Burial: Where would you like to be buried?
- Cemetery
- At Sea
- Woodland burial
- Burials at sea: about 20 UK burials a year take place at sea. The licence is free, though the Ministry of Agriculture has produced a minefield of bureaucratic guidelines to discourage it.
- Burial, even with a wooden coffin, locks the carbon underground and does not add to the greenhouse effect. And it helps protect land from being used by humans, thus saving it for wildlife.
- US burial plot exchange at http://www.plotexchange.com/FrameSet/frameset.htm
- Woodland burial & nature reserve burial grounds in UK at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac026/sites.html
- Natural Death and Woodland Burial - People's tips and ideas. http://www.globalideasbank.org/ndw/ndwcontent.html
- Inexpensive D-I-Y Funeral information and contacts at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac026/diy.html
- People contemplating private burial would be wise to consult the Environment Agency (which encapsulates the former National Rivers Authority) and their local council environmental health department about possible pollution of water courses.
- Beware - garden burial can cause dissension if not all members of the family are in favour, and can reduce the value of the property.
Would you like to be buried close to anyone in particular?
Coffins and Caskets for Cremation and Burial
- There are restrictions on what type of coffin you can be cremated in and what may accompany you in the coffin. These regulations vary from country to country and state to state - it is best to phone a local funeral director to find out what is and what is not allowed!
- Anyone with green pretensions should think twice about cremation - 437,000 wooden coffins are wastefully burnt in the UK each year, polluting the atmosphere with dioxin, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide.
- It's now possible in many places to rent a fancy casket for a public viewing and buy a cheap container for the cremation.
- For cremation, a hardwood casket is frequently chosen since it is readily combustible. Although most crematories require caskets or containers in all combustible materials, some accept metal caskets as well.
- The world's largest producer of eco-friendly coffins (UK Site) at http://www.eco.coffins.mcmail.com/
- Comedy coffins at http://www.ohmygoodness.com/Madspon.htm
- Creepy coffin story at http://www.mystical-www.co.uk/barbados.htm
- A worms eye view of a coffin at http://www.otaking.org/~xaltlee/essex/pworms.htm
- Non-traditional coffins - Australia based at http://www.tascraft.com.au/FI/ Good for ideas! "We offer people the chance to be as imaginative in death as they are in life, by choosing a coffin or casket that makes a statement about who and what they are."
- UK environmentally friendly coffins at http://www.green-burial.co.uk/
- US caskets - next day deliver at http://www.casketsonline.com/
- Wicker coffin - see http://www.paston.co.uk/angliafunerals/green.htm
Cremation information
US and Canada listings of cremation and scattering service at http://www.cremation.org
- Evidence of cremation dates from antiquity. Pottery vessels from the Neolithic period, filled with the ashes of several individuals, have been found throughout Europe. Between 1400 BC and AD 200 cremation was the preferred burial custom, especially among Roman aristocrats. The Caesar family was one of many to choose this mode. Between the 3d and 19th centuries, Christianity became widely accepted. Its doctrines forbade cremations because of the belief that the body could not be resurrected if it were destroyed. Early Jews also prohibited cremation, believing it was the desecration of a work of God. Other groups of people, especially in India, continued to practice cremation and still do today.
What type of urn would you like to rest in?
Creative scattering at:
Find more at http://www.cremation.org
Do you wish to be embalmed?
- http://www.bie.org.uk/ - British Institute of Embalmers
- The essential purposes of modem embalming are preservation of the body to permit burial without unseemly haste and prevention of the spread of infection both before and after burial. Cosmetic work is used to restore injured facial features or for aesthetic reasons. Embalming methods now consist essentially of the removal of all blood and gases from the body and the insertion of a disinfecting fluid. Most corpses in the United States and Canada are embalmed, and the practice is widespread in other countries. The body of Lenin preserved in its tomb in Moscow, is a remarkable example of embalming.
- Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians believed that in order for the soul to pass into the next life, the body must remain intact; hence, to preserve it, they developed the procedures of mummification. The purpose of embalming in the U.S. is to prevent mourners from confronting the process of putrefaction.
- Mortuary custom, the art of preserving bodies after death, generally by the use of chemical substances. It is believed to have originated among the Egyptians, probably before 4000 BC, and was used by them for more than 30 centuries. Much evidence demonstrates that embalming is religious in origin, conceived as a means of preparing the dead for the life after death
- The Assyrians used honey in embalming, the Persians used wax, and the Jews used spices and aloes. Alexander the Great was embalmed with honey and wax.
