So on the casual mention of a friend I decided to alter my daily ride and explore a path I had not taken knowing that it would flow into a path I had taken just a few days earlier.

...half way up a hill in a small fecund clearing a flower "decorated", or rather strewn mound reminds of a freshly interned burial plot and whether this is its purpose or not I have not stopped to investigate but from the quick glimpse I give it as I avoid nearby traffic its as close to an accurate description as I can give. The coast down the other side not to mention a break in traffic gives me a moment to reflect on graves and burial and I am reminded of those areas in Indonesia where relatives are buried until such time as the family can afford the wood for cremation, at which time up the family member comes and onto the wood pile. Whereas, until space and rising costs became a factor in the west they just tended to leave them in the buried state...6 feet down.

And as I rode up onto the foot path around a parked truck and then jumped from the gutter back to the road to avoid an old lady, I wondered...

...why six feet?

Well apparently it was the idea of the Lord Mayor of London in 1665 as a method to stop the plague spreading from a dead body to the living, a sort of earthy shroud of protection for the living. Later it made sense to stop scavengers from getting to the free meal, but it's no longer enforced or even the law, and after a poke around Google I found that California only requires 18 inches of dirt over the corpse...so shallow graves are not just the thing for crime stories and psycho killers getting rid of the evidence.

Last year in the Temple of Doom, Indiana unearthed: Something Buried

Technorati Tag: The Dogs Name, Six Feet Under, Musings

Lectiones Sacrae Ex Libris Indiana 06:00