Sense and sustainability - 2

I am incredibly grateful to Cynthia Beal for this long and deeply considered response to this post. I wish I felt I were worth it, Cynthia! But I know that all readers of this blog will find in your words a great deal of food for thought.

Dear Charles,

Thanks so much for another provocative post! I'm not sure I can add any light here, but I'll try.

First, you mention my position on "sustainable cemetery management" and help to remind all of us that a cemetery is, at the practical end of the stick, the fulfillment of a fiscal, environmental and social obligation, serving a vital public purpose – the management of our dead. I believe Ken and I are in agreement on that score, and I think sometimes it escapes people that those three tasks of sustainability are NOT about the perpetuation of an individual in human memory.

I don't believe either of our countries' laws requires that we pay for the memorialization of a single person in perpetuity, nor mow, irrigate and pesticide their little scrap of lawn. There are a number of businesses that have marketed and sold that promise to people, however. Just because they can't deliver on it doesn't mean they won't keep the fiction alive as long as possible – but it also doesn't mean that society is responsible for picking up that tab.

I find it's often helpful for people if I break down "natural burial" (I don't use the word "green" any longer) into three components:

1) the funeral - a natural one, generally without toxic embalming, often with a spiritual accompaniment that can include home or institutional presentation, virtual or face-2-face components, or even circus parties

2) the burial - using biodegradable "packaging" (coffin, shroud, etc.) in a liner-free grave at a depth suitable for decomposition, often done in the rain in both the UK and Oregon, my home state

3) sustainable cemetery management - what's done with the surface of the land after the burial has occurred. "Memorialization" – the personal bit about how the future is forced OR permitted to remember the past – is a subjective choice that's dictated in part by the landscape management style, and should be seen as a function of what the maintenance budget, the site's aesthetics, and the grave fees allow.

One can think about each of these elements – funeral, burial, and landscaping – separately from the other two, and clarity comes. Some folks in the "green" burial movement have an "all or nothing" attitude and speak as if these form an inseparable 'whole', suggesting that if one doesn't do all three perfectly there's no point in doing any one of them alone. That's a mistaken position in my view, and also leads to all sorts of mis-understandings and mis-representations.

Your second writer - the fellow who's offended by the "non-allowance" of things "green" - exhibits this confusion when he talks about all the things he can't do. It's not about 'can't' in his mind – it's about 'won't" and there's a difference.

While there are some members of the "green" community that adore rule-making (hence all the "thou shalt nots" with respect to the "greenest" burials, which can too easily devolve into a holier-than-thou marketing competition, if you ask me, instead of an educated continuum of option) the fact of death is this:

Idealized end or not, one gets buried in a hole. There's dirt there. The dirt will someday touch the body – sooner or later. The relative handful of people who cannot tolerate contemplating that fact and don't have the powers of mind to ignore it have the readily available option of an underground bomb-shelter (casket and vault) to comfort them. I don't deny them that choice.

However, the rest of us should be able to go into our chosen dirt just as easily, without a lot of extra handwringing, especially from business people whose income streams are wrapped up in selling the packaging that keeps the dirt off. I'm an Earth Girl – I like dirt. I'm not a fan of excess packaging. I don't like it that I can't easily go back to my maker in a compostable plain (or fancy!) wrapper if I choose.

The fact is that the earth-phobic aging public (a generation that seemed afraid of the planet itself, addicted to germ-killers, artificial environments, and insurance against the world in general) is shrinking, and rapidly being replaced by people who are not repelled by Nature. Many in this next wave of future dead-people actually like to lie down on bare grass and some even indulge in visions of sinking into the soil and becoming trees and daisies someday.

Regarding the implied invincibility of vaults securing the body from a cave in- your second cited writer's logic is a bit faulty, too -- there are MANY vaults and liners sold on the market that collapse eventually. The cheaper they are the weaker they are. Some collapse very quickly. Some take longer. None are allowed to state that they will not leak or they will NEVER collapse (truth in advertising laws require this).

In fact, when I talked to Ken West about vaults and asked why the UK didn't use them he said "We tried that. They don't work. Sooner or later they all cave in. That's just the way of it. Give yours a century and they'll collapse, too."

One thing this writer also misses is the fact that natural cemeteries, if operated properly, need never run out of income. There is no science-based reason NOT to practice grave reuse, especially by families who would like to maintain the plots over many generations. (Queen's Road Cemetery at Croydon in London is experimenting with this and having good success). In 2006, UK cemetery management that included the possibility of grave reuse was growing as a common position in your own local authorities, and it's continuing ever faster today:

http://www.cholseypc.org/Default.asp?PageId=viewdetail&ValuesID=1001

There are plenty of alternative memorialization options, too, and creatively run cemeteries can offer MUCH more than just a place to dispose of the dead, while still being environmentally and socially respectful, and administratively prudent.

