Ngaio Davis 00:00

Part of it started when I was working for others in the conventional world of funeral practices, of just hearing over and over again from clients. Essentially, they weren't feeling any connection to what was going on.And then when I went out on my own, I went out on my own with the thought that I can connect with people better. I can meet them where they're at instead of asking them to fit into our process of what our protocols are in this funeral home. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 00:38

Welcome to High Agency, igniting conversations with inspiring people, leading transformative change. Did you know that deathcare is an industry? Well, of course it is, but it's not one that we tend to think about too often because it can be uncomfortable.Today, when a loved one passes away, families are choosing alternatives to burial. And this is driven by changing values and an increasing diversity of cultures with very different funeral rates. And cremation rates are over 60%, heading towards 80% by 2045. And the entire deathcare industry kind of stands at this weird fork in the road between industrial efficiency and the human meaning and symbolism of our practices around death. Green burial services now command a $2 billion global market and it's growing. And what we're witnessing is a transformation in culture and it's nothing less than a complete reimagining of our final act from toxic embalming fluids and concrete vaults to biodegradable shrouds and human composting. And this ecological funeral segment alone is estimated to become a majority of this market within a few years as families are seeking alternatives that will honour their loved ones and the earth. And today we're joined by a carpenter turned funeral director. She didn't set out to revolutionize how we say goodbye. She was simply tired of watching families navigate the sterile funeral homes that felt nothing like the people that they'd lost. Ngaio Davis is the founder of KORU Cremation. It's a pioneering deathcare practice transforming end-of-life services. Ngaio's Māori heritage and unconventional path have reshaped how we think about death, the ceremony and the courage required to have these essential conversations. Her practice combines traditional wisdom with modern approaches, offering compassionate personalized ceremonies that honor life's final transition. She champions courageous dialogue about mortality while creating space for healing and connection. Welcome Ngaio. 

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Ngaio Davis 03:05

Thank you, Mo. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 03:07

So this is a really interesting topic, I think. 

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Ngaio Davis 03:12

I'm glad you think so. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 03:13

Well, for the discomfort of it, and also because it is one of life's fundamental truths that is so absolute and so ever-present, yet I think perhaps, and obviously for those reasons, we tend to avoid it. Mortality makes some of us uncomfortable.But before we get into the death side, let's talk a little bit more about the life side. So I mentioned that early in your life, you worked as a carpenter. 

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Ngaio Davis 03:41

Yes. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 03:42

And at some point, you made this leap into this other industry, and maybe the transition's quite natural. Maybe around the world, there's tons of carpenters that become funeral directors, maybe a trend that I don't know, but what was it that was the sort of moment of catalyst for you that caused this sort of career change in this transition? 

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Ngaio Davis 04:05

I wish I could say that there was a big moment. It was a series of things. Working in construction, it's hard work. My body hurt.I was in my late 20s when I started realizing how overly dependent I was of my chiropractor, and looking at my colleagues who were 10 and 20 years older than me, and they all had the sore backs, and they walked funny, and they complained all the time, and I thought, oh, my goodness, this is what I'm heading for. And so it really was, I just was at this place of I need to think about my future, even as this, you know, 20 some year old person, and then, you know, throwing it out there like that, it seemed to conjure up these moments. So then I heard somebody talking about their partner who was a funeral director, and I thought, oh, that's kind of interesting. I've never really considered that work. And then I happened to see a documentary on A&E when people watched cable, and it was about the oldest mortuary college in in the US, which is in San Francisco. And I was fascinated.And then I remembered, hey, I actually grew up with a guy I used to play with his little brother, and Aaron got into funeral service, and we used to laugh at him when we were teenagers that on the weekend, he'd be down at the funeral home washing the cars and helping out at services. And he eventually became a funeral director. So I thought, well, why not? Why not get into this a little more? And so things just kind of went along like that. At the end of it all, Aaron Jabs, the neighbour, was really, I guess when you say catalyst, he was the person. It was his face. It was watching him talk about it. And his whole face lit up. First of all, it lights up talking about death care, which is not something you expect. But I also thought I don't think I ever look like that when people ask me about construction.And although I love working with my hands, I don't light up by it. And I want that. And so I just started learning more about it. And the more I learned about it, the more I realized that this was a fit. I couldn't really put my finger on why it just felt right. I felt like I fit the work and the work fit me. So in that respect, I think it was a calling that this is what I needed to do. And so I bugged the local funeral home and was able to get on with them on a part time basis. So going out the middle of the night to pick up somebody after they died in their trailer park in Lake Cowichan, helping on funeral services. And then three and a half years of doing that and working in construction still led to an offer for an apprenticeship, which is how you become licensed in funeral services in B.C. And here I am like twenty five years later or something still doing it. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 07:19

