#Tower of Silence

[castilestateofmind]

"The Celts were there, too, who, as Celtiberi, have added the Hiberi to their name. To die in battle is glorious to them, to cremate the body of such as do a crime, since they believe the spirit goes to the gods if some ravenous vulture eats the dead flesh".

-Silius Italicus, Punica.

Gustave Doré, A Celtic Sky Burial, 1866.

[ruinedholograms]

(1983-1997)

[lifeafterlifeparks]

Sky Burial: Learning from Ancient Deathcare Practices

The idea of giving one’s body back to the earth as a form of charity is an ancient idea. One form still practice in parts of the world even today is Sky burial, also known as celestial burial - a traditional funeral ritual practiced by Zorastrians and Tibetan Budists in parts of India, Buhtan, Mongolia, and China. This ancient ritual involves placing the deceased on a mountaintop or other elevated location where vultures and other scavenging birds can consume the body. The remains are believed to return to nature, and the act of feeding the birds is seen as a form of charity.

The practice of sky burial has a deep spiritual significance in Tibetan Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, where it is believed that the body is merely a vessel, and that the soul has moved on to the afterlife. The act of giving one's body back to nature is seen a gift, and a way of showing respect for the natural cycle of life and death. Additionally, the vultures are believed to carry the soul to the afterlife, which is seen as a sacred act.

Sky burial is also a practical solution for those living in remote areas where burial or cremation may not be possible due to lack of resources, such as wood for cremation or land for burial. In these cases, sky burial is seen as a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional burial or cremation.

While sky burial may seem like a gruesome or macabre practice to outsiders, it is important to understand the cultural and spiritual significance it holds for those who practice it. It is a deeply meaningful and respectful way of honoring the dead and giving back to nature.

In India, following the rapid expansion of urban population and the near extinction (97%) of the indigenous vulture population due to agricultural pesticide use – sky burial practitioners have been forced to adapt. They have begun using solar cremation in leu of what the vultures used to provide for them. However, repopulation efforts for the endangered birds are being pushed by arbiters of the religion.

The link between deathcare and conservation has deep roots. At Life After Life, we find ourselves interestingly in parallel with the philosophy to deathcare that these ancient religions hold. At the intersection of many different religious philosophies is a similar vein of thought. One of giving back to the earth. For the past few centuries our culture here in the United States diverged into a deathcare tradition of taking and preserving. It is time to go back to a “circular economy” philosophy of funeral practice.

By choosing eco-friendly burial options such as natural burial, which involves burying the body in a biodegradable casket or shroud without embalming chemicals, the bodies stored nutrients are allowed to return to the earth naturally, without harming the environment. Through Life After Life, this practice allows patrons to remediate pollution and build new, critically-endangered habitat that would otherwise never be redeveloped.

The ancient principles of sky burial remind us of our interconnectedness with the natural world and the importance of respecting and caring for our planet. By giving back to nature in ways that each of us can, we can honor those who have come before us and ensure that future generations have a healthy and sustainable planet to call home.

References:

https://https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sky-burial

[madqueenmeep]

Poem is by Cryptonaturalist. @cryptonature here if you wanna check them out too.

Can you tell I like vultures?

I had this book when I was a kid, and for like three pages it talked about the funerary practices of Tibet, specifically around the Tower of Silence.

And seven year old me never forgot the reverence..

[onlyhurtforaminute]

EPHEMERAL-END OF GOD

[kitschke]

AOTD 10/26: Tower Of Silence - XERXES THE DARK

maybe spookiest one yet

[rightnewshindi]

राजकीय सम्मान के साथ वर्ली शवदाह गृह में हुआ रतन टाटा के अंतिम संस्कार, जानें क्यों नहीं ले जाया गया टॉवर ऑफ साइलेंस

#RatanTata #last #rites #crematorium #TowerofSilence राजकीय सम्मान के साथ वर्की शवदाह गृह में हुआ रतन टाटा के अंतिम संस्कार, जानें क्यों नहीं ले जाया गया टॉवर ऑफ साइलेंस

