New Age funerals

[Crazy Eddie]

There are really only a few ways of disposing of your body when you die - burial, burial at sea, cremation, more recently freeze drying. ( the freeze drying people have this technique called "surface enhancement" to speed the drying process, which is basically putting the body through a grinder - my favorite ever euphemism )

Now, I've found the perfect funeral for "Greens", the Eternal Reef which as they say: combines a cremation urn, ash scattering and a burial at sea into one meaningful permanent environmental tribute to a loved ones life

Eternal Reef website
(And be sure to look through the Reef Building Gallery)

Me, I'm having my ashes sent into space...

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Actually, my final wishes are for my several life insurance policies to be cashed in, and a huge going away party thrown in my honor. I plan to have a band, open bar, and catering. The location chosen is to have places of privacy for interested coouples to use for pairing up.

I want people to get LAID at my funeral. I want lifetime romances to begin there. I want people telling their great-grandchildren about the man whose funeral they met at.

Is that too much to ask?

 

[Globber]

I want people to get LAID at my funeral. I want lifetime romances to begin there. I want people telling their great-grandchildren about the man whose funeral they met at.

You wanna have a wild orgy at your funeral????

Now that I think about it, that isn't such a bad idea

 

[polymath]

I don't really mind, except I have a fascination with being cremated to the tune of 'Fire' by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
My family and friends are there, I've had a stirring eulogy, my casket starts slowly moving and suddenly:
"I am the God of Hellfire, and I bring you....Fire! I'll teach you to burn!"
I would love that sooooo much! I know the people attending would laugh their heads off, which is what I want to happen at my funeral.
My wife says 'no way!' though.

 

[duke o' york]

How can burial at sea possibly be more green than plain straight directly-into-the-ground burial? Surely thus returning the nutrients to the earth when we die would be the most green way of saying sayonara.

 

[amadeus]

I'll just have myself frozen underground until robots take over the earth, and I'll have a robot to unfreeze me and declare me the robot God

 

[duke o' york]

Why would they choose you above Walt Disney?

 

[amadeus]

The logic functions on the robots wouldn't be able to make Walt Disney the leader. Their reasoning is that, there's already a Disneyworld.

Plus, I'm just trying to liven things up on this thread :\

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Originally posted by FearlessLeader2
Actually, my final wishes are for my several life insurance policies to be cashed in, and a huge going away party thrown in my honor. I plan to have a band, open bar, and catering. The location chosen is to have places of privacy for interested coouples to use for pairing up.

I want people to get LAID at my funeral. I want lifetime romances to begin there. I want people telling their great-grandchildren about the man whose funeral they met at.

Is that too much to ask?

It seems Finnegans Wake isn't the only lively one in town this week! Decisions, decisions

 

[Apollo]

Originally posted by polymath
I don't really mind, except I have a fascination with being cremated to the tune of 'Fire' by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

I think "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC would be a good tune to go by.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by duke o' york
How can burial at sea possibly be more green than plain straight directly-into-the-ground burial? Surely thus returning the nutrients to the earth when we die would be the most green way of saying sayonara.

The problem is nobody does directly-into-the-ground burial. Not only are you enclosed in a casket (probably steel), but that is placed into a concrete vault! Not much chance of your nutrients getting anywhere useful very soon!

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How can burial at sea possibly be more green than plain straight directly-into-the-ground burial?

It isn't really of course, but you'll be a good home for all kinds of fishes and corals for a good long time. Maybe for the military minded greens they could have a funeral where they strap your body into one of the cold-war surplus tanks they use as artificial reefs now.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

I would prefer to be encapsuled in a smallish space pod and then launch thru outer space to travel for all infinity. Maybe some day billions of years in the future, someone will find me and then resurrect me and then I'll infect their entire race with..... Civ.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by Padma

The problem is nobody does directly-into-the-ground burial. Not only are you enclosed in a casket (probably steel), but that is placed into a concrete vault! Not much chance of your nutrients getting anywhere useful very soon!

Well, the last funeral I went to their was no concrete vault but the casket did have metal in it but I suspect that it was mostly made of wood.

 

[duke o' york]

I have to agree. Padma, you're not related to Cleopatra by any chance? Not that many people have mausolea to be buried in these days, and there must be some kind of option for greenies to be buried without a coffin. Most coffins are made of (incredibly expensive) wood, with metal handles and seals so the vast majority can biodegrade eventually. In the future maybe they'll have coalmines in places where we currently have big cemetaries. The trouble is that many cemetaries only have limited space and so bodies are often disinterred and moved elsewhere. This might aid nutrient growth in other soils, rather than graveyards just being the most fertile spots in cities, but it has the difficulty that people see it as being disrespectful to those who once inhabited the bodies being moved.

 

[polymath]

Did anyone in the UK see The Anatomists last night? It had the German guy who plastinates dead bodies, literally preserves them with plastic and puts them on display. It is the most succesful travelling show in the world.
It was literally awesome - amazing - disturbing - fantastic. Anyone else seen his stuff?

 

[Padma]

Well, I can only speak from my experience of two years serving on burial details for the Air Force Honor Guard. But at virtually every gravesite, after the family and other mourners left, the cemetary workers lowered the coffin into the grave, and then put the lid onto the vault before filling in with dirt. The same for every funeral I've been to since.

I can't SWEAR that the vault is concrete, I only got quick glimpses of them. But the lid is usually either concrete or metal (and HEAVY!). The lid is usually covered or otherwise hidden during the service, as, in my experience, the dirt pile is also.

Things may be done differently where you are, but that's been my experience.

 

[knowltok2]

Originally posted by FearlessLeader2
Actually, my final wishes are for my several life insurance policies to be cashed in, and a huge going away party thrown in my honor. I plan to have a band, open bar, and catering. The location chosen is to have places of privacy for interested coouples to use for pairing up.

I want people to get LAID at my funeral. I want lifetime romances to begin there. I want people telling their great-grandchildren about the man whose funeral they met at.

I'm not so big on this idea for myself. My friends on the otherhand...well, this is the method for them!!!

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by FearlessLeader2
Actually, my final wishes are for my several life insurance policies to be cashed in, and a huge going away party thrown in my honor. I plan to have a band, open bar, and catering. The location chosen is to have places of privacy for interested coouples to use for pairing up.

That sounds so good you should have your funeral before you die. How could you miss a party like that?

 

[stormerne]

There are many places in this world where people venerate their ancestors. In some countries, this is a two-way deal as, in return for that veneration, the ancestors have a job to do. There, when an ancestor's body is buried in the earth, its spirit's job becomes to help the living by helping the crops grow in the surrounding lands. Sounds like a good deal to me and certainly a more positive approach to funerals than many new age (or old age) events.