floR's photos - Death elsewhere
As much as I try not to think about death, of course I'm aware that all life ends with dying. I don't believe in any kind of god and not in reincarnation, but still, I find it hard to image that when I die, my being will just stop.... being. I personally don't see the use of graves - the guy's dead... burn him and get over it - and they take up space. I'm not a heartless brute, but think about it. There are 6 billion world citizens right now, when we all die in a couple of years, where would they put our bodies? Two square meters per dead guy, that's a whole lot of square meters for 6 billion dead folks.
I think it's nice and all, that the people who are left behind dedicate some space and some of their time to honour the deceased and if they want to bury their loved ones, that's fine with me, but don't complain that mankind is stealing Mother Earth's surface.
Anyway, here are some photographs I have taken of foreign (to me) cemetaries.
Switzerland
This
graveyard is only about 200 meters from the SGI office in Cortaillod.
I didn't have much time to make any pictures, or actually, I asked my
colleagues to stop the car so I could make this photo. They looked at
me a bit funny at my request.
Czech Republic
The
cemetaries in the Czech Republic are
a bit depressing. I think those ones are the best. You shouldn't be leaving
them all cheered up. The fascinating thing about graveyards, apart from
the word itself, is the impact they have on someone. Of course the weather
plays a part in it - it must be cloudy or even foggy to have the best
effect. 
But
also the setting is important and the condition of the graves. I don't
like it if the graves are kept nice and flowery. Of course, it shows that
the deceased was loved and cared for and I have a lot of respect for the
effort, but those graves are too new to have 'something' over them.
I
like my graves old and decayed, the stones itself must be crumbling, leaning
to the point of falling over, maybe bleached my the sun, or mossy green.
No flowers but grass and weed (not the enchanted kind) should be covering
the grave itself. During all our 'visits' to Czech cemetaries the weather
was kind of gloomy, even drizzling at times.
This
photo on the right shows that next of kin were still taking good care
of the graves, here in Broumov. But now, as I am writing this, this puzzles
me, since the wooden church in the background is supposed to be the oldest
church in Czech Republic. It looked old indeed and I believe it was, but
I would expect an old cemetary surrounding it as well.
This
graveyard here was over all kind of boring, graves neatly taken care of,
bright flowers of all kind, grass freshly cut... yuck. How is one supposed
to think of dead people here, when it looks like a flower garden? The
chaos of mathematically aligned graves close to each other does not breathe
the atmosphere of an authentic graveyard. Did you not hear anything I
just told you?
Plant some 300 year old trees, cast some shadow, let the grass grow and the flowers rot and the dead will feel more at home.
In
Prague at the old Jewish cemetary of Josefov they found the solution for
the space problem I mentioned in the prologue - graves were just stacked
on top of each other. Okay, I apolize for being insensitively rude just
now. The reason for this was that Jews only could be buried on this small
piece of ground, so they raised the ground, along with the tombstones
and buried the new deads with their stones.
When
we walked around the territory we saw the somewhat disturbing effect of
the continous raising of the graveyard - the ground was so high that you
could see the tombstones over the little shops in the next street.
Greece
This
is a cemetary in Thessaloniki, Greece, where I did my four-month academical
placement for my study (see my memoires
for more tales). The graves here varied from old, broken stones to huge
mausoleums. Gory detail: during our search for cool graves, we discovered
broken bones (I kid you not!) which where undoubtedly human. Maybe they
were digged up during graveyard rebuildings or perhaps just left there
for the many stray dogs that roamed the city, but either way, I cam say
I was almost shocked by them just lying around.
Of
one grave the door was open so, curious as I am I peered inside. The difference
between the sunlight and the shadow it cast inside prevented me from seeing
sharp details, but I could clearly make out a ball shaped, grayish form,
which I think may have been a human skull. Afraid to be caught dishonouring
a grave, I decided not to take a closer look inside and take the skull
as a morbid souvenir.
Another
weird detail: I wanted the first of these Greek pictures (with Elmar on
it) as my Windoze desktop wallpaper at the institute, but the scanner
they had was lousy, only black and white. But a grayscale cemetary would
also make for a cool background, I figured, but when I took a closer look
at the scanned image, Elmar wasn't in it...
Sweden
Of
course also Sweden has a lot of graveyards.
I've visited dozens, but almost all of them were still "being used".
Used by the next of kin, people who are taking care of the graves. Good
for them, but not for my pictures.
Most of the cemetaries have a couple of old graves (before 1900 at least)
and I tried to capture those on film.
Gränna,
famous because of its 'polkagrisar' (sweet peppermint candysticks), has
one graveyard which is all old.
The church there is still being used to marry and baptize people, but the original cemetary is not being expanded anymore. An ideal place for me to shoot some pics.
But,
as I mentioned, most graveyards around churches are 'fresh' and still
being used to bury the dead. Most of these cemetaries have an old and
a new part, but also mixed areas.
Scattered
throughout Sweden are these 'gravfelts', burial grounds from 500-1000.
Not really the tradional graveyards, but still, dead folks were put under
ground there. There are several fields of them, being preserved, but also
in the middle of agricultural, cultivated fields.
Andorra and the Pyrenees
Although
we were in Andorra for two weeks and I really was on the lookout, we spotted
our first burial place only in the second week. Maybe because it was quite
unusual to me. My girlfriend was triggered by a large cross on an empty
square and indeed, it was a cemetary.
It was really nothing more than that square with the cross and a concrete 'closet' into which dead people were shoved. Later that week we saw more of these walls, but also more traditional graveyards outside of Andorra.
Like
this one in the French Pyrenees. Half used, half neglected and most of
the crosses on the graves had weird plastic figurines or garlands or something.
Undoubtedly once clean and colourful, but now dusty and burnt black by
the sun.
Once
we were used to the Pyrenean cemetaries, we ignored most of them, because,
well, they all looked alike and they were just too new, being used and
such.
Hmm... notice the similarity between these two pictures?
Madeira
Scotland
Portugal
Just thinking...
So what do I think happens to my spirit when I die? The most rational and logical explanation is that my spirit dies with me. And why not? When I think of floR, I think not only of my mind but also of my face and the rest of my body. I am me. And when I'm dead, I'm dead.
Reincarnation? In my humble opinion: bullshit. People who are under hypnosis remember their former self in an age long forgotten? I say they are just remembering a movie they once saw in which they could identify with one of the characters.
People have a deep fear of dying. Hell, I used to have bad day dreams
when I was a kid and I thought of what would happen to me if I died. Reincarnation
is a sad excuse for not wanting to die. And maybe death is not the only
bad thing about dying. Maybe it's also the fear of being forgotten. Make
a name for yourself and you will not die in spirit. See my immortality
page for my theory on that.