So I'm just realizing right now that in this moment that, I mean, we obviously knew we were going to record this podcast with you, but even then it didn't occur to me that anybody would ever apprentice, that there'd be funeral homes with internships or that there'd be a mortuary college because you go to a funeral home and your orientation is entirely around, you know, the ceremony at the moment. And of course people are trained to do these jobs.It's just, it's never occurred to me that anybody has gone anywhere to get any sort of training to be there, but of course they have. So you went through this training and after a number of years you became a funeral director. 

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Ngaio Davis 07:57

Yeah, that's right. Funeral director and embalmer. So there are two licenses and you can choose to do one or the other. Most people do both.The embalming side of it, I wish they would actually change the name of that license. I get why they use it, but really that's the decedent care side of it. That's where we learn how to look after the dead, how do we care for them. And in my mind, it's much more than embalming. But anyways, that's their word. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 08:24

Yeah. So you're saying that embalming doesn't capture like what's actually happening then. 

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Ngaio Davis 08:31

Yeah. In my practice now, I've deliberately stayed away from embalming. It's a health choice for myself and staff to not have to be around chemicals and be able to care for the deceased. And because of the value I bring to the work of how can we reduce our environmental impact, embalming just doesn't have a place in that kind of death care. So onsite, we only practice natural death care.And while my license as an embalmer, you know, it's loaded language because it's embalmer, which implies that you're embalming, it really is the training of how to recognize the conditions that a deceased person is presenting when you first see them, how to understand, how to look after them, how to have conversations, honest conversations about their surviving family members, about what to expect, and just to know what are our limits and how is natural death care going to fit into their time before their disposition, cremation, burial, or whatever it might be. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 09:53

So you worked as a funeral director for some period of time and then obviously got the various certifications and all of this experience, but then later, what was the moment where you decided that your company, KORU Cremation, had to come into being? And what does koru mean? 

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Ngaio Davis 10:11

Yeah, so koru is a Māori word from New Zealand, and it has a lot of meanings, but they all really focus around this idea of a circle of life, that there's endless motion. And the symbol for it in Māori is the unfurling of the fern, so that fiddlehead of the fern. And when you look at that spiral, it really captures that idea of unending motion.And why did I go there? For me, it was having worked and trained in the conventional funeral space, having come into it with this feeling of, I need to do this work, I fit the work, I feel like I can bring something to it, and in return, get something out of it to keep me going. And I just felt like I was sapped of that positive energy of wanting to continue on doing it, because of how we were asked to focus our work, working for big corporate outfits. And so I just grew to a point of being really exhausted by feeling like I didn't know why I was doing it anymore. And yet, I knew I wanted to be able to still have that. And so it was this crossroads of what do I do? Do I go out on my own? Or do I just get out of it all together and reinvent myself again? 

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Mo Dhaliwal 11:50

And obviously you decided to vote on your own. It. 

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Ngaio Davis 11:53

Yep, crazy things happen when you just say, okay, this is what I'm doing. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 11:59

So I talked to a lot of startup founders and again, you know just because it's such a Weird and wonderful juxtaposition. You just never think of funeral death care services as a startup, right?But how does one go about starting up a death care service? Like how do you prospect like what do you how do you launch this thing? 

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Ngaio Davis 12:21

Yeah, it's a lot. We're really heavily regulated by the province. So it's not only the municipal zoning requirements that you have to meet, but you have to satisfy a whole bunch of things with the provincial government. So, you know, I think probably like most entrepreneurs, finding that space that's going to work, and then realizing that you're probably not going to have the ideal space, like this beautiful studio, and you're going to have to be imaginative and figure out how you can make an affordable space work. And, you know, it's just going through all the steps of figuring out what can you, how can you actually get started without being 100% ready?What are you willing to maybe not have full control over and still be able to have all the things in place to get going? So, you know, most people believe that funeral homes have their own morgue, so a place to be able to shelter the deceased, and they have their own space to be able to prepare the deceased. And the way it works in a big metropolitan city now is that most funeral homes don't actually have that. Even the established ones, they may have had it at one time, but they've gotten away from that. So there's this kind of other industry that's been built up in the funeral world of trade services in the background. So I was able to rely on another funeral home space for sheltering my deceased. I was able to rely on trade services to help with the transportation after time of death, because it can happen any time of the day or night, any day of the week. I may not be available. How do you get there for everybody all the time? How do you suddenly get to, you know, West Vancouver or out to Richmond if you're in Burnaby kind of thing? So it was getting those kinds of logistics in place and starting out small, which was basically I had an administrative office and it was upstairs at the mezzanine loft of a warehouse. If guests wanted to come and meet with me there, it had to be okay with getting upstairs, and otherwise I was meeting people in their spaces. I was using other venues to be able to help host memorial services, funeral services. And it was a lot of just not making it up, but it felt like I was making it up. And it felt like, okay, this isn't what I thought I was going to have when I started, but this is what it is and I'm getting going. And, you know, over time things change. So yeah. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 15:19

And again, I'm just gonna, this is gonna be a recurring theme, but the fact that there's a supply chain behind this is blowing my mind, but of course there is. I mean, you know, it's industry, it's a service we're providing. There would be, but just, you know, something we never think about.And so even as far as like entering into this whole world, there must have been some preexisting comfort with death, mortality, because even in mentioning the fact that we were recording today to some team members, like some of them expressed our version immediately that, oh God, I don't want to think about that, I want to talk about that. And that doesn't seem to be like a problem that you had to even have this initial fascination, let alone be working in this realm. Where do you think that comes from? Like what was your relationship and appreciation of death even before you went into the funeral services? 

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Ngaio Davis 16:11

I believe it's just the nature of how I grew up and my childhood. So, both my parents are from farming families. My dad from New Zealand, my mom from the Kamloops area. And they raised us on farms, so first in the Kootenays and then Vancouver Island. Small, we never had giant space, but you can do a lot to be able to feed your family on two acres. And so we grew up with all of the food that we ate pretty much. We either grew it in the garden or on the fruit trees and we raised animals and we did all of our own processing of the animals to be able to eat them. So, there was from a really young age, there was this understanding of a circle of life that we live and we die and we have different purposes. And because we were very hands-on with the production of our food, whether it was raising sheep that we then butchered for our own consumption or growing carrots, it was just this understanding of this is how life works. And so, I think that that really helped me to just have a pretty balanced view of getting into death care.That part wasn't a turnoff for me at all. The biggest hurdle for me going from construction to funeral services was office work. It was working with women in construction, so I worked in construction for about a dozen years by the time I got out. I was around guys all the time and blue-collar guys. And then I went to an office with a lot of women and fax machines and phones that had to transfer from one phone to the other. I didn't know that that was going to be my hurdle, but that honestly was my biggest hurdle was how do I navigate this whole new world with all these new tools, new people. Incredible. Yeah. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 18:22

