Juliann Salinas is our guest author this week.  Juliann is a Co-founder of the Midwest Green Burial Society and social justice advocate, holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MBA from Ashford University with a specialization in Environmental Management.  Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Paraguay 1994-1996)

A few weeks back I was sent another link for a time-sensitive fundraiser.  A former coworker’s son had died at 16 in a tragic swimming accident, and donations were being sought to help cover the burial and funerary expenses.  It was a sad reminder of the practical realities of death.

With the average cost of funeral services and internment at about $10,000, few families are able to absorb the expense of modern death, particularly sudden death, which has given rise to crowdfunding requests.  Some sites, including Graceful Goodbye and Funeral Fund, have been created specifically to cater to death care expenses.

I am an advocate of, and oft-contributor to, crowdfunding requests.  I feel that it is a medium that provides the average Jane or Joe the opportunity to invest in projects that express their passions and interests in a way that most middle-class investment opportunities rarely can. Getting in on the ground floor of a new restaurant, supporting a local art gallery exhibit or rock band recording, or helping launch a great small business idea used to be the realm of the rarified-air-breathing “qualified investors,” those with a cool million or so of “risk-able” money. For the rest of us who find it difficult to figure out if our 401k is sunk in to big oil or Monsanto, crowdfunding provides a straightforward exchange and often has the advantage of instant and long-term gratification – although, rarely, huge financial gains. Crowdfunding “returns on investment” are, usually, mostly intangible -such as gratitude and the not-entirely-vicarious thrill of seeing one’s supported project succeed.

Another, often unmentioned, aspect of crowdfunding is its ability to bring attention to causes, issues and concerns that are not being addressed by the status quo.  Whether its investing in the exploration of solar roadways, or helping out uninsured folks upon whom tragedy has fallen, crowdfunding “asks” can highlight the cracks in the system and attempts to weave a social safety net and support structures where the free enterprise system and government fail.

Which brings me to a fundamental question – should burials be considered a basic human right and, if so, how should they be financed? Clearly an honorable burial is valued by the military for veterans, for whom they are provided at no cost, but what about every other world citizen? With our identification technology and digital cataloguing/GPS capacity there is no excuse for a nameless “paupers grave” to be the sole option for those without funds, or desire, to support the conventional, environmentally-damaging funeral practices. Why doesn’t our society have a simple, yet dignified, no cost option for all?

I propose that such an opportunity could be created through targeted investments, for vetted non-profit land conservation groups, that are specifically earmarked for the development of natural and/or conservation burial grounds. Hundreds, if not thousands, of green jobs could be created, including local urban wood/reclaimed wood coffin makers, shroud manufacturers, “death midwives” or re-trained green funeral directors, site planners, land managers, and documentarians.

Death care is a $20.7B industry.  If even a tenth of that funding was made accessible to support the preservation of open space while providing a no cost burial option to all, hundreds of thousands of acres could be saved or restored, and tens of thousands of families could avoid sinking further into debt in the name of “honoring” their loved ones - instead focusing on their natural grieving process and life celebrations. That’s an investment I’d be willing to make.  Time to Indiegogo?

 

I love trees.  I love they way they dance in the sky and the color of the leaves.  I love the budding of their flowers in the spring and the colors they turn in the fall. I love how the snow covers them like frosting in the winter.  I love trees and understand why so many of us want to be a tree, or provide nutrients for a tree in death.  I would love to be an oak tree or a maple tree.  I don’t know which one I prefer.  Right now in the Midwest, we struggle with having places to be buried that allows one to become a tree in death.  Seems like such a simple thing to do, but it is not so.  We struggle with the conventional industry, which has enshrined embalming as the only way civilized people want to care for the dead.  We face conventional cemeteries that require us to be buried in a vault and promise us that our bodies will not mingle with the earth.  I can’t tell you how many people have come to us telling us how they want to be buried simply beneath a tree.  

