#the order of the good death

[altarflame]

“In America, where I live, death has been big business since the turn of the twentieth century. A century has proven the perfect amount of time for its citizens to forget what funerals once were - family and community-run affairs. In the nineteenth century no one would have questioned Josephine’s daughter preparing her mother’s body - it would have seemed strange if she didn’t. No one would have questioned a wife washing and dressing the body of her husband or a father carrying his son to the grave in a homemade coffin. In an impressively short time, America’s funeral industry has become more expensive, more corporate, and more bureaucratic than any other funeral industry on earth. If we can be called best at anything, it would be at keeping our grieving families from their dead.”

-Caitlin Doughty, in “From Here to Eternity”

#death #hospice #funeral industry #home funerals #natural burial #the order of the good death #my strongest held beliefs

[queermycelium]

Not to make another "hey I'm high but" post but

I think for the first time in my life on this platform I actually understand the mushroom post? And it has actually made me finally become comfortable with death as a concept and an inevitable and I feel??? Really healed by this??? So thank you to the original poster of the mushroom post, wherever you are, because the breaking moment when I had my epiphany was literally me saying "Death is an extent form of life" and my girlfriend reciting the rest of the post knowingly while handing me the bong.

#death mention #death positivity #the order of the good death #weed mention #drug mention #is this what its like getting closer to 30? #am i finally an adult? #Anna

[berattelse]

This existential longing for the pyre's fiery embrace is common worldwide. In India, family members transport dead bodies to a row of cremation pyres along the banks of the Ganges River. When a father dies, his pyre will be lit by his eldest son. As the flames grow hotter, his flesh bubbles and burns away. At just the right time, a wooden staff is brought forth and used to crack open the dead man's skull. At that moment, it is believed the man's soul is released. A son, describing the cremations of his parents, wrote that "before [breaking the skull], you shiver -- for this person was alive just a few hours back -- but once you hit the skull, you know what burns in front of you is after all just a body. All attachments are gone." The soul is set free, as an Indian spiritual song intones over a loudspeaker: "Death you think you have defeated us, but we sing the song of burning firewood."

Doughty, Caitlin. From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.

#caitlin doughty #from here to eternity #from here to eternity: traveling the world to find the good death #the order of the good death #on death #excerpts #prose #*

[asg-stuff]

The Order Of the Good Death provides resources that help people accept and engage death. (via Our Story | The Order of the Good Death)

See also A New Life for Dying: Death Doulas and the Death Positive Movement

#death #The Order of the Good Death #Caitlin Doughty #life #funeral #death doula

[executorofwillandestate]

Death positive refers to the idea that those around you should support you during and after a death, including having the freedom to express your sorrow and feelings.

#What does death positive mean? #Why is death positivity important? #How do you make a death positive? #Why death is important in life? #death positive meaning #positive views on death #death positive movement #the positive death movement comes to life #The order of the good death #Death positive libraries #Negative effects of death

[vdoc]

In the US this is currently legal in just three states, with pushback primarily from the Catholic Church and the funeral industry, but hopefully more states will legalize it in the future.

#ask a mortician #human composting #burial alternatives #death #the order of the good death #Youtube

[t0rschlusspan1k]

Landis Blair, illustration from From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty

#art #Landis Blair #From Here to Eternity #Caitlin Doughty #Ask a Mortician #Order of the Good Death #cw: death #cw: scopophobia #illustration #favs

[thesoftboileddetectivepodcast]

TW: Death

Death care is near and dear to Tiffany's heart. To her, taking care of your dead is an act of love.

Trans Death Care advocates for transgender rights within funeral/death care services. 

You can follow them on Twitter at @transdeathcare or on Instagram.  https://www.instagram.com/transdeathcare/?hl=en

#death #death care #trans rights #trans death rights #TW: Death #TW: Dying #TW: Trans Death #podcast #audiodrama #radioplay #the order of the good death #pride month #pride #lgbtq

[booksandwords]

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Read time: 🎧 7:45 hours 🎧 Rating: 5/5

The quote: Accepting death doesn't mean you won't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, "Why do people die?" and "Why is this happening to me?" Death isn't happening to you. Death is happening to us all. — Caitlin Doughty

I am not one to listen to audiobooks. Honestly, I find that the inflexion and pacing feel wrong and for the books, I read most of the time it just makes me uncomfortable. But I like some podcasts, usually death and true crime-related and will turn some youtube vids into podcasts. I really like Ask a Mortician and I like Caitlin Doughty's voice, passion for her subject and aims to normalise death. I'm a millennial, I know death is inevitable I wonder sometimes if that comes from being raised in a time of mass shootings and global terrorism. I may be Australian but the global nature of society means we see and to a limited degree feel our online friends pain. So I decided to try this. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory is the first book published by Caitlin Doughty an autobiography of her first years in the death industry. The reason for risking this audiobook? Caitlin narrates her own book. As the author, she knows exactly how it should sound, how the people should sound, how to pronounce the place names and where the emphasis should be. Also she does the best voices for the people she worked with over the years.

