HW 52 - Third Third of the COTD Book

Precis
       In every religion there is some belief violating natural law that dictates that the human being has no end and continues its life after death through either physical transformation or the reincarnation of the existing soul.  Funeral homes must keep this idea alive by providing all death care alternatives like making green burials available to families.  The concept of continuity of life after death is kept alive because society believes in and is comforted by permanence and the vague "forever."

Handful of Interesting Quotes
- "This isn't my life.  For me it's a project.  I can walk away.  Not so for the families who are stuck with their grief, or even the family undertakers who are stuck with one another" (Jokinen 205).
- "Green didn't mean a pauper's burial, and green didn't mean cheap" (Jokinen 212).
- "The point of Fernwood is fantasy, a dream of pushing up giant redwoods from below, feeding them with your own hard-won carbon atoms, the afterlife as compost" (Jokinen 213).
- "The myth that the vaulted body lasts forever is hard to shake, and the idea of dissolving into a conservation easement, no matter how beautiful the view, is still too much like going ovo-lacto: only a few have the taste for it" (Jokinen 217).
- "The only permanence is impermanence" (Jokinen 241).

Analysis
       It was not surprising to find that our society cannot let go of the concepts and aspects of forever -  the life after death.  I found it hard to believe the belief that death was a bunch of nothingness and resembled much of a black abyss like that in birth, is not as assiduously studied as are paradise and hell, both places of after life.  I believe the reason for this is because society likes to believe what will give them opportunity to make more meaning out of their lives.  Jokinen, earlier in the third of the book, said human beings were graced with the knowledge of their own existence but, that also meant they were graced with knowledge of their fated doom.  To cope with this doom, our society creates a structured protocol, to make death rendered moot because people are resurrected after death and are therefore given the opportunity to create more meaning and purpose in their lives.  Fernwood, a green burial space in Hollywood, California owned by the producer of well acclaimed Six Feet Under, is an example of how our society invents numerous options to make death inferior to the living.  The living want to control death and they attempt to do so by marketing keepsakes and memorials, an actions incorporated into the structure of insuring the permanence of the forever for the "dead."  This is relevant to the most previous NiW unit, Birth, because it surrounds the idea of structure.  Structure promises a consistent desire most people have: in death, it is memory and the idea of living on forever, in birth, it is plans that dictate whether episiotomies should be performed or if a doula should be present at the birth, etc.  Structure is somewhat of an illusion of permanence and the desired outcome.  Structure in both the death care industry and the birth industry puts people at ease.

Works Cited
- Jokinen, Tom. Curtains. 1st ed. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 2010. 1-279. Print