Die-alogue Cafe

There was a time in the not so distant past when all funerals would have been what we call today, ‘sustainable’.  There were no fancy coffins made of precious timber, there were no hearses using internal combustion engines, no cremation facilities using gas burners, no heavy machinery to dig graves, no fancy named professionals and marketing staff all trying to convince us that we need this, that or the other as part of what has turned into a multi-million business – none of the trappings we consider normal today, because, well, there were no funeral directors to out source this important event to.  Funerals were an in-house event, an ordinary thing that families and communities did when one of their number died a natural death.

While this isn’t our experience today, it perhaps could be if we could only convince ourselves that (1) dignity and respect are not price based commodities, (2) we do have the skills, and (3) our lack the confidence can be overcome.  Is there a way to correct this situation? Well the Dutch are having a go.  Called the Final Footprint Challenge, they say:

‘In order to realise sustainable funerals, more sustainable innovation is needed in the funeral sector. That is why we, want to stimulate the development of new knowledge, products and services. We can not do that alone, but we like to work together with others, inside and outside the sector. Together we can make the entire market more sustainable.

The funeral industry challenges you to think about how a sustainable funeral looks in 2030. Together we want to leave our world better for current and future generations. That is why it is important that funerals are completely sustainable.

37 entrepreneurs have signed up for the Final Footprint Challenge. They all have a solution to realise a sustainable funeral. Come to the Challenge Event on January 25 to see which 10 entrepreneurs continue to the Bootcamp Days! Or sign up for the Demo Day on April 5 to hear the pitches of the finalists.’

This looks like a great project.  To find out more visit:  https://www.finalfootprintchallenge.nl/challenge

It seems like we have still got some way to go when it comes to naming the realities that life delivers on a daily basis.  Rather than saying what we mean and meaning what we say, we seem to delight in skirting around the more direct and plain English use of the language.

This was emphasised once again in an opinion piece this time by Newcastle Herald writer Jeff Corbett (Frightening realities, Sat 13th January 2018).  “Passing” says Jeff, “has become so common lately that it seems we have a new way of dying. So and so passed, we read, we hear, we say, and it comes with a layer of respect on top of the obfuscation.  Not that there’s anything new about avoiding dying, death and dead.  In more religious days we would say passed over, as in Uncle Joe passing over the line between mortal and eternal life.”

“From passing over we moved to passing away  … and in the year just passed we’ve ditched the away to state merely that Uncle Joe passed.”  Of course as Jeff reminds us we have to conjure up the reality in our minds and come to the conclusion that Uncle Joe would have in all probability ‘died.’

In the absence of being told this fact two options come to mind. One is check the death notices in the paper or perhaps the best way is to reply by coming out with the D-word: you mean Uncle Joe has taken his last breath and died.  Plain, simple, no confusion. After arriving at this point perhaps some gentler words can be used to express our grief or sadness.  But to establish the truth, it’s best not to mince words.

According to ABC News reporter Melissa Brown, the grieving partners of loved ones who have died are being charged hundreds of dollars to get household accounts transferred from their loved ones’ names into their own.

In The hidden costs after the death of a loved one, (29-12-2017) she says:

• the Council on the Ageing (COTA) received “hundreds of complaints” about dealing with companies after a death;
• this was leading to unwarranted stress, prolonging grief when people are at their most vulnerable; and
• that COTA wants Australia to follow the lead of authorities in the UK, which set up a “Tell Us Once”

Hundreds of complaints about the hardships experienced by widows and widowers dealing with companies such as banks and utility providers, is not a good look when dealing with something as simple as changing account details.

COTA said some gas and electricity companies were charging disconnection fees, and then re-connection fees, to change names of account holders.

Read the full story at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-29/grieving-partners-charged-hundreds-of-dollars-transfer-accounts/9159062

A couple of life affirming actions constitute the difference between life and death.  One would be heartbeats and a pulse, the other would be breathing and the rise and fall of the chest.  So in short, without going into the science the difference between life and death is our next breath.

To draw breath is to accept a gift of the plants of the Earth; we in fact exchange air with all other living creatures.

In 4 Ways to Give Your Body Back to Nature After You Die (Yes! magazine, October 31, 2017), Jennifer Luxton talks about burial methods as a means of giving a purpose to our mortal remains.

