tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36545955.post34784266864917182..comments2024-02-29T00:12:44.710-05:00Comments on Grave Matters - A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial: The Ecopod: That's One Stylin' CoffinChristiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02440578684662717304noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36545955.post-85642150709369174032008-02-06T13:46:00.000-05:002008-02-06T13:46:00.000-05:00Hi Janie and Cynthia. Well, these are great commen...Hi Janie and Cynthia. Well, these are great comments and worthy of a larger discussion. I'll take them up in an upcoming blog. Thanks for offering your perspectives -- MarkMark Harrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16814405356921036506noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36545955.post-11082856644887749162008-02-05T15:11:00.000-05:002008-02-05T15:11:00.000-05:00Thanks for your thoughts, Janie. I agree with you ...Thanks for your thoughts, Janie. I agree with you about the importance of the art.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the price of the Ecopod:<BR/><BR/>It's not likely to come down unless it's built with slave labor. The Ecopod is a handmade paper sculpture and more akin to art. Expecting the price to be lowered is like asking a carpenter or a stone carver or a ceramicist to charge less for their time and skill. No piece of the price is fluff - everyone who gets a part of the price plays a role in getting the Ecopod to its final user. <BR/><BR/>A healthy society pays all its parts to do necessary bits of work. An unhealthy society requires some to make sacrifices out of proportion to others' - someone who makes 100K a year can certainly afford an Ecopod. Someone who doesn't can certainly find something else. <BR/><BR/>Does everything "green" have to be cheap to be worthy? What happened to our ability to applaud people for putting art and craft out there, and change minds with it, and why do we always end up asking artists and craftspeople to work for free? (I feel a little defensive for the Ecopod folks, and the other hand-coffin makers out there, always being asked to work for free...excuse the charge in my words!)<BR/><BR/>Sure, we can 'mass produce' something with a machine, but what happens to the cost of making that machine, and the environmental pricetag assigned to THAT? Who's tallying the price of pulling "handmade" out of the picture because of the fantasy that a machine can build it better, or cheaper? Who pays for the cost of the machine? Who pays for the cost of the people's jobs lost to the machines? Who pays for the loss of small businesses as they can't keep up with buying bigger and bigger machines just so that the thing at the end is priced so that "anyone" can afford it?<BR/><BR/>The mold alone to make something like the Ecopod costs 100K. The machine (that doesn't exist anywhere yet) is probably a 1-2 million dollar piece of equipment. It takes a huge corporate infrastructure to invest in that, yet apparently if it spits out a few-hundred dollar item, that's somehow considered "progress".<BR/><BR/>I'm very appreciative of folks' being interested in natural burial and other natural ways of doing things, but I'm also very aware that there remains an ignorance about what it actually COSTS to make things CHEAP.<BR/><BR/>The bottom line: human energy from human hands is the "cheapest" way we'll ever get almost anything. If you have a happy human, being creative, eating good food and turning that into Ecopods (or woven willow picnic baskets for trees, or shrouds, or ...) isn't that a much better "carbon footprint" than something made "cheaply" by a machine?<BR/><BR/>For people who can't afford the current cost to get it here and handle it (much less than what people pay for a Prius, for example) there are plenty of affordable coffins - the EveryBody Coffin comes to mind. There's cardboard. There's a shroud. There's your friend the boxmaker. .<BR/><BR/>And what happened to the element of sacrifice, or the willingness to celebrate craft with your money, or even the exaltation of the impermanence of things, like the Tibetans do with their glorious sandpaintings that are blown away in an instant??? Burying great art in the ground or burning it on a pyre actually has a spiritual purpose, something materialists have difficulty grokking, but it's appropriate to draw a line with materialism somewhere (a focus on cheapness is definitely materialist) and recognize that when we face our ends we finally have an opportunity to stare materialism squarely in the face, and even thumb our noses at it a bit...goodness, we're so clever we can even figure out how to turn ourselves into TREES!!! (how many other animals can get their friends to dig a hole and plant something to grow on top of them?)<BR/><BR/>Finally, I'd like to see us get off our addiction the superficial measure of "cheap." Being cheap is not always the right goal. A low price in dollars is NEVER the best way to measure true cost - in fact, if you see something that's cheap, that's almost a sign that it has a whole host of externalized costs it's NOT accounting for, and its makers are betting you won't account for them, either (and in the process forego the handmade item because it's "too expensive" choosing that cheap machine made thing instead) <BR/><BR/>Closing the cycle and understanding the importance of paying the FULL COST, up front, before our children's children have to do it, is.<BR/><BR/>And yet, none of us can do it perfectly, and none of us can do it alone. Every single innovation we experience in society is an act in a chain of acts. We can only approach improvement incrementally, and be thankful if we find enough people to help us along the way. Changing the funeral industry is hard enough - it takes artists and visionaries to do it. Making them do the profound for bargain-basement prices while the rest of one's life-dollars are spent on trivia is an accident we'd do well to avoid.<BR/><BR/>In the meantime, the Ecopod may not be what the average person can afford but, at $3,500.00 or so, with very limited production, it only takes a relative handful to keep the workshop in production, and that's all we're aiming to do right now - feed the Ecopod people so they can turn us into food for trees.<BR/><BR/>ha ha - you can think of a coffin artist as an edible package maker (with some packages prettier than others) and YOU are the morsel that will someday be residing within!<BR/><BR/><BR/>(( Oh my. That was a rant...surprise...nothing personal, Prosumer - you just hit my "on" button!))<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your blog, Mark. <BR/><BR/>best,<BR/><BR/><BR/>Cynthia<BR/>who sells (and will hopefully someday make) EcopodsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36545955.post-83195055736173684412008-02-01T18:21:00.000-05:002008-02-01T18:21:00.000-05:00I've seen the ecopod, and other coffins at the Nat...I've seen the ecopod, and other coffins at the Natural Burial Company. It is very beautiful. When you walk into the gallery filled with artistic and hand-made coffins, urns and shrouds you realize how limited the conventional funeral industry coffin selection is. I'm leaning towards the willow coffin for myself.Farewell Assistanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14056793192858713768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36545955.post-86777042531715067042008-01-22T23:11:00.000-05:002008-01-22T23:11:00.000-05:00Thanks for the update on the Ecopod Mark, Hopefull...Thanks for the update on the Ecopod Mark, Hopefully the price will come down significantly so it will be within reach of more people in the USA.<BR/><BR/>YourFuneralGuy, a prosumer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com