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A Place of Memory

7/8/2015

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When I trained at the cemetery to be a family service counselor, we were taught a variety of sales technique.  One of them was how to sell niches for cremation.  We were instructed to emphasize that having a place such as a niche was a better place to hold a memory than the mantle or scattering to the wind. Cremation is the final disposition of a body and you need not by law bury the cremains. Cremation affords a family a many different ways to create a place of memory. You can scatter on your own land, be placed in bullets, pressed into a favourite record album or made into a jewel, just to name a few.  Cremation attracts people who do not want a lot of falderal in their funeral planning. The industry, knowing this, would like very much to be part of your decision-making and sell you a niche or a place in the lawn for burial.

I treasure the time I spend visiting graves.  When I was in High School, I went to Chaucer’s grave in Westminster Abby.  I remember standing there filled with awe and admiration.  I carry that memory always.  Standing by a grave is a powerful feeling at times be it your grandparents or a great poet.  Far be it from me to tell folks not to have a place in a cemetery or burial ground for those they love.  The place of memory is not my issue.  I take issue with making people think that a place of memory belongs to the corporate death care industry.

We have options for making a place of memory.  Cremains can always be scattered or buried on your own property rural or otherwise without having to make a notation on the deed. You can dedicate a place on your own property for full body burial through following your state’s laws. Full body burial might be easier in a rural setting, but it can be done. Always make sure you know and follow the laws in your state.  In ancient times, Christian communities formed around burial societies.  Old churches still have burial ground attached for members of the church.  I do not see why we cannot have more church run cemeteries or cemeteries associated with other groups.  Why don’t environmental groups set aside places for their members who wish to have a green burial?  Why don’t urban groups create burial coops?  I know cemeteries are tough to run, but we have options if we only look. We have options if only we take to time to create them for those around us.  We never have options if we take the industry representatives at their word.  We need to know our rights.  Modest burial grounds need not be moneymakers.  The municipal cemetery down the street from where I live sells plots for $250 – a far cry from the $18000+ in corporate run cemeteries.   

Many of us do not want to end up in a corporate run cemetery.  We need to face the fact that none of us have yet gotten out of this life alive, and research and plan our own deaths.  The time to make decisions is not at the time of someone’s death where grief can make the process more difficult, but when we calmly and logically look at what we and our family wants for a funeral and burial plan.  If we want to have the kind of funeral and burial we want, we need to start now looking at local resources. We might have to create the place of memory for our body at the end of our time on earth.  I do not recommend ever purchasing a plot for burial long before the time that it will be needed.  Once you purchase a right of burial, the cemetery will not likely return your purchase once the time for cooling off has past.  I do recommend setting money aside for the purpose of your final acts and let your money work for you, and not the cemetery’s corporation. 

The true place of memory will always reside in our hearts.  How we live our lives matters the most and remains with those who love and know us. Sometimes if we are lucky, our lives will be remembered from generation to generation. Having a place to visit at a graveside is useful for many.  Any place that reminds us of someone who has died becomes a place of memory. We need not pay a corporation for a place of memory.

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Cremation Offers Flexibility for Families

2/18/2015

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The first death I experienced as a child was that of my Grandma. Grandma was cremated and my mother was granted permission to bury her as she wanted.   We had a public funeral where all of her favourite poems were read and all her friends and the whole family gathered.  All my cousins held up in one bedroom, shared stories and had a great time.  Later, my nuclear family buried her in a cremation cemetery attached to a church.  My father poured her remains into the ground and he had us each assist him in that task.  I will always remember that. Twenty years later, I was able to walk the path from the church and even though the cemetery was going through maintenance, was able to pick out Grandma’s spot even without her nametag.  Cremation allowed our family and others the flexibility we needed.   While cremation is not the greenest of the green burial options, many people choose this route for a variety of reasons.  In my other posts regarding cremation, Be a Tree and Is Cremation Green? I go into more depth about this topic and the environmental impact of cremation.  Today however, I want to talk about the flexibility of cremation for families.

