Blackened greens?
Is it just me or do you, too, feel that it seems like a long time ago since there was a consensus on climate change? I signed up to it because I met lots of people I liked and admired who had already subscribed and who read lots of books about it and quoted […]
Use this land for the dead!
Cremationists have always been proud to boast that what they do saves land for the living. It’s true. That more than 70 per cent of Brits opt for the burning fiery furnace saves around 200 acres a year. Having said which, and having visited a number of natural burial grounds, I find myself seeing natural […]
Perpetua’s Garden – a great Idea
The really interesting thing about logic is what it makes people do–where it takes them. It starts with a Question which begets an Idea which resolves itself into a Certainty, fortifies itself with Conviction, draws up a Strategy, then acts with Singlemindedness. This is a human thing, it’s not the way the world works, nor […]
Burial depth – my last word
For some time now I have been nagging natural burialists about the depth at which they inter their bodies. My concern has been that, beneath the topsoil, a body is not going to enjoy the ecologically positive rot envisaged for it. I have had this response from Emma Restall Orr at Sun Rising. I think […]
Recomposition
Interesting story on US National Public Radio (NPR) here. Do listen to Bernd Heinrich, gentle and wise, talking about what he perceives to be our duty to return to nature in the most appetising way we can. No coffin for him. Some of the things he says: “You know, being sealed up, totally removed from […]
Going Out Green
Rupert Callender made this observation of Dan Cruickshank’s The Art of Dying: I was surprised by how little thought Dan had apparently given the matter. I thought everyone mused endlessly about their own deaths. I don’t know that they do, Rupert. When, over in the US, Bob Butz was asked by his publisher to write […]
Natural burial – it’s against nature!
Natural burial ticks alot of eco-boxes—but how many emo-boxes? They’re good for butterflies and vetches and voles and honeysuckle—but are they any good for living people? They may satisfy the head, but can they ever satisfy the heart? Over in the US, Thomas Friese is developing his website, Perpetua’s Garden, as a place where people […]
Sky’s the limit?
Civilisation drives a wedge between us and nature. We prefer the artificial to the elemental, an iPhone to a sunset. When we hit a problem we look to technology to get us out of a hole. Cremation did that very well – till we discovered just what awfulness comes out of those chimneys. Now we […]
Green shoots
Is the Natural Death Centre a national treasure? Undoubtedly. What is it? It’s a charity which advocates a hands-on approach to preparing for death and arranging a funeral. It publishes The Natural Death Handbook, which is full of practical advice and personal stories. The philosophy of the NDC grew out of that of the natural […]
All shades of green in the green shade
Progressive movements in the world of funerals mostly march resolutely forwards into the past. The past is that place where they did things properly, the place we need to return to if we are to reclaim the care of our dead and the rituals of their passing; the place we must to return to if […]
