When my time is up

Anna Wimberley writes about approaching death and the benefits of a ‘felt cocoon’

None of us is going to escape death. Last year the Bamford Quaker Community, which is situated in the Hope Valley in Derbyshire, ran a workshop entitled: ‘When my time is up.’ The aim of the workshop was to help people talk about the end of their lives and how they might want to die. Part of the workshop was teasing out the things that mattered most, things people wanted to do before they died.

It was during the preparation of the workshop last year that I researched different kinds of burials. I came across Yuli Sømme and her cocoons made out of felt. On Dartmoor, amongst sheep pasture, she created and developed an alternative to the traditional wooden coffin, the felt cocoon. This ‘eco coffin’ very much appealed to me. A woollen blanket with coverlet is a comforting thought: warm, soft and tactile. It also appealed to me as one of those ‘green’ ideas. Gradually, together with the body, it will rot into the ground.

Apparently burials in a woollen wrap are nothing new. An Act of Parliament in 1666 required the dead, except plague victims and the destitute, to be buried in pure English woollen shrouds. This remained in force until 1814.

An idea sprang up from seeing Yuli’s beautifully decorated leaf cocoons and I am presently working on it. Before my seventieth birthday I want to write to friends and relatives with the suggestion that they might like to help me decorate my burial shroud, and how this could be done. They are asked to send or bring shapes cut out of felt material. These would be no bigger than ten square centimetres. Different shapes, some of them embroidered or written on, will be collected and sewn onto the coverlet. The sewing on of these ‘leaves’ might even happen on my birthday, if there are enough people who can sew.

I imagine that at my funeral my body will be carried on a bier by four strong men and women, wrapped in a woollen blanket and covered over with this highly decorated coverlet, a birthday present from my friends.

How nice to imagine that we can take these love tokens with us when we die! We don’t know what comes afterwards. Perhaps these ‘grave goods’ will protect us in our afterlife. Objects have been found in graves as far back as in the Egyptian pyramids or in Neolithic dolmens.

No, I don’t find this morbid. Let’s have the party before I die, celebrate the connections I have made so far, be grateful for life’s richness, say ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’. When making a list of who to contact, I may wonder about this or that person I have lost touch with; perhaps I have fallen out with them or forgotten them? This is a time to remember them. And maybe make up.

For me, making the leaf cocoon is an opportunity to bring people together and admit that my days are numbered. Alright, it may not be tomorrow or next year, but one day I will die and disappear, at least in my bodily physical form. It is the handling of the textile material that will help me come to terms with this, I hope.

But everybody is different. So, let’s think about death instead of pushing it off into the distance. We can talk about how we want to spend our latter years. And even when we are afflicted by illness and physical frailty, we can look at what kind of treatment is available and who is around to help. Dying is part of life; by facing it we can feel more at ease, before it is too late.

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Comments

The Hindu ‘dying exercise’ is something I practiced in the early seventies, not as often as I feel I should’ve.
Now, back in India again, 45 years-ish along the timeline it returns to me more often, the meditation kick-starts with the line
“All life death death doth end. And each day dies in sleep”
The thought of release it brings me Peace.

Now what else…? Oh yes, this dratted twisted body, how to throw it away?
Not being much of a burial or burning guy, I believe there is another option:
Eco-friendly chemicals which liquify the flesh,  sinew and bone.
Lord, if it be they will, have me poured away into rivers, lakes or streams.

By andavane on 10th February 2017 - 15:17

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