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Monday Hearts for Madalene
Page Hodel creates the most beautiful hearts in an ongoing celebration of loveSummer Days! Every week, it’s an honor for SevenPonds to share with our readers the story of the Monday Hearts for Madalene project, a true account of the power of love in the midst of death. The project’s origins take us to 2005: the moment Page Hodel encountered Madalene Rodriguez and fell “instantly, dizzyingly in love with her.” The…
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Project Womb
What happens when you mix philosophy, technology and end of life? You get Project Womb, a “media-driven time capsule” and contemporary casket“After birth, the second biggest event in life is death. And, yet, across cultures, our relationship with it seems based on avoidance and denial. We asked ourselves, ‘why isn’t death treated as naturally and gracefully as birth?’” These were the concerns of the “Project Womb” designer known as “Diddo” whose brazen work has been commissioned…
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A Teaspoon of Sugar & Memories: The Grieving Candle
DIY candles made with a loved one’s cup are a comfort during the grieving process5 Tips for Making Your Own Grieving Candle: We seek to both let go and hold on when a loved one dies, creating a contradiction that causes major emotional turmoil in the grieving process. That’s where the DIY Grieving Candle comes in—it’s an object that encourages you to release your grief and preserve your memories.…
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Why Do We Now Have Sleek Modern Cremation Urns? (Interview)
The owner of Capsule Urn discusses how his designs will change the way you think about cremation urnsToday, SevenPonds speaks with Capsule Urn company founder Steve Prastka. Located near Portland, Oregon, Capsule Urn aims to update the often outdated or traditional perception that our culture has of vessels and cremation urns. American-made, design-driven and entirely contemporary – Capsule Urn is a strong force for changing the way we perceive death and end-of-life…
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“God’s Hotel“
Author Dr. Victoria Sweet shares how medieval medicine and slow medicine can be used in modern hospitals to create life-changing experiences for doctors and patientsWhat is the most efficient strategy of providing health care? Should quality food and one-on-on doctor-patient care be replaced with high tech machines and fast-paced diagnostics? What does it truly take to turn a hospital into a community? God’s Hotel spends a great deal of time picking apart these questions as a means of understanding…
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Why Do We Wear Black Funeral Attire Versus White?
A look at the religious and cultural meanings behind the colors of funeral attireFor many Americans, black seems to be the most common color to wear as funeral attire. Why is that? And why do some religious and cultural groups tend to wear white to funerals? Much of the color choice within religious groups has to do with personal interpretations about death and the afterlife. The custom of…
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Would You Grow Vegetables in a Graveyard?
Incredible Edible in the UK plants gardens in every public space, including graveyardsTo many of us, cultivating the land where we’ve buried a loved one is no strange practice. Every Easter after church (the one day a year we did go to church), my family and I would drive to my father’s parents and, still wearing his Sunday best, my father would tend to their graves, plant…
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“Too Soon to Know”
A reflective memorial song that touches on the depths of grief for a young wife’s tragic deathRoy Orbison was no stranger to tragedy in the 1960s. As a popular American singer, he recorded his version of the Don Gibson-penned song, “Too Soon to Know,” to cope with his wife Claudette’s sudden death in a motorcycle accident in 1966 when she was just 24. The song’s title, as well as its lyrics such as,…
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“A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”
William Wordsworth captures grief over a lost loved one in eight short linesHow many lines does a poet need to write in order to record a loved one’s death? Of course, the story of a person’s death, as with their life, goes further than any number of words can express. British Romantic poet William Wordsworth nonetheless captures the gravity of a young woman’s death in eight lines…
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