck dishes and share in a communal meal.

Complete Article HERE!

What They Left Behind: Photos of Things People Kept to Remember Their Deceased Loved Ones

By Leah Sottile

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The last time I saw my aunt Pat was at a party on her back deck on a sticky summer afternoon when it seemed like everything was fine. She wanted a party for her birthday and we gave it to her, flying from all corners of the country, knowing it might be her last. She wore her best wig—a smart gray bob—and smiled like there was nothing to be sad about. It didn’t really seem like she was dying.

She’d been in a standoff with cancer for years, but it swiftly took her a few months later, and I found myself again halfway across the country, standing in her home, looking at the spare belongings of a woman who’d lived for years looking over her shoulder, knowing death was close by.

If there was jewelry, I didn’t want it. If there were heirlooms, I didn’t ask for them. Instead, I took a cassette tape—green plastic, with a handwritten label that read: “Nixon’s resignation. SAVE!” I also took a copy of the April 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, the edition containing Burt Reynolds’ famous bearskin rug centerfold. More than anything else, these things reminded me of my aunt: funny, bookish, smart. You’d never know these are some of my most prized possessions.

If I could cherish an old cassette tape and a dog-eared copy of a magazine, I wondered what other people had saved of the people they loved. What I found was that in death, what we want most aren’t the heirlooms or the valuables, but the things that help us remember our loved ones for exactly who they were.

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Merrilee

My grandma had a lot of fancy statues, trinkets, and jewelry. When she passed away, I only asked for two things of hers: this toad magnet and a “naughty” light switch cover.

She was really, really funny, and the magnet was just another funny thing of hers. She always played pranks on my aunts and uncles when they were teenagers and she had this huge, wonderful, cackling laugh. She always bought us funny cards—never sappy ones—for our birthdays and she had a light switch cover in one of her spare bedrooms that was a flasher. You know, a naked dude in a trench coat.

I come from a big Italian family and every Sunday growing up, all the local relatives would go to my grandparents’ house for dinner. That toad magnet was on the fridge at grandma and grandpa’s as long as I can remember and now it reminds me of those Sunday dinners and being a kid. My grandparents had a huge yard with a swing set, big raspberry bushes, a jungle gym, a vegetable garden, a flower garden, and an in-ground swimming pool. More fun times were had at that house than I can count. I keep it on my fridge, so I see it every day.

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KENDRA

The molar is from my dog Rose; the little one is from my dog Hannah. I also kept a lock of hair from my horse I had as a child. I wanted to keep the teeth because after they die, you either bury them or have them cremated, which leaves you with an unrecognizable lump of ash that you can’t touch or hold. I wanted to keep the teeth because I will always have a little piece of them… even if it’s a gross tooth.

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Kevin

My youngest sister’s body was found ten years ago, on the day dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. She died by suicide. She became a psych nurse in order to help others who, like her, struggled with depression and the off-kilter life as someone bipolar.

When my brother called with the news, I drove 2,000 miles non-stop as fast as I could. After the wake and the funeral and discussing what best to do for her two sons, we turned to cleaning out her house. I drove home with two boxes of the family china and other mementos. They have remained in the boxes on my front porch for the last ten years. The loss has been that hard to accept.

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James

My grandmother was always a tremendous positive force in my life. I watched her fight cancer for 20 years and somehow she always managed to have a positive outlook. She could be in tremendous pain and discomfort and still look at me with a smile as she made fun of her misfortune.

I was probably somewhere between six and eight when she fell and knocked her teeth out. I don’t remember the specifics of the story, but I know she lost seven teeth and broke her jaw in several places. I vaguely remember her trying to set me at ease by smiling and trying to joke around with a mouth full of bloody cotton the night it happened.

Her last two weeks of life were spent in the hospital. I stayed by her side as much as I could, sleeping at the hospital and hanging around every day. She died late at night with me holding her hand. We sat alone together like that for about an hour before I alerted the hospital staff.