EDIFICE COMPLEX

The UK's cemetery space conundrum came about in large part because of all the cement and marble and granite loaded into each grave. That, coupled with a prohibition on the desecration of a grave monument, as well as the grave itself, prohibited removal or disturbance of remains - i.e., reuse - without the invocation of public health laws. Since skeletonized remains are not hazardous, graves have been sacrosanct and highly resistant to intelligent intervention.

If the Victorian-fueled "Edifice Complex" (that we were infected with over here, too) hadn't required such a land-grab of stone-like stuff the soil microbes can't possibly digest in a reasonable period of time, you'd still have room in your cemeteries today and all this would probably be moot.

We still have plenty of grave space in our cemeteries over here, but they're eating up an increasing amount of resources every year, the service infrastructures are increasingly prohibitive to install, burial's giving way to cremation, and sooner or later we're going to have to pull the cheap-resources plug.

"NATURAL" IS OUR FUTURE (BECAUSE UNNATURAL IS TOO EXPENSIVE)

If I have my druthers ("I'd rathers" in hillbilly talk), we won't even be talking about "natural burial grounds" in 10-20 more years because so many of our existing cemeteries will have transitioned to sustainable techniques out of necessity -- we'll be talking about cemeteries, plain and simple.

(Hence, please be careful about making up a new set of rules for a new class of cemetery…try to stay on task with the issues of pollution, energy use, and staying out of peoples' private business if it's not REALLY about public health, and you'll probably do just fine, and set us a good example, as well. We're counting on you, UK!)

In my preferred future with respect to cemeteries, "Natural" will be an increasingly prevalent style of activity reflected in management as a function of COST-SAVING and ENVIRONMENT PRESERVING "sense"; it will be connected to resource-use reduction and habitat support, will use fewer toxins and pollutants, and will be the common-sense approach of any landscaper worth her salt and paying attention to the triple bottom line.

We'll be funding affordable basic disposition of the dead through natural earth interment for people who don't WANT to be burned, and people who do will have the ability to be cremated in energy-efficient crematoria that don't create pollution.

We'll do this because the fulfillment of LAST WISHES in line with ecological as well as spiritual principles with respect to one's own physical body – while not a clearly articulated right but still a preference worthy of notice – should be honored to the degree possible. And we'll make this basic Last Right affordable, and not channel it into an industrial interest's pocketbook automatically, just because we all die and someone's going to be paid to put away our pieces.

FINAL DISPOSITION AS A UTILITY

It makes sense that an environmentally friendly and economic option should be available to everyone, equally. It makes so much sense that I'm surprised a simple natural burial isn't a public utility, offered equally to every single one of us, without charge. That's the definition of a public utility – it's something we all need, that we agree to pay for collectively, and that we pull the profit out of in order to make it most affordable to all. Since we all die, and we're made of water and earth, it seems perfectly obvious to me that we should be put back where we got ourselves.


PRIVATE OPTIONS

The aesthetics – the "sensibility" of the thing – seen in the dressing up of the cemeteries; the decency clauses that reach beyond a national consensus (that rightfully includes atheists, pagans and open-pyre-cremationists); the rules and prohibitions that make up a "club" and gather members based on shared assumptions or desires for similar treatment - should really be left up to individual groups, churches or private cemetery budgets. Local public authorities can provide the basic no-frills options. The private market can pick up the rest.

PAYING FOR THE LONG-TERM CONTROL

People who want their voice regarding land maintenance to last long after their bodies should probably go to either their local cemetery and leave a directed cash endowment for the establishment and preservation of cemetery habitat, VIA the local Living Cemetery/Living Churchyard program OR they should be buried in one of the more responsible natural burial parks that Leedam mentions.

They should also expect to pay top dollar, and these cemeteries should charge it. They'll need it to do everything they claim they're going to do, without public funds, forever, so yes, Leedam's right and buyers should scrutinize the fine print here. After all, they're buying a gardener "forever", and wages and taxes in 2200 may not come cheap!

LETTING GO

People who don't care about who disturbs or visits their body, or what happens to the land after they've decomposed – i.e., they're done with their bodies and they're putting them back into the earth; come on in and plant corn, for goodness sake! - are the IDEAL candidates for low-cost farmers' field cemeteries, and I say let them have their INEXPENSIVE natural burial without castigating the operators or the future residents for their choices.

