Last Rites: Wisdom from a Fourth-Generation Undertaker

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Tami Simon

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2022

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ceremonies for honoring the departed are crucial parts of our lives, but few people know where our traditional practices come from—and what they reveal about our history, culture, and beliefs about death. In today's podcast, Tami Simon speaks with funeral director, embalmer, and certified postmortem reconstructionist and cremationist Todd Harra to talk about the roots of the Western funeral and to remove some of the fears that surround it. Their riveting conversation looks at: the myths and misconceptions about the funeral director, the sacred responsibility of handling the deceased, the rise in home funerals in our time, the origins of the practices of embalming and coffin burial, the different shades of the "green" cemetery and burial, why there is great value in permanent memorialization, making a ceremony sacred, why simply showing up is the greatest way to support those in mourning, mushroom suits and the controversy around them, the process of natural organic reduction (NOR), and much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Insights at the Edge, produced by SoundsTrue.
0:05.4	My name is Tammy Simon, I'm the founder of SoundsTrue, and I'd love to take a moment
0:10.2	to introduce you to the SoundsTrue Foundation.
0:13.6	The goal of the SoundsTrue Foundation is to provide access and eliminate financial barriers
0:20.3	to transformational education and resources, such as teachings and trainings on mindfulness,
0:27.8	emotional awareness and self-compassion.
0:31.2	If you'd like to learn more and join with us in our efforts, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.
0:42.7	In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Todd Hara.
0:47.1	Todd has over a decade of experience as a licensed funeral director and embalmer, and
0:54.3	he's a certified post-mortem reconstructionist and cremationist.
1:00.5	Todd has written two nonfiction books about the profession, mortuary, confidential, and
1:08.0	over our dead bodies, and he's also an associate editor for Southern Calls, a renowned
1:15.7	journal in the funeral profession.
1:18.5	With SoundsTrue, Todd has written a new book and it's called Last Rites, the Evolution
1:25.0	of the American Funeral.
1:27.8	Quite honestly, I've never spoken before with a funeral director, and quite honestly,
1:34.3	I've never even been inside a funeral home.
1:38.2	So talking to Todd was a whole lot of new for me, new information, new insights, and
1:45.5	new understandings about right now where we are in the evolution of the funeral business
1:52.6	and how we can make the experience of dealing with our dead, something that we talk about
2:01.3	that's above board, that's not taboo, and that's treated as holy, as sacred, which it
2:08.4	is.
	...

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