Vaida, which offers an alternative form of burial: immersed in our psychological dramas, we do not notice the miracle of life | Lifetime

“When we were burying my grandfather, I would think that my grandfather is not here as he is in life.”

Then I tapped my sister aside and whispered softly: When I die, protect me from this drama. Rejoice in my life and make sure that others rejoice. Bring everyone together in one place, maybe one of my favorites? Treat yourself with a glass of ripe red wine and no one will be sad! Share photos and my favorite music. Let’s all stay together before we get up, rejoice that I was, don’t cry, that I left.

You know, it’s better not to lie in that coffin and I really don’t need those sad screams. Wrap yourself better with a white shroud, turn it to ashes, and plant a tree with ashes! Can you imagine how good it will be for me to caress the sky, warm in the sun, throw and re-grow leaves?

And you all carry my life in your pocket, not the dead image. And in total, who discards those clothes that are made? How many coffins do we make in our already crowded land every day?

Orally, sister, bury it with dignity and poetically and with as little noise as possible, okay? This is how V. Ribinskaitė presents his own project: slightly different funeral services than we are used to, in other words, an alternative to traditional funerals.

Pasak fifteenmin of life interlocutors, they and their sister founded the company “Baltą drobulė” to shed more light on the inert sadness of the loss, to help see the situation from a slightly brighter angle, through the joy that happened, not just the sadness and the pain that ended.

Vaida assures that he had no plans to build a business and that his main objective is not to earn more money with this project. It just so happened that an idea was born and there was time to implement it.

I am convinced that life is much more than our body, only that we are very important and only live in it.

“We talk a little about death and think a little. However, it has always been important for me to think about what life is like in the face of death and what death is next to life,” says the young woman.

– How do you assess and perceive death yourself and where do you melt your loved ones?

– It may sound a bit esoteric, although it seems to me that there is no esotericism here: I am convinced that life is much more than our body, only that we are very important and only live in it. Therefore, it seems to us that there is nothing left of a person after death.

I believe that death should be seen without fear. When we recognize that death is, then we realize that we have a period of duration X during which, being in this environment and having this consciousness, we have to do something. So there is a different approach to your time, to your mission in life, life takes on a different quality. We realize that it is not eternal, but that does not mean that we start living in fear, on the contrary, each moment seems as magical as it can end at any moment.

Often, in life we ​​lose the ability to enjoy: it seems normal to us that the sun rises in the morning, it rains, a rainbow appears in the sky, spring comes … After drowning in our psychological dramas and in the everyday life, we no longer notice the miracle of life. But when you start to look at life existentially, things seem so much simpler and all problems become easier to solve.

I was once asked how I imagined my own funeral. In fact, I bury myself every day as I get closer to my every wonderful day out and life in the face of death takes on brighter colors.

– There is a very deep worship of traditional funerals and cemeteries in Lithuania. How do you value it?

– What is tradition? It is a habit that changes with the arrival of new generations, changes in life and perceptions of the world. Personally, I like to question all the traditions: why is it one way or another? And sometimes I can’t find the answer to why this is and what it contributes.

However, if there is a tradition, it is important to people. I understand that people need a place where their loved one is buried, where they can come and stay with him. And generally that place is associated with a cemetery. Or maybe it could be another place: country, country, forest?

Clearly, there must be certain rules, including the funeral, otherwise anarchy will arise. But there are people who want to bury their loved ones differently, and they are growing. So I think the rules themselves will change over time.

Looking at current burial traditions, it is interesting to note that the period of historical Christianity that formed them is very short compared to the tens of thousands of years of paganism. After all, we are basically pagans deep in our roots, very close to nature, so the burial idea I suggest is a return to our roots.

I don’t want to impose my vision on anyone, so I’m not saying that we need to fundamentally change funeral traditions. I mean the fact that there must be a choice: if a family wanted to bury a person somewhere in their homeland and plant a tree in their memory, which is not really officially regulated, they would have that choice.

After all, we are basically pagans deep in our roots, very close to nature, so the burial idea I suggest is a return to our roots.

I am in favor of discussing this. Sometimes I wonder: what’s the point of keeping the ashes in the columbarium? I cant find it. Relatives give away their latest shirts to pay for the burial place, coffins, clothing, the funeral process itself, and they still generate a lot of pollution.

This is another aspect that I am talking about: in our consumption we constantly pollute the environment and we still leave it behind when we leave. Therefore, my thought is to come out clean. Let our departure be meaningful for a planted tree that seems to restore what was “breathed out.” And who will become the axis in which friends, relatives, all of whom we are dear will gather.

Sometimes I wonder: what’s the point of keeping the ashes in the columbarium? I cant find it.

Therefore, we cream the body without luxurious coffins. It is also very important to me that the body is not in any plastic bag or anywhere else before cremation, so we wrap it in a white cover.

Another function of the shawl is that after saying goodbye, we give the family a white linen tablecloth so that if they miss their loved one or want to be with him, they talk, also during the holidays, they can put that white cover on the table and hit her.

It is not the shroud the body was wrapped in, but simply a symbol to help you be remembered and recovered in your thoughts. This item can be passed down from generation to generation in the family later.

– Is this the kind of way you want to make sense of your project?

– When a family loses a loved one, it is very stressful, because in addition to the pain of loss, many things must be resolved: deciding how to treat the body, cremate or bury it, and deal with many other formalities.

Therefore, I thought that, in dealing with all of these matters, allowing loved ones to be at ease in their minds with the person they had lost. It is true, according to my values, I only offer a cremation service because I see a greater meaning for this action than burial in the ground.

I also want to avoid contextual context, because it seems to me that the performance we experience in shielding a person looking at him in a coffin is unnecessary, finally that last image remains with us for the rest of his life, and it would be much more fun if the The person’s memory remains alive.

Therefore, I suggest, using photos, music, to make a light farewell event, which would bring together human friends and loved ones, all those eyes in which a person would still be alive and would always remain alive.

And where people show the urn, they can choose for themselves: it can be a family grave, but this action can be carried out by the family calmly, without problems. As a monument to that man’s presence on earth, I always suggest planting a tree nearby.

If people need the support of the church, we can arrange for a priest to wake up nearby and perform ordinances. I’m not really going to make a revolution, I just want to take the pressure off of people who are missing out on behaving one way or another.

– So do you encourage people to choose alternative burial methods?

– Sometimes it seems that when a person dies, he no longer belongs to the family, so if we do something wrong, we will be punished. But even a deceased person still belongs to his relatives, and the family can choose how to say goodbye to him and where the shows will be. So I really want to encourage: If you are considering saying goodbye differently, but don’t challenge yourself, maybe we can do something together.

– As you mentioned, we do not have laws that allow us to bury human ashes in our yard or forest. How is it in other countries?

– Funeral traditions vary greatly from country to country. In Africa or India, people dance, sing and rejoice at a funeral because a person has completed this journey and now something new will begin. There are already parks in Germany where the urn can be buried next to a tree. I am sure this trend will expand.

While we live through our consumption, we constantly pollute the environment and still leave it behind when we leave. Therefore, my thought is to come out clean.

Perhaps at this point my thinking still seems bold, but I think that in the near future, with our generation of children, it may become the standard. For that to happen, perhaps people need to talk more about death, perhaps people’s worldviews must change, and perhaps commerce must move away from funeral customs.

I would like to emphasize once again that I am not saying that current traditions are inappropriate. They are and are very important to many. Only my project is for those who are considering alternatives.