The Sustainable Living Festival’s round the corner, and for Kinship Ritual it’s an annual event. This year it’s Thursday 16th February in the morning in Carlton. The focus is ‘Shades of Green, Melbourne Eco-Funeral Options’. At past events the question ‘what is sustainable actually?’ and the topic of greenwash have arisen alongside stimulating discussion around personal values and choices. Now we take this exchange of views further, looking at what’s available on the 1st page of a Google search for a green funeral in Melbourne.

Later in February I’ll be on a panel with the title Enlightened Funerals. Hosted by the fabulous East Coburg Neighbourhood House, on Tuesday 28th, the other speaker is a Jen Drysdale, delightful death doula.

Together with Lina Patel a member of The Weekly Service I’m hosting one of Stephen Jenkinson’s events in Melbourne, entitled Sanity & Soul, Grief & Climate Change. How difficult it is to face the reality of climate change! Surely there are feelings and grief. I’m honoured to be working with people from a generation who are pierced more than mine I think, by the climate change reality and its effect on their lives. Our event will be at Donkey Wheel House on 7 March. See Eventbrite for other Stephen Jenkinson events in Melbourne.

Some of you know that I convene the Melbourne Jane’s Walk each year in May. I’ve decided to make my walk one that celebrates the life of Glenda M. Lindsay, whose contribution to urban sustainability in Melbourne is legendary. Glenda died recently, and her immense legacy in the City of Yarra and beyond calls for a joyous walk with singing, stories and sharing. It’s going to be on Saturday 6th May, coinciding with the monthly Fitzroy Urban Harvest Food Swap at Smith Reserve, and ending at Tramstop 22 at the north end of Smith Street. If you’d like to help with this walk, be in touch.

Hope to catch you face to face soon, and always appreciate you sharing my news!

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This determination for change is evident in what’s termed the ‘home funeral’ movement. After the Global Financial Crisis, many simply could not afford funerals. They were sick of being sold products by funeral directors, notably embalming, an ubiquitous practice in the US. I attended the National Home Funeral Alliance’s conference a couple of years’ ago, and got a flavour of the citizen led movement in the sign-in line when the woman next to me introduced herself: ‘I’m Margaret, and this is my sister Helen … we did our mother.’ Intrepid baby boomers without financial resources, they’d been inspired to organise a home vigil or ‘lying in state’ and funeral, taking care of bathing, dressing, vigil and transportation themselves.

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Thanks to National Home Funeral Alliance

The coast-to-coast movement comprises a mix of educators, death doulas, health care and funeral professionals, green burial specialists, Death Café convenors, artists and craftspeople, and those like Margaret, who read in a newspaper or on the net that the family could do it without calling on funeral directors. Margaret then made connections with educators in her state through a Google search. Those who have had the experience often become educators. They can undertake training with home funeral practitioners in numerous states. They may lead the way in their own communities for a new way of approaching death, dying and funerals.

The conference was an intriguing US-wide get-together. The title ‘Home Funeral in Community, Restoring the Lost Art’, suggests the American folk spirit that marked the action. I got together with men and women ranging from 30 to 70. At every meal people were hard at death conversations over weak coffee, comparing notes on regulatory requirements in their respective states and discussing tools of the trade. Americans are tactful, never insisting, simply helping others towards their point of view. ‘You might want to think about buying a body board, said one practitioner to another, ‘it makes it so much easier to move the body across – you should think about it.’ Only to be met with protestations that a double sheet is good, a sheet is quite fine.

If a DIY funeral is right for the person, it works well if a planning process has been put in place, roles and tasks considered and conversations had. The activity of doing after death care and a funeral ourselves contributes to sense making, a key aspect of successful grieving and integration of loss. Death is a mystery. It is something humans with few exceptions are at pains to banish from front of mind. Yet it happens to all. In contemporary society our exposure to the reality of death is often very limited. The body is whisked away soon after death, and there may be little further contact with it again. No wonder it is difficult to make sense of. Integrating the experience of loss has to take place via the mind, without the concrete support of the senses. Seeing. Touching a cold body. Listening, and not hearing breath.

The body present at home before the funeral? It’s morbid. Confronting. It’s unnecessary. It will be frightening. These are commonly held views and tend to make the funeral domain strictly one for funeral directors. This makes it the norm to hand over authority to them. They are experienced and resourced to provide a seamless experience. Their work is not easy yet they often describe it as rewarding.

This is equally true of those of us who are part of the movement for ‘death literacy’ and new funeral norms. Groundswell, recently ran their annual Dying to Know Day. Every 8th August, hosted conversations are held with the intent of countering fear, isolation and taboos around end of life discussions.

‘Have you thought about what you want when you die? Have you discussed it?’

‘Oh yeah, don’t worry about it, I just want to be buried in the backyard.’

Hitting on a solution like this seems trouble-free. Yet Imagine flying over the suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne, and instead of noticing swimming pools out of the window, picking up the imprint of a massive DIY graveyard, not of pets, but family members.

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Painting the coffin, forever home …

‘Oh I just want something sustainable. There’s this fantastic new biodegradable pod coffin. You can be buried in it in foetal position and a tree grows out of it.’

The beauty of this individual solution to body disposal has seen it liked on Facebook more than 12,000 times. The pod is still in the design phase but many people think it is an immediate option. On a moment’s reflection the bio aspect of the pod is way more complex than an enviro-friendly Christmas card studded with callistemon seed that is supposed to result in a gorgeous shrub in the garden. It may take some years to perfect. Nonetheless beauty and sustainability are values both innovators and their audience aspire to.

