When I die, I would like for my body to be laid out to be eaten by animals. Having your body laid out to be eaten by animals is not for everyone.
Maybe you have already had the end-of-life talk with your family and decided on, I don't know,cremation（the burning of a corpse until only ashes are left). And in the interest of fulldisclosure(the revelation of information that wa previously kept secret), what I am proposing for my dead body is not strictly legal at the moment, but it's not withoutprecedent(an established custom or practice).
We've been laying out our dead for all of human history; it's call exposure burial. In fact, it's likely happening right now as we speak. In the mountainous regions of Tibet, they practice "sky burial," aritual（an established and prescribled pattern of observance, e.g. in a religion)where the body is left to beconsumed(to use something in such a way that it cannot be reused or recovered afterward.)byvultures(a large bird of prey with usually dark feathers and broad wings that feeds on carrion). In Mumbai, in India, those who follow theParsireligion put their dead in structures called "Towers of Silence." These are interesting culturaltidbits(a small piece of interesting information or news), but they just haven't really been that popular in the Western world — they're not what you'd expect.
In America, our death traditions have come to be chemicalembalming(to protect something from change), followed by burial at your localcemetery(an area of land used for burying dead people, especially one that is not beside a church), or, more recently, cremation. I myself, am a recentvegetarian(somebody who eats vegetables, fruits grains, seeds, and usually eggs and dairy products, but not meat or fish), which means I spent the first 30 years or so of my life frantically inhaling animals — as many as I could get my hands on. Why, when I die, should they not have their turn with me?
Am I not an animal? Biologically speaking, are we not all, in this room, animals? Accepting the fact that we are animals has some potentially terrifying consequences. It means accepting that we are doomed todecay(to decompose and become sofr, crumbly, or liquefied, or make something do this)and die, just like any other creature on earth.
For the last nine years, I've worked in the funeral industry, first as a crematory operator, then as amortician(someone whose job is to arrange funerals and prepare dead boides for being buried)and most recently, as the owner of my own funeral home. And I have some good news: if you're looking to avoid the whole "doomed to decay and die" thing: you will have all the help in the world in that avoidance from the funeral industry.
It's a multi-billion-dollar industry, and its economic model is based on the principle of protection,sanitation(the equipment and systems that keep places clean, eapecially by removing human waste)and beautification of thecorpse(a group of people involved in a particular job or activity). Whether they mean to or not, the funeral industry promotes this idea ofhuman exceptionalism(人类例外论）. It doesn't matter what it takes, how much it costs, how bad it is for the environment, we're going to do it because humans are worth it! It ignores the fact that death can be an emotionally messy and complex affair, and that there is beauty in decay — beauty in the natural return to the earth from whence we came. Now, I don't want you to get me wrong — I absolutely understand the importance of ritual, especially when it comes to the people that we love. But we have to be able to create and practice this ritual without harming the environment, which is why we need new options.
So let's return to the idea of protection, sanitation and beautification. We'll start with a dead body. The funeral industry will protect your dead body by offering to sell your family acasket（a coffin for a dead body)made of hardwood or metal with arubber(s strong substance that can be stretched and does not allow liquids to pass throughit, used for making tyres, boots, etc, It is made from the liquid inside a tropical plant or is produced using chemicals) sealant(a substance that is put onto a surface to stop air, water, etc, from entering or escaping from it). At the cemetery, on the day of burial, that casket will be lowered into a large concrete or metalvault(a room under a church or ina cemetery, used for burying people). We're wasting all of these resources — concretes, metal, hardwoods — hiding them in vast undergroundfortresses(a strong well-protected building used for defending a place). When you choose burial at the cemetery, your dead body is not coming anywhere near the dirt that surrounds it. Food for worms you are not.
Next, the industry will sanitize your body through embalming: the chemical preservation of the dead. This procedure drains(to empty or dry sth by allowing the water to flow out of or off it, or become empty or dry in this way)your blood and replaces it with atoxic(poisonous and harmful to people,animals, or the environment), cancer-causing formaldehyde福尔马林. They say they do this for the public health because the dead body can be dangerous, but the doctors in this room will tell you that that claim would only apply if the person had died of some wildly infectious disease, like Ebola.Even human decomposition, which, let's be honest, is a little stinky（having a very strong and unpleasant smell)and unpleasant, is perfectly safe. The bacteria that causes disease is not the same bacteria that causes decomposition.
Finally, the industry will beautify the corpse. They'll tell you that the natural dead body of your mother or father is not good enough as it is. They'll put it in makeup. They'll put it in a suit. They'll injectdyes(s substance that is used to change the colour of things such as cloth or hair)so the person looks a little more alive — just resting. Embalming is a cheat code, providing the illusion that death and then decay are not the natural end for allorganic(produced by or from liviong things)life on this planet.
Now, if this system of beautification, sanitation, protection doesn't appeal to you, you are not alone.There is a whole wave of people — funeral directors, designers, environmentalists — trying to come up with a more eco-friendly way of death. For these people, death is not necessarily apristine（in or belonging to an original state or condition), makeup, powder-bluetuxedo(a type of jacket that men wear on very formal occasions.The usual British word is dinner jacket)kind of affair. There's no question that our current methods of death are not particularly sustainable, what with the waste of resources and our reliance on chemicals. Even cremation,which is usually considered the environmentally friendly option, uses, per cremation, the natural gasequivalent(something that is considered to be equal to or have the same effect,value,or meaning as sth else.)of a 500-mile car trip.
