The service is offered only to the small number of people who live in the area. Volunteers counsel grieving family, help arrange the deceased to repose at home before a cremation, and prepare the hearth with kindling the day before the ceremony. The project asks $425 per cremation, though families can give more. The group addressed every worry, said project director Gaines. Some residents initially opposed the idea, worried about pollution, smells and heavy traffic. State and local agencies have given permits to the group to conduct the cremations. Each pending cremation sets in motion phone calls to the Saguache County Sheriff's Office, the fire department and the coroner. The Crestone End of Life Project conducted its first open-air cremation in January 2008 and has performed 18 since. It also can be a protest against traditional funerals, which some view as a denial of death, Weddle said. It can be seen as honoring a natural cycle, reducing the body to ash and the elements of which it is composed. The pyre harkens to references in the Christian and Hebrew Bibles equating rising smoke with the ascent of the soul, said David Weddle, a religion professor at Colorado College.

But the practice is largely taboo in the U.S. A Buddhist temple in Red Feather Lakes, Colo., conducts a few funeral pyres, but only for its members.Īncient Vikings lit funeral pyres to honor their dead, and it is accepted practice among Buddhist and Hindu religions.

Funeral and cremation industry officials say they are unaware of any other place in the nation that conducts open-air cremations for people regardless of religion. The outdoor funeral pyre in this southern Colorado mountain town is unique.

'It's hard to breathe, it's hard to see and it's hard to think about anything but you.' 'Mommy, you mean the world to me and it's hard to live without you,' called out Ellis' weeping daughter, Brenda, 18.

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