Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Interment

There is a burial at the Woodland Park Cemetery South, also known as the Caballero Rivero this morning. This is a large 60 acres cemetery on SW 117th Avenue and 116 Street and it is a nice final resting place, for some. Others choose to be scattered with the wind and not leave any trace. That lead me to think about the different ways the finality of one's life can be dealt with, such as...

Air burial - Mongolia - body is left on open ground for natural predators.
Sky burial - Tibet - Body is dismembered and left outside to nature's course. This is because Buddhist's Jhator believes the body is worthless, only fit to be used to sustain birds of prey such as the vultures.
Viking burial - Scandinavia - Body is left inside dragon ship and burned with ship.
Fire burial - Bali - This is a Hindu way relying on fire for cremation.
Workplace burial - Southeast Asia - Bodies are buried in the fields where they lived and worked. Stone markers are used to mark the locations.
Cave burial - Hawaii - Bodies are bent and tied, covered with tapa cloth and buried in caves. This is similar to the Incas and Egyptians' mummies.
Ocean burial - Bodies are placed in burlap bags and weighed with stones to sink, a la 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne.

There are many more ways to dispose of the dead bodies and sometimes painful memories linger on. Any memorial can prolong the memories and with it the sadness so for me... I like the Final Frontier mode - Bodies launched into space aboard a private commercial satellite to a permanent orbit around the earth. That's still too close to earth, I'd prefer a higher escape velocity and my capsule will sling shot to escape the solar system into deep space, never to return... orbiting the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Please, would you please lighten up! Not you, you, that's me talking to myself.
Burial

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