Cremation is not a green process.  One average cremation uses as much energy as a 600-mile trip in a car.  That is a lot of fossil fuel. Cremation is not regulated, and so not all crematories have scrubbers on their stacks, so a variety of toxins can be and are released through cremation.  If you want to stay green in death, think twice about cremation.

Most of us have all seen the Bios Urn.  About once a month, one of my Facebook friends tag me with a photo of this urn.  It makes me crazy.  Bios Urns market themselves very well, and people think that becoming a tree is only possible with their product.  Bios Urns talk about creating parks for these urns on their website, but to date, there are no such parks. As you can see, the Bios Urn uses cremains, but only the top of the urn provides the nutrition of the growth of the seed.  The roots are then to intertwine with the cremains.  This urn costs about $155 to get here from Europe. (I priced it from their site.) Cremains are inert.  They in no way can provide nutrients for a tree or any living plant.  All nutrients are destroyed in the cremation process.   If you want to plant a tree with using cremains, you need to have peat and good soil on the top part of the grave to provide the nutrients for the tree or seedling.   Anyone can make a tree grow from cremains if they follow these simple rules.  

At the time of death, people may not have the peace of mind to collect everything needed to create a tree memorial for someone they love, and a kit would be an easy thing to have on hand.  If you are seeking a kit, there is another choice, a memorial tree kit from Northwoods Casket.   They provide everything you need for a memorial tree planting ceremony.   For about $15 including shipping you can have what you need to become a tree.  You have everything you need to become a tree, or plant one in memory of someone.  

In certain green burial grounds, or if you have established your own family burial ground, you can plant a tree on someone’s grave and in that way become a tree yourself.  I suggest planting a tree as a memorial to someone you love.  I plant my garden that way, as I stated in another post.  I plant trees and shrubs that remind me of people long past.  Trees can act that way as well.  Our goal is to one day have green cemeteries throughout the Midwest, and then we can all become trees if we want to.  

When I die, I’d like my body to be buried in the most natural way possible.  I don’t want to be embalmed, put in an expensive casket made of precious woods and toxic resins and then be encased in cement, like most cemeteries require.  I want my body to be able to go back to the earth.

There are many people who want something similar; they call it “green burial.”  One of the biggest reasons green burial is becoming more popular is that conventional burial practices aren’t very environmentally friendly.   The idea of filling the earth with cement or putting toxic chemicals in the body for preservation isn’t very attractive to a lot of people.  Neither of these practices is required for health or sanitation reasons.  They’ve just become the norm and most people now think they are necessary.  Embalming fluid is actually quite harmful to funeral workers and cement is toxic to produce. 

I used to think that it would be simpler and more natural to be cremated until I learned that cremation uses a large amount of fuel and may emit toxins into the air.  After some research, I now think that the nicest, most environmentally friendly option would be to establish cemeteries that provide a park-like setting where one can enjoy the outdoors.  My ideal cemetery would help restore the land by planting wild or native plants.  It would not be fertilized or mown.  There would be no requirement of cement grave liners and it would preserve green space.

I don’t think I’m alone in my wish.  As I travel around giving presentations about green burial, most everyone I talk with thinks this is a good idea and what they want for themselves.  The problem is, we just don’t have any places like my ideal in Michigan.  In fact, there are only a few in the country!  Why is that?  I believe it’s because it takes a very long time for change to happen in the funeral industry, and we are still at the beginning of the trend toward natural burial.

I began my research into “green” or “natural” burial about five years ago.  The things that appealed to me were:

1.     No embalming.  I always found it disconcerting to see an embalmed body.  It looks very strange to me, and the idea of being preserved for a long time is creepy.

2.     Being composted.  The chance that I could nourish the earth as my last physical act is comforting and in line with my lifestyle choices.

3.     It’s ancient.  People have been put in the ground to decompose for millennia.  There has to be some wisdom in this.

4.     Contributing to green spaces and land restoration.  I learned that cemeteries could actually be parks, picnic areas, nature trails, etc.  Once a cemetery, always a cemetery.  No housing developments or parking lots will live there.