My mother and I flew to Maine the fall after her death, to spread her ashes at Pemaquid Point. It was her favorite spot as a child. We hung around the lighthouse all day goofing around, taking photos, making fun of people, trying to find a discreet spot to spread her ashes. We finally found a really cool spot to the east of the lighthouse on top of some boulders below an apparently forgotten rusty mermaid statue overgrown with weeds. I remember being surprised that the ashes were heavy. I expected them to scatter in the wind but they kind of fell onto the rocks below in clumps.

Then her bridge bounced off of a few rocks making a very distinctive clink upon hitting each one. My mom and I gave each other the what the fuck was that? look, and I jumped down and immediately started sifting through the dense ash. We knew what it was immediately.

There was still enough shape to it that you could clearly make out the teeth. We both laughed as I shook the rest of my grandma’s remains off of my hands. It wouldn’t have occurred to me not to keep it.

I generally keep it on an old vintage trunk that I use as a nightstand next to my bed, but sometimes I’ll stuff it my pocket at random. I always bring it with me when I travel. I don’t know why I keep it. It’s just as valuable a treasure as the other trinkets I’ve collected over the years—rings, old post-punk pins, a few tie clips, a trilobite or two—and all that’s left of my grandmother.

Joe

My grandfather owned a little corner grocery store in North Jersey, in the town of Roselle. It was called Leo and Fred’s, but when the stock market crashed, Fred killed himself. Leo was the butcher, and my father bought Fred’s half and ran the shop. There was a bar in the back too, so the regulars could have a drink—at a grocery store, because why not?

One of my grandfather’s regular customers worked on Wall Street, and this guy taught my grandfather how to invest in the stock market. And so my grandfather started doing that and would look for other ways to invest—one of which was when coins went down to being mostly made with nickel, in the 60s, I think. Before that there were actually a lot of silver in American coins, which of course has value; nickel does not. So my grandfather would save all the half-dollars and dollars from before a certain date, the silver ones. I have a half-dollar of his, which I often carry in my pocket.

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Sheri

After my dad died, my mom doused a polyester shirt in his cologne—he wore a lot—and sealed it in a plastic bag. I’ve sort of wanted to get rid of it because whatever my dad wore is super strong and kind of gives me a headache. One time I took him to a bluegrass concert and the people in front of us got up and moved! It was sweet of my mom, but also kind of weird. It isn’t the memento of him I would have saved for myself.

My dad’s library card, on the other hand, means a lot to me given my profession—I’m a librarian. My dad was the one who first took me to the library, on his motorcycle, with a giant helmet balanced on my three-year-old skull. He was totally blue collar, worked as a plumber, but really believed in libraries and had a current library card for most of his life.

I also have his map stash, which is this giant leather-like pouch that he kept behind the seat of his truck. It still smells faintly of cigar. I love that one of the maps dates back to a year after I was born, and another he’s traced colored routes all over. The lines could mean anything.

Complete Article HERE!

The Man Who Buried Them Remembers

By Mark S. King

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When he conducted the funerals, Tom Bonderenko tells me, he always wore his priestly garments and white stole. Even when no one showed up for the graveside service.

“It was important to show dignity and respect,” Tom says. He taps the coffee cup in his lap nervously. “I’m sorry,” he says. He clears his throat but it doesn’t keep his eyes from welling up. “No one has asked me about this in a really long time.”

We are sitting in his office at Moveable Feast, the Baltimore meal delivery agency for those with life-threatening illnesses, where Tom has served as director for the last eight years. His office is spacious and cheerful, but this conversation is a difficult one. He had discreetly closed his office door behind me when I arrived.

When Moveable Feast was founded in 1989 to deliver meals to home-bound AIDS patients, Tom was engaged in a different, more literal ministry to the disenfranchised. He was a priest staffing a homeless shelter for Catholic Charities of Baltimore. It was there he met someone with AIDS for the first time.