So where do we go from here? Last summer, I was in the mountains of North Carolina,hauling(to pull sth with continuous and laborious movements)buckets(a very large quantity or amount of sth)of woodchips(a small piece of wood, glass, etc. that has broken or been broken off an object.)in the summer sun. I was at Western Carolina University at their "Body Farm," more accurately called a "human decompositionfacility(a special feature of a mechine,service,etc.that makes it possible to do sth extra)." Bodies donated to science are brought here, and their decay is studied to benefit the future offorensics(connected with the scientific tests used by the police when trying to slove a crime). On this particular day, there were 12 bodies laid out in various stages of decomposition. Some were skeletonized, one was wearing purplepajamas(comfortable pants and a shirt that you wear when you sleep.), one still had blonde facial hair visible. The forensic aspect is really fascinating, but not actually why I was there. I was there because a colleague of mine named Katrina Spade is attempting to create a system, not of cremating the dead, but composting the dead.
She calls the system "Recomposition," and we've been doing it withcattle(cows and bulls that are kept as farm animals for their milk or meat.)and otherlivestock(the animals kept on a farm, for example cows or sheep.)for years.She imagines a facility where the family could come and lay their dead loved one in anutrient(a substance that is needed to keep a living thing alive and to help it to grow.)-rich mixture that would, in four-to-six weeks, reduce the body — bones and all — to soil. In those four-to-six weeks, your molecules become other molecules; you literally transform.
How would this fit in with the very recent desire a lot of people seem to have to be buried under a tree, or to become a tree when they die? In a traditional cremation, the ashes that are left over —inorganic(not consisting of or coming from any living substances)bone fragments — form athick,chalky(containing chalk or like chalk) layer(to apply or arrange things as separate thicknesses, or form into separate thicknesses.)that, unlessdistributed(to scatter sth or spread it throughout a particular area or place.)in the soil just right, can actually hurt or kill the tree. But if you're recomposed, if you actually become the soil, you cannourish(to give people,animals,or plants the substances they require to live,grow,or remain fit and healthy)the tree, and become thepost-mortem(a medical examination of the body of a dead person in order to find out how they died)contributor you've always wanted to be — that you deserve to be.
So that's one option for the future of cremation. But what about the future of cemeteries? There are a lot of people who think we shouldn't even have cemeteries anymore because we're running out of land. But what if we reframed it, and the corpse wasn't the land's enemy, but its potentialsavior(sb who rescues sb or sth from harm or danger)? I'm talking about conservation burial, where largeswaths(a large area of land, usually longer than it is wide.)of land arepurchased(to buy sth using money or its equivalent.)by a land trust. The beauty of this is that once you plant a few dead bodies in that land, it can't be touched, it can't be developed on — hence the term, "conservation burial." It's the equivalent of chaining yourself to a tree post-mortem — "Hell no, I won't go! No, really — I can't. I'm decomposing under here."
Any money that the family gives to the cemetery would go back into protecting and managing the land.There are noheadstones(a piece of stone placed at one end of a grave, showing the name,etc. of the person buried there)and no graves in the typical sense. The graves arescattered(spread far apart over a wide area or over a long period of time)about thepropertyunderelegantmounds(a small rounded hill), marked only by arogckor a small metal disk, or sometimes onlylocatableby GPS.There's no embalming, no heavy, metal caskets. My funeral home sells a few caskets made out of things likewoven(to make sth by twisting flowers,pieces of wood,etc, together) willow(a tree with long thin branches and narrow leaves that grows near water)and bamboo, but honestly, most of our families just choose a simpleshroud(s piece of cloth that a dead person's body is wrapped in before it is buried). There are none of the bigvaults(an arched structure of stone, brick, wood, or plaster that forms a ceiling or roof)that most cemeteries require just because it makes it easier for them to landscape.Families can come here; they canluxuriate(to enioy something in a self-indulgent way, taking great pleasure from the luxury and comfort that it offers)in nature; they can even plant a tree or a shrub, though only native plants to the area are allowed. The dead thenblend(to mix a substance with another substance so that the two do not readily separate)seamlesslyin with the landscape.
There's hope in conservation cemeteries. They offer dedicated green space in both urban andrural(relating to parts of a country that are not near cities and where the population is low)areas.They offer a chance to reintroduce native plants and animals to a region. They offer public trails, places for spiritual practice, places for classes and events — places where nature and mourning meet. Most importantly, they offer us, once again, a chance to just decompose in a hole in the ground. The soil, let me tell you, has missed us.
I think for a lot of people, they're starting to get the sense that our current funeral industry isn't really working for them. For many of us, being sanitized and beautified just doesn't reflect us. It doesn't reflect what we stood for during our lives. Will changing the way we bury our dead solve climate(a general attitude of feeling; an atmosphere or a situation which exists in a particular place)change? No.But it will make bold< that can be easily seen; having a strong clear appearance>moves(大胆的运动）in how we see ourselves as citizens of this planet. If we can die in a way that is more humble and self-aware, I believe that we stand a chance.
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