Shovel-and-shoulder work
The words that follow are by Thomas Lynch, a hero to so many of us in the UK. (In the US there are those who reckon him paternalistic, but we don’t need to go into that. It’s complicated.) Funerals are about the living and the dead — the talk and the traffic between them … […]
Really getting real
When Americans decide to do things differently, it seems to me, they make a clean break. Brits, on the other hand, carry over a lot of familiar stuff from the past. I mean, how often does a natural burial ground witness a scene like this? And which has the courage of its environmental convictions and […]
Not so first as he thinks
From Australia’s Herald Sun: A CANCER victim yesterday became the first person to be buried upright at Australia’s only vertical cemetery. Allan Heywood lost his battle with cancer last Tuesday and was buried in the unusual, space-saving grave in the new vertical cemetery outside Camperdown in western Victoria. “It’s nice to be first at something. […]
Parish notices
First, an event, Dying to Live. It is organised by Archa Robinson at Living and Dying Consciously and is billed as: Suitable for anyone facing death in the next 90 yrs… a reflective, meditative, poignant, life changing and fun weekend ! Here’s more: We live in a society conditioned to deny death. It’s a taboo subject […]
They think it’s all over…
It’s interesting to note that two of the most important drivers for change in modern funerals have come, not from pro-active consumers or wild-eyed visionaries, but from urgent if mundane economic and environmental needs. They are, famously, natural burial and’ less famously, the held-over cremation. Ken West, for all that he is a visionary, made […]
Is it curtains for cardboard?
There are lies, damned lies and carbon footprint stats. Their most impressive feature is that they are so often counter-intuitive. Here’s an example: Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand…recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption… [T]hey found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked […]
A Good Send Off
A Good Send Off was the title of this year’s Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) annual conference. Well, part of the title – the snappy part. In full it read: A Good Send Off: Local, Regional & National Variations in how the British Dispose of their Dead. It took place last Saturday in Bath. […]
Greening grief
The GFG motored purposefully south yesterday afternoon to Chiltern Woodland Burial Park. It was a three-birds-with-one-stone mission: to have a look at this well-heeled natural burial ground; to hear the great Dr Bill Webster talk about grief; and to meet up with Louise from Sentiment and Jon from MuchLoved, two of Funeralworld’s Good Guys. I […]
Sense and sustainability – 2
I am incredibly grateful to Cynthia Beal for this long and deeply considered response to this post. I wish I felt I were worth it, Cynthia! But I know that all readers of this blog will find in your words a great deal of food for thought. Dear Charles, Thanks so much for another provocative […]
Sense and sustainability
Cynthia Beal heads up the Natural Burial Company in the United States. She’s a friend of many in this country. This blog is her most ardent admirer. Before becoming a green burialist Cynthia spent a good many years in organic foods. That experience has proved invaluable to her and to many others looking for greener, […]
