Beyond the Pall
New Post Every Wednesday
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Death Dichotomy

8/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our society’s conventional approaches to death.  I’m not talking about the variety of religious rites that we engage in, but specifically the dichotomy between cremation and embalming.  On one hand we wish to preserve a body for as long as we can and on the other hand we seek to break it down into ash and smoke as quickly as possible.  I find that fascinating.  Why is it that we choose one extreme or the other? On both sides, we have built up romantic ideas of death.  Cremation is the ultimate letting go of the physical world while the other – embalming- preserves the body “as if asleep”.  One speeds up the breaking down of a body, where the other seems almost a denial of the death of the physical body.  We seem to be bound to these opposing ideas, and I am left wondering why we need to go to such extremes to care for the body after death.  Why don’t we want to simply clean the body and place the body in the earth- perhaps wrapped in a shroud?  By doing this, the body returns to the earth naturally and provides nourishment for nature. Perhaps we do not wish to look directly at the reality of death – the tragic, horrible reality of death.  One day we will die and our bodies will begin to decay.  We cannot stop that process. Some are beginning to turn from the corporate death care industry and choose alternatives such as death doulas and green burial.  Maybe if we can begin let go of these elaborate means of dealing with the body after death and deal more with the truth of death, we can begin to make changes in the industry as a whole.  

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.



    RSS Feed

    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. 

    Archives

    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Children's Graves
    Comunicalbe Disease And Burial Practice
    Cremation
    Cremation Urns
    Cultural Conflicts And Medical World
    Death Of A Child
    Depression
    Ebola
    Family Rights
    Fear Of Death
    Fr-thomas-hopko
    Funeral Laws
    Funeral Planning
    Garden Memorial
    Green Burial
    Grieving Parents
    Heirloom Seeds
    History
    Infant Death
    Live Streaming Funerals
    Mausoleums
    Memorial
    Memorialization
    No Embalming
    Non Religious
    Orthodox
    Orthodox Christian Grave Practices
    Pre Planning
    Pre-planning
    Remembering The Dead
    Serbian Cemetery Rites
    Suicide
    Tree-memorials
    Vaults
    Zito

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly