Maurice Lamm is an Orthodox rabbi and lecturer at Yeshiva University in New York, N.Y. He is author of The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning (Jonathan David Publishers, 2000).

M. Macha NightMare is co-author of The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) and is an expert on neo-pagan death and funerary practices. She lives in San Rafael, Calif. Contact her via her website.

Final Passages is a home-based funeral nonprofit organization in Sebastopol, Calif. They say that personally caring for the body of a loved one – washing it, dressing it and displaying it in the home – can be healing for survivors.

Kimberley Campbell runs Memorial Ecosystems Inc., a company that promotes using memorial parks to restore and protect nature by allowing only biodegradable caskets. It is based in Westminster, S.C.

Bob Boetticher is Vice Chairman/CEO of the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston.

Lisa Carlson is executive director of the Funeral Ethics Organization in Hinesburg, Vt., and author of Caring For the Dead: Your Final Act of Love (Upper Access, 1998), a consumer guide to making funeral arrangements. She can discuss the influence baby boomers have had on the funeral industry.

Scott F. McClure is marketing and communications director for the International Order of the Golden Rule, an association of more than 1,000 independently owned funeral homes.

Charles Chafer is chief executive officer and co-founder of Space Services, a Houston-based company that offers “spaceflight memorials” – the launching of human cremains into orbit around the Earth.

Jessica Koth is public relations manager for the National Funeral Directors Association, an organization of mostly independent funeral home operators, based in Brookfield, Wis. She can discuss the influence that the needs of different ethnic and religious groups have had on funeral directors and their services.