When I trained at the cemetery to be a family service counselor, we were taught a variety of sales technique.  One of them was how to sell niches for cremation.  We were instructed to emphasize that having a place such as a niche was a better place to hold a memory than the mantle or scattering to the wind. Cremation is the final disposition of a body and you need not by law bury the cremains. Cremation affords a family a many different ways to create a place of memory. You can scatter on your own land, be placed in bullets, pressed into a favourite record album or made into a jewel, just to name a few.  Cremation attracts people who do not want a lot of falderal in their funeral planning. The industry, knowing this, would like very much to be part of your decision-making and sell you a niche or a place in the lawn for burial.

I treasure the time I spend visiting graves.  When I was in High School, I went to Chaucer’s grave in Westminster Abby.  I remember standing there filled with awe and admiration.  I carry that memory always.  Standing by a grave is a powerful feeling at times be it your grandparents or a great poet.  Far be it from me to tell folks not to have a place in a cemetery or burial ground for those they love.  The place of memory is not my issue.  I take issue with making people think that a place of memory belongs to the corporate death care industry.

We have options for making a place of memory.  Cremains can always be scattered or buried on your own property rural or otherwise without having to make a notation on the deed. You can dedicate a place on your own property for full body burial through following your state’s laws. Full body burial might be easier in a rural setting, but it can be done. Always make sure you know and follow the laws in your state.  In ancient times, Christian communities formed around burial societies.  Old churches still have burial ground attached for members of the church.  I do not see why we cannot have more church run cemeteries or cemeteries associated with other groups.  Why don’t environmental groups set aside places for their members who wish to have a green burial?  Why don’t urban groups create burial coops?  I know cemeteries are tough to run, but we have options if we only look. We have options if only we take to time to create them for those around us.  We never have options if we take the industry representatives at their word.  We need to know our rights.  Modest burial grounds need not be moneymakers.  The municipal cemetery down the street from where I live sells plots for $250 – a far cry from the $18000+ in corporate run cemeteries.   

Many of us do not want to end up in a corporate run cemetery.  We need to face the fact that none of us have yet gotten out of this life alive, and research and plan our own deaths.  The time to make decisions is not at the time of someone’s death where grief can make the process more difficult, but when we calmly and logically look at what we and our family wants for a funeral and burial plan.  If we want to have the kind of funeral and burial we want, we need to start now looking at local resources. We might have to create the place of memory for our body at the end of our time on earth.  I do not recommend ever purchasing a plot for burial long before the time that it will be needed.  Once you purchase a right of burial, the cemetery will not likely return your purchase once the time for cooling off has past.  I do recommend setting money aside for the purpose of your final acts and let your money work for you, and not the cemetery’s corporation. 

The true place of memory will always reside in our hearts.  How we live our lives matters the most and remains with those who love and know us. Sometimes if we are lucky, our lives will be remembered from generation to generation. Having a place to visit at a graveside is useful for many.  Any place that reminds us of someone who has died becomes a place of memory. We need not pay a corporation for a place of memory.

I have always loved nature.  I have fond memories spending long hours with the neighborhood children running and playing in the woods.  I have always felt a strong love of the woods.  The majesty of the trees and the delicate undergrowth has always made me feel at home and at peace.  As children, my sister and I were taught to respect nature in life and in death.  We were taught that we were stewards of the earth and if we did not use it properly we would lose it. We discussed cremation as the best way to return the body back to nature.  We did not realize at the time that cremation was not so green. I came to the notion of green burial very naturally.  What is green burial?  The simplest definition is - burial with a natural body, in an eco-friendly container (shroud or coffin) no vault.  This definition is simple, but does not give the depth to what green burial is about. 

First, green burial advocates for the use of resources in a proper way.  This means keeping the earth free from poisons of conventional embalming fluids, adhesives and other material used in conventional burial.  Green burial is also about keeping our natural resources for future generations by not putting them in the ground.  Let us look at burial vaults. Why do we need vaults and why do we need vaults lined in precious metals?  We don’t. The conventional industry tells us that vaults keep the ground level in cemeteries.  If buried properly in a shrouded or in an eco-friendly coffin and the ground mounded up, the grave should be just fine.  