“A young man came to the door of the emergency shelter, sometime in 1987,” he says. “He was covered in black marks. Lesions, you know. Everywhere. He said he needed to clean up before his first doctor appointment the next day.”

Tom had grown up in New York City, and as a gay man he had known people who died very suddenly, as far back as the early 1980’s. But he had never stood face to face with someone so ill with the dreaded disease.

I couldn’t help but ask Tom how he felt, meeting that person.

TomTom stares out his office window, and his eyes are so beautiful, romantically blue, framed with creases of worry. The eyes of a priest. He turns back to me with an answer. “Here was a young man who was going to find out from a doctor the next day that he had AIDS,” he manages. He starts tapping his coffee cup again, and he bows his head reverently. “And he was about to be told that he was going to die.”

Tom never saw the young man again.

People with AIDS became more common at the shelter before long. Tom got to know the regulars, and they began to ask him to perform their funeral services.

“They just wanted to know they would be buried,” he says quietly. “They didn’t want or need anything religious. Most of them were estranged from their families, drug abuse, that sort of thing. I think they were embarrassed to reach out to relatives. Sometimes, when they died we would find a member of the family to come, but usually it was just me and the departed at the gravesite.”

The burials were performed at unmarked graves in a lonely section of Baltimore Cemetery. The caskets were as charity required, simple wooden boxes, and they always contained a body. The funeral home would not cremate someone who died from AIDS because they were afraid of poisoning the air.

“I would always conduct the service out loud,” says Tom, now sharing the sacred details. “I would speak about the departed, and say what I knew of them, about where they were from. And then I would ask if anyone present had been harmed by the departed…”

I imagined Tom, in his vestments and alone in a forgotten graveyard, asking intimate questions out loud to the grass and the trees and the disinterested silence. “I would say that if the departed had harmed anyone,” he goes on, “for that person to please forgive them.” Tom’s voice falters. “And then I would ask the departed to forgive, too. I would tell them, ‘you’re on the other side now. Let it go.’”

Tom B-2Tom’s office becomes very still. I feel as if I’m holding my breath.

“I think they just didn’t want to be alone,” Tom says, and now he looks at me without regard for his tears. “We don’t do this alone.”

Because of you, I think to myself. They weren’t alone because of you, Tom.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, again, wiping his face. “I haven’t talked about this in so long.” He considers the faraway scene he has conjured, his graveside questions to no one, and then adds, “It was the most important, meaningful thing I have ever done.”

I wonder aloud if the experience bolstered his religious faith or challenged it instead. He looks surprised by the question. “Well,” he answers after a moment, “I believe it strengthened my faith. Yes.” I want very much to believe him.

Tom left Catholic Charities, and the priesthood, not long after he conducted the last of his burials for the homeless. A decade later he joined Moveable Feast and embraced its mission to provide sustenance for people in need, people like those to whom he once ministered.

Tom’s fellow staff members know little about his life a generation ago. Most of them aren’t aware of the aching memories beneath the calm surface of their sensitive and capable boss. They may not fully understand why Tom leaves the office once a month to distribute food personally to homebound clients.

But they will tell you that when Tom Bonderenko returns from those deliveries, he always has tears in his eyes.

Mark

Complete Article HERE!

An Ice Cream Truck at the Funeral

And 6 other meaningful ways to incorporate food — and cocktails — into a memorial.

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We mark life’s milestones with festive food and rituals. And culinary traditions can play an important role for mourners, too. Here are 7 ideas for meaningful ways to incorporate food and drink into a memorial.

Bespoke Libations

Personalized, or ‘signature’ custom cocktails (or non-alcoholic mocktails) and craft beers celebrating the unique personalities are increasingly popular at weddings. And they make sense for funerals, too. A special drink, named after and inspired by a loved one, could be served during a toast or at a time when friends and family are invited to share a memory of the deceased. Later, the recipe can be given out to guests. That custom cocktail can be prepared on the deceased birthday or their “deathiversary” — or anytime, really.

