NEW BURIAL REGULATIONS - REINCARNATION AT HOME
As Utopian as it may sound, burying the dead at home, in the humus layers of the wooded terraces, is actually quite feasible.
For instance, when a building has 50 apartments and 500 metric tons of soil are on the roofs, these 500,000 kilos of soil would have no problem whatsoever absorbing the body of one dead person weighing 50 kilos each year, particularly since it turns into humus anyhow. It would be 1% of 1%, or one-thousandth, of the soil volume that would be reduced to one-hundred-thousandth within a year, from 50 kilos down to 5 kilos. There would be no hygiene problem, as the process of decomposition would be aerobic, preventing the growth of dangerous anaerobic putrefactive bacteria.
The interment should take place without a coffin, wrapped in a shroud, in a layer of earth at least 60 centimeters thick. A tree should be planted on top of the grave to guarantee that the deceased will live on symbolically as well as in reality.
When people move out, there are two options. The remains may continue to be respected by the new occupants in the form of a sacred site 2 by 1 meters, which the old occupants may visit, or the remains may safely be exhumed and interred elsewhere after about one year, when their weight is reduced to approximately 5 kilos.
Nowadays, people are buried in a way that is completely non-ecological and anti-religious, against all the laws of nature, of the universe, of the cycle of life, of reincarnation and resurrection: in coffins that are sealed airtight, 4 meters below ground, where they do not turn into humus, but rather rot as if stricken with the plague, far removed from the underground life of vegetation and tree roots. To make resurrection impossible, the path to Creation is additionally blocked by concrete slabs, uniform tombstones, synthetic grass and artificial flowers.
Any form of silent prayer at this site of the twice-murdered dead, who are denied reincarnation, is impossible. A dead person is entitled to reincarnation in the form of, for example, a tree that grows on top of him and through him. The result would be a sacred forest of living dead. A garden of the happy dead, which we have such a real need for. Reincarnation would even be demonstrable in chemical terms, as substances from the deceased are found in the tree on top of the grave.
The gravesite of today becomes a site of worship and silent prayer, of joy and life regained. And not somewhere far away in a cemetery tended to by strangers, but right at home. Family and friends don’t die. The circle expands and the good spirits return.
Written 1985 for the book Das Hundertwasser Haus.
Published in:
Das Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag/Compress Verlag, 1985, p. 318 (German)
Schurian, Walter (ed.): Hundertwasser – Schöne Wege, Gedanken über Kunst und Leben. [Beautiful Paths - Thoughts on Art and Life]. Munich: Langen Müller Verlag, 2004, pp. 278-279 (German)
The yet unknown Hundertwasser, Catalogue on the occasion of the exhibition at KunstHausWien, Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2008, p. 240
Hundertwasser The Green City, Exhibition catalogue, Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016, pp. 242-243 (English/Korean)