This review is the simplest I've written in months if not years. It's simply some thoughts I had while I was listening to it. I had evernote open and just wrote thoughts as I had them.

From the very start of this book, you know what you are going to get. Shaving Byron is a slightly humorous take on the start of a career in the death industry. In which the players are introduced, including a young and naive Caitlin.

Caitlin's first encounter with death is explained in The Thud. I needed to pause during that one. It's the frankness with which she speaks about the death of that little girl, which is part of Caitlin's point, that affects me so much. Also, I'm not sure how my child self would have processed that.

I like here about the varying death cultures, the ways that death is handled by different groups. Push the Button looks at one way it is managed.

Pink Cocktail is a reference to embalming. Anyone who has watched Ask a Mortician knows Caitlin in anti embaling (pro green/ natural burial) but it wasn't always that way. It's odd and interesting to hear her talk about herself before that development and growth occurred.

Cannibalism... okay so cultural norms and societal expectations are something I really wish I could train myself out of sometimes. No, I don't want to eat people. I just want to be about to understand other cultures with ease. Honestly, the whole section called Demon Babies fed my anthropologist soul. (okay the part of my that really wants to study both anthropology and comparative theology)

Has some rather frank discussion of Jessica Mitford author of the American Way of Death (good lord 1996? I thought she died well earlier), and her "eccentric" family. Eccentric is one way to put the Mitford's and their slightly crazy politics (no seriously only one of the six is mentioned but look them up). Jessica Mitford was cremated in the first crematory that Caitlin worked in. Mitford is an interesting woman. And I really want to get my hands on one of her books now.

I really like the idea of direct disposal but there are some really sad things in there. I like Caitlin's dislike of people not looking into funeral homes when you know someone is dying, that burying your head in your sand that comes out here. My family tried to do that when my grandfather died, it frustrated me.

Some of the situations Caitin has found herself in are funny. I can see the lessons but I can see how they are all parts of her. Like getting covered in lard. Leading to the lesson... "Death should be known. Known as a difficult mental, physical and emotional process. Respected and feared for what it is." (ok I like that line)

Oh, body donation. Of course, Caitlin brings this up and I'm so glad she does. And I love it. From the ways it can be used the expected and the unexpected (cosmetic surgery practice and effectiveness of parachutes). Burke and Hare get a nod because we can't talk bodies and science without them. It's slightly different in Australia. Have an article specifically about body donation in Australia. Please consider it or organ donation or both. Oh and she talks about creating just a leg, she once found a single leg in a grave too. The whole section Alas, Poor Yorik is really interesting for the idea of in death we are all the same, death as the equaliser.

Eros and Thanatos. You have no real idea how happy this chapter title made me when I saw it. I have a bizarre love for all things mythological and these two, these two are an interesting but almost symbiotic pair. Death and love. Think Disney/ Hans Christian Anderson. Which is kinda the point here. I really like it as an idea. It honestly sounds like Caitlin gets choked up during this chapter, it's the most personal I've heard her get. Caitlin who was at the point in her life she was talking about at this point so very alone. It does give us the quote "The psychoanalyst Otto Rank declared modern love a religious problem. As we grow increasingly secular and move away from the towns where we were born, we can no longer use religion or community to confirm our meaning in the world, so we seize a love partner instead, someone to distract us from the fact of our animal existence. French existentialist Albert Camus said it best: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful."”

Bruce, Bruce is brilliant. Everything about fat people in Bubblating and a lot of his other comments that Caitlin tells up too. I like the voice she uses for him too, it's easily recognisable.

Bubblating is where Caitlin discusses decay and green burials. "“Not only am I aware that I’m a helpless, fragmented mass of organic matter, I celebrate it. Vive la decay!”" The idea of a universal loan program is so appealing to me as a way to discuss natural burials.

Ghusl creates a change in Caitlin. It's how she goes from wanting to be a crematory operator to a mortician. The thought processes. Also introduces the idea of death doulas, see also her video Deathbed Planning with a Death Doula with Alua Arthur.

Solo witness... I lost it at this line “It was the beginning of a Jane Austen novel, if Mr. Darcy was a grieving son/HBO enthusiast from Perth and Elizabeth an entry-level cremationist.” Mike, also fantastic. Solo Witness is the end of an era. Here she explains what causes her to leave her first job in the death industry at Westwind.

