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.
Northwoods Tree Memorial Kit
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.
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.
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