#sky burial

[seanmorroww]

Piezo - "Sky Burial"

Sky Burial [NAFF, 2026]

[a-typical]

SINCE I FIRST discovered sky burial I have known what I wanted for my mortal remains. In my view burial by animals is the safest, cleanest, and most humane way of disposing of corpses, and offers a new ritual that might bring us closer to the realities of death and our true place on this planet.

In the mountains of Tibet, where wood for cremation is scarce and the ground too rocky and frozen for burial, they have practiced celestial burial for thousands of years.

A dead man is wrapped in cloth in the fetal position, the position he was born from. Buddhist lamas chant over the body before it is handed over to the rogyapa, the body breaker. The rogyapa unwraps the body and slices into the flesh, sawing away the skin and strips of muscle and tendon. He sharpens his machete on nearby rocks. In his white apron, he resembles a butcher, the corpse appearing more animal than human.

Of all the death professionals in the world, rogyapa is the job I do not envy. A rogyapa interviewed by the BBC said, “I have performed many sky burials. But I still need some whiskey to do it.”

Nearby, the vultures have already begun to gather. They are Himalayan griffon vultures, bigger than you’d imagine, with nine-foot wingspans. The vultures tighten ranks, emitting guttural screeches as men hold them back with long rods. They huddle in groupings so tight that they become a giant ball of feathers.

The rogyapa pounds the defleshed bones with a mallet, crushing them together with tsama, barley flour mixed with yak butter or milk. The rogyapa may strategically lay the bones and cartilage out first, and hold back the best pieces of flesh. He doesn’t want the vultures to have their fill of the best cuts of meat and lose interest, flying off before the entirety of the body is consumed.

The signal is given, the rods are retracted, and the vultures descend with violence. They shriek like beasts as they consume the carrion, but they are, at the same time, glorious sky-dancers, soaring upward and taking the body for its burial in the sky. It is a virtuous gift to give your body this way—returning the body back to nature, where it can be of use.

— From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Caitlin Doughty

[daily-utsu-p]

Visit Original Link

Daily Utsu-P #220:

鳥葬 (Chousou) / Sky Burial feat. Hatsune Miku | Original version from the PV. It was later reworked for the album DIARRHEA, and again for CD-R.

[e-beggars]

neolithic anatolian depiction of a sky burial

[these-summer-nights-in-december]

The 4th of the 5 poems of mine in the Portfolio of Poetry in the brand new issue of Tupelo Quarterly (Issue 34)

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Sky burial be like "Feed the birds, corpses for birds. Corpses, corpses, corpses for birds."

[necrohag]

“Sky Burial” by Jarryd Tricklebank at Storm the Banks Tattoo in Australia (@/jarrydt)

[betweenthetimeandsound]

Giving alms to the birds

A vulture would know where wings once grew; between the spine, scars hide roots severed and nerves burst like a bucket of water.

A frigid wind would know where all would pass; mountain flowers entrap themselves in their own light, while a sullen breath curses all to an eternal slumber.

What is life, but just another shell to inhabit? Pastel colors eventually bleach out to white; even the reddest of lips lose its juice like a strawberry decaying on a frozen palm.

Hold up a torch, it will go out. But for a moment, emaciated flesh will expose twinkling bones, as if molten gold decided to stay there.

The snow falls with a gentle grace; it passes through this life as flakes, but will reincarnate as a river heading towards spring.

But I will re-emerge as a butterfly; flying out of the ruins, I will finally understand how to value light and reveal a glittering path, an escape route for the sky. --Elda Mengisto