We spend a lot of time here at Spirit Pieces thinking about how people memorialize their loved ones. While we deal in physical memorials and don't partake of any of the ceremonial aspects of funeral we still have some thoughts on things we would like to see get developed in the market or come back in vogue.
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Viking Funerals
An oldie but a goodie, nothing says being sent into the afterlife than having a burning arrow shot into a canoe floating down the river. From Norsemen to Thor Dark World this funeral rite is commonly used in popular culture to this day. However we're not aware of any service that habitually allows for this service to be performed.
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Cliff Columbariums
We would love to see a natural columbarium carved into a stone cliff overlooking a majestic forested valley. We imagine the sun rising and hitting the niches full of the dearly departed. Ideally we would have Spirit Pieces in the niches so the cliff will sparkle as the morning sun hits.
We've looked into this a bit but haven't found a cliff we could purchase and we're not sure what regulations would come into play, but we still want to see it happen!
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Memorials in a bottle
Not for the full cremains, but we think it would be cool to have a letter in the bottle thrown into the see with a small amount of cremation ash (likely encased in a marble) in the bottle. They always said Grampa wanted to travel the high seas!
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Skyscraper Memorial Gardens
We think this one will eventually happen as land in urban areas gets more and more expensive. Many cities have ordinances that count non-residential/office space differently when calculating air rights usage. Newer buildings in NYC, for example, have multi-floor voids. We think it's only a matter of time before some developer makes a memorial garden concept with nitches to hold urns and other memorials.
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City Center Memorials
Many smaller cities have a very strong sense of identity with multiple generations. We think such cities would benefit from a shared memorial space where a central monument would hold a keepsake amount of a loved one keeping their connection to the town they loved alive.
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Volcanic Burials
This is my favorite, being buried by a volcanic lava flow. Keep in mind this is not 'Throw Grandma in the Volcano', both because it's rather difficult to get very close to volcanoes and hiking mountains is hard work. But for the more predictable volcanic flows temporary burial sites can be placed in the line of expected volcanic activity with the final flow forever encasing them.
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International ash scattering services
Spirit Pieces intitial concept was this one, an international ash scattering service where you can scatter Grampa to the four winds in four different locations. Imagine sending Grampa to the Saringetti, the tip of Norway, the tropics of the Amazon and the jungles of Indonesia. We still like this idea, but it does require the proper network of people to do the actual scattering and we here at Spirit Pieces don't travel as much as we would like!
Do you have a funeral idea you would like to share? Let us know at hello@spiritpieces.com with the subject line 'Funeral Idea'