This seems a private deal between two free individuals. As long as public health is not compromised, and bones are identified so that forensics' teams don't have expensive community headaches in 50 years, I fail to see the rationale for interference from anyone in the transaction. The cemetery operators can have the buyers sign releases saying as much and that should be the end of it. (Maybe I'm over-simplifying a bit but I don't think this is beyond reason...)

So, in short Charles, I'd say you were right when you say we've already idealized our future vision. In fact, having a variety of burial options that suit our particular tastes is one great step to idealizing the beyond, in whatever fashion we choose. I like looking through a lot of choices. It's inspiring and fun, and even makes me less nervous about what might be "next." To think I may have a choice in the matter, even if it's just 'being a tree,' is awesome.

I'm sure you'll end up with scandals. The question is whether or not everyone will go all a'twitter because of an individual's disappointment about how "green" the lawn care is, and whether or not the guy next to you gets buried in polyester. (If it matters that much, do go somewhere with a written dress code, and read the rules before you rent the space for the hole!)

It's rarely the best business of government to defend people from disappointment, hurt feelings and failed expectations outside of clear breach of contract – going down that road is a formula for either disaster or too many meetings one doesn't have the time nor patience to attend. And where privately run cemeteries are concerned, there are plenty of examples of gross negligence coming our way – seehttp://www.baysidecemeterylitigation.com for a US case in point.

There's NOTHING that's perfectly "green". Every option anyone has shown to me has plusses and minuses. All are context-dependent. Taking off the green-coloured glasses with respect to natural burial won't do a bit of harm. Natural burial can stand up to the test of time and functionality – Ken West's proved it. So have your local authorities. They wouldn't be doing it in these tough economic times if it didn't work.

"Green" is being sold heavily these days, and arguments do sell. "Who's the greenest of them all?" creates a lot of buzz and fills papers and conference-panels and even makes for sometimes-useful trade associations. But language is important, and I don't want to see important meaning – the ecological "sense and sensibility" of moving to saner interaction with the environment via smarter disposition - lost in the catfight.

"Green" is a color. Traditionally, it has meant "youthful", "jealous" or "naïve." It's the naïve who are often disappointed. Jealousy compares. The youthful need nurturing – that's true – but somehow I fear that "green" will soon reveal itself to be too much blush and not enough skin unless its proponents take themselves down a peg or two, strip off the righteousness, innuendo and hype, and get about the real task of making quality businesses, practices, and institutions that demonstrably work AND clean up the mess, both. A tall order, but it's a tall time.

"Green" needs to grow up, and when it finally does it will no longer be "green." It will, instead, be what we do. We'll just do it more naturally.

What do you think?

Cynthia

Sense and sustainability

Reindeer grazing at Usk Castle Chase natural burial ground,

which is managed by Native Woodland Natural Burial Sites

Cynthia Beal heads up the Natural Burial Company in the United States. She’s a friend of many in this country. This blog is her most ardent admirer. Before becoming a green burialist Cynthia spent a good many years in organic foods. That experience has proved invaluable to her and to many others looking for greener, more sustainable ways of disposing of their dead. Cynthia is not only an idealist with a long and admirable commitment to environmental responsibility, she is also a seasoned realist with the nous and experience to show dreamers how to make their dreams doable. Big heart, big brain, that’s our Cynthia.

She does something that we in the UK are in danger of losing sight of, I sometimes feel. She honours all that Britain has contributed to the natural burial movement and she honours those whose vision it originally was. Above all, she uses the K-word a lot. I like that. Because it was Bereavement Services Manager Ken West who, in 1993, translated an upsurge of best intentions into practical action by seeing through the opening of the first natural burial ground in 1993. What it took to get that past the good burghers of Carlisle I can’t begin to imagine. It must be a heck of a story, a little piece of history which we should cherish in the recounting. Ken is writing a book at the moment. I hope he will reveal all.

Cynthia has written an article about sustainable cemetery management which can’t be beat. It’s intelligent and it’s wise and it’s a very good read, especially the section on sustainability.

"Sustainability" has three primary components: social, ecological, and fiscal. Each of these affects the other two when a "full-cost lifetime accounting" is done, and the overall sustainability of an endeavor - i.e., its likelihood of success - is best served when all three aspects are in balance ...

[D]eveloping a well-conceived sustainability plan may be your next order of business. Future capitalization may depend on demonstrating you understand all the bills coming due - the social ones and the ecological ones, as well as the fiscal ones. Chances are a superficial greening won't pass muster - you'll need to demonstrate you understand (and believe in) what you're doing, and you'll have to shop carefully, as there are plenty of companies that will sell "green" hype to you, too.

