My Life Urn (looks like this is no longer available) is a modern memento mori designed to carry a seed which will grow into a tree from the nutritional ingredients found in your placenta when you are born. The tree will live & change just like you through life depending on how you take care of it. When your time has come, My Life Urn will also serve as a carrier of your remains. Buried in the ground, your Tree of Life will keep on growing into a memorial symbolizing your time on earth.
Research has found that people, when reminded of their own death, feels that life has more meaning; a purpose in the grand scheme of things. Something we seem to forget about in the Western society today where we seek for immortal solutions rather than just accepting our faith.
With My Life Urn also comes a life journal where you can write down thoughts & happenings to memorize through life as well as keeping track of the developments you and your tree make.
PrisonMeat on 07.09.2009 at 18:07 PM
Am I the only one who thinks this is kinda fucked up. What the hell went through the designer’s mind to want them to create this?
“Oh shit, theres a good idea, I really would like a container to grow a tree in, using the the fluids from my placenta…and wouldn’t it be awesome if I could then be cremated and tossed in the same container?”
No, no it would not.
Kat on 07.09.2009 at 18:07 PM
When it was (quite accidently), cut down, the tree planted on my father’s birth was no less than 10 metres tall. And my dad was around 30 years old.
Well, I guess this is for people who die young.
Very young.
Duck Duck Moose Design on 07.09.2009 at 22:21 PM
hmmm….OK, A for design, but this kind of freaks me out.
dr.lowem on 07.10.2009 at 03:25 AM
It’s kinda whacked. But I do lean towards the idea of it.
Which makes me kinda whacked too.
Jessica on 07.10.2009 at 13:50 PM
yeah, kat I was thinking the same thing. When I was born my parents planted a tree…um sans placenta. I am 27 and it is probaby at least 20 feet tall.
I don’t know, this is weird.
Jessica on 07.10.2009 at 13:51 PM
and is she scolding her placenta tree?
pierre on 07.10.2009 at 20:13 PM
The idea of having an object that will follow me all my life around doesn’t freak out at all. On the contrary, I think that there is something extremely poetic and romantic in the idea of sharing something as a placenta with a tree. As for using my ashes to feed a tree, it is more meaningful than letting my body roat in a box…
Congratulation to the designer for proposing new rituals to deal with birth and death.
Molly on 07.12.2009 at 07:32 AM
I think this is a beautiful & humble idea letting the westernized citizen to start appreciating life instead of fearing it.
For the people who dont understand the size of the tree I would like to introduce them to the japanese tree art Bonsai where you grow trees in all different sizes depending on the space you give them and the way you care about them. The smaller the space the smaller the tree. This is until you put them into the ground where they will start growing into their wild natural state. That s how it works!
So keep up the good work!
caroline pera on 07.12.2009 at 09:03 AM
I think this a brilliant idea, the concept is extremely original and the design in itself is beautiful. I myself would love one. Well done!
kind of creepy « His Name Is RobZ on 07.14.2009 at 00:05 AM
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Daisy on 07.20.2009 at 13:56 PM
A for originality. F for practicality. Do you really need another OBJECT to remind you of your own mortality? Isn’t the knowledge alone enough, and far easier to pack and carry? What happens when you imbue that object with all of this meaning, and then the plant dies, or the dog breaks the urn, or it burns down with the house? Or you just start hating it? Yikes. Navel gazing at its manifest best.
Aaron Foyster on 07.26.2009 at 16:13 PM
I disagree Daisy, I’m sure if the plant dies people will replace them on the sly trying hard to prune it to be the same as the last, plus when the plant gets to shrub and tree size they are easy to maintain.
It is not just about the having another OBJECT but the tree… imagine if everyone born today gets one of these and everyone in the future plants a tree!!!
Dan on 07.28.2009 at 09:56 AM
I just knew we shouldn’t have eaten my placenta when i was born. I told them and told them, but they wouldn’t listen, and now look.
dang…
La urna de toda la vida | Monkeyzen on 08.19.2009 at 06:00 AM
[...] “My life urn” es un curioso y extraño experimento relacionado con el crecimiento de una planta desde que nacemos hasta nuestra muerte. [...]