So it wasn't navigating attitudes around death. It was yeah transferring calls. Yep You know and the attitudes around death is actually really interesting because there's those moments of this in my own life where Remember having a conversation with somebody years ago what a funeral with a family and you know, there's kids there and whatnot and In my culture and coming from up in jubby background. I think there is a fair amount of appreciation of death in the cycle of life You know, there's certain idioms in our in our language when we talk about somebody having passed on The most blunt is just saying they're dead but often and the more common vernacular is saying, you know, like "poora hogay" saying that somebody has completed their journey, right?Or "charrayi kar gaya" in like they're transcendent now and so there's these ideas of the cyclical nature the ascendancy the rebirth And The appreciation that you know death is actually a part of life and this person I was talking to though It was just horrified that there was children at the funeral. It was like, oh my god, why why was you know? Your your cousins or their parents, you know, take the kids the funeral like kids shouldn't see that and it was like Well, why shouldn't they this is a part of life, but it was just a very different sort of culture of I'm not sure if it's just you know mainstream North America or what but there was this idea that Kids especially shouldn't be exposed to these things that they're you know Dark and horrible things that happen as opposed to just a natural part of the cycle of life But even in the natural part of the cycle of life there is a I guess an unnatural element that even I've felt right You know in our families and in our in our tradition in the Sikh tradition We don't do burials, right? It's it's antim sanskar. It's a final, you know, cremation that Traditionally was a funeral pyre right and it was something that you know in villages that was built outside the village when somebody passes There's a period of grieving and then quite quickly a funeral pyre is built with what that's elected and the family will carry the body out to the funeral pyre and it is lit by the eldest child they believe or you know, the eldest son perhaps and The family essentially witnesses their loved one now in front of their eyes on this funeral pyre completing their journey and then you transplant that to you know, a North American or I guess Canadian context even and There was something that felt a little industrial about the cremation process here because you know There's a lot of regulations and I get it. Of course, there should be very careful and regulated industry with a lot of safety checks and balances in place but I've been in the room for perhaps too many funerals where You know, the prayers have been done. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 21:23

The family's gathered the the funeral has you know, the gathering has kind of moved now to the natural next step, which is the cremation and that act of Going into the the crematorium room and Placing the body and then pushing the button and the very industrial feeling of it It always felt so cold and foreign and almost It's not just uncomfortable, but almost like a bit of a violation in a weird way. Whereas I've experienced the funeral pyre in that village in Punjab, right? When my maternal grandmother passed away, it was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life, but also kind of the greatest honors I could ever pay a loved one of being a part of the group that, you know, carried her out of the home into the cremationary outside the village to help build the funeral pyre, to help place her, and then to help actually, you know, be one of the ones carrying a torch and help actually light the funeral pyre. And as ceremony, as symbolism, as connection, and as a completion of this loved one's journey, like it was one of the greatest honors of my life, right? Like heartbreaking, but it just felt like to be able to do that for someone that you love was a huge moment.And the industrial nature of our crematoriums here, yeah, it just felt like almost like an insult, right? It just felt so jarring and cold and mechanical and I could just never quite get around it. And there's an interesting thing now where the trends that I mentioned in the opening around more ecological practices, more green practices, and even what you're describing of getting away from the chemical side of the embalming, you know, where and how did you decide that actually we're going to change the way that we're actually taking care of the deceased and we're going to change the way that they, you know, their body transitions now, right? 

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Ngaio Davis 23:28

Um, I'm going to come to that, but first of all, thank you for sharing about your grandmother. That's, um, that sounds incredible. And I, I was also just in my mind thinking, isn't that crazy that it feels more natural to have the wood pyre and light, you know, that you've built and lit. Um, and that's not horrifying as opposed to this, you know, I know you use the word sterile and that's industrial and that's what it feels like. And we have created these things to, I think probably in part to also take the horror out of it, you know, but I just, I find it really interesting that this in like very upfront, you can't escape this reality. That moment had so much deep meaning for you, as opposed to the other moments that you've experienced here in our way of doing it. So yeah, anyways, that's a, that's a powerful observation.Part of it started when I was working, um, for others in the conventional world of, of funeral practices, um, of just hearing over and over again from clients, whether they were saying it directly or it was an indirect that, uh, essentially they weren't feeling any connection to what was going on. Um, and, and you could just see this discomfort and this, you know, like wild eyes. We don't, we don't have a clue what this process is about. We're just kind of going through these motions and then, and then thinking like there's got to be a different way that we can, can connect with people. And then when I went out on my own, I went out on my own with the thought that I can, I can connect with people better. I can meet them where they're at instead of asking them to fit into our process of the, you know, what our protocols are are in this funeral home. So it started from there. And then I started, um, realizing that there, there really are other ways to do this. There are, are seeking to be able to bring community back into funeral service. And I started reflecting on my own family experiences. Um, so before, actually it was, uh, long after I got into funeral service, I found out from my maternal grandmother, uh, who grew up in Manitoba. She was born in 1916. And so when she was little, like four or five years old, her mother, so it had been my great grandmother, was one of the women in their rural community who would be called upon when somebody died. And sometimes she would take my grandma with her just to make sure she kept an eye on her and knew what she was doing. And she would take my grandma to go and lay out the dead. So she'd be helping to bathe, uh, to dress the deceased, prepare them for the vigils and the services that would be happening in the family homes. Somebody else would have built a casket. Um, my grandma talked about watching the, you know, the caskets be loaded onto wagons. They were, uh, horse-drawn wagons, even though there were cars around, this was just, they were farmers and off they would go and walk behind to the cemetery. So I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking about on my father's side, who is Māori of the Māori traditions, uh, and practices around funeral services, and we call it tangi, uh, and how it's all about family being together with the deceased. 