You don't need hype - you need tools that work. Quarter-to-quarter expense management may require immediate resource-use analysis and reduction, transitioning the landscape to new conditions and developing new techniques and networks of experience. Master planning that proves your future income stream is in touch with environmental and consumer trends while addressing liability in a balanced manner may be what keeps your investors on board. After all, a cemetery is still forever - and sustainability is a big part of forever.

Read the whole piece here.

Another piece about natural burial caught my eye a few days ago. The writer, an American, raises two matters of interest to Brits. The first is aesthetic:

If I am not allowed the option of a casket, or a burial vault, what happens to my loved ones body when the burial is complete and a couple of tons of dirt are dumped on their body? This is a viable question, considering I buried my Dad, Grandmother, and Grandfather some years back and would not care for the visual this gives me. Personally, I like the idea that my loved ones weren’t crushed by the weight of the dirt during backfill.

Well, what do we think? Do people know that a cardboard coffin will be crushed as a grave is filled in, an MDF one within a few weeks? While they’re tending the grave in the time thereafter, what picture do they have of what’s going on below? My supposition is that they have none: their dead person is already idealised. What’s your view?

The writer’s second point is a strong one and it’s all about sustainability:

Green burials are great if you are into getting back to the old ways of performing burials. No casket expense, no vault expense, no memorial expense because in a true green burial space no memorial is allowed. This for a burial business means little or no streams of revenue to keep the cemetery profitable and in business. In 20 years, when the business is no longer solvent what happens to those burials? Who looks after the properties and maintains any record of those burials? I offer this as a brain teaser to this question: Many pioneer cemeteries and other old non marked cemeteries are disturbed annually with new road construction, new housing developments, etc. etc. I see this as a repeat of those same issues, 50 or 100 years from now. So for those who preach green, I want to know how they intend to protect the sanctity of these “new” green burial places for generations to come? Or, does that matter?

This is a matter which was raised by James Leedam a few weeks ago in this blog. At the time I thought it had the quality of dynamite. I still do:

Sadly, the majority of the general public are not savvy when it comes to the environmental credentials of individual natural burial grounds, which vary enormously. In the absence of a "Go Compare" comparison website for natural burial grounds, consumers should interrogate the burial ground operators about their long-term future plans for the land - what happens in 30, 50 or 100 years time, when the income from burials ceases? How sustainable is their long term future? Many trading under the "green burial" banner, have apparently little concern for long-term sustainability (but are profiting nicely in the meantime). Others can offer you well considered plans and more confidence, their natural burial grounds will be future assets, not long-term liabilities.

Do not accept fuzzy visions - some operators suggest that a wildlife trust will take over when the ground reaches capacity - but be sure to ask the wildlife trust before accepting this; they might well have a different view. Ask yourselves how can these places sustain themselves once the income from burials dries up?

I’m not sure that many of us would feel competent to conduct this sort of due diligence. We’re in small-print territory here, where everyone speaks legalese. Have the seeds of our first natural burial scandal already been sown?

Strange and bitter crop, if so.

Blackened greens?

Is it just me or do you, too, feel that it seems like a long time ago since there was a consensus on climate change? I signed up to it because I met lots of people I liked and admired who had already subscribed and who read lots of books about it and quoted terrifying scenarios and insisted, “You must see this amazing thing on YouTube.”

I also signed up to it because I don’t understand science but I do trust scientists – in much he same spirit as Hugo Rifkind: “when I can’t be arsed properly to understand something, I tend to defer to those who can. I trust engineers to build bridges and I trust doctors to cure diseases. Likewise climatologists on man-made global warming. Most of them seem to believe in it. They might all be wrong, but they’re less likely to be wrong than I am. Call me a mindless stooge, but that’s good enough for me.”

Now, I guess, there are lots of us who are not so sure. There was the Climategate scandal: all those hacked emails which revealed, in the words of James Delingpole, “Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.” With this scandal came allegations that climate science is driven by a political agenda, post-normal science, which encourages its followers to suppose that it is quite all right to lie if the cause is noble. Again, Delingpole is the one who writes most attractively about this.

No wonder Peter Preston thinks we need an eco-prophet to galvanise us.

If people are going wobbly on climate change, I wonder how they’re feeling about this in the natural burial movement?

Use this land for the dead!

Cremationists have always been proud to boast that what they do saves land for the living. It’s true. That more than 70 per cent of Brits opt for the burning fiery furnace saves around 200 acres a year.