 

Most states consider cremation final disposition. Indiana for example is troublesome.  It regulates who can receive cremains and requires the recording of final disposition of the cremains with the county.  Most states, however, allow the family to receive the cremains after cremation.  Some states even allow the family to transport the body to the crematorium.  Some do not. Since cremains are considered final disposition in most states, the family is decide how they wish to honor their loved one.   Let no one tell you must have an expensive urn.  Unless you are burying on cemetery land, you can choose what you wish. Cremation offers a wide variety that simple burial does not.  Cremains can be: scattered on private land, shot into space, placed in a niche, buried in a cemetery, made in to jewelry, pressed into a record, and scattered in water.  Be aware that cemeteries require a cremation vault so that if there were ever a need or desire to disinter, there would be no problem.

 

For some families, cremation is a choice that fits.  In today’s death care industry where the prices for a funeral director and cemetery keep ratcheting up, one does not wonder why cremation is chosen more and more often.  Conventional funerals and cemetery products each year increase.  Pre-paid options for both sustain the ever-growing corporations. Cremation should always be a choice for a family, but not a necessity.  When we can be free to make our own choices, then we are truly free. I still find it ironic that doing something to a body is more frugal than doing nothing or very little.  Those are the times we live in. 

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Making and Changing Your Death Plans

11/19/2014

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As the days grow darker, we might find ourselves thinking about endings and maybe about death. I think it is a natural result of the changing season as the earth in the North goes to sleep.  Some of us might find thoughts about death uncomfortable.  I can’t say that the thought of death brings me joy, but I know I must face death.  At some point our biological existence ceases and then someone who loves us must deal with the physicality of our death.  No one wants to think that those who love us most facing our physical absence and dealing with all the details that come with death.  This week, I went to check out my final wishes document I wrote almost three years ago.  My partner and I thought we needed to write our own wishes if we were going to ask others to write one.  She has a whole section dedicated to the music at her memorial.  She’s a musician, so that makes sense.  I had a whole section devoted to caterers.  I come from a long line of great hostesses who know how to throw a great party.  When I opened the plan this week, I knew I needed to update it.

I surprised myself because nearly three years ago, I firmly wanted a coffin, which I called a casket.  I would never call a coffin a casket these days, because I now know the use of the term casket is used by the funeral industry to get us to think that we are putting our beloveds in a special treasure box.  So, I looked at shrouds, and pasted websites of my favourites into the body of the plan.  You can find a nice list on the Midwest Green Burial Society page, Shrouds, Coffins and Home Funeral Guides. Because I live in Illinois, I had to include a funeral director in my plan, and changed that too.   I removed the caterers from my list, because if I die there is a restaurant next door to the church we attend. (Score!)  I still want a Jazz Quartet to play When the Saints Go Marching In after the burial rites are completed.  I had a professor at seminary that had this at his funeral and I love the idea.

While making a plan for my death is uncomfortable, I know my family and loved ones will benefit.  In the time of great grief, I found it difficult to recall what I had been told or in other cases, come up with an idea that made sense for a funeral.  Read the Midwest Green Burial Society’s Planning Form. Our form is a formless form that should allow you to make plans that fit your needs.  No two of us are alike, and that is why this form was created to meet most everyone’s needs.  Start thinking about what you want and I encourage you all to start writing your plans.  Take it slowly.  If you come from a family that shies away from the topic of death, find one person and start a conversation with him or her.  If you don’t feel comfortable talking to your family, find a friend.  If that does not work for you, talk to your clergy if you have one.  You must find at least one person you feel comfortable with to tell him or her what you want and where to find the plan.  I recommend telling more than one person.  What you will find once you complete this exercise is a peace of mind you never thought you would have and a clearer idea what is important to you.  I found that once I figured out what I wanted at the time of death, I could choose to live the life I wanted.  You can change your mind as you go along.  I did. Give yourself and your loved ones this gift.

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Why Green Burial

9/17/2014

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I have always loved nature.  I have fond memories spending long hours with the neighborhood children running and playing in the woods.  I have always felt a strong love of the woods.  The majesty of the trees and the delicate undergrowth has always made me feel at home and at peace.  As children, my sister and I were taught to respect nature in life and in death.  We were taught that we were stewards of the earth and if we did not use it properly we would lose it. We discussed cremation as the best way to return the body back to nature.  We did not realize at the time that cremation was not so green. I came to the notion of green burial very naturally.  What is green burial?  The simplest definition is - burial with a natural body, in an eco-friendly container (shroud or coffin) no vault.  This definition is simple, but does not give the depth to what green burial is about. 