“Whether it’s sudden or a long time coming … What happens next is largely driven by tradition, regulation, and a multimillion-dollar industry.”

In Australia more than half of us choose cremation while burial is becoming less popular.

“But what if you want your body to be useful still? Ideas emerging from an alternative community of mortuary and hospice professionals offer ways to give your body back to nature. As strange as some of these methods might seem now, they are at least getting us talking “outside the box” about death.”

1. The Infinity burial shroud is a biodegradable suit woven with a mix of mycelia and other micro-organisms. Its best use is when placed in direct contact with the soil. Fungi help with decomposition and transfer nutrients back to the living earth.
2. Mortality composting. “Soil scientists with the Urban Death Project in Western Washington are prototyping the “recomposition” process on human remains after successful trials with livestock remains. The eventual plan is to build a recomposition structure for use on a metropolitan scale. First, the body is placed inside a vertical chamber layered with wood chips, similar to the way compost piles use leaves as a carbon source.  Over several weeks, as the body is decomposed by bacteria, it shifts down the chamber. Other bodies are laid on top as part of a continual process. Eventually, all that’s left is a nutrient-rich humus ready to nourish new life.
3. Reef balls. “If cremation is still the most cost-effective option, consider this alternative to an urn. Florida-based Eternal Reefs offers to add your ashes to a concrete structure designed to attract aquatic plants and animals when set out on the ocean floor. Eternal Reefs’ partner, the Reef Ball Foundation, sets out artificial reefs in areas of development to encourage estuary restoration and habitat recovery.”
4. Conservation burial. “The simplest solution might be natural burial grounds, which let you go into the grave without a casket. Plots are marked by GPS tags rather than headstones.

Log onto the Yes! website to get the full story and see the illustrations: http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/4-ways-to-give-your-body-back-to-nature-after-you-die-20171031

There’s nothing like spending time in the company of lovely people who care for each other as if they were family. In times like these conversations can range over a variety of subjects that while respectful of everyone around the table, can push the boundaries or seem out of place.

Talking about personal experiences, like funerals, can trigger all kinds of responses. The context can help position the conversation and permit a more free flowing dialogue.  What might appear to be off limits to some is completely acceptable to another.  This is most obvious when comparing cultural norms.  For example Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a national event in Mexico and has been for decades, but to suggest such an event in Australia is not met with enthusiasm.

When one of the ladies at the table mentioned On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at it didn’t raise any eyebrows, until the words were explained in more detail.  The story goes that it is often sung by school students who think it’s a bit of a hoot.  Here is the basic gist of the story:

‘On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at’, comes from the County of Yorkshire. It is written in Yorkshire dialect, which must look pretty strange to anybody not from the British Isles.  The title roughly translates into standard English as ‘On Ilkley Moor Without a Hat’.  A moor is a piece of open, often windy and cold land, almost a wilderness. As the story goes, you need a hat in the winter, and going to a moor without one is a bad idea.  Ilkley is a town in Yorkshire, quite close to the cities of Leeds and Bradford, and Ilkley Moor is close by.  The song serves as a dire warning about what happens to those foolish enough to venture to the the moor without appropriate headwear:

they die, are buried, are eaten by worms which are then eaten by ducks, which are then eaten by the songs’ singers.*

Which serves them right.  It has more or less become the unofficial ‘national’ anthem of Yorkshire. According to tradition, the words were composed by members of a Halifax church choir on an outing to Ilkley Moor near Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Sung to the Methodist hymn tune “Cranbrook” it was composed by Canterbury-based shoemaker Thomas Clark in 1805. The song became so popular that the origin of the music as a hymn tune has been almost forgotten.

This link serves up a rousing rendition of this traditional folk song that states unambiguously how the cycle of life applies to every living creature including we humans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8MWb1FlODQ

Some people call November the Month of the Dead.  Hallaween (All Hallows Eve), All Saints Day, All Souls Day and then Remembrance Day.

Grim perhaps but it all depends on our point of view.  Then again, it more correctly all depends on our knowledge of how they came to be and whether or not they are seen as being relevant and worthy of attention.  In the northern hemisphere where all these things kicked off, its cold and the days are short and somewhat grey and gloomy perhaps.

For us in the south, for the most part, it is anything but bleak and chilly.  So why pay much attention to this northern tradition?  Well it has universal significance regardless of the climatic conditions. It is the history and connections that make it / them worthy of bringing into focus.