Having said which, and having visited a number of natural burial grounds, I find myself seeing natural burial potential almost everywhere, these days. There is a great deal of land which presently does nothing but look after vegetation, birds and insects. Let’s use it!

Here in Redditch we have a New Town built by seriously socialist planners. It was created to house overspill Brummie working folk in bucolic surroundings. There is a road system which looked great on paper. It incorporates the UK’s only clover-leaf road junction, of which we are overweeningly proud. Our roads constitute a nightmare of featurelessness and dementedly speeding vehicles, with ne-er an enforced speed restriction to be seen. That's a downside (don't get me started). But we also have a People’s Park, in the midst of which, dug out of virgin farmland, we have a people’s lake with lakeside parking, lakeside cafe, lakeside visitor centre, lakeside play area and even a tarmac lakeside path. Here, of a Sunday afternoon, we, the good people of Redditch, like to take the air. The shade of Joe Stalin surveys our jostling prams and Staffies, and he smiles.

In the middle of our lake we have islands. I can never gaze at them without thinking what excellent natural burial grounds they would make. There’s a problem with accessibility, of course, and this is what makes them such excellent habitats, but it may daunt those who wish to visit a grave frequently. They could wave and call out from the lake’s edge, of course; it’s only 50 metres away. Would the good people of Redditch settle for a boat trip on, say, four appointed days a year to lay flowers and join in a ceremony of remembrance? I wonder... You could call the islands names like Avalon, Lyonesse, Shambhala. Shall I put this to the town council?

No, I don’t think I have the requisite number of days left in my life. But that has not quelled the notion.

Burial depth

Dave Matthews here, supporting my campaign for shallower burial.

Want the lyric? Find it here.

So much prettier than headstones?

My thanks to Melissa Stewart of Native Woodland Natural Burial for this delicious pic (click it to make it bigger) of reindeer at the natural burial ground at Usk Castle Chase.

"So much prettier than headstones!" she says. And I have to confess to a weakness to that line of argument. I'm won over!

Perpetua's Garden - a great Idea

The really interesting thing about logic is what it makes people do--where it takes them. It starts with a Question which begets an Idea which resolves itself into a Certainty, fortifies itself with Conviction, draws up a Strategy, then acts with Singlemindedness. This is a human thing, it’s not the way the world works, nor does it reflect the way people actually are. Muddle is the word that best characterises creation and its creatures—sometimes joyous muddle, like love; sometimes bloody muddle, like genocide.

To believe that every question has an answer is brave and optimistic. To assert the primacy of the head over the heart is the function of intelligence. So, while the animal part of us celebrates mystery and creativity, the analytical side shuns chaos, seeks answers, desires order above all things. Dammit, we need to make sense of things!

Natural burial is a great Idea—a multi-use site, in itself a holistic memorial. Individual memorials? I shall never forget Ken West uttering just one word in answer to that: “Vanity.” My feelings exactly. But when it comes to doing what I played my part in doing yesterday, removing lovingly placed and expensive flowers from a grave in a natural burial ground, wow, that takes some Conviction, let me tell you—for all that those who put them there knew perfectly well that they had agreed not to.

Thomas Friese is an ideas sort of man, and he has an Idea. He rejects the natural burialists’ rejection of individual memorials. “This,” he says, “is a short-sighted aspect of its conception, which forgets that a cemetery is not merely a place to dispose of dead bodies but to memorialize and honor human lives. A majority of society will not accept no memorialization; widespread acceptance will thus be impaired.” In response to James Leedam of Native Woodland Natural Burial Sites, he asserts: “We want a cemetery that blends into and is friendly to nature - this means that we must accept that the human cultural aspect is curbed: that the flowers get eaten [by deer, say] (or we use artificial ones) and that the stone memorial is forbidden. That flowers get eaten and must be replaced is a small concession to nature’s cause which we can easily accept; but not being allowed any kind of enduring memorial means the line has been drawn too far on the side of nature and human culture has lost its place altogether in the cemetery.”

I’ve been following Thomas for a while. I like him enormously. He’s very, very bright. This doesn’t make him right, but it certainly makes him worth listening to. I swapped emails with James over Thomas’s penultimate blog post and agreed: one of the big questions in all this (if you’re going to have ‘em) is how long should a memorial last? Thomas has an answer to that, of course.

Just as he has no hesitation in declaring that the purpose of a cemetery is “To defeat death, of course!” There’s another interesting Idea. Not so interesting to Christians, for whom a funeral has always proclaimed victory over Death. But those of us who believe that death brings us face to face with the Great Perhaps would possibly hesitate to be so categorical. Thomas makes his case with great and attractive cogency.