First, green burial advocates for the use of resources in a proper way.  This means keeping the earth free from poisons of conventional embalming fluids, adhesives and other material used in conventional burial.  Green burial is also about keeping our natural resources for future generations by not putting them in the ground.  Let us look at burial vaults. Why do we need vaults and why do we need vaults lined in precious metals?  We don’t. The conventional industry tells us that vaults keep the ground level in cemeteries.  If buried properly in a shrouded or in an eco-friendly coffin and the ground mounded up, the grave should be just fine.  

Green burial also allows us to take up the traditions of the past, and move forward into the future in a gentle way.  We take up the simple, traditional, and loving process of our ancestors who bathed and dressed their loved ones at the time of death.  How much more simple it is to follow the greener and traditional path in burial than it is to follow the conventional means with their embalmed bodies, fancy caskets and vaults for us to keep our precious treasure in.  Our treasure lives in our hearts and in the stories we tell our children, not in the tombs of our loved ones. We need to be honest with ourselves, we are organic beings and at death we return back to the earth.

Finally, green burial is about preserving the land for generations to come.  In a conservation burial, the cemetery lies juxtaposed to a certified conservation land.  Other certified green burials are not situated in this way, but are no less dedicated to preserving the land.  They take the stand that in this place, we take care of our loved ones and preserve this land, natural and free for the generations to come.  It’s kind of like squatting rights.  As long as it is a cemetery, the land remains free from development.  In death, we can preserve the land one person and one patch of land at a time.  

Last week I stood under the canopy of an oak savanna and felt the timelessness of the sounds and wind around me.  Here, I thought I would love to remain until the end of time.  Here, I would love to be buried beneath these strong boughs and here, I would love to nurture this ancient and timeless place.  Alas, there are no such places yet in Illinois where people can be buried on conservation land.   With time and effort, we hope this will change.

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Ok, Sometimes Our Bodies are Disgusting: A Discussion on Ebola

8/20/2014

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One of my favourite posts this summer has been Your Body Is Not Disgusting. I based my statements on a Pan American Health Organization article, which stated that for the most part, our bodies after death no longer are able to spread disease and that the living are more of the culprit in spreading disease.  We have seen, however, in the last month the devastation the Ebola has left in West Africa.  Here the normal death rituals must be abandoned if the disease is to end.  Ebola is one of the rare diseases that can spread to others even after death.  Ebola spreads through direct contact with the body and bodily fluids, where pathogens live after the death of the person for some time.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that when a person with Ebola dies, the body must be cleaned with bleach, and placed in two body bags.  The body is then taken to a grave, and buried approximately six feet under.  No family accompanies the body, and often times the family has no idea where the body has been buried.  The vehicle is also cleaned with bleach.

Let us look at the funeral and burial practices of West Africa to see why this has caused such friction between the people and the medical world that serves them. West African burial rites are not too far removed from many of our own practices, or practices of our grandparents or great grandparents.  The body is cleaned and dressed.  People morn and dance.  At last the mourners gather for the final kiss before the burial, which takes place near the home so that the soul of the one who has died may not be lonely.  My own community has a final kiss.  We too mourn.   I remember dancing in my grandfather’s home following his funeral. Our cultural norms here stem from the wide variety of cultures that compose our own individual families.  We are free to pick and choose which rites speak to us and apply them to our rites of transition.  Death is one of those transitions.  West Africa may not have the flexibility in culture to choose different rites.  These rites are long lived in the fabric of that society.  We may not fully understand since we freely choose how we stage our weddings and funerals.

When people go into the hospital and do not come out; their body taken and buried somewhere the family does not know it gives rise to mistrust and avoidance of medical help.  Then fear helps spread the disease. I do not pretend to know how this can be fixed.  For those facing Ebola, they might not have a mechanism in their culture to easily changed or modify tradition to fix the crisis I hope better communication between the medical world and the people it serves will help create an atmosphere where people will seek help and when death comes, a new or modified form of mourning might take place.

