Sure, you've been living your life holding the natural world at arm's length. Cars, buildings, cellphones, laptops - the whole nine yards.
But now you're dead. How do you return to nature? In a natural way, of course.
The Living Cocoon was developed by Bob Hendrikx, together with researchers from Delft University of Technology and the Naturalis natural history museum, and has already been incorporated into the coffin collections offered by two Dutch funeral companies.
‘The Living Cocoon enables people to become one with nature again and to enrich the soil, instead of polluting it,’ says Hendrikx. ‘‘After months of development, it was a really impressive moment to be finally able to mark someone’s passing in this extraordinary way.’
Science fiction fans are not in any way surprised by this artistic expression. In his 1954 story Of Withered Apples, Philip K. Dick writes about a woman who picks the last apple from an ancient tree that is determined to live on.
Lori picked the leaf up. It was old and brown. Her heart skipped a beat as she slipped the leaf into the pocket of her jeans. Against her loins the leaf cut and tingled, a little hard point piercing her smooth skin and sending exciting shivers up and down her spine. She stood at the open window a moment, sniffing the air. The air was full of the presence of trees and rocks, of great boulders and remote places. It was time - time to go again. She touched the leaf. She was wanted.
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