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Ngaio Davis 27:19

And it again happens, uh, as much as possible in the family home, if not, um, in our communal gathering places, which we call our maraes. And it's, it's about community coming together.So I started thinking about these things. And then, uh, with that, uh, you know, introduction to the dula world and seeing what they're doing here in North America, I started realizing this is the change. This is how I can connect with people better. And it, it just became unnatural that a part of that is, is, uh, bringing my, um, my desire to always be better to the environment, to the work that I do as well. And it just, they all just fit together. And that was, that was my moment of thinking like, this is, this is what I'm called to do. This is why my sore back in construction needed to end so that I could come and do this. So yeah. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 28:21

And you know, let's be really clear about exploring when you say, you know, I do this, what this is, because there's a whole world around how to manage the deceased and how to manage that transition. So traditionally burial, and if not a burial, then a cremation in these very industrial crematoriums, and the option that you're bringing forward and is now growing is a sort of ecological green way of doing this.So what does that look like? If I have a family member that's passed away and I come to KORU Cremation Services and say, okay, let's do this, what does that look like? 

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Ngaio Davis 29:04

Yeah, some aspects of it are going to seem very familiar to anybody who's dealt with conventional funeral services because there are just, you know, things that we all need to do. It doesn't matter what sector or how you work in funeral service. So we need to look after moving the deceased from where they've died. We need to look after paperwork. So that stuff is all the same.But it's really kind of my approach and how I introduce their options to them. And right from that point of the transportation piece after somebody's died. So how I was taught is that you start to work on moving them right away into the funeral home. And what I do differently is talk to them about once I find out where they've died, if they're at home, how do you want this transportation to work? And do you want it to happen right away? And do you want them to come to our place of practice? Or do you want them maybe to be moved home if they're not already at home? And then right away that gets people saying, what do you mean? First of all, that we can have time with them if they're in hospice, say, we don't have to just immediately have them moved, or we can take them home. What does that look like? 

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Mo Dhaliwal 30:23

I didn't even realize that was an option. 

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Ngaio Davis 30:24

Most people don't. So it's just starting to present those questions. And then the conversations roll on from there, talking to them about how they want their person cared for, letting them know that here's what we offer here, which is natural death care. And that it doesn't mean that because you're not embalming somebody, that there can't be a delay between the time of death. And then when people get to spend time with their deceased, it doesn't mean that they can't interact with their dead person. And maybe they're also the ones participating in helping to prepare their loved one to bathe them, to dress them, to maybe even help lay them in the casket. And it doesn't mean that you can't have public viewings and visitations. So we talked to them about that. And that's a big difference between conventional world and my practice, is just having a really deep discussion about natural body care and how many doors it opens up instead of closing.And then talking about the disposition options. So cremation is the most commonly requested form of disposition in this part of the world, much more so than burial, depends on the culture or the faith even. But that does seem to be the most requested thing. And how do we, knowing that we only have one form of cremation in BC, and it's using usually natural gas, so fossil fuels, high heats for extended period of times, how do you green that up? So we'll talk to them about that. If it's burial, do they know about green burial versus conventional burial? And why is it green? And how can that still be something that lends itself to them having all of the ceremonies or the things that they want to do before this burial happens? So the door opens and the conversations go in all kinds of unexpected places for the people that we meet with, because like your reaction, I didn't know that that was even a thing. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 32:45

Yeah. This is fascinating. I feel like I'm going to leave today and go write my will.So, yeah, let's actually, let's, let's take that as the exercise. So what should I put in my will? If I want to have the most, you know, green, you know, ecological disposition of myself when I die and I want it to be a dramatic event and somewhat of a spectacle because it's my death, so I would want that, which means I would definitely want my body brought home. I'd want invitations going out, people gathering. How long do we have? Like if I was to die tomorrow and my body was to be brought home, how long do we have? And then if I wanted to, yeah, dispose of myself in a very, very green way, in a very natural way that I can, you know, be proud of after death. What should I be asking for? 

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Ngaio Davis 33:45

Oh, wow. Great questions. So I guess the starting point is that you're already saying I want to have my body be brought home. And so you want those who are going to be your survivors who are going to be caring for you to know that this is what you want because they have to be prepared for it. So there's a lot of support that they will need and there's a lot of, there are task things that they'll have to understand that they're going to have to be responsible for, where to lay you out in the home. And is that room a space that can be accessible to everybody? Do you want to be accessible to everybody? Is it a space that can be kept cool if it happens? So I guess this time of year is actually a pretty good time to die in BC because, you know, it's easier to keep rooms cool than if it's summertime. How are they going to manage keeping your body as cool as possible, not just the room? What would the preparations, the physical preparations of your body entail? Are they wanting to do a full cleansing or, you know, just redress from what you're wearing? And then to be able to talk to them about how they can understand what to expect in your physical body changes as the days go on. And how long do they think that they could be prepared to be able to manage being with you and do they want to host other people coming in? And do they think it's appropriate for everybody else to come in and to spend time? Appropriate for themselves more so, like is this something that they'll be prepared to share, these emotions and this experience? And would they think about maybe doing different things for different people at different times? You know, maybe this having you at home becomes something that is more intimate for a closer group of people and then you wanting to have a larger send off, maybe that ends up happening somewhere else. So there would be a lot to be able to work through, but it's all doable.It's all possible. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 36:10

Okay. So, I've been brought home, this family gatherings happened. And then what's the next step? 

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Ngaio Davis 36:17

Yeah, your disposition choice. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 36:20

If cremation is the only way of doing it, then I'm going to have to get creative as well, because in our spiritual tradition, cremation is the thing, and the symbolism of that is this idea of detachment, that this is a natural thing and that we shouldn't be so invested in the illusion that is the temporary nature of our life, that we have these markers that are everlasting, that could be in a burial or a tomb or something. So if there's only one way of doing a cremation, which again, I've expressed how important I find it, then I guess it would have to be some sort of green burial or some sort of decomposition.What does that look like? 

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Ngaio Davis 37:06

Yeah. So if, I mean, it would be a big ask of you, I think culturally, to ask you to consider green burial or natural organic reduction, which is the composting of our human remains, over cremation, because that is such an integral part of your community, your culture, your beliefs. It's not something that you just come to, what will I do? Okay, cremation.And there are ways to be able to do our best to reduce the impact of flame cremation in BC. That's how I approach it with people, because again, most people are choosing cremation. So that would be one starting place is, do you really want to move away from flame-based cremation? Or do you want to go ahead with it and know that there are ways to reduce that impact? So you can do carbon offsets, and through our business, that's a part of what we do. You can know that there are crematoriums that are more efficient than other ones. So you can talk about things like that. And otherwise, you probably would be looking at either green burial or natural organic reduction. Aquamation is another form of cremation that uses water and an alkaline solution to reduce our soft tissue off our bones. So you could think about those as options. The problem is that aquamation and natural organic reduction are not legal forms of disposition in BC. So you'd have to go out of BC, either to Saskatchewan is the closest province or up North for aquamation, or you're going into Washington state for aquamation. And natural organic reduction right now is only in the states. So again, you'd be going into Washington state. However, there would be some connection to the traditions of flame-based cremation to your culture and your practices around death with cremation, with aquamation, and I think with natural organic reduction as well. And then otherwise, here in BC, it would be green burial. So poses quite a weighty decision. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 39:30

There's a lot of challenges because I don't know why I just thought that composting would be easy. 