There are a few others of these - bloodborne gastrointestinal respiratory- diseases that might spread disease following death. They require universal precautions and the washing of hands to keep the person handling the bodies from direct contact with bodily fluids.   For the most part, after some time has lapsed and the body has been washed, these bodies do not pose a threat. Others like Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease pose a risk for the funeral director who opens the body and drain the blood in the embalming procedure.  I recommend reading the Pan American Heath Organization’s article: Infectious disease risks from dead bodies following natural disasters.  I found it very interesting and provides a thorough explanation of death and disease.

In General, if you leave the body intact and do not embalm the body, the body once cleaned should not cause trouble unless you have Ebola.  Leaving our bodies intact is the best way to keep our environment healthy.  In test of ground water around cemeteries, the water shows evidence of decay, but it does not spread far and is due mostly to products used in the death care industry (coffins and embalming fluid).  Our bodies are not usually disgusting, but once in awhile there comes a disease like Ebola which throws that idea out the window, and we must take steps to make sure the bodies are taken care of in a particular manner. 

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Kings and Queens Under the Earth

7/23/2014

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Friends of mine visiting a cemetery in New Orleans in 1992
To begin our quest, we need to begin in the eighteenth and nineteenth century when people were looking to the past to create the future of their nations.  One need only take a walk through Washington DC to see what I am saying is true.  DC is filled with classical temples. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Napoleon conquered Egypt where he not only took treasure, but also had a group of men who mapped the Valley of the Kings and the discovered of the Temple of Luxor.  If any of you have been to Paris, you have seen the Obelisk, which originally stood at the entrance of the Temple of Luxor. These Napoleon experts published their finding and images made there way throughout the western world, and mark the first wave of Egyptian craze.  Other men would follow in their footsteps and archeology would be born.  The deep-seated desire to look back at our roots would cause nations to seek out their cultural roots.  Museums also were born from this desire.  People began to collect things from their cultural past and display them.  What began as small curios cabinets became treasure houses for nations.  We need only look to such museums as The Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.  I could go on to discuss the impact of this craze on the cultures that were giving up their treasure, but that is a subject for another time and the reason I do not work in museums.

In this soup of nationalism and love of Egypt, we began embalming our dead.  I am not surprised that in the US Civil war, we romanticized embalming as a way of emulating the great Egyptian Kings and Queens.  At first, embalming could only be done for the very rich.  (A regular soldier’s monthly pay was $13 and embalming for him would be $25, where an officer would have to pay $50 whose pay was about $100+ depending on rank.) Probably the image that most imprinted our national psyche was the death of the beloved Abraham Lincoln. His body was embalmed and traveled many miles on the railway making stops for people to pay their last respects to the fallen leader.  I believe our society began its journey idealizing embalming and vaults in this climate of love for things ancient and Egyptian, and our admiration of Lincoln.

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In 1922, Howard Carter and George Herbert found King Tutankhamen’s tomb.  The find of a nearly intact tomb sparked an even greater Egyptian Craze.  In the US, the construction of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Buildings, most dramatically demonstrate our love for all things Egyptian.  The Chrysler Burling with its stylized papyrus leaves and a year later the streamlined form of an Egyptian temple in the Empire State Building.  The Egyptian craze gives birth to art deco. 

The 1920s also marks the when most Americans began to be embalmed and funeral homes became the place of private homes were visitations took place.  We were becoming an urbanized society and no longer had front parlors to receive visitors wanting to pay their respects and offer condolences.  It’s so easy to see our society who was looking backward to move forward, who wanted to emulate kings and queens of the past and our own fallen leader.  Now, in the midst of the Egyptian craze, we wanted to be just like the King and Queens of old.