Holding a facilitated conversation for a group of friends, family or health clients can be light and enjoyable. It can acknowledge the optimistic, sometimes unrealistic thinking that comes from thinking alone. It is not morbid to talk about practical aspects of caring for a dead body that we usually outsource to funeral companies. With ease around what many see as a difficult subject, we are more likely to hold in mind values such as sustainability, beauty or cost-effectiveness, that in ordinary circumstances inform our decision-making. We can stop to calculate the human and environmental costs of producing a cheap cardboard coffin in China and shipping it to Costco.

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And then they arrive. Great people who may not have much in common. But they all want to know:

How much sustainability can there be in a Melbourne funeral?

Some are quite optimistic about sustainability. Everyone recognises the challenges.

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Thanks to Johann Drea (2007)

My goal is to give the social aspect of sustainability more of a look in. How can anyone, at the time of a death, do what has to be done without that help. Community. Friends. How much headspace does a family have even to compare price offers by different funeral companies, let alone to assess how green a coffin is?

But here we have the time. We take the coffin as a case study.

Here’s a waste pyramid. Check out the least favoured option. Think about how many coffins go up in smoke or six feet under.

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Thanks to drstuey

What’s is the most sustainable coffin option?

Small groups come to different conclusions.

Well, at first we thought the recycled coffin was the natural choice. But then I thought, I couldn’t take up that option without having quite a big conversation with my family.

We liked the pine coffin, but really we have to think about pine plantations, and where the timber comes from. Perhaps recycled timber?

We had to agree to forget the cardboard coffin. Produced in China, the worker conditions, air and water pollution put them out of the running.

This was just the start. Why be buried in a coffin at all when you could go in a shroud?

Questions questions questions

Everyone wants more information about sustainability in Melbourne. What is the sustainability performance of Melbourne’s crematoria? Why lawn cemeteries? When will there be a dedicated green burial option?

Are we going to talk about the vigil, asks one participant.  More on the SLF event in my next blog.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

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When I visited the US in 2013, I enjoyed the camaraderie between people involved in the ‘home funeral’ movement. When I registered at their conference, I overheard one woman say, ‘This is my sister Donna. She did her husband. We did our mother as well’. By this she meant that they had held a vigil for these family members at home, prepared the body for the funeral, held the funeral, and taken the coffin to the cemetery as well. A funeral director wasn’t called unless specific services were required. I’ve been involved in after death care like this, and at the SLF event, I’ll share some experiences.

This article from Huffington Post, ‘Home Funerals Grow as Americans Skip the Mortician for Do-It-Yourself-After-Death-Care’. shows how much the movement to ‘own’ the after death care process has grown in the US in recent years.

Remembering, witnessing, mourning and collective experience are all part of the thread of a vigil. I grew up in South Africa, and at the time of Madiba’s death, I was touched at the way spontaneous vigils arose all over the country. This candle-lit focus of caring attention could have been on the street where I once lived.

Kids can be creatively involved without any fuss when everything’s happening at home. When the option to ‘own the process’ of after death care is activated, kids and adults are free to bring imagination and care to this period of transition.

There seems to be an increasing appetite for conversations about the kind of after-death care people desire. Hope you’ll join me

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Over the week of the festival, we saw over two hundred people and had long conversations with thirty-six people who had questions or uncertainties or sought more information.

After each event we invited participants to put a mark on a board indicating the degree to which the talks had met or exceeded their expectations.

Surprised that people want to explore funerals at festivals? Some of the comments made by participants show what people liked about being able to join with others to find out more:

It was helpful. I did a similar session at Seven Sisters after my grandma died. I like the idea of expanding to include all rites of life. It’s necessary at a festival like Woodford.  Beth

I found it good to hear about death and just to be prepared, to start thinking. It could be my parents, it could be a friend. Tim

I think it’s imperative to have meaningful venues to discuss living and dying well.  Brooke

Participants included people whose day jobs were in the community and health sector, nursing homes, arts organisations and funeral homes. One man manages a small community cemetery. However family and friends were most in people’s minds. They were interested in low impact and sustainable funerals. People reported that the sessions were informative, appropriate and respectful – this was heartening, given that it was a first for this topic at this festival. Inspired by so many positive responses, we’re planning a new and different program for Woodford 2015/2016.

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All these issues hit a funeral company’s market. With slow demand, the drive for new customers is competitive. Major players Le Pine, and Tobins  have put a lot into changing the look and feel of their services, with well designed websites and attractive propositions about a wide range of  funeral options. Tobins highlights that choices – such as how your coffin will look – are up to you. The Le Pine thematic ‘Goodbye’ lessens the need to talk about death. All companies promise purchasers high quality service and convenience.

From the consumer side, with longer lives and inadequate super savings as outlined in the Age report, many women can’t afford cashew nuts. And what about any major outlay? They’re way out of reach. What to do, when a funeral comes in at between a no frills $4-5,000 and a higher end $12-15,000?

It’s reassuring for anyone who’s afflicted with ‘income poverty’ that home funerals provide a manageable alternative to conventional commercial options. Keep the body at home, use a low-cost coffin, transport the body to the cemetery, collect the ashes, hold your own memorial service. Pick your own flowers. Bring a plate. Perhaps some cashews …

Thanks to ‘Last Things’ for the featured image.

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Some sustainable values that people identified as no-brainers for the sustainable funeral included:

• locally sourced products
• plain, paintable coffin (that social dimension, get people together around decorating the coffin)
• benefits of rapidly disintegrating materials such as shrouds
• garden or bush flowers
• re-usable coffins (not everyone’s cup of tea)
• travel arrangements that avoid multiple car transportation
• low impact body storage

There were various statutory barriers that participants wanted to explore such as: regulatory constraints that might hamper the introduction of resumation, a water based compost process and policy or legislative constraints that hamper development of conservation and green burial.

For those interested in these options here’s good youTube footage starting (FF to 21.00) from Energy Now.

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