Imagine a girl jumping up and down in a big, dark and light brown, almost fluffy pile of compost. It is no longer visible with what it was filled; where the imaginary roots of the elements of this compost ended, but we can know which roots will start with this heap of, what I would sometimes consider dirt. Dirty, stinky, smelly compost with everything I am scared of in my humanistic concentric circle where I am frightened to (almost?) death to the worms and the germs inside this mound. That girl is jumping, screaming when landing down softly in this new and fresh fertilizer: ‘this is live and this is death! This is live and this is death!’. She has a good point. The elements in the compost have died, creating the food for the new living creatures: the worms that feed on it, the potatoes that can grow out of it, the bushes that will soon catch some of that lively air that has been one of the main feeders in this creation of compost. It is not that eerie to grab and jump around in compost, honestly I would not do it due to the fact that I would not want to touch one single slimy worm, but suddenly it becomes eerie when it is known that the compost is made of human remains, wood, leaves and other compost starters. Now the girl is actually jumping up and down on different bodies that have been teared down by the exposure to air and warmth and mixed up to become that pile of fluffy compost. The human compost is making kin with the grass laying around, the bushes that will be grown with it, the people touching it, the worms and flies taking a dive in it. The bushes that are being fertilised with this ‘dirt’ are making a living on it. Befriending and getting a connection with not only the family that is born out of these composted humans, but with the birth of those plants, being a feast for the insects. We can engage with the dead, play around in it, smell it, touch it, not longer being restrained of those familiar faces and the limbs, the livers, the hearts. There is an ongoingness, the bushes take care of the dead and the dead for the bushes.
Continuing on the elements of death and conserving, this composting of the human remains and mixing it with the natural world is not something I was familiar with, nor the close circle I socialise with. I am used to the human being the center of their death, how we have certain rituals to bury them, burned to ashes and put in an urn or embalmed in a casket, to remain for a little bit longer. There is something to go back to, to do your story, to say: ‘hey grandma, I messed up again. You always had the right thing to say’. Turning back to e.g. those relations by bloodline to feel some soothing. The human remains the center of attention and all the natural elements that are being damaged due to, for instance, leaking body fluids that damage the soil’s PH, are not of any interest due to our longing of conserving the human, where I thought the energy of the person would be lost when there is no place of remembrance with the remains of the body, is it though? Was I even ever in a more-than-human mindset when thinking about the conservation of the human and all its rituals and aspects I am used to? No. That hit hard as well. Where I thought it was more-than-human to break down, tear up and ‘be back in nature’, the burial of the bodies I have witnessed were not being brought back to nature, it was being brought back to attention how we, the humans, made the world revolve around us. How we as humans are above nature, how I do not want to touch the worms and the compost because I feel better than that, because it scares me of it not being human-like, what I am used to.
For example. Let’s take a funeral and dissect that for a bit. My context within funerals are non-religious funerals where the dead body is placed in an open casket, where people will have speeches and songs will be played which the deceased once admired. The casket will be closed, carried by family/friends to the open ground where space is made for the body to put down in. People can throw a flower on the casket, whereafter the funeral conductor will close up the hole with dirt and the people will go back to the funeral home to drink some coffee and have some cake, to celebrate the life of the deceased one and after this day, until someone stops paying for this spot where the body is resting, you can visit anytime you want. This contrast, towards human composting, screams to me how this ritual of conserving the death is not making kin at all. It is about you inner circle, about the babies and human friends you made that are now the center of attention. Not that bush, the worm, the fly and the air gets any attention in this ritual, which does happens in the ritual of human composting: every elements works together and has the attention in their way.



Eindigen met een conclusie en mijn eigen gebreken, dan is het klaar. Doorlezen en herzien, aanpassingen maken.

Hoe kwijt kan iets zijn, als je je ogen dichtdoet en je kan het nog steeds zien?














But, why should I care?