Ice Cream Truck

There are numerous cultures around the world that incorporate a special sweet dish or candy into their funeral rituals or feasts to remind mourners that, even amid grief, life is sweet. An envelope with candy may be passed around at Chinese funerals, for example. A great twist on this important sentiment — and I wouldn’t mind incorporating into my own funeral — is the well-timed appearance of an ice cream truck, leaving my loved ones with their last memory of me being one that’s sweet.

Rosemary Bread

On particularly difficult days — like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day — one way I honor my grief (and the memory of those I’ve lost) is by making rosemary tea bread. Rosemary is an herb of remembrance. The Romans used it in burial rites. Shakespeare references it in “Hamlet”: “Ophelia in her madness names plants that were known for their capacity to ease pain, particularly inwardly felt pain” — “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember.” Here’s a recipe.

Funeral Biscuits

Funeral biscuits were paper-wrapped cookies handed out to mourners at funerals or taken door-to-door as an invitation to a funeral. The biscuits first made their appearance in 1600s Europe and were commonplace in America through the early 1900s. The wrappers were custom printed with a poem or prayer and the name of the deceased. Although edible, the biscuits were often kept as keepsakes. A modern version can easily be adapted and created with the help of children, who are so often left out of these important rituals and are seeking a way to express their own grief. Children can decorate the wrapper, and even help with the baking. Here’s a recipe.

Custom Cookbooks

Danielle Oteri, the mastermind behind the foodie website Feast On History, creates custom family cookbooks. Here’s how it works: Oteri’s company, according to its website, will “look at census records and immigration documents. We’ll conduct interviews with you and/or your family members and record the memories and meals that were shared. Next, we’ll research those recipes and delve deep to find out exactly where your relatives came from and what influenced their cooking. Finally, we thoroughly test the recipes and record them so that these wonderful traditions will never again be lost.” Amazing, right?

Vegetable Wreaths


Funeral florist extraordinaire Cassandra Thompson ofStems UK created a stunning memorial wreath made with vegetables. It’s a meaningful tribute for a loved one who enjoyed gardening. You could even use vegetables from their own garden. Another idea for those mourning the loss of a beloved gardener — seeds or plantings could be harvested from their garden to be distributed and replanted

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Funeral Books

If you’ve been to a wedding in the past few years, chances are you’ve been handed a wedding program, featuring photographs of the happy couple, factoids about how they met, details about their families or the story of their first date. Little booklets like these can frequently be found in Thailand as well, but at funerals — not weddings. In Thailand, these memorial books, called nang sue ngam sop, are typically written by the family of the deceased, and contain photographs from graduations, weddings or personal stories and anecdotes. A hallmark of these books are favorite recipes of dishes they were known for cooking (or for enjoying). In fact, recipes from Thai funeral books were the main inspiration for Chef David Thompson’s Nham restaurant, which earned a coveted Michelin Star – the first for Thai cuisine.

Complete Article HERE!

Experiences, Dreams, and Visions: Easing the Patient With Cancer Toward End of Life

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Dreams have been the subjects of songs and psychoanalysis, puberty and poetry. There are sweet dreams and there are nightmares … and then there are the dreams that comfort the dying. Although the dreams of hospice patients have not been subjected to a great deal of research, one recent study demonstrates that they can be meaningful and comforting for the person who is dying.

End-of-life experiences (ELEs) occur frequently in people who are near death and can take different forms.1 End-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs) are one type of ELE.2 These often manifest as visions that occur during a wakeful state, or dreams that the patient remembers after sleeping.

