The good people at the Groundswell Project would like to reiterate what could be a life changing and wonderfully refreshing act of kindness. About a subject we often prefer to turn away from, but one, that when engaged with, can be a blessing to everyone who ends up sharing in it.
We believe that end-of-life conversations are best done WAY BEFORE Emergency.
We advocate for pretty much any other place. Lounge rooms. Over dinner tables. During long walks. Over soup. With tea and cake. Your choice.
Nothing could be simpler and yet for many this is still too hard. Wait for an opportunity that presents itself, and don’t balk when it comes. Be patient but not so patient that it becomes putting off.
Putting off having our affairs sorted from the time we leave home and go out into the big wide world is something that is thought to be a bit over the top. As if anything untoward would happen to us before we reached old age. Live it up. There’s plenty of time to deal with these, well, incidental issues later. Or is there. There are far too many stories of people dying well before old age for us to ignore posting some stories about them. This is one worth passing on, no pun intended. Read the full story at the ABC News highlighted link.
Widowed at 38, Michelle Moriarty knows about grief and what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. National Regional Reporter Eliza Borrello, (ABC News,17 Mar 2023), writes that: At just 42, Michelle Moriarty has learnt a lot about grief.
In 2018, she became a widow when her partner, 39-year-old Nathan Johnston, died suddenly.
“Nathan and I had our whole lives ahead of us and I had a two-year-old and a six-year-old and we were very excited about life and life changed … every aspect of our life changed that night,” she said.
Looking for others who shared a similar experience, Michelle — who lives in Bunbury, two hours south of Perth — set up a young widow’s Facebook group.
“Despite having so much support from family, friends and my community, I still felt really isolated in my grief,” she said.
“The main benefit for me, in the early days particularly, was just that sense of ‘I’m not alone in this; it’s not just me that this has happened to.'”
The group now has more than 300 members.
“[It helped] being able to connect with others emotionally and support each other with the issues we had to face, because there are a lot of unexpected processes and tasks, some are formal, some are informal … after the death of a loved one,” Michelle said.
Last year Michelle’s father died unexpectedly too. So she set up another Facebook group, this time for widows over 55.
“[It] was something I felt was important, as my mother was now widowed, similarly to me,” she said.
What to say to someone who has lost a loved one. Michelle is now using her skills as a social worker to offer grief counselling. She has also set up The Grief Language Project, promoting grief education and helpful things to say to people who’ve lost a loved one.
Talking about death isn’t easy and some of us are better at it than others. However, there is more to talking about death than the songs you want played at your funeral.
Listen at the broadcast link to: A practical guide to dealing with death, ABC Radio Melbourne Broadcast Wed 7 Dec 2022
Join Richelle Hunt (above), co-host from ABC Shepparton Nic Healey (below), and a range of guests, as they explore a practical guide to dealing with the death of a loved one.
It’s a familiar story. Don’t want to talk about it. So here we go again talking about death for what seems like the umpteenth time.
This Coffin Club was established in September 2016 following an information and BBQ session at the Men’s Shed in Ulverstone on Dying 2 Know Day. It was supported by the Lions Club of Ulverstone.
In: Tassie Death Cafe helps visitors come to terms with the ‘morbid fear’ surrounding life’s end, Tamara Glumac, (ABC News, 28 Aug 2022) she writes that:
‘Mitchell Jansen has feared death from a young age. The 25-year-old has suffered anxiety and panic attacks over his own mortality.’
“I’ve had a very morbid fear of death because I have cystic fibrosis, so death kind of looms over my head a bit,” Mr Jansen said.
“It was a constant fear, I was always filled with dread, it was like I’m going to die young, and with the pandemic I’m at high risk.”
But here’s the good news – A trip to the Tassie Death Cafe in Hobart has lightened the load.
“I feel like I’ve been heard and it feels like a weight is off my shoulders. I have a sense of what I want when I die,” Mr Jansen said. “Even though [death] is a very common fear it still feels lonely and just being around like-minded people, where I can have my morbid jokes, is a bit nicer.”
The death of his great-grandmother prompted Mr Jansen to take a trip to the death cafe, and has also created a desire to work in the funeral industry.
The death cafe — a monthly catch-up over coffee and cake, often between complete strangers — has been running since 2019. It was set up by end-of-life doulas Leigh Connell and Lynn Redwig, who got talking about the concept at a “dying to know” expo.
