We had a great opening discussion on May 21st, as part of Dying Matters Week 2015. We met at the Cartoon Museum in London and decided there were probably gloomier things being joked about on the walls than death – war being an obvious contender.

We admitted of course that death is also often sad and difficult. But it’s not - as anyone already linked to Death Cafes will know - intrinsically bad and always to be fought. In fact, it’s really so handy that bodies give way to the next generation and have the potential, at least, to contribute to a natural cycle from which we keep borrowing without paying back, except through inorganic fertiliser. We talked about death as a social and cultural construct, not simply a biological or neurological event, and the importance of ritual. We agreed that our separation from the corpse is a very modern development, at odds with our traditions and those of many cultures today.

We celebrated flies and maggots as the busy heroes of the natural cycle and surveyed options for the body, from pyres (not actually illegal) to dissolving in alkaline solution (happening already in the USA and bound to come here soon). We looked at an egalitarian Muslim graveyard in Essex, something like a war graves cemetery and moving in its uniformity. But we also pondered what choices we might make with our ‘ashes’ (not ashes, but closely akin to the nutrient-rich bonemeal of a traditional gardener)  – if we’d managed to source a low carbon cremation.

But what struck me most of all, even in this self-selected group, was that many felt ill-equipped to make an informed decision about the body at a time of stress. No-one really likes crematoria and we suspect (rightly) that traditional deep burial will not return us to the earth in a meaningful sense. We don’t know what we are allowed to do and how to choose. One of the most striking moments of the evening was when someone said that washing her dead father’s hair was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever done. Whether or not we want to do this, many in the room did not know that it is permitted, that we can once again be involved in the body, as historically was the case.  This is despite all the great work of the Natural Death Centre and others. Finding the practices and the all-important rituals around the body seemed a little daunting to many there – a perplexing fact when you think how much information is strewn around, in reality. Why don’t we just know this stuff?

But possibly things are about to change. As crematoria suddenly burst through Victorian theological sensitivities about the soul’s departure from the body and were accepted after some resistance from the church, so more people a hundred years later are asking what next for ways of honouring and disposing of this valuable vessel which has carried us, been us, exasperated us.  People at our event identified cost, soulnessless and environmental considerations as things which may force a shift from current practice.

How have similar cultural shifts happened? The parallel with midwifery and birthing over the last two generations is interesting. The older, uber-directive generation of midwives gave way and a more collaborative style emerged. The Natural Childbirth Trust provided a grassroots means of taking more control, led by middle class women, which then helped to shift mainstream practice. Research showed that safety was not compromised and a good start for the child was increased through more humane ways of giving birth. The medicalised model could relax.

The funeral industry is by and large rather ‘traditional’ (well, non-traditional) and interested to preserve the status quo. A new generation is coming through, with lively people pushing the agenda, an amount of public dissatisfaction and a thirst to know what’s best for us as individuals and societies, and for the earth. Research can help establish whether, for example, shallow burial is a health hazard.

The Corpse Project will bepushing for better information, better shared, and the testing of new ways with the corpse: from rituals, to architecture, to the most benign options for the earth. My favourite epitaph is ‘Here lies all that could die of X’. All being well, The Corpse Project and similar bodies won’t be needed in a generation’s time but will live on through many bodies happily celebrated, rested and with dignity adding to the well-being of the earth.

Sophie Churchill, The Corpse Project

sophie@thecorpseproject.net