religion-and-beliefs

This fashion designer makes clothes for dead bodies

From silk shrouds to delicate cotton coverings, her business — as a fashion designer and certified funeral celebrant — is to create outfits that mark and manifest the body's transition from living to dead.

Working with clients, who are either terminally ill or very forward-looking, she tailors funeral garments and rituals to suit individual needs.

"It's certainly not the career path I imagined I was going to be getting into," says Dr Interlandi, who completed her PhD project, [A]Dressing Death: Fashioning Garments for the Grave, at Melbourne's RMIT.

Bali statue of Hindu god Wisnu to be world's largest

Twenty-five years and around $100 million in the making, the enormous copper and brass sculpture is of the Hindu god Wisnu astride the mythical bird Garuda.

After years of planning, re-designs, cash shortages and stop-start construction, sculptor Nyoman Nuarta says the project should be finished next September.

And the final phase — the fitting of the sculpture's skin to the concrete and steel skeleton — is well underway.

The copper and brass claws of Garuda are finally gripping an enormous, purpose-built, concrete pedestal.

Christmas Day service for Sudanese migrants in Melbourne full of dancing and prayer

"When you see us dancing it [is] our way of pleasing God, like praising God," said Abraham Kon, from the Jolwoliech youth ministry.

The 12 Days Of Christmas: A secret code for persecuted Catholics?

To many who have heard dozens of adaptations, the song seems to bring together a random bunch of animals and people like "eight maids a-milking" and "11 pipers piping".

But the meaning behind the familiar and cheerful song may have been closely tied with religious teachings, according to historical theologian Associate Professor Bronwen Neil from the Australian Catholic University.