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Ngaio Davis 39:37

Right.

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Mo Dhaliwal 39:37

And it might not seem like the most similar, but yeah, I mean, in terms of the symbology of what our cremation rites are supposed to represent, what they mean, I feel like the closest sort of allegory is actually to be composted, to just kind of be recycled into the earth and the cycle carries on. So if I could, I think that's what I would ask for.Now I feel like I need to lobby or abdicate for this somehow, because it's wild to me that it's not legal here. 

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Ngaio Davis 40:09

Yeah, me too. And you're so not alone in that reaction of just like, what? What do you mean? I mean, I think that British Columbians, and particularly down here on the southwest coast, we pride ourselves on our environmental sensitivities and our knowledge. And, you know, I think of Gregor Robinson, and this is going to be the greenest city ever. And then when it comes to death care stuff, not that Gregor Robinson was in control of deathcare in the province, but we are really far behind, period. Yeah. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 40:44

Yeah. No, it's ripe for change, for sure. Because even, you know, like, I think the creative solution right now would be this composting side, which I'd find, you know, somewhat attractive, as attractive as your own funeral can be. But even on the cremation side, I was at a, this dinner that was hosted a couple of years ago, and it was a small gathering and the topic to be discussed by meaning was like death. And we were talking about it and I shared this story of my grandmother and the funeral raids. And I remember there was an attendee that worked in either grief counseling or funeral services, but they had some connection to this world. And as I was telling the story of collecting the wood and creating this funeral pyre and witnessing this, kind of poo pooed it and said, Oh, well, you know, that's really, you know, bad for like air pollution and like, you know, it's not good for the environment. And so, you know, we have crematoriums and things like that that are safer and better and cleaner. And I didn't have a good response in the moment, but I remember driving away from this dinner thinking, how is it that this natural gas powered furnace that has an entire facility around it and staff, etc, etc, how is it possible that that could have a smaller carbon footprint than my grandmother's funeral pyre? So this is more to say that I think there's probably a bunch of unlearning and maybe even dismantling around some of these restrictions and regulations that we do actually need because, yeah, I mean, the day I die, if there was a possibility for me to be brought back home to my hometown and somewhere in some designated area for a funeral pyre to be built with wood and have friends and family gather and set you ablaze. I would much prefer that. 

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Ngaio Davis 42:26

Yeah. Yeah. You know, in Oregon, they allow families with the right property to be able to bury their deceased on their property. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 42:37

Beautiful.

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Ngaio Davis 42:38

We don't get that same freedom here. And, you know, like you said at the beginning, the regulations we want, we want to know that there's checks and balances. But it does beg the question of when are the regulations imposing on our own choices and our own cultural practices and how much of it all do we really need? Where is there not room for some flexibility? And just like to catch up with the population and who we are now as people. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 43:11

Absolutely. Yeah. So being a funeral director is obviously different than being the founder of a deathcare company. What have you what have you learned? What have what are the experiences that you've had that were entirely different that came from being the founder of KORU Cremation? 

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Ngaio Davis 43:34

So much. Boy, where to start. Well, one of the big things was realizing that I needed to unlearn a bunch of stuff that I was taught before. And I don't mean this to sound like I'm bashing conventional funeral services. There's a lot of great people out there. And without that experience and the training that I had, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been able to have the breadth of experience dealing with the dead if it hadn't been for my embalming training. So, you know, I'll just put that out there. But there's a lot of so-called norms that were taught in conventional funeral service that I realized are just, they're not that. And the unlearning happened when I was really listening to my clients and realizing that there's, there probably still are ways to be able to do the work, not just in a respectful way, but also in a way that's not going to violate any regulations.And I realized how narrow our training actually was, you know, like just this idea that we can have natural death care with our deceased. And maybe we don't have a big public funeral service for them for five weeks. And it's not a disaster. You know, they haven't completely decomposed before our eyes before that happens. That was not ever something I thought was possible. It never even entered my mind. So there was a lot of unlearning there to be able to relearn and appreciate some of the things that I had been taught for sure. So that was a part that really helped to solidify and underpin what I was feeling like I could bring to the public. And then there's all the other stuff, the business stuff, you know, I can be a funeral director all day long. But I realized I really didn't know that much about business. And that's scared the crap out of me. What I have to understand financials now, what I have to understand marketing now, I don't like any of those things.I don't want to do any of those things. So all of that stuff actually ends up occupying a lot of time and brain space. And I didn't, I never thought that that would be where I'd be spending a ton of time in the business. But it's a reality, right? And I've been doing it for now 11 years. And there's probably way more that I the deathcare side of it and that the continual learnings with that, that's actually where the joy and the easy part is, even though it's continual learnings. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 46:44

What's next for you and the company? What are you excited about next? 

