A cycle of denial and fear
We’ve extracted this from a Q and A with mortician Caitin Doughty in the Los Angeles Times. Some brilliantly expressed insights here, we’re sure you’ll agree. Do people see death differently in other parts of the world? How — and how does that change the way they respond to death? Some cultures are terrified of […]
There were six of us in the house. Seconds ago there had been seven.
Fran and her Mum on her 70th Fran Hall, a funeral industry practitioner of many years’ standing, much admired by the GFG, now works as a consultant. She is also the newly-appointed Chair of the Natural Death Centre. For years Fran successfully managed to balance detatchment and empathy in her professional life, so how did it feel when […]
Being dead gets you thinking
Hellraiser Charlie Sheen, no stranger to drug, alcohol and domestic abuse, claims to have turned his life around under the influence of having played lead corpse in two fictional funerals in 2011. He says, “It was a little bizarre to watch your own funeral and it certainly gets you thinking.” Could become a useful therapeutic […]
Quote of the day
“Last week, I attended the funeral of one of my uncles. His irresponsible lifestyle, which included eating meat, smoking, drinking alcohol and ignoring sell by dates, resulted in his life being cut short at the age of 94.” Source
Atheism and the fear of death
Posted by Vale It’s natural to fear death and you might think that, just as naturally, religion would help you face and overcome your fears. But it ain’t necessarily so. In a recent book, Society Without God, Anne, a 43 year old Hospice nurse from Aarhus in Denmark is interviewed. The author, Robert Zuckerman records […]
A tale of two funerals
Over in Pyongyang mourners wail for the loss of the great leader Kim Jong Il. As Andrew McLaughlin puts it: This is really otherworldly. And terrifying. It’s depressing to be reminded that it’s possible, with energetic and relentless propaganda, surveillance, and oppression, to delude vast numbers of human beings into genuine feelings of attachment to, […]
Regrets of the dying
Over on Inspiration and Chai Bronnie Ware describes how, working in palliative care, she would often find herself listening to people’s regrets – all the things they wished they had done in their lives. Some common themes emerged. This is her top five: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true […]
Plumbline and square – the Masonic funeral
Some Masons call their funeral ceremony an Orientation, but these days the service itself can be like a secular ceremony – apart, of course, from the Masonic ‘paraphernalia’. Masons are a great deal more open about their ceremonies than they used to be, but much of what they do still seems esoteric and mysterious. Borderzine […]
Death Cafe
Do you follow Death Cafe? If you don’t, you really ought to pop across and check it out; it’s brilliant. It doesn’t have have an agenda or a campaigning platform; it doesn’t address itself to a particular constituency or type or sect. It believes, I hope I’m right in surmising, that death should be part of general discourse. So […]
You have 30 seconds – impress me
You’re the first internet based funeral service. You want to make sure people know you are different and you have 30 seconds of TV time to get your message across. How would you do it? Yesterday we presented the advertisement that Basic Funerals in Canada created. You can see it here. We thought it was […]
