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| Cremation Diamond courtesy of Lifegem.com |
Annoying song lyric aside- I just found out recently that one can choose to have his cremated remains made into a diamond. My sister mentioned this idea in a conversation we had about my hypothetical burial. This is a real thing. Mind. Blown. It makes sense, because both are made of carbon.
After 5000 degrees Fahrenheit (and several weeks), the ashes turn into graphite. All that's needed next is a diamond press and voila-you have a diamond made from your loved one's ashes. Also a lot of cash. According to ehow.com, a company called Lifegem will do this process (depending on size) from $2700-20 000.
After some perusing of the interwebs, it appears to be most popular in the UK to turn ashes into jewelry. Other things the Brits seem into are the usage of remains in a portrait, pencils, or paperweights and the weirdest two of all: tattoo ink and fireworks. You can literally have your loved one run through your skin! Brits have been experimenting with cremated remains for a while now. They invented bone china after all. I would have liked to hear the rationale behind the fruition of that idea.
Check it out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hereford/worcs/8334313.stm
http://www.heavenlystarsfireworks.com/
This post is very interesting! After doing research about the different "trends" in mortuary practices today, I found it astounding that there were so many (odd) options available! The ones you have highlighted here seem to be practices that are meant to commemorate a deceased's life and value in a big way, and really, there is nothing more permanent that having a loved one's ashes needled into your skin. Having a loved one's ashes shot up into the air to explode in a fancy of colour and light seems very big and spectacular as well. Going along with Williams' article on the agency of death and the action of overwhelming the senses when witnessing a cremation, could these practices be replacing the witnessing of the cremation event? For example, when you watch the firework go off, your sense of sight (of the light and brilliance of the firework), sense of smell (the smell of gun powder), sense of taste (the taste of smoke), etc. are all incorporated into the event which aid in the creation of a largely memorable event. Since we do not watch cremations happen today, perhaps these new methods are used to give the same feeling?
ReplyDeleteI like both this post and Caitlin's comments on it. I confess, the fireworks thing really intrigues me. I'd definitely put it on my list of things my family could do with me. I love fireworks and always have. I think that it's very interesting to consider this in light of agency and cremation... I wonder too, about talking to children about death. We'd be sending someone to the stars, so to speak. It would actually be excellent for storytelling about death...
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