I would like to feed worms under a tree

Always thought I wanted to be cremated but the closer my approach to death I'm beginning to see the appeal of a burial site for someone to reminisce. Funerals and the ceremonies and rituals surrounding them are for the living after all. One way to get around the waste of land would be to plant a tree that could feed off my remains. Good post.

Gonna burn - interestingly I live in the Northern Ireland countryside and a new crem has just opened quite close to me- When I was at Art College for my final piece I bought a cardboard coffin and covered it in symbols of all kinds - nice dress rehearsall but I think I may thing this way but let my family do the arwork my small family have been talking for years about our funeral lists so I'm mhoping at least it won't be a tame affair.

I feel like I've taken up enough space on my time on earth alive, no reason to keep a spot occupied by me for eternity.

My family came from the south. They were all emphatic about having a designated place where people could pay their respects...but when I think of the loved ones I have lost, I don't think of their gravestone or them being in a cemetery or mausoleum, I think of memories. I don't need a specific place or day to remember them.

I told my family to give everything away that they can, cremate the rest of me and then it's all up to them.

Science.

Cremation for me, so my daughters can spread them on their travels around the world

I have always wanted to be cremated. I told people who will hopefully outlive me that I don't care if they hold a funeral for me in a cardboard box. I'll be dead. It matters not to me. Funerals are for the living. Save your money on a metal or wooden box and a burial that's not worth thousands of dollars. Use the money to live. I've always thought Viking funerals were pretty majestic.

There's a theory about cremation. Being cremated enables the "soul" to be free and not have evil spirits attach itself to the soul that's trapped in the body, or something like that. Nice thought. Doubt that's real either lol

Cremation seems like the most practical choice. You don't waste space and it's cheaper. You are taking your memories of me with you, not my body. Get rid of the fucker!

There are exposure traditions as well as cremation/burial traditions(the antithesis of Antigone) and also a nautical path of burial at sea.

This is a good prompt to get me to discuss eventualities with my kids. My culture (not theology) is Jewish and I know about the theological stance and am not bound.

Another thought: I'm a performing storyteller and I tell many family and autobiographical stories. One is about my mother--her life and her death. She always aspired to higher education but it wasn't her lot. But she arranged for an "anatomical donation"--her body went to the medical school at the University of Chicago (and would ultimately be cremated). So when she died, (as executor) I honored her arrangement. Some people were shocked.

"How could you?"

I would always answer with true filial piety and as much solemnity as I could muster: "Well, you know, my mother always wanted to go to the U of C."

cremation of those parts that can't be used for research

I am an organ donor, and I will be donating my eyes and body to a university. They will cremate me when they are done and send my ashes to my next of kin for free.

I'm not crazy about all the embedded traditions and the hard and fast rules that govern them, but there are a couple of elements of Jewish burials that I find quite appealing, beginning with the plain, unadorned coffin. I've never sat through a pitch for a coffin that didn't include a guarantee from the seller that the coffin wouldn't leak for a number of years into the future. Of what possible concern is that to the deceased? They're dead. What do they care if they leak or not? The second aspect of Jewish burials that really appeals to me is the lack of embalming fluid. Together with the plain coffin, these two aspects ensure a quick return to the elements.

If I wasn't pre-committed to the body donation/embalming route, it's something I'd consider.

Cremation

Thou art Dust, and unto Dust Thou Shall Return. So you kick it up a few notches. I do not want to be buried but cremated and spread all over the world so I can keep travelling.

Burial. But because of scientific belief.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on why he'd be buried: "...Put me in the ground. Let the worms, microbes come in and out of my body. And the energy content of my body that I had assembled over my lifetime consuming the flora and fauna of this earth. My body then returns to them. Thus is the cycle of life. .."

Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson with Larry King talking about death and the non-afterlife.

My plan is to be cremated so my son can build a shrine in the most used room in his home.

He tells me that's not gonna happen.

No funeral for me whatever and cremation as that's the only real option I can choose. you don't have to have any service.

I don't care, throw me in the trash!

I'll be dead so I really don't care what happens to my body. I'm leaving that up to whoever wants to deal with it. If it were up to me, I'd have it flown to a remote place in the mountains and thrown out of the plane to feed all the little creatures.

Why to worry about something you won't witness?

Cremation. Then scatter me as fertilizer in my gardens. Use me to keep growing food. Don't waste any more space on cemeteries. All that does is cater to the insecurities of the living.

Launch my casket off a catapult...like when they did it in "Northern Exposure".

Do with my body as you wish, I'll be dead and will not care because I won't be able to

Cremation

I'm having a cremation and my ashes will be spread out in the ocean off Norfolk for fish food. With any luck I might come back as a whale. hahahahahaha.

Like my husband used to say..."Put my ashes in a douch bag and run me through one more time."