Poetic Death by Borna from iran

Some ancient cultures believe that God has blown his own soul through the human race and substitutes him on the earth. In this capacity, human beings use their creativity to vitalize lifeless raw material, hence art is emanated from their own existence. A word which describes this process is “Poiesis” (poetic), that in ancient Greek language means to construct by blowing love and life. As a matter of fact, this word clearly means "creation"; space creation, music composition, architecture and poetry composition.

The question is how death can be interpreted as “poetic” and have the possibility to create something, which our souls, natures, and interests could be mirrored.
Imagine after depositing a body into a cremator, whatever is coming out of the physical corpse gets mixed in a melted glass blend, without any interference of another human being, and by penetrating the void into the mass; the material can be shaped freely and naturally. Like faith, soul revives in a new embodiment.
Imagine we could choose the color of the formed void before death, by our existence.

Or we could choose, how to place different molds in this free form by what is remained of our bodies during the transformative processes, in order to function in the external layer of this crystalized volume. Maybe in this way we could mimic a musician harmonizing the breeze, or a painter capturing the sunlight in colorful shadows, in constantly changing abstract shapes. Maybe it could be transformed into a bird’s nest or a cradle for plant growth or a rainwater collector for animals’ use. In this way, after death, a new physical embodiment undertakes life in this world as before.

These vivid active crystalized souls , can be located in a vertical matrix consisting of colorful glasses to create a four-season garden of light and color and melody and birds flight. A garden which, with its joyful profile, will shadow the living world; a lively and continually changing space.

All these transparent volumes, like humans, have two sides. An individual personality and a collective/social personality, which is differentiated with a membrane separating inside from the outside:
1.    The individual personality which is customized by the person’s choice before the death like transforming into a melody harmonizer or water collector… .
2.    The collective personality which will be altered and fulfilled according to other crystal volumes, so that there could be a light, harmonized space full of distorted views of diverse scenes. (an arrangement of different tunes or colors.)

The advantage of this vertical structure is also in the fact that the unused land remains free to be a prairie, flower garden, or a public farm. In this way, like a common part both of natural and built environment, it works to create a common space for living humans.

This vertical expandable network is a structure which can become a place for infinite life. A structure like coral reeves where a thin layer of living tissues covers the dead fibers of ancestors. But this structure houses the largest and richest society of "living" creatures on the earth.
 
*Background study to form the concept of “Poetic death" : The central plateau of Iran is categorized as arid with a dire paucity of water. the ancient Persian rituals is rooted in the lack of water supply and the issue of a deserted land. For this reason, water is respected specially, so that "Anahita" the water goddess was worshiped to save water. 

Travelling through the plateaus of Iran, in between deserts, there can be found a lonely unique building. It is formed by a massive system of interconnected domes which are buried inside the earth, connected via water ways called “Qanat”. These aqueducts connects the aquifers inside mountains and expand them towards deserts as a source of drinking water providing travellers.

These water sources store water during the drought seasons and are called “desert cisterns”.
But who has built and abandoned these lonely constructions inside the deserts of Iran? And What was the motivation?

Maybe the trapped travellers inside desert who has faced the thirst and drought tried to prevent this unbearable situation for future travellers who might have passed the same route. They avowed for this cisterns to be built from the sublunary wealth, based on the belief that if a traveler uses this water in the future, he or she would pray for the  benefactor of the cistern, so that he or she, if dead, will live happily in his infinite life after death.

This belief would become more subtle and deeper when the person does not limit himself to the next generations whom never met, but he would also consider and address the rest of the biological life too .This happens when they will “after my death build my gravestone respecting other living creatures.” These special gravestones are common in the central parts of Iran. In addition to the religious symbols and cultural beliefs, these had other immaterial purposes.

The symbols engraved on these gravestones are usually similar to each other, one of them is an a arabesque of the Cedrus tree, which is a symbol of immortal greenery and livelihood; some other which represent the identity and the past life of the individual, and at the end a small trench on the top of the Cedrus in between Lutos petals, representing the water Goddess. After washing the stone or after rain, water collects in this hole, which attracts birds, bees and other insects. Small insects and animals are also considered as species who can pray, just by the virtue of being alive, for the benefactor’s happiness in the eternal life after death.

Indeed, the reflection of the sky in the hole filled with water, turns it into a piece of the sky on the earth. On the other hand, it was traditionally believed that the remaining family members would visit the gravestone frequently and would leave a handful of wheat in the hole so that the grain would germinate, symbolizing rebirth. Birds and small animals could benefit from these sprouts. In this way the sprouts, representing infinite life, would remain on the gravestone forever.