Green Leaves: Death Practices to Enrich the Earth

Green Leaves: Death Practices to Enrich the Earth

by Lara Stewart-Panko

Since INELDA last published an article on green burial, the movement has gained momentum.  Creating new burial sites and using commercially facilitated human composting have become options. Before we explore these ways of honoring both people and planet, let us take a moment to acknowledge the multitude of civilizations who continue to apply their longstanding practices of returning bodies to the earth, including many people of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. Let us remember that what many people in North America, some parts of Europe, and other heavily colonized regions have come to think of as “normal” or “standard” death care (embalming, funerals, and burials involving environmentally harmful materials, etc.) is a relatively recent way of relating to the dead. 

Humility, respect, and open awareness must have seats at the table as the decolonization of death practices occurs, and we must recognize that the modern green burial movement does have threads of capitalism woven into its fabric. Organizations such as the Green Burial Society of Canada and the United States–based Green Burial Council are setting high standards for green burial practices, aiming to counter any “greenwashing” that might tarnish the field and adversely impact the dead, their loved ones, and the earth.

 

The Wholeness of Green Burial

Holly Blue Hawkins, a death care consultant, advocate, and international educator based in California, is a champion for green burial practices. Through her business, Last Respects Consulting, Holly Blue works with families, communities, and organizations in making informed choices that honor the sanctity of death and the earth.

In reflecting on being a part of some beautiful home funerals that then led to cremation, Holly Blue says, “We’re doing all of this amazing stuff, and then what is happening to that body? We do all this loving, sacred stuff and then we cremate this body and not only turn it into something that’s not useful, but is not healthy for the planet. If a death doula or a home funeral guide takes the family through this whole, beautiful process, why wouldn’t they simply, lovingly line the bottom of a grave with biomass and beautiful floral mandalas and things that are from that place, and gently and lovingly place that body in there, and cover it with more biomass?” 

Outlining the process of properly digging a grave, Holly Blue explains the care that can be taken with the three different layers of soil that will be encountered. Each layer is removed at the horizon and then placed on a tarp so that the soil can be returned to the grave in the correct order, supporting the function of the land and all the life it contains. Once the space has been dug, it’s lined with organic matter, ideally from the immediate surrounding area, such as trimmings from trees, leaves, or flowers. The wrapped body is then placed upon the bedding, and more biomass is applied to cover it. 

“In many ways, it’s a continuation of what the death doulas and home funeral experience have done; the next step is this natural burial,” says Holly Blue when sharing how a family can move more slowly and intentionally through this process than is possible with cremation. In listening to her words, I could hear the call to reverence and deep integration for the person who died, for their loved ones, for the land that will hold them, for the other expressions of life that share that land, for the planet as a whole. 

Holly Blue points out that a green burial allows for continuity for grieving loved ones, as well as for the deceased person. “There’s the family whose beloved dies at home, and they call the mortuary and transport comes and gets the body and suddenly it’s gone. There’s a feeling that there was a story that was happening—and bam!, it’s over,” Holly Blue says. “Instead of taking it to its completion, it gets stopped, like a movie being abruptly stopped in the middle. The burial is part of the process; it’s part of the story. The story does not end. What we have in a natural cemetery is a never-ending story.”

When I ask Holly Blue her advice to end-of-life doulas regarding when to introduce the option of green burial, she quickly replies, “As soon as possible! And even before a doula gets a call, find out where it’s possible, find out what is possible within a reasonable radius.” She also invites doulas to be change agents in their communities, encouraging local cemeteries that don’t yet offer green burial options to do so. “How far upstream can you place that pebble that’s going to change the course of the river?” she asks.

With respect to pre-planning any aspect of the end of life, Holly Blue sagely suggests, “Do it on a good day. Instead of tapping into your grief, you’ll tap into your gratitude. You’ll see what you’ve got, what you love.” While advanced planning isn’t possible for everyone, for those who do have time to work with, making decisions while in a safer, lower-stress state can certainly allow for more empowered choice and greater awareness of the options available.

 

A Green Burial Gives Life to the Land

When discussing the special power of conservation burial grounds, Holly Blue doesn’t mince words. A conservation burial ground is land where only a portion is allotted for burial space, but a larger parcel is preserved. As an example, of a 40-acre lot, perhaps 5 or 10 acres are used for burial, but the balance of the land is legally protected in perpetuity. “What more powerful statement can we make than saying, ‘I’m going to put my body here to protect this land’?” she says. “We’re talking climate change. We’re not just talking about, ‘Am I doing the best I can for the body of my [human] beloved?’ The body of the beloved is the biosphere.” 

In speaking of the soil as akin to the microbiome we house in our bodies, Holly Blue notes, “There’s a level on which every body we put into the ground is like we’ve just fed nature a probiotic capsule.” She furthers the benevolent perspective in reflecting upon Dr. Billy Campbell, a co-founder of the Ramsey Creek Preserve, the first green cemetery and conservation burial ground in the United States. “I was listening to him speak and went, ‘Oh! He’s a physician, and this is the Hippocratic oath applied to burial, doing no harm,’” she says. “If we can really get it, that this body I’m done with can be a nourishing gift to the earth, that that’s what we’ve got to look forward to—not destruction—then that’s a completely different story that tells itself.”