Ratan Tata Last Rites: दिग्गज बिजनेसमैन रतन टाटा के निधन से पूरा देश गम में है. बीमारी के चलते वे कई दिनों से मुंबई के ब्रीच कैंडी अस्पताल में एडमिट थे. बुधवार की रात उनका निधन हो गया. गुरुवार को राजयकीय सम्मान के साथ मुंबई के वर्ली स्थित शवदाह गृह में उनका अंतिम संस्कार किया गया. यहां आपके मन में ये सवाल जरूर उठ रहा होगा कि रतन टाटा का अंतिम संस्कार पारसी रीति रिवाज से क्यों नहीं हुआ? उनका…

[viragfold]

SILENZIO

Tower of silence

[nobeerreviews]

Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life’s nothingness.

-- André Maurois

(Warszawa, Poland)

[druskels]

[patron-saint-of-lesbeans]

As a Catholic committed to non-violence and the dignity of every human life I do not celebrate the death of anyone, no matter how ‘deserved’ it may seem.

That being said rich people need to start redistributing their wealth to the poor and becoming monks and hermits again. St. Francis of Assisi, please, you know it would be hilarious and beautiful if Jeff Bezos donated his wealth, broke up his assets, surrendered his possessions, and became a friar.

[ofliterarynature]

NOVEMBER 2024 WRAP UP

[ loved liked okay nope dnf (reread) ]

Kicking Ice • (The Bride of the Blue Wind) • Animal Farm • The Lost Manuscript • Heart's Blood • Hotel • The Liar's Knot • The Education of Pip • The Glassblower • Terec and the Wall • (The Hands of the Emperor) • The Village Library Demon Hunting Society • One Good Turn • The Silence of Bones • (The Raven Tower) • The Art Thief • Safer Places • Letters to Half-Moon Street

* * * * * *

Letters to Half-Moon Street - an absolutely charming epistolary regency romance told mostly through letters between the main character, his siblings, and his love interest. The mc is gay and demi-sexual (and a younger son) in a queer-norm England where gender norms have been replaced by rules about birth order, and there's magic - it's very Sorcery & Cecelia meets KJ Charles (if not quite as good). As I said, very charming, but when I read the two shorter follow ups, One Good Turn and The Education of Pip, it was pretty clear that the epistolary format (and romance) helped cover a lot of hurts. I applaud the author for including an aromantic character and trying to write stories about finding your place and self-recovery without romance, but in her attempt to create comfort she sacrificed any real development to the characters or the plot. (also, while the rich upper class characters are exceedingly nice to the lower-class characters, we still almost never see any of their servants. hmm.) There's a few more books in the series that are romances (and at least one looks like it might be epistolary), so we'll have to see if she improves. Fantastic covers though!

Safer Places - a comic collection that was supposed to be for my book club but didn't quite work out unfortunately! These comics were very strange and dreamlike, making me not quite sure what happened but very much wanting to think about it. The artist also returned to a story idea several times, sometimes taking on an entirely new shape, and it really lent a sense of connection to the book as a whole. Would recommend!

The Art Thief - I'm not really one for more narrative-type nonfiction or for true crime, but non-violent crime involving fine art? I don't know why I find the fine-art world (and crime) so fascinating, but I do, and I enjoyed this! It was actually a fairly nice, chill read to distract myself with in the middle of the election.

The Raven Tower - revisiting my first Ann Leckie 5 years later - this was incredible! Slow yes, but watching the story build itself out of all the pieces was absolutely fascinating. 100% satisfied with the ending, but it was also a bit of a cliff-hanger? I'll be absolutely fascinated to see what kind of stories Leckie felt compelled to write that take up half of the Lake of Souls collection.

The Silence of Bones - DNF @ 11%. I was very interested in this as a historical mystery with a female protagonist set in Korea, but leery of it being YA. I admit I wasn't a big fan of the audiobook narrator, but an hour and a half into the audiobook I still hadn't hadn't settled into the story, so decided to drop it.