“It’s very simple. The aim is really to come together and talk about death and dying in a safe space,” Ms Connell said. “It’s an opportunity for people to talk about something that’s quite taboo, and there are people who do want to speak about it, but they get pushback.”
In addition to Death Cafes, Tasmania is fortunate to also have Coffins Clubs, which provide a safe place to what you could call: open up death’s door. At the Community Coffin Club, laughter, music, food and shared experience abound as members build their understanding of “death literacy” — and their own bespoke coffins.A man stands inside an upright blue coffin designed to look like Dr Who’s tardis
Three points for summary purposes:
The death cafe was set up by two end-of-life doulas who got talking about the concept at a “dying to know” expo.
The death cafe concept began in the UK in 2011 and there have been more than 14,000 meetings held across 81 countries.
Some participants are dying, others have lost a loved one and some come seeking advice on planning their funeral.
Some things seem dead simple and yet so difficult to achieve. How we do burials and dispose of our dead bodies used to be a no dramas affair, with families burying their loved ones remains in the backyard or the church grounds or a community grave yard.
That was in the good ole days. Not so now, with rules and regulations making disposal of our bodies a multi-million dollar business that many people seem very willing to oil with their hard earned dollars. All in the name of having a good send off, as if the dead person has any idea about what’s going on, other than perhaps being told beforehand or even making plans for such extravagance.
That said, there are a few people who are not conforming to the current ways, choosing to tread their own path. This story by Sophie Hirsh: Mushroom Based Coffin Asks Humans: Are you waste or compost? (Green Matters, September 2020).
Wooden coffins? That trend is so dead.
With a goal of making the human burial — and decomposition — process more environmentally-friendly, a company has invented the Living Cocoon, a coffin made from mushrooms that returns the deceased to the earth while enriching it.
Invented by Delft University of Technology researcher Bob Hendrikx and his Netherlands-based company Loop, the Living Cocoon (aka the Loop Cocoon) claims to be the first “living coffin” on Earth. Loop makes the cocoon out of mycelium, a living fungus that naturally grows underground amongst the roots of trees, plants, and fungi. Not only is mycelium biodegradable, but it also has a few special powers — it provides nutrients to the plants growing around it, it can neutralize toxic substances, and it can clean up soil by converting waste products into nutrients.
When buried in a traditional coffin, human bodies typically take at least 10 years to break down. The Living Cocoon typically composts and disappears in just 30 to 45 days, and the body inside breaks down in two to three years.
Some conventional glossy finished coffin burials, which pollute the soil due to the chemicals used to preserve the body along with other non-biodegradable materials, is in stark contrast to the Living Cocoon, which actually provides nutrients to the surrounding soil.
Cory Taylor with Richard Fidler, ABC Conversations
The Groundswell Project is the host organisation for Dying2Know Day, encouraging an essential conversation to have with our family and friends in preparation for the twilight years of our lives.
Dying2Know Day on August 8th is by no means the only day of the year to kick start such conversations. There are a host of resources that can be found on the Dying2Know pages of the Groundswell Project website: Dying to know dayThe GroundSwell Project – The BIG List
Going beyond this there is no shortage of other places where we can find conversation starters. Here are three stories that can be used to get some talking going with our family and friends.
1. Dying for Beginners features the story of award-winning Australian writer Cory Taylor who spent the last years of her life fascinated with her own mortality, writing a memoir that she hoped would trigger more open and honest conversations about death. In her last weeks, she shared some of her insights in a bedside interview with ABC Local Radio Conversations host Richard Fidler. Listen to the program here.
2. High number of terminal patients unnecessarily treated, by ABC News journalist James Bullen reports that a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales – Dr Magnolia Cardona-Morrell – has found some chemotherapy, radiotherapy and CPR procedures, even when a person had a not-for-resuscitation order, ended up being non-beneficial medical treatments that prevented patients from having a comfortable death. High number of patients unnecessarily treated
3. If we are worried that old age will inevitably mean losing our libido, our health, and possibly our marbles too, well, Cicero has some good news for us. In “How to Grow Old,” the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how we can make the second half of life the best part of all – and why we might discover that reading and gardening are actually far more pleasurable than sex ever was. How to Grow Old: Ancient Wisdom for the Second Half of Life (Marcus Tullius Cicero), by Philip Freeman, is a very inspiring story that hits the mark as much today as it did all those centuries ago. Cicero gives us ten (10) lessons to ponder and then pass on to our children. Don’t let the fact that Cicero was one of the great philosophers get in the way of picking up some tips as wisdom for our second half of life.