I have long wanted to know the full extent of Thomas’s Idea—his Perpetua’s Garden initiative. He’s been keeping it under his hat presumably because to disclose it would expose him to the danger of losing it. This is the problem all inventors face. But he is now willing to share it with chosen folk who are willing to sign a non-disclosure form. If you are interested in discovering “a potential answer to the space problem, one which would allow decent and enduring memorialization and the creation (not just the conservation) of green spaces,” contact Thomas through his website.

You won’t beat me to it.

The Great Perhaps?

Burial depth - my last word

The natural burial ground at Sun Rising taken from their website - www.nrbgrounds.co.uk

For some time now I have been nagging natural burialists about the depth at which they inter their bodies. My concern has been that, beneath the topsoil, a body is not going to enjoy the ecologically positive rot envisaged for it.

I have had this response from Emma Restall Orr at Sun Rising. I think that what she says says it all. Thank you, Emma.

Our burial depth is a standard 4’ – 4’6 on very heavy clay. While I know that many local authority cemeteries bury now at a standard 5’ or 6’, to ensure the option for double interment, I am aware of burial in churchyards that is less than this on occasion, such as where a grave is being reopened for the second interment and the initial burial was not adequately deep. I cannot imagine us ever burying at less than 4’ however, particularly as we have no double graves at all.

While we acknowledge there is an image that our remains will feed the tree planted on top of us, this would require us to bury at 2’ and less. But at this depth, the deceased would risk bring disturbed by badgers or foxes. This is not a risk worth taking, nor is it necessary. The idea is poetic, not practical, and we make this clear to any families who enquire.

Though the sentimental images are valuable in the process of grieving and healing, the ethos of a natural burial ground is (for us) real, down to earth, practical care for the deceased, their families, and the environment, not poetry. First of all, most native trees don’t require rich soil, many preferring soil that is not well fertilised. Secondly, however, burial returns the body’s elements back into the cycles of nature, long term – in a way that cremation does not. The planting of the tree adds to the health of those cycles, and the richness of the environment generally. And this is enough.

Recomposition

Interesting story on US National Public Radio (NPR) here.

Do listen to Bernd Heinrich, gentle and wise, talking about what he perceives to be our duty to return to nature in the most appetising way we can.

No coffin for him. Some of the things he says: “You know, being sealed up, totally removed from natural processes that normally occur with every animal on earth is somehow very frightening, it seems unnatural.” He’s not afraid of being eaten: “I find that comforting, to be part of the eco-system ... it’s part of the cost, of giving back. I have killed untold hundreds of thousands to live--we all have; to remove ourselves so no one can feed off us seems somehow sacrilegious.”

I agree. With the honourable exception of those cultures which cleave to ancient customs (some Jews, Muslims, Tibetan sky burialists), our corpse disposal practices define humankind's disconnection from the Earth; they seem to assert that we are not of it. Call it fastidiousness, call it aloofness, call it squalid squeamishness, we do not behave in a way which acknowledges that we are in debt to it and have a duty to return to it in the most useful way we can. We’ll never save this beleaguered planet of ours until we get real and embrace our oneness.

Natural burial is fraught with the dainty denial of destiny, wrapped in euphemisms to shield us from beastliness, preferring prettified aesthetics to earthy, elemental ethics. Yes, it’s pretty much useless if you do it that deep! You’ll only get to push up daisies and buttercups if you enjoy a vibrant, rapid aerobic rot in topsoil or, better still, on the surface. In Hamlet’s words, “We fat all creatures else to fat us,” and therein lies our duty to “fat ourselves for maggots.” Yes, it’s about bugs as much as buttercups. Come on, people, let’s get clear-eyed about this! We need body farms, not burial grounds.

If you like the sound of William Hamilton, here’s that quote in full:

I will leave a sum in my last will for my body to be carried to Brazil and to these forests. It will be laid out in a manner secure against the possums and the vultures just as we make our chickens secure; and this great Coprophanaeus beetle will bury me. They will enter, will bury, will live on my flesh; and in the shape of their children and mine, I will escape death. No worm for me nor sordid fly, I will buzz in the dusk like a huge bumble bee. I will be many, buzz even as a swarm of motorbikes, be borne, body by flying body out into the Brazilian wilderness beneath the stars, lofted under those beautiful and un-fused elytra which we will all hold over our backs. So finally I too will shine like a violet ground beetle under a stone.

Thank you, Cynthia, for the link.

