Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldowney aka the Glam Reaper herself.
Speaker: On today's episode one Reaper meets another one.
Speaker: We are talking to the radical Reaper.
Speaker: Let's take it away.
Speaker: Okay, hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: On today's episode, we have another Reaper.
Speaker: How dare she?
Speaker: No, I joke, I just, we have the Radical Reaper.
Speaker: So Radical versus Glam.
Speaker: I'd say yours is probably a lot better.
Speaker: Sandy, welcome.
Speaker: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: And I feel like it's great to share a name with someone who's so cool.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: And I always laugh at the glam of mine because I am no more glamorous than the man in the moon.
Speaker: But anyway, we'll go with it.
Speaker: It's what the media gave me.
Speaker: So tell me, Sandy, give us a little bit of backstory as to who you are and what you're doing.
Speaker: So I am a mortician.
Speaker: I'm actually licensed in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Speaker: currently.
Speaker: I'm a Baltimore City girl.
Speaker: I was born in the city and I've lived in Baltimore most of my life.
Speaker: I only just now moved out of the county.
Speaker: And I sort of got into the funeral industry because I saw someone die in front of my house when I was really young.
Speaker: And I'm fortunate enough to have a mom who explained things to me at a very young age that
Speaker: death was a natural event that happened to everyone and that it didn't need to be scary.
Speaker: And we just kind of were very open about the conversations from there.
Speaker: And so you're licensed in three states.
Speaker: That's wonderful.
Speaker: And that's quite unusual, actually, really, isn't it?
Speaker: Most people get licensed in one state and sort of seem to stay within that state, right?
Speaker: I think a lot of the times it really depends on where you are.
Speaker: Where I was working here in Maryland for a while, I was kind of right on the border of all three of these states.
Speaker: And because of that reason, we had a lot of families that we would serve in those areas.
Speaker: And it just made a lot of sense.
Speaker: I was able to transition my license over.
Speaker: So I just had to take the state law exams and it wasn't too difficult of a process.
Speaker: But it made things really easy for us.
Speaker: That's really good.
Speaker: And that does indeed make an awful lot of sense.
Speaker: I lived in D.C.
Speaker: in Alexandria, actually, for a while, which, again, to your point.
Speaker: So Alexandria, for anybody who doesn't know, is actually technically Virginia.
Speaker: But people who live in Alexandria will often say I lived in D.C.
Speaker: or whatever.
Speaker: So those border counties from that tri-state area are very important.
Speaker: intimate, shall we say.
Speaker: So it definitely makes sense for you to be licensed across the board.
Speaker: And tell us, what do you what do you make of the are you working in a funeral home right now?
Speaker: I am not.
Speaker: I was working at a funeral home, but it was quite a distance away and we just weren't quite a good fit.
Speaker: So right now I'm just kind of hanging out, doing some park climb work at the local morgue.
Speaker: Testing your options and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Well, that's good.
Speaker: And a lot of people probably don't know as well that...
Speaker: funeral directors can actually freelance as well.
Speaker: Like just like any other job, you can work for a variety of different funeral homes and things like that, right?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And that's sort of what I've been doing right now.
Speaker: I do removals for some funeral homes around when they need something local.
Speaker: And then I do a lot of work working over at our local medical examiner's office and things of that nature as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that can be really good, I think, especially for someone, you know, young to see what what part of funeral world they like, you know, what part of the funeral profession, because sometimes you automatically come out and you find yourself in a funeral home and that sort of that's it.
Speaker: But I find in my experience, a lot of funeral directors have it.
Speaker: they're they're naturally better at certain parts, whether it's embalming, whether it's, you know, the removals or whether it's talking to people and talking to families.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: And I think a huge part of the issue, too, is when you have someone like myself who really is passionate about green burial and you kind of sometimes it just makes more sense to work with a variety of different funeral hymns as opposed to limiting yourself to one.
Speaker: So you're able to serve and help a larger clientele.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's brilliantly brought us on to the next topic that I was going to ask you about, which is you, we've obviously had Melissa, the modern mortician on twice now on the Glamour podcast, which is we love Melissa.
Speaker: And so she's a part of this nonprofit.
Speaker: She started this nonprofit funeral home.
Speaker: Are you a part of that?
Speaker: Can you talk any more about your vision for it if you are a part of it or have anything to do with it with her?
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Well, you might recognize Kermit there with us today.
Speaker: And yes, I am so fortunate to be working with Melissa to help get the N Foundation up and running.
Speaker: It's something near and dear to both of us.
Speaker: And our goal truly, and I say it's simple, it's not quite simple, but
Speaker: But we want to create a conservation burial park and nonprofit funeral home.
Speaker: We're going to start things out on the Pacific Northwest where Melissa lives.
Speaker: And the goal is to be able to have a space where families are able to come out and utilize the land for free to low cost and where we are able to provide funeral services.
Speaker: Something that's really important to both of us is making sure that we can make green burial accessible to more than just the rich white elite.
Speaker: I found that one of the biggest barriers with funeral service is the cost, particularly the cost of burial.
Speaker: So our hope is that if we're able to provide this land and this space and we can help with guidance, that it'll take away a big chunk of that barrier.
Speaker: And if it works and we're successful, which I think that we will be, the goal is to be able to bring it to areas here like Baltimore, where I can really help to service our marginalized communities.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Now, what do you, because obviously the big problem with burial is we're running out of burial space, you know, and especially not in the US maybe right now, definitely in more of the cities and suburban style areas.
Speaker: You know, in the likes of Asia, it's 99.9% cremation rate.
Speaker: So what would you do when that land reaches capacity?
Speaker: Is there a plan for that or is that kind of, that's amazing and so then we will move on to the next one type thing?