DREAMS AND VISIONS OF DYING PEOPLE

Christopher W. Kerr, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care in Cheektowaga, New York, in partnership with James P. Donnelly, PhD, of Canisius College, Buffalo, New York, undertook a study to document ELE phenomena in patients at the facility. As part of the study design, they examined the content and subjective significance of ELDVs, and related their prevalence, content, and significance over time until the patient’s death.1

tumblr_nu422woJmN1r1vfbso1_500The study included 59 patients ranging in age from 34 to 99 years who were in their last weeks of life. The patients were interviewed daily about their dreams and visions while they were in the hospice inpatient unit. They were asked to report on the content, frequency, and comfort level of their ELDVs. If it was possible to continue the interviews after a patient was discharged, the interview was conducted at the patient’s home or at the facility to which the patient was transferred. The researchers met with the patients each day until they died, were unable to communicate, found communication too stressful, or until the patient became delirious.1

Of the 59 patients in the study, 52 (88.1%) reported having at least 1 dream or vision. Almost half of the dreams or visions (45.3%) occurred while the patient was sleeping, 15.7% occurred while the patient was awake, and 39.1% occurred during both sleep and wakefulness. The patients reported that nearly all ELDV events (99%) seemed or felt real. Most patients reported a single ELDV each day (81.4%); some reports were of 2 (13.2%), 3 (4.1%), or 4 events (1.4%) on other days.1

RATING THE DREAMS

The patients rated the degree of comfort or distress they associated with their ELDVs on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning extremely distressing and 5 meaning extremely comforting. The mean comfort rating for all dreams and visions was 3.59, with patients rating 60.3% of ELDVs as comforting or extremely comforting, 18.8% rated as distressing or extremely distressing, and 20.7% rated their dreams as neither comforting nor distressing.1

The patients felt that their dreams and visions were realistic, whether they occurred during sleep or while awake. They related dreams and visions of past meaningful experiences and reunions with loved ones who had already died, and who reassured and guided them. Others reported feeling as if they were preparing to go somewhere.1 The researchers noted that often patients’ dreams before dying were so intense that the dream continued from sleep to wakefulness, seeming to be reality. However, those patients who had ELDVs died peacefully and calmly.1tumblr_nnbt0hGiMC1qb47plo1_540

The most common dreams and visions included friends and relatives, either living or deceased. The patients found that dreams and visions that featured the deceased (friends, relatives, and animals/pets) were significantly more comforting than those of the living, of the living and deceased combined, or of other people and experiences. As participants approached death, comforting dreams and visions of the deceased became more prevalent.1

NOT DELIRIUM

Clinicians should note that ELDVs are not hallucinations, and they are not the result of medications or confusion. These phenomena play an important role. Their content holds great meaning to the patient who nears the end of life. Patients who experience these phenomena are not delirious; they think clearly and are aware of their surroundings. In contrast to patients who are in a state of delirium, ELDVs typically occur in persons who have clear consciousness, heightened acuity, and awareness of their surroundings.

Although the phenomena bring a sense of impending death, they also evoke acceptance and inner peace. These are crucial distinctions, since if a dying patient with ELDVs is considered delirious and is treated as such, the medication may interfere with the comforting experience that ELDVs can bring to the dying process. Not being able to derive that comfort at the very end of life could lead to isolation and unnecessary suffering for the dying patient.

Oncology nurses and other clinicians can play an important role in the dying process by not assuming that the patient experiencing ELDVs is delirious and needs more medication.

“The results of this study suggest that a person’s fear of death often diminishes as a direct result of ELDVs, and what arises is a new insight into mortality. The emotional impact is so frequently positive, comforting, and paradoxically life affirming,” the hospice team explains.1 The person is dying physically but emotionally and spiritually, their identity remains present as manifested by dreams/visions.

“In this way, ELDVs do not deny death, but in fact, transcend the dying experience, and present a therapeutic opportunity for clinicians to assist patients and their families in the transition from life to death, thereby providing comfort and closure.”1

REFERENCE

1. Kerr CW, Donnelly JP, Wright ST, et al. End-of-life dreams and visions: a longitudinal study of hospice patients’ experiences. J Palliat Med. 2014;17(3):296-303.

Complete Article HERE!

