Afterburner
After washing his eyes reddened by a heavy dose of marijuana, Sadhu Premdas steps into the Bagmati river, looking for some half-burnt logs of wood to light a fire at his place. Belonging to the Aghori sect of sages, Premdas does not accept fresh firewood distributed by the Pashupati authority: he loves a fire made […]
Let’s make the case for funerals
Guest post by Rupert Callender, owner of The Green Funeral Company. Often this blog can trot nicely along with the usual suspects commenting dryly from the sidelines, a good natured conversation amongst friends. It’s easy to forget it has a wide, international readership, easy that is, until a seemingly innocuous post unleashes a Bay of […]
Ashroom
A fancy gaff? No, a tomb. The tomb of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, aka The Lion of the Punjab. His ashes repose in the middle, on the spot where he was cremated, in a marble urn shaped like a lotus. There are eleven other urns, those of his four wives and seven other women who threw themselves […]
Purifying flame
In Lucknow, India, Rajan Yadav is standing for Assembly elections on a manifesto of rooting out corruption. He wants to consign corruption to the funeral pyre, he says, and he is underlining this by conducting his campaign from a cremation ground. To make the symbolism complete, he has nicknamed himself Arthi Baba, the name given to […]
Publishing event of the year!
The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, […]
Open-air cremation
Buddhist monks and devotees stand around a pyre during a high priest’s cremation ceremony at the Heain-sa temple in Hapcheon, South Korea, on Jan. 6, 2012. The ceremony, called Dabisik, was held for Ji-Kwan, a former head of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. The Dabisik ceremony signifies the return of the human body to nature. The […]
Where do you stand on funeral pyres?
The Natural Death Centre, veteran pioneer of the better, greener funerals movement, passionately and vocally campaigns for open-air cremation on sustainably sourced wood pyres. If you want to find out why, be patient, I’ll give you the link in a minute. Where do you stand on funeral pyres? Do you embrace them or would you […]
Bhupen Hazarika: A funeral larger than Diana’s
Did you know that earlier today, in the Indian state of Assam, a funeral was held that was expected to be the one of the largest the world has seen in recent years? Yesterday the Times of Assam reported that: Unofficial sources have claimed that the number has already crossed the number of attendees who […]
Crestone End-of-Life Project
Crestone Colorado is a bit like Totnes on steroids. It is home to all manner of nice folk and all sorts of religious communities. Alternative. (To capitalism on steroids). Crestone is home to one of only two legal open-air cremation sites in the US. That’s two better than the UK, where open-air cremation was declared […]
Smoothie
I enjoyed this blog post from an American woman living in Paraguay. Her husband is some sort of religious minister. Here’s the custom out there: In the jungle, among the Ye’kwana tribe, burials also had to be done quickly. If the family was christian, the dying person would be allowed to remain in his hammock […]