Cryogenic freezing
- Cryogenic freezing is a process whereby humans can be frozen and thawed out at a designated future time. Some people see this technology as a way to "beat" diseases that have no cure at the present time. They see this as a technology that may allow them to pay to be frozen and to leave instructions that they want to be reanimated as soon as a cure has been found.
- US Funeral Home Directory at http://funeralhomesonline.com/
- Mini-golf available in US funeral home basement at http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/ILPALgolf.html
At http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/home.htm "Welcome to 'ain't no way to go' a collection of news and magazine articles I've collected over the past two decades, all relating to the various ways people have departed this sphere of existence, some humorous, some horrific."
What do you want to wear
- For ideas look at www.fancydress.com
- The most appropriate dress for the deceased is high collared and long sleeved. These will cover any bruises or abrasions that may have been sustained at the time of death. It is impossible to maintain good muscular tone because the blood supply that nourishes these muscles is no longer there. A young person will appear to look much older because of this phenomenon. While an elderly person will look much younger because the sagging skin will be drawn back and their wrinkles seem to disappear. When you give the required clothing for the deceased to the director make sure that you inform him if there are any articles you wish returned or left in the casket before it is sealed. These include jewellery, mementoes, pictures, religious items, letters etc.
My Body Matters
- What happens after death - facts at http://www.uio.no/~mostarke/forens_ent/afterdeath.shtml
- Japanese funeral customs at http://www.sekise.co.jp/sougi/eng/eng1.html
- Researchers have found burial grounds of Neanderthal man dating to 60,000 BC with animal antlers on the body and flower fragments next to the corpse indicating some type of ritual and gifts of remembrance. With no great psychological knowledge or custom to draw from, Neanderthal man instinctively buried their dead with ritual and ceremony.
Do you wish to be an organ/tissue donor?
The Ceremony
- The actual funeral-conveying the deceased to the place of burial, cremation, or exposure-also provides an occasion for ritual. Frequently, transporting the body develops into a procession by detailed prescriptions. In Hinduism, a man carrying a firebrand leads the procession to the place of cremation. The mourners at one point walk around the bier; in former times among some groups, a widow was expected to throw herself onto the burning pyre of her husband (see SUTTEE). Finally, the cremated remains are deposited in a sacred river. In ancient Greece, Egypt, and China, servants were sometimes buried with their masters. This form of human sacrifice was based on the belief that in the afterworld the deceased continued to need their services.
- In modern Western societies, funeral rituals include wakes, processions, the tolling of bells, the celebration of a religious rite, and the delivery of a eulogy. Military funerals often require special salutes fired by weapons. Jewish tradition prescribes a seven-day period of seclusion (shibah) following the funeral of a close relative.
- The purpose of a funeral is to allow those who mourn the passing of this individual the opportunity to pay their last respects. This is part of the healing process of 'grief' for those who have survived the death.
What music
Any special funeral requirements
Permanent memorial, Headstone, Tree, etc.
- Many Cemeteries and Churchyards have regulations regarding the size and type of memorial allowed.
- The desire to preserve the memory of the departed has resulted in many kinds of memorial acts. These include preserving a part of the body as a relic, building monuments, reciting eulogies, and inscribing an epitaph on a tombstone.
- A tomb is a chamber built above or below ground to hold the remains of the dead, or a shrine above a grave. Tombs are among the oldest and most universal human structures. They were traditionally believed to be the houses of the dead and were frequently richly adorned and stocked with personal or household articles for use in the afterlife. Tombs have inspired great architecture and provided much information about the past. The prehistoric practice of burying the deceased under their houses probably led to one of the earliest forms of tomb, the chamber covered by a mound of earth. Such mounds are found the world over-the barrows of northern Europe, the beehive tombs of Mycenae, the stupas of India, and the mounds left by the Mound Builders in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys of the U.S. Another form of tomb was a chamber cut out of living rock, as, for example, in the Valley of the Kings, near Thebes, Egypt; in Petra (now in Jordan); and in Etruria (now in Italy). Early Christian tombs were subterranean galleries known as catacombs. Notable among modern tombs are those of Napoleon in the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, the U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant (a neo-classical edifice) in New York City, and Lenin in Red Square in Moscow.
- Memorials from around the world at http://www.serve.com/diavolo/grave/
Epitaph
Infinity and beyond
Other interesting links
Celebrity
http://www.2diefor.com/todiefor/index.htm - a light-hearted look at death!
Fun links:
Religion:
Alternative:
Traditional:
Links that are more unusual: