Grave Matters

Have you had a near-death experience? Was there a bright light? A shadowy figure? Did your life flash before your eyes? A terrifying near-death experience changed Mariam Ardati’s whole perspective and led her to her life’s great purpose - educating her community about the practicalities of death and dying as a death doula, funeral director and educator.

It’s no secret that burial and cremation are environmentally unsustainable. So how can we dispose of bodies in new, climate-friendly ways? Alternatives to burial and cremation that have a lower carbon footprint are disrupting the funeral industry all over the world. This episode explores natural organic reduction, aka human composting or terramation. It's an emerging, greener alternative to the “big two”.

Over thousands of years, cultures around the world have developed rituals to express and process grief. Research shows that these rituals are crucial to accepting loss. But what happens when established rituals and traditions fail to provide comfort or closure? We talk to clinical psychologist Dr Paul M. Martin and grief counsellor Rosemary Wanganeen about what to do when mourning traditions fail to satisfy us, and how we can create our own personal grief rituals.

Life as we know it is changing, and so too is death. From death doulas to death cafes, bespoke funerals, and human composting, Grave Matters is your crash course in the end-of-life revolution. In this first episode, hear a fireside chat with one Australian woman leading the field. Bec Lyons is an end-of-life doula, independent funeral director, death literacy educator and family-led death care advocate.

From death doulas to death cafes, bespoke family-led funerals, and climate-friendly cremation, there's a lot of disruption happening in the business of dying. But most of us are woefully unprepared to face one of life’s few certainties. Grave Matters is an SBS podcast about grief, death care and the people helping us better understand what happens at the end of the road.