incineration or compost?

[soulMerlin]

In our small, overcrowded country (UK) i've been thinking of when I die and what happens to my body?

Up 'till now, I thought that cremation would be the 'cleanest' quickest thing...rather than rotting in the ground. However, I saw a tv programme with James Lovelock the Ecologist, who at 85 years, said that when he died, the minerals and chemicals that formed his body, would return to the earth, and that he would be part of the 'whole thing' anyway (very Druid).

He didn't seem to have any worries about the survival of his 'Lovelock' conscousness ...totally without ego, in fact (very Buddhist).

So I've been revising my ideas about my demise and I think that the best way would be in a biodegradable 'cardboard' coffin...in England, because of lack of space, vertical.

At first I shocked myself with the concept (very Christian?),,,and then I realised I had, at that moment, learn't a lot about myself.

Has anyone had similar ecological/spiritual/aesthetic thoughts?

henry

[NinasSpaceChild]

I'm not having a funeral. Other than that, I think going back in the earth is the best idea, and causes less air pollution.

[soulMerlin]

that's why I went for a cardboard coffin; my nutrients would have dried up by the time it would take a wooden coffin to decompose and so the greater cost of a funeral would to me, have been wasted.

henry


__________________
ps perhaps I'm too sentimental.

[hoops]

this is a point i have considered for many years, and i thought about cremation and burial and burial at sea. i don't know of any other methods of disposal that are legal in the US. I thought of not having a funeral or any sort of memorial and even mentioned such a thing to someone I love, they almost flipped out. " the funeral is not for you , you "bleep" it is for us who love you and are still alive! so i gave in to the small service idea. But in this country unless it is for religious reasons a personmust be embalmed before they are disposed of, even in a burial at sea. I don;t want all those chemicals interfereing with my rotting process so i just may becaome Jewish before i die. I say that jokingly (mostly) but i just haven't found a cheap way to dispose of myself...any ideas???
peace
hoops

[gisli]

In my communiy I work in our church and one of my work is to take care of the funural, help people choose the place for the grave and so forth. It is an old cemetery and sometimes we by accident dig into another grave taken like for 200 years and seeing the bones have made me wonder how I want to be put to rest.

At first I wanted to be put in a hole in the ground, then I also thought that I want to be cremated. I found that either way would not bother me.

My thought today is that it is up to my family to do what they want to do, it is for them to say the goodbye, after all life is for the ones that are living and death is for the dead.

Today I find that being put into the ground without a coffin or any other material most appeling, I can not see anything wrong by just being put down into the hole in the ground the way I came into this earth, maybe not naked, but wraped in some kind of cloth.

[mixtymotions]

My in-laws both donated their Earthly remains to a medical school in Texas. I believe it may be more difficult today to donate one's body to science, but perhaps worth investigating. I'm not sure U.S. laws allow for bodies to be buried without a coffin, or even in a cardboard coffin...again, worth investigating. This is an interesting alternative for those of you with aquatic interests...

http://www.eternalreefs.com/

[snakegrl]

I want to give my borrowed body back to where it came from. No chemicals, no coffin. Unfortunately in my red-neck state, each little red-neck town has provisions that may ban green funerals. This is the bible belt afterall. Then, one has to have a friend who won't get creeped out by the thought of having your decomposing shell on their property.
I think the Tibetans have a great idea about the sky funeral.
When you die, your body is taken to a high platform,chopped up and fed to the vultures. Recyling at it ultimate. Modern funerals are a racket. And they only serve the living in a limited way it seems. Death is such a taboo subject here. Everyone's terrified of it and as a result fail to deal with it in a healthy way. Iv'e only been to one funeral that would have pleased the deceased.
Everyone just stood up and took turns talking about what the man taught them, funny stories, how he touched their lives.
Then, his music students sung a few of his original compositions.
Later, people danced to the Greek folk dances he taught and loved.
The whole time felt good and right and of the same mind, even though not everyone knew each other. But, we all knew Frank. And so, we understood one another in some way.
That was a proper good-bye for me.

[Rkitko]

I, too, think I'm going to opt for a green burial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_burial

There aren't that many green burial sites in the US, though. Here's hoping by the time I die, there will be more.

I also used to say that I wanted to be cremated. But now I think I'd much rather go with the green burial. I've done enough to this poor earth in life by driving my car and using nasty chemicals like endocrine disrupters. In death I want as little impact as possible to try and say "I'm sorry."

And these decisions certainly don't stem from any religious leanings I have. I'm decidedly agnostic, but a true green environmentalist. My body is just a body. As for the hereafter, I haven't got a clue. As Harry Chapin once said, "We're not sure about a prior life or an afterlife--we're all hoping for that. But what we can do is maximize what we have in the brief flicker of time in the infinity and try to milk that. And be hungry in a different kind of way--hungry for experience and hungry for meaning and you can be terribly, terribly effective if you want to be."

[mixtymotions]

Thanks for that, Rkito. There are "proposed" sites here in Denver and in Santa Fe, so my old bones wouldn't have far to travel. I like the idea of antelope grazing atop my remains.

[soulMerlin]

...I found them very thoughtful

interestingly there was an article by Harriet Harman (new labour politician) In response to concerns in Great Britian, as to the space used by and to the increasing need for burial plots. She very carefully referred to vertical burial (feet first hopefully!):eek: and also, after say, 100yrs the bones of the deceased would then be cremated and the urn would placed in the burial plot, below the remains of the next inhabitant.

However, I don't think it's any use to go to the trouble of an ecological burial, if all that will be gained will be fertile churchards.

I do think the Tibetan idea of chopping up the body, so that the birds can feed on it, as being of more use. I don't think I could cope with it however, until I could handle a freshly severed human hand, with the objectivity of a surgeon.

I guess it all boils down to spirituality; to a sense of the 'holiness of the body'

I do not think that the earthly body, fully separates from the soul, during the short time we know it before internment or cremation. I think that this is partly, why the bereved feel the presence of the loved on who has passed away. The Tibetan book of the Dead is well worth reading for the experience of a culture that embraces death in the same way as it embraces Life.

I think our experience of the dead embraces the 'blurring' or the 'hazy' area, when the soul and the body are still in relationship with each other.

henry

[pulmike]

Ceremony and ritual are an important part of humanity. They ease the fearful burden of mortality for those that remain. Ceremony should not be denied to those who need to put that fear aside once more and carry on.

pulmike