In the summer of 2009 I had my first conversation with Joe Sehee, founder and then executive director of the Green Burial Council.  He was very informative and thorough in answering all my questions.  Green burial made sense to me and seemed like it should be so easy to do, but Joe was very cautionary.  Joe told me about a group in Oxford, MI that was seriously working on establishing a green cemetery.   In fact, he was in town visiting them at the time of our conversation.

So I went to Oxford for a visit.  I walked the grounds where a “conservation green cemetery” (according to the standards of the Green Burial Council) was soon to be. It was beautiful.  There was a dedicated team of people working on getting land and permits and making a business plan for how it would be run. 

The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn!  I soon attended a one-day green burial conference at the Foxfield Preserve in Wilmot, OH.  Together with about a dozen others I learned the inner workings of the nature preserve cemetery there.  In the first year of operation, they had sold 48 plots and buried nine people.  We walked the land that was once mono-cropped farmland that was now being restored to native prairie.  Forty acres (the state minimum) was set aside and 2 acres were plotted for graves with GPS markers.  We learned about state and federal laws, site and soil surveys, grave depth and size and burial techniques.  Seeing the actual cemetery where burials had taken place really helped me get a mental picture of the possibilities.  It didn’t look anything like a cemetery!  No wrought iron fences, headstones, smooth, green lawns that belied the use of chemicals and frequent mowing.  It was a prairie and it was beautiful to me.   I was comforted to know that here bodies could be buried out in the field somewhere and not disturb the natural cycle.

But I also began to get an idea of the magnitude of work it would require to establish a natural cemetery, one that challenged every notion of what a cemetery is in the conventional sense.  It would not be an easy process!   There are a lot of deeply engrained ideas we have about how to bury our dead.  And we live in a society that doesn’t even want to talk about death most of the time!

Another step in my educational journey was to learn about “family cemeteries.”  I spoke with the State of Michigan Cemetery Commissioner’s assistant.  She helped me to understand the process for burying someone on your own land.  Basically, if you live outside the city or village limits you can deed up to one acre (or as small as one plot) to be a family cemetery.  This entails platting it out, doing a water percolation test and consulting with a lawyer.  It must have road access and not be too close to a water source or building.  Only family (by blood, marriage or adoption) can be buried there.  It will remain a cemetery in perpetuity (and be tax-exempt). 

It’s good to know that this can still be done.  However, one concern is that having a cemetery on your property will affect the resale value of the rest of your property.  I know of two families in Manchester who have done this, and another that has been trying for two years but has run into differences of opinion among family members about location.

I was developing a solid knowledge base.  It still seemed like green burial should be easy, but I was becoming more realistic.  I began to explore the option of creating “green burial” sections in existing “conventional” cemeteries.  This would be a more economically viable, immediate option that would accomplish the primary goal of allowing the body of the deceased to be able to “go back to the earth” while not filling up the earth with cement.  And it would help spread the word about green burial.  While not accomplishing all my goals for land conservation and restoration, it would be a start.  And the more options we have for natural burial, the more people will choose it and the more popular it will become.

At this point I started using the term “natural burial” instead of “green burial.”  Natural burial has a broader definition.  It encompasses the concept of “going back to the earth” without being so prescriptive about how the cemetery should look and be maintained.  Some conventional cemeteries, when considering “green burial,” decide that they can’t offer this option because they think it means they will have to change all their practices, and that is unattainable.  This point was driven home to me when a friend called on my assistance in her quest to set up a “green burial” for herself.  Her goal was to be buried in the very old city cemetery down the street from her house.  She had found a spot where she wanted to be buried and asked the city if she could just be put in the ground with no cement vault.  She asked for a “green burial.”

She was denied her request.  This cemetery could not do “green burials.”  Someone at the city offices had researched green burial on the Internet and read a definition that said the grounds should be planted with native plants and should not be mowed or fertilized.  All she wanted was to eliminate the cement vault, not to have them change all their maintenance for the entire cemetery!  We went and met with the city authorities and tried to clear up the misunderstanding but we got nowhere.

