ash scattering

Earth Friendly Biodegradable Cremation Urns

February 8, 2010 urngarden.com

This month we’re featuring heart-shaped cremation urns, jewelry urns, and memorial stones. One of our favorites is the earth friendly Unity biodegradable urn.

These beautiful urns are handmade and feature inlaid fresh flower petals. It is available in three sizes, pet or keepsake size urn, standard adult urn, or a double capacity companion urn.Each urn includes a water-soluble plastic bag for the cremated remains.

The Unity urn is designed for ground burial. Once buried it will degrade naturally over time. Available in three designs with matching keepsakes.

There Goes The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived

January 7, 2010 urngarden.com

ted williams

According to a letter owned by Phil Castinetti, the sports memorabilia king of New England, Red Sox legend Ted Williams had a longtime wish to be cremated immediately after his death. The letter, dated Dec. 19, 1991, is an authentic writing from the desk of Teddy Ballgame himself.

“It is my wish that no funeral or memorial service of any kind be held and that my remains be cremated as soon as possible after my death,” Williams wrote in the letter nearly two decades ago. “I want you to see that my ashes are sprinkled at sea off the coast of Florida where the water is very deep.”

Williams’ three children fought bitterly over the body of their legendary father. In a perfect world, the letter in Castinetti’s collection would be used to do justice in the case of Ted Williams, but rather than have his wishes carried out, Williams was taken to a lab in Arizona where his remains were kept suspended in liquid nitrogen.

Last year, a lab executive documented the brutal inhumane treatment of Williams’ head at the cryogenics center shortly after his death in 2002.

Rather than being scattered in Florida as he’d always wished, the body of the Red Sox legend was mutilated and disgraced.

In life, Williams never got the respect he deserved. The fans in Boston booed him, the media blasted him, his personal life was unstable and troubled. In death, Teddy Ballgame has been treated even worse.

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Cremation Urn Memorial Jewelry

December 8, 2009 urngarden.com

Early examples of mourning jewelry were found in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. Black and white enameled heads or skulls were often set into both rings and brooches and worn to signify a period of mourning after the death of a loved one.

The Death’s Head motif (skull) was still used on mourning rings as late as the 17th century. A ring presented after the execution of King Charles I in 1649 shows a portrait of Charles I on one side and a skull and a crown on the other. Inside the inscription reads, “The glory of England has departed.”

The presentation of mourning rings was a status symbol in the 17th and 18th centuries. The wealthy specified the ring design and quantity to be made in their wills.

Samuel Pepys, English diarist and naval official (1633-1703) willed that 129 mourning rings be given away at his funeral.

Either he had a large family or a huge ego.

Urn Garden is pleased to launch a contemporary line of urn rings, inspired by Victorian mourning jewelry.

Keepsake Cremation Urn Ring

Catholic Doctrine Rejects Scattering of Ashes

November 4, 2009 urngarden.com

stained glass window

ROME:

The Italian Bishops’ Conference is preparing to publish updated norms on funeral rites including cremation and the burial of ashes.

The manual, which will be reviewed and approved by the bishops’ conference in Assisi on November 9, will explain that Catholic doctrine does not oppose cremation but rejects the practice of storing ashes of loved ones at home. The document will stress that this is a violation of the work of mercy that obliges Catholics to provide a holy burial to the dead.

Keeping the ashes of the dead at home does away with the important rite of accompanying the deceased to the cemetery, “which unites the community of believers.” Burying the ashes at a cemetery, the “place of the dead,” is what makes most sense, the bishops will add.

Scattering the ashes, according to the Italian bishops, is based on a pagan ritual that supposedly symbolized the union of the deceased with “the great soul of mother earth,” and is contrary to the Christian obligation, established by the Lord Jesus himself, to bury the dead.

Continue reading “Church in Italy to issue clarification on cremation”