A society that does not reflect on how it got to where it is, falls into what is known as the “parochialism of the present” – so obsessed with its own importance that it overlooks the myriad of human and non-human actions that got us to this point in time.

Roman philosopher Marcus Cicero said that: “To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to live the life of a child forever. For what is a man’s life, unless woven into the life of our ancestors by the memory of past deeds?”

We would not be here if it were not for those who trode this Living Earth for centuries before us. In Some thoughts on the eve of an ancestral pilgrimage,  Holly Pruett recalls these words:     http://deathtalkproject.com/die-remembering/

“It is one of the responsibilities of village-minded people and human beings everywhere to carry their dead with them as they walk through their days,” writes Stephen Jenkinson in Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul.  “How easy it is in our way of life,” says Jenkinson, “to let the dead slip from view and from memory, how easy it is to disappear.”

In the dominant culture of ancestral amnesia, we’re driven to write our own legacy, for fear of being forgotten. Thus the burgeoning wave of write-your-own-obituary, record-your-message-for-the-future, and plan-your-own-memorial vendors.

Jenkinson challenges these efforts as misdirected: “The truth is that we cannot, nor should we be able to, choreograph the way in which we will be remembered, if we will be remembered at all.”

In a similar vein Tom Switzer urges us not to get trapped by the seemingly present situation in which we are living (Are we in an era of unprecedented instability or just ignorant of history? SMH, 30 Oct 2017)  http://www.smh.com.au/comment/are-we-in-an-era-of-unprecedented-instability-or-just-ignorant-of-history-20171025-gz7uac.html

“The time has come to lower our voices, to cease imposing our mechanistic patterns on the biological processes of the earth, to resist the impulse to control, to command, to force, to oppress, and to begin quite humbly to follow the guidance of the larger community on which our life depends. Our fulfillment is not in our isolated human grandeur, but in our intimacy with the larger earth community, for this is also the larger dimension of our being. Our human destiny is integral with the destiny of the earth.”  (Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth, 1988)

Guy Fawks night or Cracker night, as we used to call it, has long gone.  Catherine wheels and Sparklers and Tom Thumbs along with Double Bungers were all the go. Done as a community event with good adult supervision, all went well, but there were many tragic incidents that left children with fingers blown off and blind eyes.  Hallowe’en was there but not nearly as significant.

According to Elizabeth Farrelly (The hidden depths of Halloween, SMH, Sat. 28.10.17) there is more to it than simply orange pumpkins and scary face masks.

“Guy Fawkes is exposed as honouring terrorism, while Halloween reveals its roots in ancient spiritual practice, conjuring our druidic past and mapping a possible future.” says Farrelly.

Being on the eve of All Saints’ Day (aka All Hallows), it marks the start of the annual welcome to the souls of the departed: All Saints on November 1 and All Souls, November 2.

“Of course, these are Christian festivals. As usual, though, they occupy the remains of ancient pagan rites, and therefore mark auspicious moments of the earth’s seasonal cycle.

In fact All Hallows engulfed not one but two pre-existing religious festivals – the Celtic Samhain​ (pronounced Sow-in) and the pre-Spanish Central American Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos​).”

Interpreted by some as being nothing more than superstitions, “Isn’t it possible that a worshipful approach to nature would be less stupid than continuing to regard the earth as our toy, to be trashed at our pleasure,”  Farrelly asks.

“The basic idea is familiar enough – spirit within matter: body as temple of the soul, temple as container of god. Traditionally, ground became sacralised through the interment of the dead, or through sacrifice. Hence, Halloween.

Roger Scruton, philosopher, Catholic and arch Tory, argues that our relationship with earth is an “I to You encounter”. It’s a depth-to-depth connection, the loss or destruction of which, he argues, brings “not hatred but an ever-expanding heartlessness”. Ring any bells?

He’s not proposing the Gaia theory, which – conceiving the earth as a complex system – is still scientistic. Rather, he makes humans and nature equivalent moral entities engaged in what he calls an “erotic” relationship; subject-to-subject, face-to-face. It’s a love thing. Until we see this, and live accordingly, we’ll never truly belong on the planet.”

