I liked the system Larry Niven proposed in a science fiction novel about colonizing a world with a food biosphere that was chemically mostly incompatible with Earth life, so “terraforming” was mostly a matter of making sure that any Earth-based biomatter was carefully conserved and recycled.
The deceased were buried naturally in the alien soil and a seedling of an Earth fruit or nut tree was planted over the grave. The dead gave life, and they were referred to that way (“lifegivers”).
By that point, I’ll be done with it. So if it can be used to teach someone something, I’m good with it. I’d considered donating it to a body farm, but I’m pretty sure donations in this state go to med schools. So maybe I’ll finally get to go to Johns Hopkins!!!
Frankly, as long as my survivors aren’t forced to witness what’s to be done to my carcass, I don’t much care.
To quote the late great George Carlin: “If the cops didn’t see it, I didn’t do it.”
That’s where I’d have a problem. I was so weirded out by my Daddy’s dead body I swear I would’ve took it to my house and kept it. Luckily my siblings knew I was going through something strange and held my craziness to a halfway normal place.
I think I would have jumped into the grave with him had there not been barriers.
If he had been in a body farm I would have been there everyday.
I kinda went insane for awhile. I see that now. At the time I couldn’t understand why anyone would want him in the ground.
I’m not so sure the Arizona soil is conducive to composting.
Nutrient poor, little organic matter.
Maybe now, but after a few hundred bodies, it will be the new Fertile Crescent.
I have nothing against natural burials but personally I don’t think putting a body in a compost bin is respectful. (Even if it is a special compost bin.) I’m not even 100% comfortable with cremation.
“then you’ve robbed the gods below the earth,
keeping a dead body here in the bright air,
unburied, unsung, unhallowed by the rites.”~Tiresias, Antigone
~Max
Please don’t think I’m attacking you or anything, but why do you feel that human bodies should be respected after death?
I feel that once the occupant is gone, it is just a piece of meat to be used or disposed of. I really would like to understand your point of view if it is something you can articulate. If it is just how you feel…well, I get that. We all have different feelings about this kinda complicated subject.
When we first moved out to our property in the Middle of Nowhere, we were questioned by a gentlman from the Assessor’s Office as to where our house was. We had yet to move it to the property. He made a note in his records, and reminded us of all the permits and paperwork we’d need.
Mr VOW chatted with him, and even told him he intended to be buried out there. The Assessor Guy told him that was actually okay.
So I started researching what we’d have to do. I knew darn good and well there would be more to a burial than hiring a backhoe to dig the hole.
I was right. While we were still aboveground and breathing, we’d have to hire a surveyor to make a Parcel Map, and file it with the County. Since I had retired from the Civil Engineering field, I knew what that would entail. Mainly money. A lot more money than we had then.
And I understood that the Parcel Map would be part of our piece of property, forever. Yes, it’s charming and almost heartwarming that who knows how many family members would be laid to rest on our land. Our intention is to leave the property to our two grown children. They both love the area. But I’m realistic: the time might come where either of our kids need money, and the land would have to be sold.
A future buyer might not like the idea of having dead people around. And our charming little family burial plot could be a liability. The land could lose value because of it.
Mr VOW and I talked it over. He understood my point of view. So, we’ll most likely be planted in the National Cemetery near where The Daughter lives in SCal.
And I won’t get to place a flat marker on Mr VOW’s grave that says, “Let me lie here to look up at the stars I have loved so well.”
(Mr VOW is an amateur astronomer.)
~VOW
Dad is in the VA cemetery in Riverside and Mom was able to put words on his flat marker?
OTOH, Percival Lowell’s casket is in a glass enclosure that was accurately designed to show the stars overhead. The stars don’t move. He’s been dead for over a century, the poor guy must be soo very bored by now.
Having a skull may not be as cool as it seems. Ask writer Daniel Pinkwater.
The flat brass marker on a VA cemetery grave is barely large enough to show name, year of birth, year of death, and the military unit where the vet served.
The brass covering of the niches in the columbarium are a little larger, and I have seen some personal remarks. My suggested engraving for Mr VOW is far too many words.
After the VA screwed up my father’s marker, I doubt I’d trust them to get any personal message correct.
(Daddy’s marker was to read USAF, WWII. Instead, at my first visit after his passing, I found his marker to read US ARMY, WWII, KOREA, VIETNAM. I went to the cemetery business office and pitched a tantrum. The gentleman at the desk pulled my father’s file, the last page was the information which was to appear on his marker. Said info said nothing about the Army, Korea, or Vietnam. I know what it said, because I had typed it! The gentleman apologized, said a new marker would be ordered, and installed within two weeks.)
~VOW
I have a cemetery. It costs a fortune. Long waits on permits.
Then it flooded at the last permit.
But…heard thru the grapevine there was one already here. Grandfathered in. So to speak. About 20 ft from ours. They couldn’t say a word. We’ve dropped 3 of Mr.Wreks old relations in it.
I could care less if they float down the country road.
I won’t be there. I promise.
How about the “Death And Interment Seeking to be Infinitely Environmentally Sustainable” Act?
I seem to recall some actor who left his skull to his theater company so he could play Yorick whenever they did Hamlet. Now that has style.
Though it’s probably apocryphal.
The Del Close story may be apocryphal, but [André Tchaikowsky](André Tchaikowsky - Wikipedia definitely did leave his skull to the RSC, and they have used it in a production of Hamlet.
The PTB frown upon you keeping a human skull. I promise. 
My mother donated her body to science because 1) she was a teacher and loved the idea of med students learning from her body and 2) she loved bargains, and this was free. Because of union laws, we had to pay to have her body transported, but it was still much less than cremation. The university had a ceremony to thank all the families of the donors. My sister went and said it was moving–very respectful, and the med students, who all wore suits, expressed their gratitude.
That’s what I’m doing, as well. Myk ids can opt to get my ashes (to be scattered off the summit of the Wyoming mountain I loved) or let them be mingled with other donors. Think of all the interesting people I’d meet!
I would feel the same way only if the former occupant treated their body as a piece of meat to be used or disposed of. Don’t you consider grave robbing immoral?
I like to build sandcastles. I also know full well that the tide will come and swallow my castle up, and that I’ll abandon my castle at sundown, likely before the tide comes in. So there will be a point at which I am gone, and the empty castle remains. But the castle is still represents something, namely the work I put into making it. It is disrespectful for you to stomp on my doomed castle.
Say you made a castle but you don’t care what happens to it after you leave. That’s fine, I guess, but it also shows that you didn’t attach the same significance to your castle even while you were using it. If you say it’s okay to disrespect your work, it is reasonable to infer either a) that you are okay with me disrespecting your work, or b) you didn’t respect your work and you are okay with me not respecting it.
I’ll tell you why I care about my doomed castle. I’ve walked on beaches in the evening and seen some very cool abandoned castles. In the twilight hour they serve a purpose: each castle is a monument that gives character to the beach. I’m not terribly passionate about sandcastles like some people are about sculptures and architecture but you can tell when a beach was lively or admire particularly cool builds.
I draw an analogy between my sandcastle and my body, though imperfect as the abandoned castle is analogous to the grave rather than the body itself. One may behold a sandcastle just as one may behold a grave, and be reminded of the person who once was there. Graves have the added benefit of lasting longer than sandcastles. With cremation you have the urn, if it is kept. I find that weird and unnatural but I get it.
~Max
Modern? Burial customs are the oldest form of religion. Every civilization back to the very dawn of Homo Sapiens, if not before, has practiced some form of veneration of its dead. If anything, modern humans care much less about the disposal of their loved ones’ remains than any other generation in history.