Ashes to ashes, dust to diamonds

Diamond in the Rough   (Public Domain)

Why settle for turning into worm food when you can instead become a diamond?  This is the logic that customers of Algordanza (meaning “remembrance” in Romansh) likely

follow.

Roc Morin of The Atlantic tells us that the Algordanza company was founded in 2004, and “receives more than 800 urns filled with human ashes” per year. The contents of   each urn are then transformed into diamonds by the three on-site presses that “replicate transcendental cataclysms deep inside the earth.”

The temperature within these diamond presses reaches 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, along with nearly 800,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.  This process transfigures the carbon within human ashes into diamonds.

Algondanza’s founder, Rinaldo Willy, maintains the utmost standards of company dignity.            The finished diamonds are gingerly placed within polished wooden boxes by staff members who wear white cotton gloves.  As families depart with their treasured possession, Willy’s staff remains respectfully standing outside.

Unlike his competitors, Willy refrains from artificially coloring these diamonds.  The color of each Algondanza diamond directly “results from the specific combination of trace elements present in an individual’s body.” 

Willy concludes:  We turn dirty ashes and bones into something beautiful. Instead of feeling loss, you can remember that person’s life.

Resources

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/magazine/where-the-dead-become-diamonds/ar-AA6N3uL

Copyright November 8, 2014 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved