Spirit of the Earth Carry Me Home

“Art for the living to hold the dead.”

Luana Morales

Spirit of the Earth Carry Me Home provides artfully decorated cardboard coffins to families for free. “With the funeral industrial complex you see a lot of people going into debt, making these decisions at their most vulnerable moments,” Luana Morales explains in a new short film produced by Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, directed by Paloma Valenzuela of La Gringa Loca Productions.

Luana, founder of Hands of Gaia Reiki, works at the gateways of life: death and birth. Spirit of the Earth Carry Me Home, as she describes, “creates art for the living to hold the dead.” Through relationship with the museum’s Neighborhood Salon Luminary artists program, Luana became inspired by their sarcophagus, a beautifully decorated stone coffin. She began to create coffins and through this creative and community process, began reclaiming ancestral death and burial practices.

Luana pushes everyone to think about death and burial. “Love does not equal how much money you spend. How can we interrupt the ways we’ve been socialized to think –  I have to get into all this debt to honor this person’s life – but then, what happens to the living?”

Luana’s initiation into this work work came through her father’s death. It called on her to train, and to be present for the deaths of others. “A death midwife is someone who is able to offer physical, emotional, and spiritual support to a dying person, to support their family who is left behind. And in my role I also help people when they’re healthy, when they’re well to plan their end of life needs.”

Luana is particularly called to bring honor, dignity, closure, and rest to deaths that are impacted by shame and marginalization. The project accommodates families with no money, and other factors that could complicate burial plans such as immigration status, gender identity, and sexuality. Those lives ended through one’s choice or as a result of addiction are honored, the beloveds left behind receive care.

Each family engaged with Sprit of the Earth Carry Me Home will receive an artist decorated cardboard coffin that takes into account who the departed was, be it through objects or colors or themes true to their personality. If families would like to participate in creating the coffin by submitting artwork and other artifacts they are welcome. The services of bereavement support, coffin creation, and cremation or burial are provided free of charge to families in need, thanks to the generous support of donors around the country.

Tax-deductible contributions can be made here.

Infinite Growth is making a feature length documentary about Spirit of the Earth Carry Me Home, and our footage is featured in this new release by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.