The single biggest issue that is important to most people who want a natural burial is the issue of the cement grave liner, or vault.  Cement is toxic to make. and according to Mark Harris, author of Grave Matters (2007), there is at least 20,000 tons of vault concrete buried in US cemeteries.  Cement vaults are not required by state law, but very few cemeteries are willing to forego their use.  The cement helps hold up the ground and make it even, which is easier for mowing and grave digging equipment and safer for walking.  It also makes it unlikely that one will accidentally dig into another grave when preparing for a burial.  When a cement vault (“grave liner”) is not used, as the casket disintegrates the ground caves in and requires filling in.

It’s encouraging to me to know that there are several places in Michigan where a cement vault is not required.  These are all “hybrid” cemeteries – existing conventional cemeteries that opened up a section for natural burial.  To varying degrees they have changed some maintenance practices to include such things as the use of native plants and the elimination of fertilizing and mowing. 

The Preserve at All Saints Cemetery in Waterford has a large conventional section in front and a beautiful, planned natural section in back.  The two are separated by a row of arborvitae.  The natural burial section contains walking paths with graves along the edges that can be visited and marked with an engraved fieldstone that the cemetery provides.  Graves that are in the interior cannot be visited (otherwise you might step on the native plants and harm them).  There are also benches and trees and a beautiful “cenotaph,” a constructed stone wall, where the deceased’s name can be engraved.   As of this writing, they have sold 85 plots and have had 22 natural burials since 2010.

Marble Park Cemetery in Milan also has a green burial section in the back, near the trees on one side and a farmer’s fields on the other.  Since 2012 they have had six.  They also allow vault-less burials in the conventional section.   I’ve been to a shroud burial there and it was the nicest burial I have ever seen. What struck me was that you could see the hole in the ground.  In conventional burials the dirt and hole are somewhat hidden by AstroTurf and equipment.  Somehow, this was comforting to me, like, “Hey, let’s be honest; this woman is being buried.”  Her shrouded body was on a board and was carried by six people holding straps, three on each side.  They lowered her body hand-over-hand very smoothly to the bottom of the grave.  After a moment of silence, her 18-year-old son began shoveling dirt in from the pile that rested on plywood nearby.  Everyone who wanted to helped until it was all done and the ground was smooth.  It was simple, beautiful and just like she had wanted it, and I felt privileged to witness it.

I’m still doing research on green burial.  I frequently talk to cemetery owners and members of cemetery boards of directors, individuals and families, funeral directors, members of clubs and congregations and environmentalists.  Most young people I talk to get it right away.  They say, “Right on; I just want to be composted.”  I hope that within my lifetime there are more options available to us all.  I think we have some work to do.  Saying, “Just bury me and plant a tree” is not enough.


Mark Your Calendars:

Merilynne Rush and Diana Cramer are hosting the Michigan premiere of the first full-length film about green burial, A Will for the Woods at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on Sunday, June 1, 1-3 pm.  Q & A with local and international experts on natural burial, including Joe Sehee of the Green Burial Council, will follow the film.  This powerful award-wining documentary is a must-see for anyone interested in alternatives to conventional, commercial funerals. The film focuses 
on psychiatrist Clark Wang, originally from Ann Arbor, who has lymphoma and is driven by a passion to return to “traditional and natural ways of handling our dead."  For more information, contact Merilynne at [email protected], 734-395-9660.  Tickets available at www.michtheater.org.

Merilynne Rush, landscape architect Jack Goodnoe, radio and TV producer Barbara Lucas and funeral director Mike Mitchell are hosting a “green burial” conference called “Exploring Issues and Options” on October 11, 2014 at Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor.  The conference provides the opportunity for cemetery workers, funeral directors, landscapers, environmentalists and all those who want to learn more about natural burial to discuss how to create more options for natural burial in Michigan and elsewhere.  For more information, contact Merilynne (see above) or visit http://www.greenburialannarbor.eventbrite.com.