The 8 points between number 1: A good old age begins in youth, and number 10: Death is not to be feared, make for great conversation starters. Philip Freeman speaks with Joe Gelonesi on ABC Radio National – it can be downloaded as a podcast. Cicero on growing old
We can all contribute to the conversation in one way or another. Dying2Know Day aims to bring to life and into the mainstream, the issues that many families put off without understanding the consequences of being unprepared for the realities we must all face up to.
The good thing about D2K Day is that it provides a safety space within which to share our deepest fears and our most exhilarating experiences.
Whatever rocks your boat or fills your sails, they differ widely across the socio-economic spectrum. For Saskia Kouwenberg it’s a plate. Not any old plate – one that keeps a dead body cool while family and friends prepare themselves and their dearly deceased loved one prior to a burial or cremation.
Saskia Kouwenberg and Nat Meyer helped make the cooling plate a reality for the Nimbin community. (ABC News: Bronwyn Herbert)
Cooling plates preserve bodies in days after death helping families grieve, say goodbye, report Bronwyn Herbert and Elloise Farrow-Smith, (ABC North Coast, 3 Apr 2023)
After a monumental 10 years of fundraising, the town of Nimbin in New South Wales has just taken possession of a special cooling plate to preserve bodies in the days following death.
Readers are advised this story contains an image that some people may find distressing.
Key points: 1. The cooling plate can be as cold as minus 17 degrees Celsius, 2. The system is manufactured in the Netherlands and freight costs were a major hurdle for Nimbin, 3. Keeping a loved one at home helps families process their grief.
Resident Saskia Kouwenberg helped facilitate the import and couldn’t be more excited to see its first use.
“It’s the craziest thing, I’m so excited for it to be used, but of course to be excited around death and dying, it’s like they can’t go together,” Ms Kouwenberg said.
“I’m so excited that people don’t need to bring … [those] who have died to an impersonal place, that they can stay at home.”
What happens after we die continues to fascinate, and inspire people to innovate.
Photo courtesy of Memorial Ecosystems A natural burial site at Ramsey Creek Preserve, a green cemetery in Westminster, South Carolina.
In: Death is not the end… well, not for sustainable living, anyway. Michaela Burns (Renew Issue 159, Apr-Jun 2022) investigates the intersection of sustainability and death. Extracts follow…
Whether we embrace it or do our best to pretend it’s not going to happen to us, death is a part of life.
Burial, cremation and carbon dioxide
This wasn’t something people had to consider, of course – previous generations posthumous preferences were rarely informed by the indirect impacts of their death on people they’d never met.
On average 480 Australians die every day, with about 70 per cent being cremated and 30 per cent choosing burial.
This means the simple act of putting to rest – burying and cremating – each person who dies on a given day in Australia will generate the equivalent of 53,760kg of CO2 … more than twice the amount that a single living Australian generates each year.
The alternatives to the big two – burial and cremation
Green funerals
This is as much about what we don’t have as it is about what we do. We tend not to go for the lavish heavily adorned coffin with gold trim all round – low key being very acceptable. We tend to say no to a commercial floral arrangement, preferring flowers from a family or friends garden. We say yes to a natural burial site rather than a lawn cemetery that requires regular maintenance. In other words we take into account the cost to the Earth as much as we look at the financials and social status.
Wicker caskets and coffins
People have been making furniture and containers from wicker for over 5,000years. It is the oldest known method for such construction. It can include willow, rattan, seagrass, reed or bamboo. They are supposedly cheaper to make and more sustainable that those made of wood – unless it’s reclaimed. Wicker coffins and caskets are generally constructed without the use of toxic varnishes, glues, plastics or metals. The plants used replenish themselves quickly. They also take less time to decompose and the nature of the material allows more oxygen to reach the body, meaning anaerobic decomposition, and the accompanying release of methane gas, is reduced.