Oh God Caitlin I'm sorry... in relation to the whole Luke story. It hurts to hear someone you like, to hear their pain, to hear them spiralling. I have total respect for her including not only Luke but the whole chapter The Redwoods. But the ending of it is brilliant. It's a reminder to expect anything.

Some of the stories are known if you have seen the videos. But these stories weave together show how they made her.

The art of dying. this chapter is possibly the most thought-provoking. If you know Caitlin and her work. This section asks those questions. This is the one that asks you to look at your relationship with your mortality and death generally. I am very frank with death and dying and my relationship with it. I would prefer death than for life to be extended. I saw my grandfather live through prolonged life for too long. Have this long quote because I feel it is important...“By not talking about death with our loved ones, not being clear through advanced directives, DNR (do not resuscitate) orders, and funeral plans, we are directly contributing to this future ... and a rather bleak present, at that. Rather than engage in larger societal discussions about dignified ways for the terminally ill to end their lives, we accept intolerable cases like that of Angelita, a widow in Oakland who covered her head with a plastic bag because the arthritic pain of her gnarled joints was too much to bear. Or that of Victor in Los Angeles, who hung himself from the rafters of his apartment after his third unsuccessful round of chemotherapy, leaving his son to discover his body. Or the countless bodies with decubitus ulcers, more painful for me to care for them even babies or suicides. When these bodies come into the funeral home, I can only offer my sympathy to their living relatives, and promise to work to ensure that more people are not robbed of a dignified death by a culture of silence.”

The art of dying is her present, her future. The triggers for her to open her final vision for a funeral home. She felt she had failed her family. She wanted to make sure no families than need be had to experience that.

“We don't need to stop at green or natural burial. "Burial" comes from the anglo-saxon word birgan, "to conceal." Not everyone wants to be concealed under the earth. I don't want to be concealed. Ever since my dark night of the soul in the redwood forest, I've believed the animals I've consumed my whole life should someday have their turn with me. The ancient Ethiopians would place their dead in the lake where they fished, so the fish would have the opportunity to receive back the nutrients. The earth is expertly designed to take back what it has created. Bodies left for carrion in enclosed, regulated spaces could be the answer to the environmental problems of burial and cremation. There is no limit to where our engagement with death can take us.” One I didn't know the etymology for burial. Two I like this as an idea.

This book has some brilliant discussions on race, gender and inequality.  While there are clear generalisations it isn't untrue.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory is a book I really recommend. It's a story of a woman's journey through the early part of her career and some of the pivotal moments in her life to the point it was published. It shows the fantastic people she had in her life and the impacts they had on her. It does some dark moments. As well as wider discussions of death there are references to drugs and abuse (neither to her) and admission of suicidal thoughts. This is very honest and well written with some beautiful quotes. It is thought-provoking and doesn't need prior knowledge of Caitlen or her work to make sense. As an audio recording listening to a biography in the author's voice is an experience. It makes everything make more real. Makes everything more connected and personal because it is. The author does have a very listenable voice. If you want to know what she sounds like before you buy/ borrow this I do recommend the podcast she co-hosts Death in the Afternoon.

#smoke gets in your eyes #smoke gets in your eyes: and other lessons from the crematory #caitlin doughty #autobiography #book review #audio book #ktreviews #the order of the good death #read 2021 #audiobook #booklr

[pippuns]

the only thing that could have improved SVSSS is if shen jiu was in the background providing scathing hateful commentary the entire time. i want to see him and shen yuan eat each other alive <3

#svsss #shen yuan #shen jiu #shang qinghua #og shang qinghua #pippart #im so interested in the tragedy of sj's whole thing #like there's the obvious bit #with a guy who gets replaced by someone else and its obvious that the new guy isn't the old guy #but no one really cares to look past their initial misgivings about the situation and just accept it #both bc of false rumors about the old guy but also bc he's just. really too wounded to connect with other people in any meaningful capacity #but im also just soooo interested with what shen yuan does with shen jiu's life #because its literally objectively better #he doesn't get tortured to death #he has friends. his disciples love him. his martial siblings rely on him. his reputation is improved on all accounts. he finds love. #he's more sociable and he trusts other people more and other people trust him in turn #but in order to get this result you have to completely divorce the old goods from the new #its a similar reason as to why im so interested in kris's whole thing in deltarune #is this something sj could have gotten on his own if someone had reached out to him first? #was sj ever in a place where he could have accepted a hand reached out towards him? #or was he always doomed to be his own downfall? #anyways. i am very normal about the media i consume. #obsessed with the stranger vibes of svsss SO much #hello fellow tma enjoyers that podcast permanently changed how i evaluate characters #hello tumblr exclusives you get the benefit of seeing my deranged thoughts in the tags #bc im too shy to just tweet this out

[bizarrelittlemew]

Interview with Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi about OFMD S1 (March 2022)

Source: The Project NZ

#they both look so fucking good here 🫠🫠🫠 #how have i never seen this before #grinned all the way through #rhys “i do take orders well?!” lmaoooo #ofmd #ofmd s1 #our flag means death #interview #ofmd promo #rhys darby #taika waititi #probably slim chances but i wish they'd get to do ofmd s2 promo like this #video

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Me: Why do i love making myself sad by thinking about the clones and order 66 and the jedi so much?

