Show Overview
Welcome to Part Two of my interview with Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, founder of the Promessa system, which uses advanced technology to mimic nature’s process of rapidly breaking down dead things and returning them to earth. We’re talking human compost here folks. I personally would like to have my remains spread around a cactus plant, which reflects my personality, but you listeners may opt for a fruit tree, or a flower garden. A rose by any other name!
In Part One we learned how Susanne came up with the idea for Promessa, and how it works. In this part, we learn more about how Promessa is different from cremation, and why NASA gave Susanne a call on the space phone. Join me for the second and final part of my interview with Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak of Sweden’s Promessa.
In this second episode about human compost you’ll learn:
- How Susanne responds when people inevitable bring up the 1970’s cult flick “Soylent Green”
- What kind of objections people have to the idea of human composting
- Of the historic rise of cremation, and how Promessa compliments it
- About the Zorastrian way of handling human remains
- About the role of dioxins in cremation, and why we should care
- Why not to try human cremation in your own oven or stove
- What happens when you cremate a body, which is 70% water
- How metals, like mercury from tooth fillings, is safely removed before placing the remains back into the earth
- Why NASA called Suzanne with interest in Promessa
- Where Promessa systems will be installed
- How to sign up as a Promessa friend
- Death is not the final end!
Other "Green" Shows that Might Interest You
- A Natural, Earth Friendly Way to Come Back as a Tree, with Bios Urn Co-Inventor Roger Moline Navarro
- Where, How and Why to Choose a Green Burial with Ann Hoffner, author of "The Natural Burial Cemetery Guide: A State-by-State Guide. (in two parts)
- Going Out Green with Jeff Jorgenson, Director of Elemental NW ~ Seattle’s first and only all green funeral home
- As Below, So Above, with Joe Sehee, Founder of the Green Burial Council (in two parts)
- From Earth to Earth ~ Respectfully Composting Human Remains, with Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, Founder of Promessa (in two parts)
Share the Love!
Your quick review on iTunes would help me a lot. It’s as easy as ABC! Just…
A) Look for the gold “Review Brant’s Show on iTunes” button below. Click there.
B) Then (in iTunes) click on “View in iTunes.” It’s the blue button under the iTunes logo. That will open iTunes. Finally;
C) Look for the “Ratings and Reviews” tab. Click there and work your magic!
Presto and grazie!
Dance Podcasts You Might Like
I Am a Racist
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
I often hear nowadays, people being accused.
“He’s a racist.”
“She’s a racist.”
“Trump’s a racist.”
“So and so’s a racist.”
What I have yet to hear is: “I am a racist.”
So let me be the first.
I am a racist.
Yes.
I see the ugly thing, creeping around my soul like a roach in the kitchen. I squash it, but sometime later, there it is again.
I know there is a nest somewhere, eggs hatching, a source deep within me, hidden away where it’s easy to deny. There is where I'll find the library of my false beliefs, the lies I tell myself over and over, so often they become grooves cut into my gray matter, like fissures in rock where the water runs down, cutting deeper and deeper, until fissures become swales, and swales become canyons.
When did the first racist raindrop fall? I don’t know. As a child, for sure. How many drops of poison does it take to pollute the vessel of pure water of which we are born? When, exactly, does a person become a racist, and who gets to decide?
I don’t know, but then, neither does anyone else.
I don’t believe in permanence. That’s one thing the Buddhists have taught me.
Everything changes.
We can become aware of that library of false beliefs, that nest of nasties that colors our perception of things, often for the worse. Awareness alone brings change. We can cut new grooves. My challenge as a human being is not to deny that I am a racist, for that would be as foolish as denying I have cancer when I really do. My challenge is, rather, to stop the cancer from metastasizing and poisoning the whole man.
I doubt I will ever fully eradicate my racism. Unfortunately, I suspect some vestige of it will always be with me. But what I can do, and what I do do, is expose myself to experiences that lessen my racism, those being travel, kind and honest conversation, and breaking bread with “the others” whenever I can. These experiences, like wind and rain, smooth rock and, over time, lay low even the highest mountains.
So when I hear the angry crowd shouting, "He’s a racist,” I want to ask:
“Who among you is not a racist? Stand up then and take a bow...for you are surely a god.”
I moved to Substack!
Hi there. If you've read this far, then you enjoy, or are at least intrigued by, my ideas. If you want to learn more, jump over to my new website on Substack, where I continue to write about travel, the second half of life, and other mad musings.