So here we are today, with acres of cemetery plots filled with kings and queens under the earth, in some cases above the earth like the Pharaohs of old. Do we really think we are ancient kings and queen and that our bodies should be preserved forever?  Then again, that is so American.  We stand against such class differences.  If it’s good enough for the king, it’s good enough for Aunt Suzie.  I understand that.  I am an American after all.  What I wonder about is do we want to continue our conventional funeral practices as normative?  Do we really want to keep the bodies of our loved ones preserved forever?  Look at the mummies of Egypt in the nineteenth century.  They were not treated well, especially if they really weren’t really a king or queen. Some were turned to medicine, made into paint, dug up and unwrapped for scientific study or entertainment. I am sure I do not want to end up in a museum.   I am also sure I do not want to end up as paint or medicine.  Why do we want to keep our loved ones bodies sealed up under the earth so that in several hundred years or so their tombs might be open again by people who may or may not share our same sensibilities?  For me, I want to return to the earth from which I came.  I have no desire to have my body treated in death in any extravagant manner. Please, place me in a shroud, and return me to the earth.  If my body helps preserve land, and especially a forest, that would be even better.  I do not want to be a queen sealed in a tomb under the earth.  Please treat my body in death as a simple human being that I am in life.  I am not a queen. I am just a woman trying to do her best in this world. 

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Speaking of Vaults....

7/16/2014

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I was trained and worked in a cemetery run by one of the largest death care corporations.  We had a brief training on vaults.  Much of our training was brief because the purpose of a family service councilor is to sell.  We were told that vaults maintain the integrity of the grave, help keep the ground level for the cemetery and lined vaults kept out the elements (or nature) from reaching the casket. We sold all kinds of vaults from the simple to the high-end precious metal lined vaults.  To be quite fair, we were never trained to push the high-end vaults.  Our training also made it clear that vaults were not a legal requirement, but a requirement of the cemetery.

Let us look at this video demonstrating how tough the vault is.

My first comment about this video is about their scientific process.  We have no idea how long this vault remained buried before it was dug up again.  We have no idea if heavy equipment rode over this spot. Finally, the casket is empty.  We have no idea about the state of an occupied coffin buried for an unspecified amount of time.  I realize that they are selling vaults not coffins, but to be sure coffins and vaults are used together.   When I was a family service counselor, I became close to the grounds workers at the cemetery.  One member of the team who had been a grave digger for many, many years, told me that whenever he has been present at a disinterment, the vaults have always been cracked or otherwise breached.  Sometimes the breach was dramatic, other times, not so much.  Once interred, there is very little way of knowing the quality of the structure of a vault.  Some vaults are sturdier than others.  I do not mean to imply that vaults are designed to break or that all vaults do not stand up to the pressure.  What I am saying is no one really knows how tough any vault can be until you dig it up after use. 

Here is another video:

This one plays at the heartstrings.  As you know, I am all in favour of personalization of death rituals.  I find it odd that personalized vault that will spend most of its time underground, and that the only people who will be seeing it again will be those who would dig up the grave.  We are told in this video that a lined vault secures the casket and contents from water and insects.  It makes me wonder what it is we think we are doing when we bury our loved ones.  Do we really want to keep their bodies preserved for generations in hopes that one day an archeologist will dig them back up again? I think perhaps vaults are a hold over from the anti-theft devices developed for higher end burials in the 18th and 19th centuries when corpses were sometime dug up for scientists to study anatomy.  It’s not a pretty thought, but there you have it.  It’s not a huge leap from protecting bodies from body snatcher to protecting bodies from anything and everything. 

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Body Snatching Device
There are solutions for vaults in graves.  I suggest that vaults are not a necessity at all, providing steps are taken to prevent sunken graves. In green burial the grave is filled mounded with dirt on the graven so that once the settling of the grave takes place, the grave is not sunken.  A shrouded body creates less concern for grave settling than those using a biodegradable coffin because there is much less matter be broken down. In green certified burials, care is given to maintain the ground.  Green Burial does not mean haphazard burials without forethought.  To the contrary, certified green burial grounds undergo extensive planning and go through a strict process for certification.  Thought is given to preserving and restoring the land and in that maintaining the integrity of graves and the land in general.

