October 1976 RAIN Page S ·Potential in all this, of course, is the pos.sibility-:-no, the certainty-:-that out of it, and out of the shared experiences of like-minded funeral directors a.ll over the country, will come ever more meaningful burial practices to affirm the ,best parts of all religions rather than to deny them as.is·most emphatical- ·ly the case today. Simple Burial It's becoming easi'er to avoid the expensive ministrations· . t . Life, to ·death, and back to life.again: the miracle of the living world. It's been the·theme of artists, poets and philoso- .phers for centuries. Moved by Its spell, Walt Whitman dosed · ·his greatest poem with this tribute to life's magic circle: of undertakers altogether ·with simple burial and cremation, memorial societies and the like. The excellent Manual of Death Evaluation and Simple Burial is n·ow available in its seventh edition, $}.50 from the ..Celo Press, Burnsville,.NC 287)4. . Death information, how to o.btain .simple, dignified and ecoI bequeath myself to .the dirt to grow from the grass I l~ve, If you .wa~ t me again . nomical burial, how to locate the increasing number of memorial societies and bowlhey work, and how the dead can help th.e living through body, organ and tissue donation. look for me under your bootsoles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, ·· but J shall be goo4 health to you· '· nevertheless, . And filter anc/ fiber your blood. ·Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, . Missing me o·ne place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. But, ironically enough, Walt Whitman waits for your today in a Camden, New jersey., tomb. A granite-w;tlled house he designed himself, tucked away there as conventionally as any, ·with 'embalming fluid, casket, burial vault, and all. So it will .be · ·.a long, long time before his body begins to grow from the grass · .he loved. Too bad he couldn't have lived tO see the beginning. of the orgap.ic burial movement. But maybe it was enough that poetry like his did so much to get it all started. · · · · This report first appeared in the now-defunci:.Environmental Quality Mo.nthly in August 1972. Malcolm Wells can be contacted at his archi- . tectural office: P.O. Box 183, Cherry Hill, NJ 08034, where he's dreaming up the next step in gentle architeCture. in Oregon contact: Biodegradable··Coffins ·· Oregon Memorial Assn. 525 5 S.W. Dosch Rd. Portland, OR 97201 We'll also pass on the happy news we saw in a recent Not M~n Apart: biodegradable coffins are .now available, made of woodlike plastic that eventually decomposes into organic matter in . the soil. Almost as simpleas the.real thing. · ·(GROWTH ) Yerba Buena, Chester Hartman, 1974. $4.95 from: . . . Glide Publications, 330 Ellis St. San FranciscQ, CA 94102. "The costs of growth are clearly shown in the above studies-but not who profits. 'Verba Buena gives an excellent picture of th~ politics of profit behind .urban "development" ... who promotes it, who profits, how finance and cit-y. councils are manipulated and controlled, and how the costs are forced onto the poorer members of the community. Factual and strongly documented. (TB) ."Santa Barbara~ The Impacts of Growth," reprinted in the Second Alternative Public Policy .Reader, Shearer and Webb, ed., $7 .SO from: .Conference on Alternative State and Local Pllblic Policy . Institute for Policy Studies . 1901 Q Street, N.W.. Washington, DC 20009 A solid and straightforward discussion of the questions people have about growth of a.c·ommunity: Will growth controls raise my taxes? Will growth provide jobs? For whom? -with wellreasoned answers. Gives a good, simple view of the issues involved and some of the realities behind them. (TB) Urban Growth Management Systems, American Society of Planning Officials, Planning Adv:isory Service Report Nos. 309, 310, 1976, $12 from: ASPO 1313 E. Sixtieth Street Chicago, IL 6.0637 Analyzes ~n interesting range of thirteen · operating growth management systems and surveys legal considerations in growth management, socio-economic and environmental impacts of such ac., tivities. Informative on the actual effects and communitv response to vario.us measures. (TB)
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