Living funerals – The Good Funeral Guide

Publishing event of the year!

25 January 2012

Charles

3 Comments

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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, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.

It’s out in May 2012!

Live burial – can you help?

21 July 2011

Charles

No comments

Categories: Art and death, burial, Living funerals

Posted by Charles

Once in a while we get a really interesting email here at the sweatshop we call GFG Central. The toiling minions are, as I write, clustering round the screen of the recipient. I’ll have to whip them back to their desks in a moment.

The point is, it’s not for them. It’s for you. Can you help?

I have been asked to coordinate a live burial ritual on Sat 24th September, and the venue we were going to use has fallen through. So I’m looking for a London location where we can carry this out.

Ideally we’d like to stage this in a house with a garden. It needs to be somewhere where it’s OK for about 30 people to be in the house all night, partying some. (I don’t think it’ll be wild, but 30 people do make some noise.) We have a small budget to pay for the right venue.

The ritual itself involves digging a shallow grave, putting the person in it, burying her (only shallow though, for safety reasons) and then tending her while her friends mourn her for the night. The wake will have the flavour of a party.

In the morning she will be ‘resurrected’ and carried through to a bath, where she will be lovingly washed and cleansed.

I’m wondering if you might know someone who would be able / willing to host this at their place?

If you can, send us an email and we’ll pass it on to the event organiser: charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk

For those of you with long memories, this is not the first time that the minions have been excited by this sort of proposal. remember this?

https://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/2010/10/going-down/

It was a full week before I had any decent work from them.

Can you help?

30 June 2011

Charles

3 Comments

Categories: Good death, Living funerals

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 at short notice can say goodbye. This kind of celebration often has a positive effect for those coming to terms with illness and loss.

We aim to reflect this shift in attitudes by making a documentary celebrating life through the lens of the deceased apparent. The film will confront the traditional way of dealing with death, and demonstrate that planning for the end of your life doesn’t have to be morbid. It can be – and for many people is – positive and uplifting.

We are looking for people who are thinking of planning a life celebration to contribute to the film. For more information please contact Paisley Randell: 07554009286 or email us at forgetmenotfilms@mail.com