I live in the US where aging is shameful, grieving is rude, and death is commodified. I don’t think this perspective should be carried over. So, how could solarpunks do things differently?
My current vision involves a lunarpunk monastery. Gone are sterile funeral homes, silent graveyards, dogma and taboo. Instead, an eclectic community of death doulas serving others through the finality. The bodies of the dead become part of an ever expanding ancestral forest. A living cemetery for the living.
Housed would be thanatologists of every flavor: bookworms, artists, health practitioners, naturalists, mystics, and more. Maintaining libraries, gardens, and temples for public use. Facilitating psychedelic rituals for those with terminal illness and the bereaved. Providing funeral rites and hospice care. Hosting moonlit festivals, discussions, and support groups.
Wearing mothlike robes. Playing chimes at sundown corresponding to the phase of the moon. But I digress…
How do you imagine death and dying in a solarpunk society? Is the great unknown in the realm of lunarpunk?
The concept of the monastery is an interesting one, though one I never thought much of. The idea of a community forest made for those who die I could appreciate seeing.
Personally for me with the spirituality, I would like to see something more like what I’ve done for one of my relative’s ashes, placing them in a terrarium with items associated with them when they were alive, as a form of shrine. I have small plants in it as well, so that there is nature associated with their spirit as they rest.
Terrarium is interesting, not gonna lie. There’s quite a lot you could do with that in memorial ways.
Personally for myself, I’d prefer to be cremated via pyre next to a lake surrounded by boreal forest. I think that’s pretty dope. Realistically, I’m not gonna give a flying left testicle once I vacate my meat suit though.