Sage endorsement?
By Jonathan Taylor From ‘Why We Die’, by Dr Richard Steinpach. Arthur Koestler (Der Mensch: Irrlaufer der Evolution) says: “ ‘Self-assertion versus Integration… exists in biology, psychology, ecology, and wherever we encounter complex hierarchical systems, thus practically everywhere we look. In the living animal or the living plant each part must assert its individuality just as in […]
RT @GoodFunerals
Gladd bag suicide kit By Charles Cowling They done her in. So claims the director of the new Diana movie – http://ind.pn/ifoEFe All the Goth death stuff you could probably ever want – http://bit.ly/9Xp6YI Will the Tories flunk doing the right thing to fix the growing old age care crisis? It […]
They’re on Targets!
By Andrew Hickson, independent funeral director in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, first published on his blog http://stneotsfuneraldirector.blogspot.com on 22nd June. I sat with a client earlier this week, arranging his wife’s funeral. We built up a rapport during our short time together, and as part of making the arrangements I gave the gentleman an estimate of the funeral expenses, […]
Need to know, ought to know?
By Woody So many questions! When is it appropriate for people who work with the bereaved, be they funeral directors, celebrants, (long list of others) to give advice which they suspect might prove helpful even when they are not directly asked for it? How can you be sure that your gut instinct is right? To what extent […]
Can you help?
By Caroline Iandoli Living funerals are gathering in popularity as more people are approaching death with a more positive frame of mind, taking the opportunity to celebrate with the people they love and have been important in their lives. It also means friends and relatives who might not be able to attend the funeral […]
Thanatos meets Eros on an electric flower car
Hiring young women to strip at a funeral ceremony might strike some as scandalous, but for many in Taiwan it is an important part of the grieving process. The practice sees scantily clad women on “electric flower cars,” diesel trucks refashioned with a stage and special lighting), erotically gyrating to pop songs as a means […]
“It’s the people who aren’t comfortable with their life that can’t talk about their death.”
I had an email this morning from Chuck Lakin. The name rang a faint and distant bell. I unleashed Google, who soon ran him to ground. Chuck makes coffins. Beautiful, simple coffins. Here’s a story about one of them: Last September, Barbara Baker learned that breast cancer had spread to her bones and she […]
Up, up and away…
“You have landed on the latest, most innovative, honorable, and dignified way to “release” and scatter ashes, reverently up and away into the air, like a cloud forever and ever. An ash scattering event that is unforgettable, heartwarming and memorable. Several years of design and engineering were invested to create an automated cremation urn, The […]
The Home Death Movement
I’ve been reading an interesting research report published last month in Australia. Its title: Bringing our Dying Home: Creating community at the end of life. It examines how networks of unpaid carers can supplement the services of professional carers and enable dying people to die at home. It shows that the lot of unpaid […]
Dissolution
Bill Jordan is on a quest to have (when the time comes) his corpse laid out on the surface where it will be able to give most back to the ecosystem. He wants “to know I’ll be going back into the air, the soil, the rain, the mist, the snow–back to the ecstasy I […]