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Green Burial Grave
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A Family's Right to Choose

6/11/2014

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Nine of the United States (Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Nebraska, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York) requires each citizen to hire a funeral director at the time of death. To the casual observer, this might seem like a good idea.  After all they are the professionals.   What people often over look is the culture of the death care industry in this nation and how isolated it functions.   As a culture, we no longer talk about death.  We leave it to the last second, if at all, to talk with our family about what we want to have done for our funeral and burial.  Some of us think we will never die and those around us will not either.  Sometimes we walk around in almost a fog thinking that we will never have to deal with planning a funeral.  The truth is most of us will have to plan a funeral of someone we love at some point in our lives.  When that happens, and we have not prepared, we are likely to follow what the funeral director or family service counselor at the cemetery suggests and do what is conventional.   This is not necessarily the industry’s fault.  They have a client coming in that needs service and quickly and if they do not know what they want, it is easy to follow convention.  Before we go further, embalming is not a requirement by law for burial or viewing of the body.  These are purely the requirement of the funeral director.  The same is true for vaults in cemeteries.  Vaults are not required by law for burial, but are requirements of the cemetery.

From my shopping experiences with funeral directors, I noticed that even if a greener funeral is wanted, funeral directors steer the conversation to the conventional, embalming funeral. Open coffins in most funeral homes would not be allowed without embalming.  Many reasons are given for this, but the truth is the funeral industry has enshrined embalming as the safe and only funeral option for those who want to follow traditional rites that involve open coffins.  Embalming does not make a body safe or sanitized -diseases die with us.  Embalming will not preserve a body forever- by law embalming can only be guaranteed for five days.  A properly cared for natural body can be refrigerated for as many days as ten and longer and still have an open coffin. Without refrigeration, taking into consideration a variety of ways to keep the body cool, a body can be above ground for about three day.  For thousands of years, people have buried and had viewings without embalming.  There is no reason why we need to do this invasive and unnecessary procedure to the bodies of our loved ones.

In many states, death doulas assist families with their funeral preparation without embalming.  They use tried and true methods of maintaining the body after death.  They guide the family through the process assisting the family when needed and providing a smooth and simple way of dealing with the death of a loved one.  In states that force their citizenry to hire funeral directors, death doulas either do not exist, or are forced to work in with a funeral director.  In the end, either a family does not have access to this service or they have to pay twice for the service because the family will have to pay the funeral director the basic service fee.  The basic service fee is a protected fee and unregulated that individual clients have no right to negotiate for a lower price.  I have found this fee in Illinois to be as little as 995.00 or as high as 2495.00.  That seems steep to me for someone who needs someone to fill out paper or for who wants to have a simple burial with little extras. 

In these states, we are forced to hire a private entity and to give money to an industry, which we might not want, or need.  It forces those of low income to raise money, to bury their loved ones or go into debt to pay off the end of life bills.  One funeral home website states that the reason that funerals cost so much is that they are like weddings. However, if a couple wants to be married and they do not want all the fuss of a big event, they need only take themselves down to the courthouse and get married.  They fill out the papers and take the vows with a judge. If we want to care for our own dead, the option of filling out our own forms and caring for our loved ones ourselves is not open to us who live in a state where we must hire a funeral director at the time of death.  If we live in one of these nine states, we are forced to pay, and pay dearly for a service we want or need without the benefit of hiring who we want and having a simple funeral. This goes against  free market and free enterprise where the laws of competition and demand have no bearing.  The industry can set up its own regulations that do not correspond to the law.  If the law states that embalming is not required for a funeral and burial, how can someone in that state get a simple funeral if no funeral director will provide that service?  We are forced into an industry which does not give us what we want - a simple farewell

The average funeral in the US is 10,000.00 this is before cemetery costs where you need to purchase the right to be buried in a plot, an open and close of a grave and in most cases a vault.   These laws which saddles its citizenry in such a way means they have lost touch with those of meager means in their state.   Cook County’s morgue a few years back was backlogged with bodies left unclaimed.  I do not wonder why.  Our position is a human rights and social justice issue.  How can we treat those of lesser means as lesser human because they cannot pay the high price of the death care industry? It’s an issue of common decency.  It is in no way just to force a family into a financial crisis or leave their loved ones behind and unclaimed.  That just is not right.

I know there are good and decent funeral directors who care for the families and want to provide good service to those in need.  I know there are those who work freelance because they want to help families, but do not like the culture of the industry.  I know there are people who work in cemeteries who want the family to have what they want for their loved ones at death.  In the end, even for those who have a great heart and are working to provide the best service they can, no one should be forced to take their services.  I do not wonder why cremation is on the rise.  In cremation, the family is offered a wide variety of possibilities that are not costly and give the family flexibility to have memorial and burial services where the industry is kept out almost entirely. We should be able to fill in the proper forms and hire who we want to help our families at the most tender times in our lives, instead of dealing with an industry that may not have our values for a simple funeral and burial at heart.

