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The Sculpture “Angel of Grief”
The impact of William Wetmore Story’s work on modern funeral symbolismIn cemeteries across the world, “Angel of Grief” is a recurring, statuary subject based upon a prototype by William Wetmore Story from 1894. Donning classical Roman costume, the angel is portrayed slumping over a headstone as a lugubrious testament to bereavement. Eternally suspended in despair, her drooping wings and buckled posture vividly express the figure’s…
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“He has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last and gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the Sky”
–John Cleese’s eulogy for fellow Monty Python maverick Graham Chapman, 1999“…I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability and kindness, of such intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he’d achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun. Well,…
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Smoke Signals
Native American Chris Eyre’s film takes a funny and poignant look at two kinds of lossUnfortunately, it is rare to find films with all Native American casts and it’s especially rare to find one that has reached anything approaching a wide release. That’s why the 1998 indie film Smoke Signals (directed by Chris Eyre), based on Sherman Alexie’s book The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, is such a…
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Death Rituals in Somalia
Precise steps to ensure deceased loved ones pass from this life and on to the nextIn Somalia, a small country on the eastern coast of Africa, the people follow specific protocol after a loved one has died to ensure they pass on to the afterlife. The first step is to bury the loved one’s body on the same day that they have died. Family members read passages from the Quran…
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An “Intelligent Form of Dying”: Aldous Huxley’s Psychedelic Death
Aldous and Laura Huxley embraced LSD’s potential to create an eye-opening end-of-life experienceToday, we associate LSD with a bygone era of dreadlocks, deadheads and free love. The psychedelic drug was at the center of Timothy Leary’s “turn on, tune in and drop out” culture, making headlines across the country as a fatal temptation for teens–a “scourge of the youth.” But proceeding the peak years of the counter-culture,…
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What is Green Burial? (Interview)
Upholding the health and majesty of nature through a green burial processWe spoke with Chris Woodcock of the White Eagle Memorial Preserve, a trustee and founding member of the green burial site. Established in Washington state in 2008, White Eagle hopes to make “each gravesite an opportunity to nourish [the earth]” and exist “as a living memorial” for nature. The cemetery is within 20 acres of…
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“A Lesson Before Dying”
Gaines’ novel teaches us that even in the face of death, it’s never too late to growIs the eighth novel of author and Louisiana native Ernest J. Gaines. Published in 1993, the story chronicles the intersecting lives of two Southern African American men in the 1940s. There is the character of Grant Wiggins, a well-intentioned but dissatisfied man who has returned home to teach at a local plantation school after university.…
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Famadihana: The Malagasy Perspective on Death and Burial
Death is faced head-on in Madagascar through an extended and celebratory burial traditionNot long ago, SevenPonds explored a fascinating part of Madagascar’s Malagasy culture: the tradition of second burial or “Famadihana.” The tradition is rooted in the belief that the body of the deceased needs time to decompose to properly pass into the next world. To aid this process, a Malagasy family will unearth the body from…
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