Two Designers Want To Turn Your Body Into A Tree With These Eco Burial Pods

Two Designers Want To Turn Your Body Into A Tree With These Eco Burial Pods

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Modern burial practices are an environmental nightmare. Toxic chemicals from the embalming process leach into the air and soil. Caskets and burial vaults use a tonne of materials. And memorial parks clear acres of land while soaking up significant amounts of water and pesticides to keep lawns green.

And cremation isn’t any better. It releases noxious chemicals into the atmosphere in the process. What, then, is the most environmentally friendly way to die?

“The best way is to allow your body to feed the earth or ocean in a way that is sustainable for future generations,” Susan Dobscha, a professor of marketing at Bentley University and editor of an upcoming book about the green burial industry called, Death and a Consumer Culture, told Tech Insider via email.

And a team of two Italian designers have devised a concept on how to do that.

Their project, called Capsula Mundi, aims to create eco-friendly egg-shaped burial pods that will house a body in the place of a casket. The corpse will be placed in the fetal position within the pod and draped in a cloth of natural fibres. The team is also designing smaller versions of these pods which can inter ashes instead of a body.

The biodegradable package, which will be made from potato and corn starches, would then be plunged into the ground and a tree of the deceased’s chosing would be planted on top. Over time, the mixture of microbes and nutrients from the decaying corpse would feed the tree, effectively sprouting a new organism – the perfect circle of life.

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This eco-pod is the brainchild of Italian designers Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel, who met at a furniture fair in Milan in 2001. It is not just meant to be a work of art, but is supposed to give back to the earth in a real way that many static pieces of art do not.

It’s also meant to challenge some of the most deeply ingrained rituals and customs concerning the dead.

“Our main goal… has been to sensitise people about the unbearable way the modern culture currently deals with death,” Citelli and Bretzel told Tech Insider via email.

Though Citelli and Bretzel aren’t sure how much the capsules will eventually cost, they will likely be much cheaper than a traditional burial, which typically sets a family back an average of $US10,000 ($14,200 AUD). This includes the undertaker and cemetery fees, and costs associated with the burial vault, flowers, clothing, and transportation.

This doesn’t mean that it will be easy to revise how we honour the dead, however.

These eco pods won’t be interred willy nilly, but would be memorialised in a ‘natural burial site’ that would eventually become a forest. There are a smattering of natural burial sites across the US and other countries around the world. For example, the UK was one of the first to establish a natural burial ground, called The Woodland Burial, in 1993.

But these ‘natural’ burials – including the eco pods – are currently illegal in Italy. According to Citelli and Bretzel, Italian law states that coffins can only be made out of wood and tin, and must be buried in a protected, controlled, and closed area. They’re currently trying to change this law.

While the definition of a ‘natural’ or ‘green’ burial varies, the general idea is to allow the body to recycle back into the earth naturally. They usually forego chemical preservatives, such as the use of formaldehyde in the embalming process, or unnecessary materials, such as metal caskets and concrete burial vaults.

There are also some logistical and scientific challenges.

A vertically-lying body, like that in an eco-pod, is less likely to supply as many nutrients to the soil as a horizontally-lying one, Tony Hale, co-director of a green burial documentary A Will for the Woods, told NY Daily News. But vertical or horizontal, science suggests that humans are ripe sources of compost material, as many new burgeoning projects suggest.

Citelli and Bretzel are beginning to produce small egg-shaped capsules for burying ashes, they said, which will be ready by early 2016. The handling of ashes is generally more forgiving when it comes to the law, but different regions have their own regulations. Some countries and states within the US forbid scattering ashes on some public lands or in the ocean within 3 miles (4.8 kilometres) of a shore. Italy has not allowed scattering of ashes at all since 2001, and only permits them to be buried at a cemetery or kept in an urn in the home.

Citelli and Bretzel currently do not have a date for the body-sized eggs, though their plan is to go ahead with production despite the challenges.

“This is amazing and really pushes us forward in this project,” Citelli and Bretzel said. “This precious legacy is the gift that the person [gives] to the community and to the future.”

Complete Article HERE!