Speaker: I think it's once we have that land filled, we'll be able to roll it over and have it used for conservation.
Speaker: Our goal is to be able to use this land not only for burials, but for things like farming,
Speaker: with lavender, maybe chickens, so that we're able to have eggs.
Speaker: So even once we reach a point where we're no longer able to provide burials and we have to move on to acquire more land, we'll be able to use the land that we do have to continue to give back to our environment.
Speaker: And it's just kind of a way to kind of, it saves, even though we've utilized that space, we'll be able to maintain it in a green way.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: I mean, I know a lot about I know a lot about a lot of things, but I don't know an awful lot about a lot of things as well.
Speaker: So, I mean, I'm fascinated to watch this project grow and, you know, anything that supports the environment and anything that helps people who are.
Speaker: you know, in need, I am 100% supporting of.
Speaker: So good luck to both of you and to the project in general.
Speaker: Keeping with, I guess, green burial and the fact that, you know, this idea that we're running out of space and the world over and stuff for burial and cremation being so popular, probably because it's price, you know, price is definitely a factor.
Speaker: I was talking to somebody only
Speaker: recently about how much burials and then gravestones themselves cost, you know.
Speaker: What do you make of human composting?
Speaker: I am a huge fan of human composting.
Speaker: I've actually been working really, really hard with our local legislation here in Maryland to get that legalized as a form of disposition.
Speaker: Maryland is one of the few states where alkaline hydrolysis or acclimation is also legalized.
Speaker: However, no one is currently offering it.
Speaker: So I would really, really love to be a part of and hopefully see both human composting as well as acclimation become legal here in our state so that that's something that we can utilize for our families.
Speaker: Yeah, that's it's amazing how much those two have progressed.
Speaker: New York being the latest state that joined on the human composting bandwagon, which is amazing.
Speaker: It was, I think, the very first day, January 1st, 2023.
Speaker: So what a way to start the year.
Speaker: And I'm a big fan of it myself.
Speaker: I actually was very dubious and very cynical, I have to say, because I had...
Speaker: have a background in environmental and body and disposition and that sort of thing.
Speaker: So I had a massive interest in anything like alkaline hydrolysis.
Speaker: And so I was always cynical, I have to say, about what they were.
Speaker: But I remember it was quite a while ago now, I went to see Katrina doing a talk in Greenwood Cemetery.
Speaker: And I just, while I haven't, and this is, I'm holding my hand up, I haven't seen it in action and I have no proof or evidence or anything to back up what I'm saying.
Speaker: It was during that talk that I definitely felt like this is an actual thing.
Speaker: This is an actual thing.
Speaker: And I know
Speaker: she has done it like human bodies are going through it and it's happening um but i have to say it's one of my bucket list items to definitely try and get there to see the um to see it in action to actually see it um happening um and i think that's probably a lot of people are kind of thinking that way um i found with my own
Speaker: environmental disposition background that I felt people need to see proof before they'll sort of accept something.
Speaker: I mean, that's just the human condition and the way we are.
Speaker: We like evidence.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And, you know, I always find it's been in my experience that if you can convince grandma and mama that it is a reasonable option and you can show them something tangible,
Speaker: Then, you know, that can make it something more palatable for the rest of the family.
Speaker: But like you said, you know, it is a it's kind of a you have to see it to believe it and understand it.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And it's it's if if when it is obviously going to be a form of disposition, I personally and I only just wrote an article about this that I think Ireland and we we right now don't have alkaline hydrolysis or human composting, but I actually think of all of them.
Speaker: I think human composting could potentially be the one that takes off in Ireland just because we are naturally very land and very farming focused country.
Speaker: We always have been, you know, our beef is sold all over the world.
Speaker: I think McDonald's even buys Irish beef because it's of such high quality.
Speaker: So I do think that human composting could potentially be something that could be huge in Ireland.
Speaker: which would be great to see.
Speaker: But yeah, so you're definitely involved in all things green, all things burial, non-profit.
Speaker: What is your goal for 2023?
Speaker: So one of our biggest goals is hopefully to be able to start serving families for aquamation and for pets, I should specify, here in Maryland and on the Pacific West Coast.
Speaker: That way, you know, we're able to
Speaker: start getting some fundraising, we're starting able to do education.
Speaker: And truly education is at the heart of everything that we do.
Speaker: I came into this and one of my first love is always going to be the work that I do with the Radical Collective for Death Studies.
Speaker: You know, our, one of our main focuses is helping to de-center whiteness and decolonize deaf education.
Speaker: And that's a big part of what we want to do at the end too.
Speaker: If we can just get the word out there and help to educate families on not only green methods, but the rights that they have in the funeral service, and we can kind of create some transparency, I think that we can really create a massive leap for the funeral industry.
Speaker: And I think that's one of our main goals for 2023.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Well, Sandy, thank you so much for being on the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I think that's a beautiful note to end because it's so positive and, you know, giving to others, which we love here at the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: So thank you so much.
Speaker: This is the radical Reaper.
Speaker: We're going to leave all your links and everything down below.
Speaker: And please check her out on social media and check out the end and their nonprofit funeral home.
Speaker: um which we will share that down below as well and thank you so much
Speaker: so that was sandy aka the radical reaper we want to hear your thoughts on a not for non-profit funeral home and what are your thoughts on green burial human composting alkaline hydrolysis is this something you would want to see irish people i want to hear from you because i would love to see something like this coming to ireland and but i'd love to hear your thoughts do you think it would work do you think it wouldn't work
Speaker: um also those states that do have it what are your thoughts do you think you would get composted do you think you'd go alkaline hydrolysis route tell me i want to hear from you glam reaper podcast at gmail.com and we'll see you again soon