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Ngaio Davis 46:49

Well, I'm actually after this conversation, I'm going over to North Vancouver to measure up a new office space. So we're looking to expand over there. It'll be a very small office to be able to have meetings and just, you know, more of an administrative space. All the decedent care will still happen from our Vancouver place of practice. But that's exciting to think that there can be some expansion and growth that way.And perhaps that leads to expansion and growth in other communities and municipalities. I've talked about how far behind we are in our disposition choices and particularly that's on the greener disposition side of things. The B.C. government is actually looking at changing legislation. So another hope of mine for the future is that that's going to happen in, you know, maybe two years, maybe sooner. And then being prepared for that and how am I able to offer natural organic reduction or acclimation to my clients or be involved in being able to offer that. And that opens up all kinds of other new possibilities of where that goes. So those are those are on the work side. Those are things I'm looking at. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 48:14

And if there was one thing that you wish people knew or handled differently when it came to everything around the funeral, the death care of a loved one, what would that be? 

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Ngaio Davis 48:31

Probably what they think they know is not it, and ask questions, and probably whatever you're going to ask is actually possible. And if you're not getting a positive response from who you're talking to, go somewhere else and ask questions.And it doesn't feel like a good time to shop around for services when you're needing to, but you may have a better experience and get a better outcome if you do just say, you know what, I'm not feeling this, and I need to go somewhere else because this is a huge moment in my life, and it always is going to be, and you don't get do-overs. So you want to try as best as you can to get the right support when you're in that moment. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 49:26

Yeah, and I suppose thinking about it when you're not in that moment is probably a good idea because in that moment there's just so much urgency and it just feels like it's now and it's overwhelming and everything.So I was joking about it before but I think I want to go in and actually write down how I want to die. 

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Ngaio Davis 49:48

That's impressive. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 49:49

On that note, how do you wanna die? 

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Ngaio Davis 49:53

Oh, I want to die on my terms. I'm not somebody who is afraid of the being dead part, but the dying part and seeing the effects of modern medicine and how we're able to keep people alive. That part scares me. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 50:15

Just lurching along perpetually.

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Ngaio Davis 50:16

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a fan personally of medical intervention no matter what for as long as it takes. So I want to be able to have agency over that. And then the being dead part, I want there to be the whole mix of the crying and the tears and the party and the everything. I want it to be reflective of what's real. Not everybody loves everything about me. I don't love everything about me. And I do not want a service where people are pretending I'm some angel of the world. Tell it like it is and just keep it real. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 51:02

Sounds fun. 

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Ngaio Davis 51:04

Well, dance party is in there. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 51:07

Well, I hope to get an invitation, maybe not too soon, but if people want to learn more about KORU cremations and your mission, where should they go? 

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Ngaio Davis 51:19

Probably the best place is the website. So korucremation.com, K-O-R-U, cremation.com. There's lots of information there.We do put out a newsletter and we have events that I do. I'm doing a session right now called Out in the Open. So it's a monthly, we've been doing them and it's a space to come out and talk about death stuff. So all kinds of things to look at and learn. 

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Mo Dhaliwal 51:50

It's been an absolute pleasure leaving all the death jokes aside, live long and prosper. And thank you so much for taking the time out and joining us today. 

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Ngaio Davis 52:00

Well, thank you. Thank you for your interest and thank you for not being one of those people who said "ooh death" and turned the other cheek, appreciate it.

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Mo Dhaliwal 52:10

Well, hopefully we've given you a lot to think about. That was High Agency. Like and subscribe, and we will see you next time.