We allow home births, but we do not allow for home funerals. We have trained midwives and doulas to assist the new mother as she enters into the new life with her child.  We also allow women the option to have their babies in a hospital.  We need to begin to look at home funerals in this manner.  A death in the family is a life changing event where life as we knew it is over, and the new one, one we live without our loved one begin.  Families who wish to choose a simple funeral, where people gather to share stories and be together, where death doulas help walk them through the process without the death care industry telling them what they do and do not need, should be able to choose what is best for themselves.  We should have the right to choose how we want to gather and celebrate and remember the lives of our loved ones as we see fit. The state should keep their laws off the bodies of our loved one.  This is not about clandestine graves or not registering deaths properly.  It’s not about breaking the laws or thwarting important documentation laws.  It’s about our right to choose.  It’s about the rights of families to choose what is best for their family.  It’s about being true to traditions and true to your heart.  Call your state representative or senator and tell them you do not want this law in your state.  Contact us if you need more information on this topic.   

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Five Simple Green Burial Hacks

6/4/2014

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Many of us in the Midwest live in areas without access to certified burial grounds, conventional cemeteries that offer a green option, or in states that require the hiring of a funeral director at the point of death.  Because of the situation we face, many of us have to make choices that are not perfect choices. Here are five simple hacks to make a funeral and burial greener.  At the end of the day, we all can only do our best.


Don’t Be Embalmed   That is easier said than done if you live in Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, or New York.  Many funeral homes require embalming for public viewings, or wakes, or any kind of an open coffin. If you live in one of these states there might be a Death Doula close to you that will be able to direct you to a good funeral director.  If you do not live near a home funeral guide, I recommend you shop around at local funeral homes. If you live in the Chicagoland area, contact us and we can provide you with contacts. 

Some of us come from traditions that necessitate an open coffin for our religious rites.  Some of us come from cultural traditions where viewing the body is central to the grieving process.  Most funeral homes offer direct burial, but you should not have to settle for direct burial if it goes against your heart.   Any funeral director should be able to offer refrigeration. An open coffin with a natural body will not spread disease, most diseases die with the body. You still need to take proper care of the body after death, but this is not a difficult process. The point is, plan ahead of time.  Stand by what you know is right and what you know fits with what you need through the grieving process.  Feel free to contact Midwest Green Burial Society if you need any assistance with this.

Invert the Vault.  Many of us live in states where there are no certified green burial grounds.  You might find yourself wanting a green burial, but have no place to bury in a green site.  If you cannot find a cemetery that does not require a vault, or if you are pressed for time and are deep in grief, remember to ask that the vault be inverted.  The coffin or shroud will be in contact with the earth, and might be the most natural way you can bury your loved ones.  Many cemeteries will comply if you tell them that your loved one will not be embalmed and you want to make greener choices.

Low Impact Coffin or Shroud.  Shrouds least impact the environment at the time of burial.  You may need a board for extra support to help lower the body, but it is by far the simplest way to be buried.  There are a few on-line to choose from, but remember you can make a shroud from a qulit or blanket.  MGBS has a resource page with some low impact coffins and shrouds.  While we love the wicker and wool coffins, we look to the amount of jet fuel to takes to get here from Europe, and we feel strongly about shopping locally.

On-line Memorial. Remember not everyone can come to a memorial event or they live far away, making travel difficult, costly and use too much fossil fuel.  Create an online page for people to express their grief, and a way to share favourite stories.  We live far away from each other physically, but we can come together online to be a support to each other.

Use Locally Source Flowers.  Instead of using florists, who often use environmentally unfriendly practices get your flowers locally, even a home garden.  For an even greener choice, contact your local conservation district office and ask which indigenous flowers or decorative branches you could use.  In the winter, evergreens would be a beautiful choice. For a memory gift, consider making seed packets using seeds from Seed Savers Exchange or other local seed saving groups.   We use Seed Savers Exchange seeds for our seed pack/business card.  Use of these kinds of seeds promotes biodiversity.