So amid all the hoo hah spare a thought for the real meaning of Hallowe’en and nurturing a sense of belonging to our earth mother.  Read the full story at: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-hidden-depths-of-halloween-20171026-gz8uxx.html

In spite of what we might think about the influence of digital technology on our daily lives, the fact of the matter is, people are embracing it not only for trivialities like what they ate for dinner or how they feel about their team winning or losing at the football, it is being used for more serious matters like writing a will.

Such a will has been contested in the Queensland Supreme Court. Reporter Michaela Whitbourn writes in Where there’s a will there’s an unsent text with a smiley face (SMH 10.1017 page 1), that Justice Brown ruled that the text message was a valid will cutting out a man’s wife and son.

“The 55-year old man took his life in October last year and the unsent text was found on his phone the following day.”   Justice Susan Brown went on to say that: “the informal nature of the text did not exclude it from being treated as representing the man’s intentions.”

The courts in recent years have grappled with unusual cases involving informal wills. In 2015, the NSW Supreme Court ruled a video will was valid and displaced a written will made just two days earlier.

For the full story go to: http://www.smh.com.au/national/unsent-text-message-with-a-smiley-face-counted-as-a-will-court-rules-20171010-gyxzsf.html

As with many projects that we get involved in, they can take on a life of their own.  This is the case with Tina FiveAsh who started The Death Letter Project as a PhD research project in late 2014.

The aim was “to invite fifty Australians to hand write a letter, responding to: what is death; and what happens when we die?”

“The letters, designed for public display alongside photographic portraits of each contributor, were intended to inspire fresh thought, contemplation, and conversation about death – undoubtedly the most mystifying, feared, and significantly undiscussed human experience in modern western society,” says FiveAsh.

The Project has morphed into something rather bigger than first imagined.  Rather than stop at fifty it will now continue for who knows how long.  It was launched in July 2017.  Beyond this new letters will be published every week.

As an example of one contributor, Victoria Spence | Life Rites Holistic Funeral Director / Counsellor / Celebrant, wrote:

Dear Tina

What is death?

Death is an impossible question that takes us beyond what we can know. To the ends and beginnings of things. A mystery, to be kept for the experience of it, alone. So whilst I can’t speak of my death, I can speak about what I have experienced of the deaths of others that have graced and shaped my life.

To read her complete letter and those of many others visit: https://www.deathletterprojects.com/about

Where does social justice rate in the ‘ending of days’ and death care industries?

There would be some people who would take exception to the naming of these services as industries.  But if you add up the number of large corporations who have a stake in the operation of how we do dying and death in this country, it is hard to describe it in any other way. In addition, the influence these businesses have on government decisions could be interpreted as having an influence that leaves citizen voters disenfranchised from the political system.  So industry it is.  Best we not be hoodwinked by their self-appointed status – of being somehow superior to the end users of their services. We should constantly remind ourselves that these people are service providers and without us ordinary folks using their services they would not exist.

If this industry from health care for the living to after death for the grieving family was to be packaged up as various products and services how would it be labelled?

Would it be like so many food products open to all kinds of interpretations and contain all many of undisclosed ingredients that were nigh impossible for the general consumer to decipher let along understand? It so happens that this is exactly the case in both instances.

The medicalisation of the end-of-life has people kept alive on machine s way beyond their ability to live independently.  And from which they will never recover any sense of normalcy.

The commodification of after death care especially the funeral industry has resulted in a range of products and services that if priced separately would not add up to the package prices we are presented with.

It has families bamboozled by choices all based on technological intervention, many of which do not produce better quality of life outcomes.   Not having an AHCD or Enduring Guardian leaves medicos with few choices / options but to keep patients ‘alive’

Likewise with after death care, if there is no After Death Care Plan that is fully understood by the remaining family then an all inclusive funeral package is bought that often leaves the family sidelined to watch on as the ‘process’ follows a pre-arranged formula that fits the industry need to churn out or ‘process’ a pre-determined number of bodies so as to meet its business targets for the quarter.

There are exceptions of course as with any industry, but they are becoming harder to find.  Shopping around is essential.

This brings us back to the point of what this article is about – social justice. How to label and price after-death-care products and services.

To start with, social justice is not a game.  It’s not something to be mucked about with. There have to be basic principles that underpin the system.  Transparency, disclosure, truth in advertising, empowering the end user are musts. Price gouging and taking advantage of the vulnerable and less fortunate are musts in the opposite sense – they must be seen as unethical and intolerable.