Many of us in the Midwest live in areas without access to certified burial grounds, conventional cemeteries that offer a green option, or in states that require the hiring of a funeral director at the point of death.  Because of the situation we face, many of us have to make choices that are not perfect choices. Here are five simple hacks to make a funeral and burial greener.  At the end of the day, we all can only do our best.


Don’t Be Embalmed   That is easier said than done if you live in Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, or New York.  Many funeral homes require embalming for public viewings, or wakes, or any kind of an open coffin. If you live in one of these states there might be a Death Doula close to you that will be able to direct you to a good funeral director.  If you do not live near a home funeral guide, I recommend you shop around at local funeral homes. If you live in the Chicagoland area, contact us and we can provide you with contacts. 

Some of us come from traditions that necessitate an open coffin for our religious rites.  Some of us come from cultural traditions where viewing the body is central to the grieving process.  Most funeral homes offer direct burial, but you should not have to settle for direct burial if it goes against your heart.   Any funeral director should be able to offer refrigeration. An open coffin with a natural body will not spread disease, most diseases die with the body. You still need to take proper care of the body after death, but this is not a difficult process. The point is, plan ahead of time.  Stand by what you know is right and what you know fits with what you need through the grieving process.  Feel free to contact Midwest Green Burial Society if you need any assistance with this.

Invert the Vault.  Many of us live in states where there are no certified green burial grounds.  You might find yourself wanting a green burial, but have no place to bury in a green site.  If you cannot find a cemetery that does not require a vault, or if you are pressed for time and are deep in grief, remember to ask that the vault be inverted.  The coffin or shroud will be in contact with the earth, and might be the most natural way you can bury your loved ones.  Many cemeteries will comply if you tell them that your loved one will not be embalmed and you want to make greener choices.

Low Impact Coffin or Shroud.  Shrouds least impact the environment at the time of burial.  You may need a board for extra support to help lower the body, but it is by far the simplest way to be buried.  There are a few on-line to choose from, but remember you can make a shroud from a qulit or blanket.  MGBS has a resource page with some low impact coffins and shrouds.  While we love the wicker and wool coffins, we look to the amount of jet fuel to takes to get here from Europe, and we feel strongly about shopping locally.

On-line Memorial. Remember not everyone can come to a memorial event or they live far away, making travel difficult, costly and use too much fossil fuel.  Create an online page for people to express their grief, and a way to share favourite stories.  We live far away from each other physically, but we can come together online to be a support to each other.

Use Locally Source Flowers.  Instead of using florists, who often use environmentally unfriendly practices get your flowers locally, even a home garden.  For an even greener choice, contact your local conservation district office and ask which indigenous flowers or decorative branches you could use.  In the winter, evergreens would be a beautiful choice. For a memory gift, consider making seed packets using seeds from Seed Savers Exchange or other local seed saving groups.   We use Seed Savers Exchange seeds for our seed pack/business card.  Use of these kinds of seeds promotes biodiversity.

Remember, whatever choices we made in the past were made because we thought we were being responsible. I suggest we do not beat ourselves up about the past and start today educating ourselves so that we can make better choices in the future. 

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.  

September 1999 my dear friend Linda lost her beloved husband suddenly and tragically in the middle of the night without warning.  We met in seminary and now Steve was a priest.  They had two small beautiful children.   One day I heard her beautiful voice on my voice mail wishing me a happy wedding anniversary and a few short days later another friend’s voice informed me that Fr. Steve had died in the night.  Even though I lived in Canada and they in Connecticut, my husband and I left immediately to attend the funeral.  My heart broke completely when I saw Linda enter the Church for the service.  Such an image of loss, I carry with me always.  How can such a young person who was just beginning his priestly life be taken from us, leaving behind a wife and two beautiful children?  I don’t know those kinds of answers.

When I returned home, I knew I had to do something with my grief.   I could not be a physical help to Linda since we now lived in different countries.   We did continue our email relationship soon after his death, but I could not be there physically for her. I could not make her soup, or come and do her laundry, or anything practical.  I wanted to do something, so I decided to plant tulips.   With each bulb, I planted and prayed for all of them.  In the following spring, the tulips came up, and I prayed some more. They gave me joy every spring when they came up and I remembered Fr. Steve and Linda and their love for each other and the gifts that love gave to those who knew them. I recalled my little conversations with Steve and remembered what a gift he was to us all in Seminary.  All too soon the tulips would wither especially if the spring was too hot.   I did live in that home ten more springs, and each spring brought me memories of Fr. Steve, Linda and the children.   I have since moved from that home, but I always carry them in my heart.

I know that Tulips are not indigenous plants to North America. I did not consider that at the time. I am not calling on folks to plant invasive plants that will destroy the ecosystem as we know it or as it should be.  What I am saying is that we can plant, as an act of memorialization for loved ones lost to us through death.  It need not be in the place where they rest.  It need not be something we pay lots of money for.  It needs to be from the heart.  It needs to be something for us to remember that person, a reminder that they are still a part of our life, even in death

Today is ten years since my father-in-law, Mile Vujadinov, died.  I miss him very much.  My children never met him, but we tell them stories about him all the time.  He was a giant among men. Tata (Serbian for daddy) was imprisoned for three years for trying to defect from communist Yugoslavia, enduring many humiliations during that time.  After his final escape, Tata became a welder by reading a book about welding on his way to Australia.   He apprenticed as a blacksmith so he understood metal, but it was by reading this book that he learned how to weld.  What makes this story even more fantastic was that he never went to school because his family was too poor to afford proper shoes. By the time of his death Tata could speak five languages.  As you can see from the picture, he loved to dance.  I miss him.  Tata’s death was the first death in which I had any first hand experience with the death care industry.  We had no plan at the time of his death, so we did what people do – we did our best.

Saturday we met, prayed and remembered Tata in the church.  We are Orthodox Christians, and we remember the death of our loved ones all the time. We make and serve a sweet wheat dish, zito or koliva.  Basically zito reminds us in death, there is life.  We make it to remind ourselves of the resurrection, and the sweetness of the life-giving tomb.  What I find so interesting is that there are so many different ways to make this dish. I think it is so touching that in death and grief, we serve this sweet dish to remind us not to stay too long in the bitterness, because there will be sweetness again.

Even though I have a tradition that has that allows me to have time set aside to grieve and remember, I think we all can choose to do the same.  For those of us who have lost someone we love, it is good and fitting to remember them in ways that make sense to us.  Why not have a mini-memorial on a big anniversary to tell stories to the younger generation?  It is through the stories that they live in us.  I know stories about my great-great-grandfather and mother and I never met them, but to me they are alive to me in those stories.  Let us feel free to take the time, to remember those who we love and who have gone before us in ways that are meaningful for us.