Cari’s Magnificent Shrouded Stardust Deep Sea Burial
In last month’s Newsletter, in an article titled: “The Gift of Dying Out Loud,” I told the story of Cari Leversee’s dying process. As an end of life doula and an articulate reporter of all her physical, emotional, and spiritual responses, Cari left us an amazing legacy. She had been a very active doula in Hospice of San Luis Obispo County’s program, and she wanted to leave a precise record of her dying experience to help change the way people die in our society. The result was an exquisite journal, some passages of which were included in last month’s article.
In this article, I will tell the story of how the journey continued after her death, and how her wishes were carried out for the care of her body. Not only will you read about a unique way she wanted to be buried, but how her family and friends creatively met circumstances that required making changes to her plan.
Cari had dreamed of a full-body, shrouded deep-sea burial. As a veteran sailboat racer at the highest levels, she had a powerful connection to water, particularly the ocean. But the cost of a deep-sea burial seemed to put this dream out of reach. Then her network of friends and colleagues, with the help of Hospice of San Luis Obispo County (SLO), took up the challenge of making this possible, and were successful.
When Cari realized she could have her dream, I started receiving a flurry of emails from her about contacts and resources from throughout California and beyond, so she could pre-arrange as much as possible. She wanted to put the least amount of stress and decision making on her family for her after death care and the disposition of her body.
One of the early things Cari hunted down was a burial shroud. Her email to me about this read: “It’s still rare enough (deep-sea burial) that most funeral homes are not stocking shrouds in their inventory nor are the shroud makers keeping sea burial shrouds in inventory. Of course, sea burial shrouds can be tracked down through operations that offer full-body, deep-sea burials. It will just require a little more effort for now. May that evolve soon.” In the end Cari ordered a shroud from Kinkaraco, a company based in San Francisco, CA that sells green burial products of all kinds, including sea burial shrouds. Cari knew Kinkaraco from her work as a funeral director, one of the many unique facets of her background and pursuits in life.
Because the permit process for a full-body, deep-sea burial is more complex, Cari chose a funeral director colleague to assist her husband Richard with filing the paperwork after her death. She spoke about the sea voyage details with the Captain of the sailboat that would take her body on its one-way voyage from Santa Barbara harbor to a location she chose using Google Maps. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that deep-sea burials occur at least three miles from land and in ocean waters at least 600 feet deep. Anticipating possible delays in an ocean voyage, due to her unknown date of death and the weather conditions at the time, Cari planned for a home funeral, but also arranged for her shrouded body to be refrigerated for a period of time at a local funeral home, if it became necessary.
With all of the more technical aspects of her after-death plan in place, Cari announced further wishes on Facebook:
“My loved ones will be holding a home funeral for me in full view of the ocean. Seventy percent of Americans say they would prefer to die at home, yet seventy percent of them actually end up dying in some medically oriented facility. Being a typical statistical outlier, I am dying at home. And it is at home where I will segue peacefully into my home funeral to be cared for by my loving tribe until they are ready to let my body go. At some point after I become one with the breath of the universe, my loved ones will conduct a ceremonial ritual in my honor. My body will be lovingly bathed, anointed with sacred oils, dressed, shrouded and then finally laid out in honor at a specially chosen place in our home. My body will rest here a while for those who wish to bid me a final farewell. This will also be a focal point around which to gather and share comfort and companionship in grief. Family directed home funerals create fertile ground for healing journeys to truly deepen. They were the norm 150 years ago – taking place in what was once called the parlor and is now typically referred to as the living room.”
Now to the part about community participation. The container my shrouded body will be laid to rest in is a simple plain cardboard box just itching to be decorated and transformed into a beautiful vehicle. It has been painted white and will soon be coated with many of your printed digital comments and tributes of love. The next step will be gracing the box with artwork. Once in the box my body will be cloaked in your loving words, blessings and prayers. If you would like to add artwork to the box, the box will be at Hospice of San Luis Obispo County until it is needed. Feel free to come by Hospice SLO County and use the variety of art supplies available to decorate to your delight. We can also print digital submissions and attach them to the box if you cannot decorate it in person. My tribe will also be decorating the plain white shroud during the home funeral. They won’t be able to glue on paper submissions to the shroud, but they can sew on pieces of biodegradable fabric or patches.”
On Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 8:51 pm, overlooking a starlit ocean, beneath a beautiful new moon, Cari dropped her body in the loving arms of her husband Richard, mother Diane and brother Jeff. Cari’s body was washed, her hair styled, and her body honored through an anointing ceremony of holy essential oils. Her body was dressed in the biodegradable clothing she had selected for her home funeral and her death bed was decorated with her burial shroud and fabrics she had collected in her travels. Dry ice was obtained, prepared and placed the way Cari had directed both for efficacy and aesthetics.