Bio urns
There is more choice today than there was ten or twenty years ago. Urns of the past were often of the ceramic type adorned with artwork – as much a mantelpiece display as a container for human remains. They were certainly intended to stay around for a long time, having been fired in a kiln at high temperatures and not about to biodegrade anytime soon. Enter the bio urns available today and the choice seems limitless. The two most popular in Australia are: Soul Trees and Eco Water Urns. But check around for others. We need to understand that what we call ashes, what’s left after a body has been cremated, is actually cremains – the crushed bones of the deceased person. The body has been incinerated at such a high temperature that the skin and organ tissues are evaporated off along with the water content (70-75 per cent), so the ‘ashes’ content is small compared with the total urn contents, mainly ground up bones. This is what we get given when we collect the ‘ashes’. But when all is said and done, what’s wrong with a cardboard shoe box? Why the need for all the manufacturing that goes into a vessel that’s going to be buried or even emptied with the contents scattered or shared with family members, if that is the wish of the descendants. The rules that surround this area are made up. There is no obligation to follow what a commercial operator out to make a profit might tell us is the norm or respectful. There’s nothing disrespectful in being as Earth centred as possible, in ones thinking about this final act of returning to that place from which we came – ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We are, after all, nothing more or less than conscious cosmic dust.
Proponents estimate that this process produces less than 10 per cent of the emissions emitted by traditional furnace based cremation, and the lower temperature means that pollutants like mercury are not released during the process they can be safely recovered after the hydrolysis process is complete, along with objects like hip replacements and pacemakers.
The process received publicity in early 2022 with the death of South African anti-apartheid advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chose it for himself. Water cremation is relatively new to Australia. Victorian company Aquamation has offered the process since 2009 and still remains the main provider.
Mushroom burial suits
While it’s not yet available in Australia, this unique idea is stirring up well needed conversations around green funerals and the impact buried bodies have on the environment. The mushroom burial suit – or Infinity Burial Suit, as it is advertised in America – is a biodegradable garment for the deceased that aims to neutralize contaminants that may exist within the body. It uses a form of mycoremediation, a process whereby fungi act as a natural composter. The fungi secrete several extracellular enzymes that are capable of decomposing and digesting the chemicals that bodies create as they decompose.
Leaving our body to science.
This could be to the body farm operated by Australian Faculty for Taphonomic Experimental Research (AFTER) under the guidance of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
There are also anatomy departments at other universities such as the University of Newcastle or University of Sydney or UNSW.
Other little things that matter
To further minimise ones impact, other things can be considered: 1. Creating an electronic order of service, rather than distributing paper programs, 2. Dressing a loved one’s body in biodegradable materials like cotton, silk, hemp or wool, 3. Planting a tree in memory of the deceased person, 4. Ensuring any flowers placed or left at grave sites are free from petroleum plastic, and packaging is likewise, 5. If the opportunity presents itself, choose sustainable transportation of the deceased from the place where the funeral service is held to the gravesite or other venue.
Funeral practices around the world
Not that these are available in Australia, but there are many other ways to deal with the dead. Sky burial is one used in Northern India by Tibetan Buddhists. This involves leaving the body to be consumed by vultures. It is seen as a gift to the universe and a good omen.
What works for one culture doesn’t work for another. What we need to do is be well informed of the choices available and advocate for methods that leave the smallest footprint in terms of ecological impact.
In other cultures the body is seen as a vessel, a thing which serves no-purpose once the soul itself has passed over. Perhaps this is something that Australians can learn to.
Letting go of the desire to hold on, we also find a way to preserve the Earth for those who must keep on living.
Our funeral practices have a high carbon footprint.
In: How I planned my own green funeral, Becca Warner, (BBC News, 22nd August 2023), explores how she could plan her own more environmentally-friendly burial.
Natural burials are growing in popularity. It involves burying a body without any barriers to decomposition – no embalming fluids, plastic liners or metal caskets (Credit: Alamy)
Not many of us like talking about death. It’s dark, and sad, and prone to throwing us into an existential spiral. But the uncomfortable truth is that, as someone who cares about the environment, I realised I needed to stop ignoring the reality of it. Once we’re gone, our bodies need somewhere to go – and the ways that we typically burn or bury bodies in the West come at a scary environmental cost.