Also me: Captain America: The Winter Soldier is my favourite movie of all time.

#being forced to turn on the ones you fought alongside for years #mind control making you try to kill your closest friends #being forced to fight for an evil that secretly grew within the supposedly good government #being freed from the mind control and having to be on the run not knowing who you are and what your place is #having to live with the guilt from the things you had no choice but to do #these concepts are nothing new to me #they've been on my mind for a decade #also project insight reminds me of the death star #star wars #marvel #the clone wars #the clones #order 66 #the jedi order #the fall of the jedi #comander cody #obi wan kenobi #the winter soldier #bucky barnes #steve rogers #captain america #captain america: the winter soldier #ca:tws #mcu #captain rex #the bad batch #tbb crosshair #the 501st #kate's post

[berattelse]

Things reached a head in 1828 when Burke and Hare made themselves infamous in Edinburgh for skipping the exhumation and going straight to murder, with payment on delivery. Burke was executed for his sixteen suffocations and sentenced to dissection as an ironic post-mortem punishment. His skeleton still stands in the anatomical museum in the University of Edinburgh with a paper sign pinned to his rib: (IRISH MALE) The skeleton of WILLIAM BURKE, THE NOTORIOUS MURDERER. Some 332 miles south, a piece of his brain sits at the bottom of a jar in the Wellcome Collection in London, pale and shrunken. When I saw it in an exhibition in 2012, it was place on the same shelf as a slice of Einstein's brain. Genius or villain, the mind as matter looks much the same.

Campbell, Hayley. All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work. St. Martin's Press, 2022.

#hayley campbell #all the living and the dead #all the living and the dead: from embalmers to executioners #nonfiction #the order of the good death #on death #excerpts #prose #*

[cheapbourbon]

Hunters Knight : alabado sea

#Jake Lockley #Moon Knight #Khonshu #hunters knight #bird dad #talk about doing these out of order 🤣☠️ #this one would be number one. start here #here is how Jake is able to be Jake and Moon Knight and off in Luxor with Badr without Steven and Marc barking up his ass 🤣 #Bird dad saves Jake from a fait worse then death #to die alone and unknown and unloved. 🥺 #unpopular opinion but Marc and Steven will forever be on my shit list for leaving him in the sarcophagus. #poor baby I just want to hug and love him #at least he has a chance at a happy life now #serving his god and doing good and dating a sexy doctor 😌👌🏻

[sausage-rolll]

thinking long and hard about Godwyn and Fortissax's friendship like

>the dragons begin a war with the golden order

>Godwyn and Fortissax become “good friends” which brings an era of peace between the golden order and the dragons

>Godwyn goes on to begin the golden lineage with a completely unmentioned partner

>dragons are known to take the form of humans and even have relations with them, as seen with Vyke and Fortissax's sister Lanssax

>One of Godwyn’s many descendants is Godrick, who refers to the dragon in his arena as “kindred one”

>While Godwyn was the first demigod to fall during the night of the black knives, it’s implied that many others followed at the hands of the assassins. Due to the rest of the known descendants of Marika being alive, and no one else having a child pre-shattering it can be inferred that Godwyn's bloodline was specifically targeted for some reason. Since those are the only other demigods that existed at the time.

>Godwyn is assassinated and because him and Fortissax are such “Good friends” Fortissax proceeds to enter godwyns mind and spends decades, possibly centuries attempting to fight off the deathblight from within him, eventually succumbing to it themselves but still unwilling to abandon their “good friend” regardless.

#Do you see my vision? #Fortissax would rather die trying to save Godwyn than abandon him to fester alone #the two becoming “companions” literally ended the war between their communities and allowed the dragons to coexist with the golden order #much like how Radagon and Rennala married to end the war between the erdtree and the carians. #and godwyn has many descendants that are conveniently wiped out pre shattering #one of the only surviving ones having a fascination and kinship with dragons #and his companion is also conveniently completely forgotten by history despite how important they would be historically? #yeah. “Good friends” my ass. #those two loved each other and you can't convince me otherwise #elden ring #elden ring lore #elden ring theory #godwyn the golden #godwyn the prince of death #lichdragon fortissax #fortissax #godrick the grafted