Similarly, an endless story is being told in Niagara Falls, Canada. A 2-acre section of a traditional cemetery has been designated for green burial—Willow’s Rest, named after the large, old weeping willow that watches over the land. City employee Mark Richardson, who oversees the area’s cemeteries, originally managed Niagara Falls’ environmental portfolio, including natural habitat restoration and beautification projects. “Willow’s Rest was and continues to be both a personal and professional goal of mine. When I was promoted into supervising and managing cemeteries, I carried with me that passion for environmental improvement and immediately set out to learn how I could incorporate that into our cemeteries,” Mark says.

The area is home to an additional 150 trees, a naturalized wildflower and grass meadow, six monarch butterfly pollinator gardens, wood sculptures, and inviting benches. The cemetery has partnered with local farmers to place beehives on the property, allowing honey to be harvested. “Willow’s Rest is so much more than a ‘burial site,’” Mark says. “It’s a living memorial for those who are interred there. It’s a community space for people who love and appreciate the beauty and bounty of nature. It’s an area in which we teach people about the importance of nature, planting native plants and trees, and protecting our pollinators.” Formed in just 2017, 68 people have chosen to have a full burial at the cemetery, with about 10 others choosing to spread their ashes on site. “We added this section after recognizing that many people who were environmentalists were cremated, as that was the ‘method of disposition’ that was historically ‘sold’ as the more environmentally friendly option.” 

That attitude may be a combination of both a changing perspective on death, and a changing generation. “There continues to be a significant shift in death and dying,” Mark says. “Consider the largest population segment currently investigating end-of-life options are the baby boomers. This is the generation, in my mind, who recognized the damage we were causing to this earth, and really set out to make significant changes in our way of living.  This generation, unlike the previous, is less connected to cemeteries, and prior to the reintroduction of green or natural burials, was more likely to be cremated and scattered in an area of space they felt most connected. Green and natural burials now provide the most environmentally friendly end-of-life alternative—that fits with how they’ve been living their lives. At the same time, the boomers’ children are now adults and are more open to alternatives. In Willow’s Rest, many of the ‘pre-need’ lot sales are to boomers who are making arrangements in advance, while our ‘at need’ lot sales are primarily by younger people, actively dying—many to cancer—who are connected with nature and would prefer to be remembered by the flowers and trees that grow overhead than by having their name on a granite monument.”

 

Another Way to Love the Earth

An alternative to green burial is natural organic reduction, the transformation of human remains into nutrient-rich, life-giving soil. The terms recomposition and terramation are often applied when the process is expedited in commercial facilities.

In April 2021 in Auburn, Washington, close to Seattle, the world’s largest human composting facility, Return Home, opened. Washington was the first state to legalize commercial human composting in 2020, and since has been joined by Colorado and Oregon, with legislation pending in California, New York, and Massachusetts. Residents of other states and Canada can legally access this service, and Return Home has plans to open a facility in Canada in the near future.

The Washington location is able to accept 72 bodies per month, resulting in soil within 60 days, much faster than the 8 to 12 years it takes for nature to fully decompose a body buried in its natural state. The processing of a single body yields approximately 1.5 cubic yards of soil, which can be used to enrich a family’s garden or nourish beloved trees. For families who don’t have the land to accommodate the 10 to 15 bags of soil, Return Home has purchased eight acres of land that will receive the surplus, and this land will become a community park that honors those who have passed.

Micah Truman, the CEO and founder of Return Home, shares in an interview published by SeattlePI, about the myth that cremation is an earth-friendly practice: “Cremation blows everything the body could give the earth straight into the atmosphere as greenhouse gas—all we give the family is a handful of charred carbon. And those are the last things we do on this earth. The earth deserves better, and we deserve better.”

The Washington facility, Recompose built in 2020, in nearby Kent was at the forefront of the human-composting movement. Founder, CEO, and death care advocate, Katrina Spade operates a greenhouse containing ten vessels that are monitored by both a technical interface and on-site staff. The composting process itself takes four weeks, and an additional two to four weeks are required for the soil to cure. If families do not wish to take all the resulting soil home for personal use, Recompose has partnered with Remember Land, a nonprofit that stewards 700 acres of land in Washington. The donated soil is used to support the conservation of the Bells Mountain forest. Spade’s

One common question folks have about human composting is its safety. According to the Recompose FAQ: “Human composting eliminates diseases. The human composting process creates heat over 131 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat ensures the soil created is safe and free of harmful pathogens. There are three rare diseases that disqualify a body from undergoing human composting: Ebola, prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and tuberculosis. Monitoring for these diseases is the responsibility of hospitals and medical examiners. For patients who have received radiation seed implants within 30 days of death, the treated organ must be removed before they are eligible for human composting.” 

Whether one opts to be buried in a way that harmonizes with nature, allowing its unhurried hand to grant the body ongoing life in a multitude of new forms, or chooses to leverage science to more rapidly transmute the body into soil, real choices have become increasingly ours. We have the power to pen our next chapter in the never-ending story. We can be infinite poems of earth.

 

Editor’s note: In December 2018 and January 2019, INELDA published Different Shades of Green, a two-part article about various aspects of green burial, written by Henry Fersko-Weiss. Part 1 establishes the rationale for green burial, including the damaging environmental impacts of both conventional burial and cremation. In part 2, Henry explains the differences between hybrid, natural, and conservation cemeteries, and which types of caskets and shrouds are suitable. Part 2  also provides a useful resource list.