Bloggus interruptus

Everyone's got a book in them. Best place for it. Throw away the key, I say, you'll embalm the illusion that way.

Illusion? Almost certainly. You think you've got something precious and important to impart? You think there's a lot of tosh coming off the presses, surely someone'll print mine?

Try getting it published.

First you've got to let it out by writing it down. My favourite poet, archy, describes writing as 'frightfully difficult literary labour' and his diction sums it up perfectly if understatedly.

Then you've got to find an agent. Agents live on authors, but the way they tell it you'd think they're trying to wean themselves off them. You send them your stuff. You wait. And wait. Then: "We like it - but not quite enough."

Sisyphus knew something of what this feels like. But he had the better deal, rolling that boulder.

I've got to hand it here to Graham Maw Christie. They took me in and they've looked after me wonderfully.

There's a rule of thumb which has it that finding an agent is harder than getting published. Don't put faith in that, especially in the middle of a recession. Especially if you're writing about death. At no stage should you ever get your hopes up.

In the case of the Good Funeral Guide it took a while to find a berth. Eventually Continuum recognised a gift horse when they saw it. I whoooped, then reflexively unwhooped. I won't whoop, I said, till I've signed the contract.

Last weekend I did that (see pic above). Still I didn't whoop. I've got to send them the completed text by 1 September. It's got to be the best I can make it. Bye-bye summer.

And, of course, if that best isn't good enough, they'll send it back turned down.

When do I get my whoop-opp? I can't see it.

Will this make me rich?

I can give you the figures if you ask. The long answer is no, very not rich. The short answer is skint.

The loneliness. The self-doubt. The terror of falling short. I don't want congratulations, I need pity and I know I'm not going to get it.

Got a book in you?

How stubborn are you?

Friends, this blog will, for the next two months, go on the blink somewhat. In the meantime, if you're the sort who takes lessons from those who don't do as they say, learn to love the day job.

Transitus, gloria mundi

The Transitus festival held just over a week ago was a success. Lots of people came to find out about death on a sunny day when they could have been off picnicking. Considering the financial risk the organisers seem to have exposed themselves to, success must feel especially sweet.

Because Transitus explores ideas and experiences around the continuation of consciousness after death, it also exposes itself to being wryly written off as a congregation of new-age tree-hugging moon-bayers. This is the reductionist tendency of educated people schooled in the exercise of the critical faculty. The clever person is the person who can point out why something’s no good. We have education system which teaches children to backseat drive Shakespeare, that’s why.

There were workshops exploring ideas of the afterlife; analogies between birth and death; psychic painting; soul midwifery; woodland burial; funeral rituals; sacred music. There was a performance of Laura Wade’s play Colder Than Here. There were displays of coffins and sounding bowls. There was more going on than you could possibly get to, which is why we are all going to come back next year.

There was a brilliant talk by Peter Fenwick on end of life experiences. It was a coup to get him to deliver the keynote speech because he is a man of science who has made a scientific study of what dying feels like emotionally and spiritually. The only way to poo-poo him is to adduce data. If you haven’t read The Art of Dying yet, buy a copy now.

Transitus is a big tent. It was Peter Fenwick who, in the minds of the sceptical, was possibly most influential in tethering it to reality and relevance.

You don’t have to feel comfortable with everything Transitus explores to feel at home in its big tent. Here’s its manifesto:

The Transitus Network comprises a growing group of people working in a way that honours all aspects of life - mind, body, spirit and emotions - that are involved with the sacred process of dying. Our aims are: to release fears and taboos; support those dying and bereaved; raise awareness of 'green' and family-based approaches to death; and to encourage the acceptance of the concept of continuity of consciousness. The Network also supports its members so that none of us feels alone. Members include those working with: midwifing the soul; music thanatology; alternative funerals and celebrations; natural burials; grief counselling; life after death; related workshops; and more.

There are lots of what you could broadly call funeral reformers out there, most of whose aims overlap. There are organisations like the Natural Death Centre and green fuse. There are individuals like Tony Piper. There is the celebrancy movement. There are ecologists. Why on earth don’t they all get together on the same platform?

It all depends on what you reckon to be the value of a consensus, and the price of compromise necessary to achieve that. I like the ferment that’s presently going on because it is so squabble-free. Collaboration is all, governed by mutual respect.

Cacophony, that’s what Cynthia Beal calls it. Collegial cacophony. There’s a creative dynamic in that.

To join Transitus write to Judith Pidgeon, Ivy Cottage, Bath Road, Sturminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1DU. Her email address is transitus@btinternet.com. They’ll be very pleased to have you on board.


Here's some feedback on the festival, transcribed by the indefatigable Susan Morris of the Natural Death Centre:

“Absolutely marvellous workshops – they really connected with what I am doing and trying to achieve. I have met a lot of people."

“Fascinating. People talked about something not normally talked about. I feel less afraid to discuss death now."

“It covered so much. I shall now join Transitus. It’s all complex and all encompassing. “

“ I have met people today that I didn’t think it would be possible to so . I have made connections today that will last. I feel inspired. Thank you for a great day.“

Old sage pensioners

Depictions of old age are rarely un-depressing in our late capitalist society. Once you've reached your economic menopause you pass into the hinterland of the pre-dead.

Or do you?

These guys stand that neat little theory triumphantly on its head. Here we have Fauja Singh, 98, Armuc SIngh, 79, Karnail Singh, 80 and Ajit Singh, 79, just about to compete in this year's Edinburgh marathon. Says Fajua: "Elderly people are a little like children. They like attention."

This delicious pic is from a series in the Guardian celebrating old age.

Best in show 3

I wonder what people who visit graves think their loved one looks like now—or whether they think about it at all. I was talking last week to Ken West, the man who gave us natural burial, and he opined that they think of them as uncorrupted.

People shut their eyes to decomposition, whether violent and accelerated in a cremator or slow and buggy underground. My big bone of contention with many green burialists is that they babble happily about bluebells and bluebirds but bury at six feet. They know perfectly well that people who opt for natural burial fondly suppose they will nourish the earth and push up daisies (or bluebells). They also know perfectly well that at six feet they will turn into methane and sludge. So they keep schtumm about it.

Thus is death prettified and an elemental event made into a sentimental event.

Perhaps the ultimate reality of death is not the extinction of life but the return of the
body to the earth. And perhaps the death cannot fully be comprehended until folk get their heads around the body's dissolution, both the stink of it and the buggy merriment.

It makes best sense to return a body to the earth naked. Yet we like to dress up beautifully for big occasions. Well, so long as a corpse is clad in beautiful biodegradables, can we not both nod at the vanity and justifiably refuse to apologise for it?

Which brings me to my third and last greatest hit of the National Funeral Exhibition, a product which is both beautiful and elemental: the leaf shroud created by Yuli Somme and Anne Belgrave at Bellacouche.

It’s not a winding sheet, it’s an alternative to a coffin. While a conventional shroud can seem stark because its wrappings reveal (starkly) the outline of the body, the leaf shroud, with its five layers of felted wool, softens and rounds it. The top layer, decorated with felted leaves, can be detached at the point of burial and kept.

It’s a marvellous piece of making. The body, wrapped in a wool cocoon, is fastened to a frame with gorsewood toggles.

The leaf shroud is archetypal in a Jungian sense. There’s a connection with pre-history and a timeless way of burying our dead. It strikes the same chord and exerts the same hold on the imagination as open-air cremation or a Viking funeral. Isn’t this what Beowulf might have been buried in?

Even if, to you, the leaf shroud is none of these things, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s undeniably lovely.

It happens

Beautifully written account of the death of an unloved one.

Read it here.