My first port of call is the Natural Death Centre, a charity based in the UK. I pick up the phone and am pleased to find Rosie Inman-Cook on the other end of the line – a chatty, no-nonsense type who is quick to warn me about the dubiousness of many alternative deathcare practices. “There are always companies jumping on the bandwagon, seeing a cash cow, inventing stuff. There’s a lot of coffin producers and funeral packages that will sell you a ‘green thing’ and plant a tree. You have to be careful.”
Becca goes on to write …
“In the face of death, we seek consolation. And it’s been really interesting seeing how there’s been a conflict, in some cases, between what is sustainable and what people find consoling,” she says. Bags of bone ash and compost go some way towards overcoming this by offering us something tangible, an anchor for our grief.
As I consider the various options I’ve learned about – melting, mulching, mycellium – I find my thoughts returning to my first conversation with Inman-Cook. I am taken with the simplicity of natural burial, the absence of any bell, whistle, vessel or chamber. I’m pleased to learn that, based on all she has learned during her scientific analysis, Trofimovaite has reached the same conclusion. “I would try to do it as natural as possible,” she tells me. “Natural burials are the most appealing.” But an unmarked natural burial is a perfect example of the conflict Rugg has identified.
The article goes on to talk about Aquamation, which uses an alkaline solution to dissolve the body in about 4 hours at about 150 degrees celcius. All this is much less carbon intensive than cremation using gas fired ovens.
Then there’s Recompose, a composting process.
Recompose, the world’s first human composting facility, turns a corpse into a nutrient rich dense soil that the family can lay onto their garden (Credit: Getty pictures)
A new kid off the block is Mycelium – decomposing by mushroom composting.
This is a good overview of what’s available in the UK. There is some crossover with Australia. Get the full picture at: Planning my green funeral.
Some people say that to stitch up a prepaid funeral plan was the best things they ever did. No more worries or having to think about that part of their ending of days. But it’s not as clear cut as that. Funerals are for the living to commemorate the dead, and it’s the living that need to get prepped for the event as much as those doing the dying. The dictionary meaning of prepped is to get ready.
There is no need to hand over thousands of dollars to a business that has little interest in our affairs other than making a profit – in spite of the marketing rhetoric saying it’s all about us. If it was all about us, they’d be advising us along the same lines as consumer advocates like Choice and the CPSA. Pre-paid wouldn’t get a look in.
Here are three need to knows from Choice …
Funeral plan products – such as insurance, bonds and prepaid funerals – have sprung up in response to the anxiety people feel around paying for funerals;
Businesses say they offer peace of mind, but family members of people who sign up to such products tell us a different story;
Regulators and the banking royal commission have investigated funeral-plan providers amid claims of unethical practices.
In the story: Should you get a prepaid funeral? (February 2020) Choice says:
The funeral industry, as revealed inPart 2 of our funerals investigation, charges mourners inflated prices for its goods and services. In doing so, it creates demand for yet another funeral product to drive profits: advance payment plans.
The choice, according to businesses, is between paying thousands of dollars before you die or saddling your loved ones with the burden.
It’s simply not true. There are many families who have not gone down the prepaid path without any negative consequences for them or their bank balances. Rather than people getting roped into the prepaid plans business, people put in place plans for when the need arose.
Only one or two generations ago, these plans were well known in the community and ‘administered’ by people – usually women known as death midwives – who took it upon themselves to take care of business when a family member died. No dramas, no fuss, get on with life, since death is what happens and life goes on. Nature did what nature does and we do what needs to be done – go with the flow – such is the ebb and flow of life. How complicated we’ve made the whole thing.
Building a funeral sales funnel is the aim of the game. Don’t fall into this trap.
We need more people to join those turning away from prevailing practices that promote spending as the best way to show respect for the dead. We need to grow our knowledge and understanding of the funeral process – death and funeral literacy it’s called. We need to become voices for choices that don’t require prepaid, because pre-planned has all the bases covered for a respectful, dignified end of life commemoration that has little to do with the ticket price – to put it in stark business lingo. A heap of add on trappings that for the most part are superfluous to the main event …. that of honouring the life of the one absent, no longer physically in our presence, but forever in our memories.
Some people say that to stitch up a prepaid funeral plan was the best things they ever did. No more worries or having to think about that part of their ending of days. But it’s not as clear cut as that. Funerals are for the living to commemorate the dead, and it’s the living that need to get prepped for the event as much as those doing the dying. The dictionary meaning of prepped is to get ready. 
Die-alogue Cafe 