Going Out Green

Rupert Callender made this observation of Dan Cruickshank’s The Art of Dying:

I was surprised by how little thought Dan had apparently given the matter. I thought everyone mused endlessly about their own deaths.

I don’t know that they do, Rupert. When, over in the US, Bob Butz was asked by his publisher to write a book about green funerals in three months, this was his response:

“Three months?” I said, incredulous. “That’s some deadline. Har. Har. But seriously, what do I know about planning a green burial? I’m no expert.”

For all his ignorance, Bob is predisposed to a green funeral:

Green burials came to interest me because, frankly, all the traditional ones I’ve seen over the years were a real drag. They left me thinking that there had to be a better way.

He’s a realist:

Although a reviewer once called me a nature writer, I’ve never been accused of being an environmentalist. I do what I can where the planet is concerned ... At this point, I doubt very seriously that “going out green” will come anywhere close to rectifying the environmental mayhem I’ve wrought simply by virtue of being born

Bob embarks on his researches:

Only three weeks into this project and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m cut out for thinking about being buried all the time. For one thing, and I know this is going to come as a shock, it’s depressing.

He tracks down the Natural Burial Company, which is run by a good friend of the Good Funeral Guide, Cynthia Beal, with whom he tangles. He is withering about Ecopods:

...the Ecopod seemed to run contrary to the fundamental tenets of the natural burial movement ... In the words of Jim Nicolow, “shipping a $3000 recycled coffin 5000+ miles to reduce burial’s environmental impact feels a bit like selecting the rapidly-renewable bamboo trim package to reduce the environmental impact of your Hummer.”

Bob digs his own grave—to see what it feels like. He reflects on the way people don’t discuss funerals:

I found this odd given that every other life-defining decision up to that point—getting married, having children, where to school those children—involved long and careful deliberation

He researches home funerals and embalming. He goes to see his father’s grave for the first time in years, to see how it makes him feel. He concludes:

For three months I thought about death more intensely than I think the average person should have to.But in an odd sort of way that was also the best part, too—that maybe in trying to die and be buried green I may now live my life a little bit better, too.

I hope this has whetted your appetite. This is an unpretentious and informative blunder through some of the mysteries of death and dying written by, this is important, an industry outsider. It is serious, funny and highly readable. At £11.25 it is a tad pricey—but heck, you can’t take it with you.

Natural burial – it’s against nature!

Natural burial ticks alot of eco-boxes—but how many emo-boxes? They’re good for butterflies and vetches and voles and honeysuckle—but are they any good for living people? They may satisfy the head, but can they ever satisfy the heart?

Over in the US, Thomas Friese is developing his website, Perpetua’s Garden, as a place where people can debate human and environmental needs in the matter of memorialising their dead and, he hopes, discover solutions which will enable cemeteries of the future to fulfil a satisfactory dual function. I am indebted to Mr Friese for enriching my own thinking about the matter, and for the link to the following story.

Here in the UK, there’s trouble up at t’natural burial ground in Bridport, Dorset. Angry grievers have, according to the local paper, branded it an “overgrown disgrace”. Most of the graves are now covered by a sea of grass and weeds just as nature intended. Mrs Jill Tuck can no longer see her brother’s grave. When she complained to the council (the owner), she was told she was not supposed to be able to see it. Mrs Tuck is having none of that. She and her husband are going to strim the burial ground. In what we may take to be injured tones, the council protests that they’re not supposed to do that, nor should they plant trees “willy-nilly”.

The council has a point, of course. Mrs Tuck seems completely to have missed the point of natural burial. And it’s not as if the council did not spell out what she was signing up for:

The woodland burial area offers a natural form of burial in an area of wood and grassland and is situated at the far eastern end of the Cemetery. The site contributes towards the creation of a sanctuary for wild plants, birds, butterflies and other small wildlife.

Trees, shrubs and hedges have been planted and pathways cut in the field where wild flowers grow. The burial area is managed to create a peaceful area in natural surroundings. Accordingly, a natural environment is being created and developed that is comforting to visitors and future generations.

But was this enough information to enable Mrs Tuck to make a radical decision at a time of great grief? Was she very carefully talked through her decision? Was she brought to an understanding that natural burial means making what is emotionally a very tough choice because it means, literally, losing the plot?

The two hardest things about natural burial: it gives you nowhere to go (no demarcated grave to stand beside) and nothing to do. Sure, yes, it’s not the grave that commemorates the life, it’s the entire site. But here’s the point: is this site a memorial landscape or is it just any old landscape? What makes it a memorial landscape? And can a landscape like this meet the emotional needs of any but a very few?

