Show Summary:
In this Part Two of my two part interview with Joe Sehee, Founder of the Green Burial Council, we discuss the three types of green burial, the origins of embalming fluid, and the “end of life revolution.”
New from Brant Huddleston
Show Details:
Honor the dead. Heal the living. Invite in the divine. What a beautiful mission statement, and one adopted by the Green Burial Council, which was founded by my guest Joe Sehee. Only a former Jesuit lay minister and street entertainer (see his amazing animated feature here) would come up with something that heartfelt, which is why Joe is such an interesting guest. In Part One, he and I discussed funeral industry greenwashing and ways we consumers can avoid getting duped. In Part Two you’ll learn about the difference between a natural, green, and conversation burial ground, and some lessons we both learned while working for IBM. It seems the funeral industry, like the computer industry before it, is being dragged forward…often kicking and screaming…into what Joe calls an “End of life revolution.” What are those forces? What revolution? Well listen in, and you’ll find out! But first, we pick up where we left off last time, discussing the origins of that mysterious mix we call embalming fluid. Drink up me lads and lassies, on Part Two of my interview with the founder of the Green Burial Council, Joe Sehee.
In this episode you will learn about:
- The origin of embalming fluid and the mortuary sciences
- Home DIY Funeral Movement
- Comparisons between IBM and Funeral Industries: How to affect change when entrenched and defensive
- The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business Paperback by Clayton M. Christensen
- The Conversation Burial Project
- Green Burial Council Honors Rabbi Stuart Kelman & Father Charles Morris with 2012 Leadership Award
- Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life Paperback by Robert N. Bellah
- The Passing of Robin Williams
- Death Cafes
- The difference between a natural, green, and conversation burial ground
- Seneca ~ “The fates lead the willing and drag the unwilling”
- Film “Solace: Wisdom of the Dying” from Camille Adair
- Joe’s opinion on the greenest way to go
- Natural Transitions Magazine
- On what motivates me to do the podcast (“Yellow not black”)
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)
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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.