The Village Library Demon Hunting Society - This was very high on my watch-list for 2024 due to my love for CM Waggoner's first book Unnatural Magic, but was somewhat leery of the cozy-fantasy vibes it was giving. My first shock came when it turned out to have a fairly modern and contemporary setting and was not in a fantasy other-world, though as expected it was definitely going for the cozy-fantasy and elderly-person-solves-murder vibes that are popular right now, and with which I've personally had mixed results. Overall though, it was aiming to be a sort of meta-commentary on cozy mystery tropes, which I think it was successful at! I think it definitely did better than its sci-fi cousin, the Midsolar Murders series by Mur Lafferty. I just wish it had a better title, this one is a bit of a mouthful and only semi-relevant.

The Hands of the Emperor - started slowly rereading this a few months ago with the intention of getting around to my first reread of the sequel. Honestly, the perfect book to be reading during an absolutely horrible election, I imagine I'll be burying my head in the Nine Worlds a lot in the upcoming years.

I wasn't quite ready to head directly into AtFotS after finishing Hands, so jumped around to some of Victoria's short stories I hadn't read yet. Terec and the Wall is the second Terec story - I admit I really don't have much interest in this sub-series? This one in particular was at least interesting in the second half because of its crossover with the Greenwing & Dart series, so I recommend you don't read this until you've read that. The Glassblower was...fine. It showed promise, but it was so short! I hope the second part fleshes out more, but idk. It's also related to the Ysthar collection of books, which is the only part of the Nine Worlds that I haven't bothered to revisit yet. To skip ahead a bit, the third of the Sisters Avramapul novellas is finally out! It's been a while so I decided to reread the first two books, starting with The Bride of the Blue Wind. It's a Bluebeard retelling and deals with pregnancy/body horror and is not for the faint-hearted! Sardeet was SO YOUNG in this, I don't think I quite realized before. Good but not my favorite of the series.

The Liar's Knot - loved loved loved. These books are so good even if (or because?) all of the plot twists are somewhat soap-operatic. I think this is my favorite in the series because the characters are a bit more settled but also having to learn to trust each other. And all of the secret identity reveals!!! I had a wonderful time.

Hotel -DNF @ 8%. picked this up at a recent library sale because a mystery at a hotel sounds cool! Then I started it on audiobook and realized it was a thriller (not my thing) written by a guy in the 60's (ditto). What I read was certainly passable and maybe I could have gotten through it, but I lost interest.

Heart's Blood - I've seen Marillier's work around somewhere, and picked this one up at a library book sale at some point. I got so close to DNF'ing this early on and almost wish I had. It wasn't bad I think, it has some beauty-and-the-beast vibes, but it felt excruciatingly slow, and something that I couldn't quite put my finger on was annoying the heck out of me. It made me wish more times than I should admit that I was reading Chalice by Robin McKinley instead. I'm not entirely scared off of trying Marillier's other work, but I'd proceed with extreme caution.

The Lost Manuscript - DNF @ 19%. A surprisingly lighthearted novel told in letters about a woman who finds a manuscript in a hotel bedside table and proceeds to track down the original author, only to discover someone else had added to the manuscript at some point after he lost it. She and her contacts try and trace its history back to find the mystery author. Seemed very nice, if you're looking for something calm and lighthearted? Just not what I was looking for at the time.

Animal Farm - somehow managed to escape reading this for school, and a podcast I listen to loves recommending this, so I picked up a copy at the same sale as Heart's Blood. I feel like I spent most of the book sagely nodding my head, like yup, that's how it can be! Very smart book, not a favorite but I'm glad I read it.

Kicking Ice - backed this on Kickstarter ages ago when I was still deep in my Check, Please! fervor. Finally picked it up because it was short and I needed to finish another book for my owned-tbr challenge. It was ok. Maybe a better choice if you're a young girl interested in hockey or sports in general? I also didn't like the art style used for most of the book, so a pass from me. I'm sure a lot of the info about the NWHL is also outdated by this point.

[blueboyluca]

I went to see a beautiful play today by the NZ theatre company Indian Ink about the disappearance of India’s vultures and how that’s caused a huge problem for the Parsi (Zoroastrian) community. The play featured this amazing puppet.

This 99pi episode goes into the whole story around the vultures and it’s one of the best reported podcasts I’ve ever heard. The story is really devastating and touching and will stay with me forever, I think.