Remember, whatever choices we made in the past were made because we thought we were being responsible. I suggest we do not beat ourselves up about the past and start today educating ourselves so that we can make better choices in the future. 

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In Lieu of Flowers........Social Justice?

5/28/2014

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Juliann Salinas is our guest author this week.  Juliann is a Co-founder of the Midwest Green Burial Society and social justice advocate, holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MBA from Ashford University with a specialization in Environmental Management.  Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Paraguay 1994-1996)

A few weeks back I was sent another link for a time-sensitive fundraiser.  A former coworker’s son had died at 16 in a tragic swimming accident, and donations were being sought to help cover the burial and funerary expenses.  It was a sad reminder of the practical realities of death.

With the average cost of funeral services and internment at about $10,000, few families are able to absorb the expense of modern death, particularly sudden death, which has given rise to crowdfunding requests.  Some sites, including Graceful Goodbye and Funeral Fund, have been created specifically to cater to death care expenses.

I am an advocate of, and oft-contributor to, crowdfunding requests.  I feel that it is a medium that provides the average Jane or Joe the opportunity to invest in projects that express their passions and interests in a way that most middle-class investment opportunities rarely can. Getting in on the ground floor of a new restaurant, supporting a local art gallery exhibit or rock band recording, or helping launch a great small business idea used to be the realm of the rarified-air-breathing “qualified investors,” those with a cool million or so of “risk-able” money. For the rest of us who find it difficult to figure out if our 401k is sunk in to big oil or Monsanto, crowdfunding provides a straightforward exchange and often has the advantage of instant and long-term gratification – although, rarely, huge financial gains. Crowdfunding “returns on investment” are, usually, mostly intangible -such as gratitude and the not-entirely-vicarious thrill of seeing one’s supported project succeed.

Another, often unmentioned, aspect of crowdfunding is its ability to bring attention to causes, issues and concerns that are not being addressed by the status quo.  Whether its investing in the exploration of solar roadways, or helping out uninsured folks upon whom tragedy has fallen, crowdfunding “asks” can highlight the cracks in the system and attempts to weave a social safety net and support structures where the free enterprise system and government fail.

Which brings me to a fundamental question – should burials be considered a basic human right and, if so, how should they be financed? Clearly an honorable burial is valued by the military for veterans, for whom they are provided at no cost, but what about every other world citizen? With our identification technology and digital cataloguing/GPS capacity there is no excuse for a nameless “paupers grave” to be the sole option for those without funds, or desire, to support the conventional, environmentally-damaging funeral practices. Why doesn’t our society have a simple, yet dignified, no cost option for all?

I propose that such an opportunity could be created through targeted investments, for vetted non-profit land conservation groups, that are specifically earmarked for the development of natural and/or conservation burial grounds. Hundreds, if not thousands, of green jobs could be created, including local urban wood/reclaimed wood coffin makers, shroud manufacturers, “death midwives” or re-trained green funeral directors, site planners, land managers, and documentarians.

Death care is a $20.7B industry.  If even a tenth of that funding was made accessible to support the preservation of open space while providing a no cost burial option to all, hundreds of thousands of acres could be saved or restored, and tens of thousands of families could avoid sinking further into debt in the name of “honoring” their loved ones - instead focusing on their natural grieving process and life celebrations. That’s an investment I’d be willing to make.  Time to Indiegogo?


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    Caroline Vuyadinov


    I graduated from St. Vladamir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York with a Master of Divinity.  I trained as a chaplain following graduation and worked with a wide variety of people. 

    When I moved to Canada, I began work in a women's halfway house in Hamilton, Ontario which worked with women in conflict with the law on a federal level.  I became the program manager and  loved working alongside the women, creating their plans for their reintegration back to the community.  I also worked as a liaison with the parole board, parole officers and other community service providers.

    Upon my return to the United States, I worked in the Death Care Industry as a Family Service Counselor, which lead me to become a green burial advocate. I co-founded Midwest Green Burial Society with Juliann Salinas. I speak  to community groups and have developed practical seminars for a variety of audiences.  I have been interviewed on a national podcast and was featured on a WGN spot dealing with green burial. 

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