Death-focused Hawaiian trip comes up roses
International participants at Doorway Into Light event at Maui, April 2018.
aitetuna resident, Karen Britton, recently visited W Maui, Hawaii to attend an international gathering of pioneers in the field of conscious death and dying, family-led home funerals and green burials.
Workshops included natural body care (chemical-free which still enables in-home ‘wakes’ and viewings), family-led home funerals, creativity for the ill, sacred space and ritual and the world of doula practice. Teachers included Australia’s Zenith Virago and America’s Ram Dass, Reverend Bodhi Be, Deanna Cochran and Jerrigrace
Lyons. Karen was the sole Kiwi participant who was mistaken for an Australian more than once, although one canny participant recognised her accent as Kiwi because, well… Flight of the Concords! In New Zealand, holistic and sustainable death-care began with the green burial movement (still in its infancy), which uses eco coffins and shrouds and leads a burgeoning awareness of the financial, environmental and social costs of regular funeral home practices and offers more environmentally-sustainable alternatives. Few Kiwis are aware that in New Zealand anyone can undertake the legal requirements at end-of-life, such as the ‘Cause of Death
Certificate’, ‘Notification of Death for Registration’ form, that family and friends can build or supply an eco-coffin and that a body doesn’t need to be embalmed with toxic chemicals. Kiwis can transport a body or have a burial at sea (all following legal requirements, of course). There may be little or no need for funeral directors, their expensive coffins and ‘packages’, and the trappings of an industry that costs a grieving family on average $8,000 to $10,000 while also costing the planet! Americans call the alternative death care the work of an ‘end-of-life doula’ or ‘death doula’. In the U.S. ‘birth doulas’ are holistic mid-wives for child-birth. Like the birthing process, end-of-life is a natural transition and can benefit from non-medical support addressing physical, mental and spiritual needs of the terminally ill, the dead and their family and friends. An end-of-life doula may be a family member, friend or community-member with these skills. The tasks undertaken may include to: create sacred space, sit vigil at a bedside, help fulfil final wishes, contact family, help with a home-led funeral, guide the family in washing the body in preparation for burial or cremation as an act of love, assist with home funeral arrangements, liaise with care professionals or pre-plan estate matters or funeral details. An eco-friendly, people-friendly end of life, however requires a bit of knowledge and pre-planning. It is Karen’s dream that New Zealanders adopt a holistic approach to death – better for those dying and their carers, better for the environment, for future generations, and it is more fitting and sacred for the dead and their loved ones.
To encourage community and environmentally-friendly death awareness in Raglan, Karen is happy to share what she learned with anyone interested on 07 825 5025 or 027 233 1408. We’re all going to die some day, we just don’t know when!
Karen meets Venerable Lama Gyaltsen, resident lama at the Maui Dharma Centre, Paia, Hawaii.
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