For the following two days family, friends, children, colleagues, Hospice SLO County staff and doulas spent time sitting with Cari’s body, sharing love and memories, grieving and decorating her shroud with personal notes and prayers.
Cari had planned for the possibility of an extended home funeral to make sure the chartered sailboat was available to take her body to the chosen location. But after the first two days, Cari once again challenged us to learn and adapt. Her body began to decompose much more rapidly than expected. The extreme nature of her illness made it impossible to slow the process down, in spite of herculean efforts. So, the family had to let go of the original plan and dance in the moment with what was happening. Richard and Diane made the decision to call the funeral home and have them pick her body up for direct cremation. Cari’s original wish to have a full-body, deep-sea burial was no longer possible without her body.
The next day, Richard was sitting at home with dear friends. He shared with them that he felt in his heart cremation was the right decision under the unforeseen circumstances. He sadly expressed regret for missing the opportunity to fulfill her dream of creating a video documentary as a resource for others. One of the friends, offered that he had access to a sailboat in Santa Barbara, which could be used anytime. Another offered to clean Cari’s soiled burial shroud. Another knew of a videographer to call on. Immediately, Richard started to envision “Cari’s Magnificent Shrouded Stardust Deep Sea Burial”. Over the next few days Richard, friends and doulas birthed the concept of creating a shrouding ceremony using an effigy of Cari.
On December 20, 2017 Cari’s shrouding ceremony took place at Hospice SLO County’s 103-year-old historical building. It was attended by her family, friends, neighbors, hospice volunteers, and EOL doulas. The candle lit room was decorated with pictures of Cari and accented by fabrics that embraced ocean colors. Alter tables piled high with a variety of medicinal herbs, flowers, plants, and other earthly treasures filled the room with a magnificent scent. A photo album Cari had assembled with her pictures, and pictures others shared with her on Facebook during her “living funeral,” were on display for guests to view and enjoy. A master cellist from the local symphony played softly and sweetly in a corner of the room. In the next room, Richard had placed a beautifully draped massage table covered with delicious sushi and fine wine for all to enjoy. This conversion of a massage table into a buffet table was a touch that would have humored Cari.
We all gathered in a circle around a central table for the ritual. No one was quite sure how to start until Richard described how we would create an effigy of Cari by filling the burial clothing she had chosen with some of the organic plant material. Everyone felt the rightness of this, because Cari—an herbalist—revered all of nature and spent so much time outdoors hiking and rocking climbing throughout her life. Richard guided us to place tree limbs to hold the clothing in place and provide a sturdy frame for the “body.” Everyone was then invited to fill the form in any way that moved them—adults and children alike. Magically, her body began to take shape as her torso, arms, and legs were filled with the foliage, herbs and flowers. Red flowers were selected for her shoes to “put the fun back in funeral,” as Cari often requested. Some of Cari’s “stardust” ashes were sprinkled on the body by the guests, and it was anointed with holy oils as those honoring her recounted stories, memories, or whatever came from their heart. At last, Cari’s “new” body was lovingly wrapped in her beautiful burial shroud by the group and placed in the cardboard coffin that had been decorated over a number of weeks.
The next day, which happened to be the winter solstice, the private sailboat captain who had been recommended to Richard by his friend, took a small party of family and friends out to sea from Santa Barbara harbor. On the top deck, pointing the way ahead across the sun-sparkled water, under clear blue skies, sat Cari’s shrouded and weighted “body.” Once the designated spot was reached, Richard and Cari’s brother Jeff delivered her body into the waiting deep blue depths of the sea off the Channel Islands. She had been returned to the waters where she had enjoyed years of sailing and sailboat racing. As Richard so eloquently expressed at the time: “She always wanted her death to give back to mother Earth…to the source of what nourished her so well in this life. As death feeds life, we honor the completion of this natural cycle – this going home. It was my honor, our honor, to carry her home.”
Cari’s shrouding and deep-sea burial were both recorded and will at some point be edited into a documentary video that will help inform many others about the beauty and gifts of choosing such a ceremony and burial ritual. Even though her plan couldn’t be carried out exactly as she envisioned, the way it unfolded seems in retrospect to perfectly express who she was in an even more complete way. Thinking back on it now, as I do at times, I picture her smiling with approval at the organic way it all came together. It feels like the whole after death process was choreographed by her spirit.
Cari was ever the guide, teacher, and an advocate for new, alternative ways of approaching dying and after care of the body. In her dying, she was an exemplar for the ideas she advocated for so forcefully in her life. She often said: “Be the change you want to see”. It is a great honor to be among the many who helped Cari be that change right up to the moment when her body sunk out of sight into the water that would bring her home.