Green burial also allows us to take up the traditions of the past, and move forward into the future in a gentle way.  We take up the simple, traditional, and loving process of our ancestors who bathed and dressed their loved ones at the time of death.  How much more simple it is to follow the greener and traditional path in burial than it is to follow the conventional means with their embalmed bodies, fancy caskets and vaults for us to keep our precious treasure in.  Our treasure lives in our hearts and in the stories we tell our children, not in the tombs of our loved ones. We need to be honest with ourselves, we are organic beings and at death we return back to the earth.

Finally, green burial is about preserving the land for generations to come.  In a conservation burial, the cemetery lies juxtaposed to a certified conservation land.  Other certified green burials are not situated in this way, but are no less dedicated to preserving the land.  They take the stand that in this place, we take care of our loved ones and preserve this land, natural and free for the generations to come.  It’s kind of like squatting rights.  As long as it is a cemetery, the land remains free from development.  In death, we can preserve the land one person and one patch of land at a time.  

Last week I stood under the canopy of an oak savanna and felt the timelessness of the sounds and wind around me.  Here, I thought I would love to remain until the end of time.  Here, I would love to be buried beneath these strong boughs and here, I would love to nurture this ancient and timeless place.  Alas, there are no such places yet in Illinois where people can be buried on conservation land.   With time and effort, we hope this will change.

We face choices everyday of our lives.  Some choices appear to be small, while others we make form the rest of our lives.  I grew up in a family that spoke freely about death and choices we make at the time of death.  It was generally agreed upon that cremation was the most earth friendly method.  We all wanted to go back to the earth as easily as possible. Having said this, I have not always made the most earth friendly choice for those I loved at the time of their death, mostly because I did not know my rights and the impacts my choices would make on the earth.  I did not always educate my clients at the cemetery about the most ecological manner of burial, but it was through working in the conventional death care industry that lead me to the work I do now. I have and insider understanding of the industry as well as having been I been a client. Today, I advocate for people’s rights and wishes at the time of death and hope that people choose more earth friendly choices. I believe that everyone should have his or her last wishes met if possible, providing it is according to the law. I wish to educate, not make people feel uncomfortable about their choices.

The ideal and greenest of the green burials scenario would be a conservation burial adjacent to conservation land.  In this scenario, the person would be buried in a shroud, preferably a shroud made of a recycled natural material like an old quilt.  The body would be lowered in the grave by ropes or with a shroud board made of local wood, perhaps that even repurposed.  The grave would be dug and filled in by hand.  There would not be a marker, but GPS coordinates that would allow loved ones to find and visit the grave.

Ideals can be hard to reach.  Sometimes we must do what we can and aim in the general direction of our ideals.  We must never feel guilty because we could not accomplish the ideal.  In fact, some of us do not want the greenest of green burials.  Some of us want a marker of some kind. Several certified green cemeteries allow for stone markers, others do not. If you can get local stone, not import it from India or China, you are going down a better road.  Educate yourself and make wise choices.  If you need a few other hints, check out my Five Simple Green Burial Hacks.

Our choices make us who we are.  If we choose to go green, we need to look at our lives and make changes in that direction.  Not many of us are able to go off the grid and live on a homestead raising our own food and generating our own energy.  I, for one, would love to have solar panels on my house, but I cannot do that today.  When we make arrangements or prepare our own plans for burial, we have to take into consideration what we can realistically do.  If we do not have a certified green burial cemetery near by, we make do with what we have.  Like the rest of life, making burial choices is a balancing act.  It might not be possible for us to achieve the ideal state where we do not negatively impact the earth, so make choices with which you can live. Do not be angry with yourself for your past choices; move forward in the knowledge you have gained.  Know that not one of us is perfect.  We are trying to do the best we can.

 

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.