Mrs Tuck is not alone. Mrs Henley-Coulson buried her husband in the natural burial ground at Bridport. After two years the grave was so overgrown she lost her way—and started tending someone else’s grave by mistake. Did anyone carefully explain to Mrs Henley-Coulson before she committed herself that you don’t tend graves in a natural burial ground; that it’s not the the grave that commemorates the life, it’s...

Mrs Henley-Coulson has planted bluebells, primroses and cowslips. On the wrong grave. As she rightly says, “Someone is going to have a surprise in the spring.”

She goes on to make some good points. She says:

“Your head is all over the place when you lose someone ... Ideally I would like a meeting with the council. I feel they should give leaflets stating what your rights are and what you can expect ... I want to know what rules apply – are we allowed to cut the grass ourselves, are we allowed to plant bulbs? What type of trees will they plant themselves and will the grass disappear when they are established or will it resemble a wildflower meadow? All these things are important. We, and I mean everybody, have just suffered a bereavement and cannot always think logically. In my own case I had to make the decision and on reflection feel it may have been the wrong one.”

Stand at any natural burial ground and watch the visitors. Most have eyes for only one thing: the grave. Everything else is peripheral.

It’s only human nature.

Read the two stories in the Bridport News here and here.

Sky's the limit?

Civilisation drives a wedge between us and nature. We prefer the artificial to the elemental, an iPhone to a sunset. When we hit a problem we look to technology to get us out of a hole. Cremation did that very well - till we discovered just what awfulness comes out of those chimneys. Now we look to research scientists and engineers and people who can do clever things with liquid nitrogen to take us forward once more.

When death happens, though, many of us default to the elemental. Some of us like natural burial. Some of us like funeral pyres. Others like the way the Vikings did it.

I'm not aware of much call for sky burial. But we have some very good uplands in the UK and many hungry raptors. I'd like to think that the Natural Death Centre is on to this, campaigning for it, and I shouldn't be surprised to hear that they are. Hill farmers are finding things very tough at the moment. Here's how they can diversify.

Don't know what sky burial looks like? If you have a detached eye and an unqueasy disposition, make your own assessment. Have a look at the photos here.

Green shoots

Is the Natural Death Centre a national treasure? Undoubtedly.

What is it? It’s a charity which advocates a hands-on approach to preparing for death and arranging a funeral. It publishes The Natural Death Handbook, which is full of practical advice and personal stories. The philosophy of the NDC grew out of that of the natural childbirth movement. The NDC believes that taking control and keeping interventions by strangers to a minimum improves the quality of dying for the dying person and its impact on his or her carers. In the matter of caring for the dead, it believes that taking control is therapeutic.

It has inspired the home funeral and natural burial movement worldwide. That’s something to be proud of.

But because it always had an undertaker-basherly tendency, it was never on the Christmas card list of yer man in the faultless frock coat and glossy topper.

Last summer the NDC suffered an NDE—a near death experience. It ran out of money. Tireless CPR has brought it round.

It’s evolved, and its rationale is detailed by Rupert Callender on behalf of the new board of trustees in the latest Funeral Service Journal. Since this is not a must-read, mass-market, celeb-sprinkled publication, I hope Rupert will not mind me reproducing some of his brilliant and, in places, barnstorming, text here. It is addressed to funeral directors.

The new board consists of a teacher, a psychotherapist, a palliative care nurse, four natural burial ground operators, three of whom are also funeral directors, which moves the NDC from largely theoretical to unashamedly practical.

This does not mean that we will be losing our radical edge or that out ideology has changed; we still believe that the modern funeral had lost its way and needed reinventing, but we are mindful that ... the fault for the irrelevance of funerals for many lies with society at large, not just the industry.

When it was formed in 1991 it was seen by many in the industry as an irritant. The green aspects seemed faddish and the social side meddlesome and patronising. Many thought, and hoped, it was just a flash in the cremator. But the changes it has both initiated and reflected have been profoundly good for the industry not only in how it does things but also in how it is perceived.

It might be fair to say that before 1991 ... the industry and the public spoke different languages ... the public liked to view funeral directors as exploitative and ghoulish ... To many funeral directors, the public were hostile and thankless ... By occupying this no man’s land and by acting as a translator in some respects as well as helping to air and change some of the more genuine grievances, we at the NDC think we have moved things forward and brought some mutual understanding and respect to both sides.

The NDC, says Rupert, is not a green pressure group but a movement for social progress. He examines the impact of the decline of religion on funeral directing, acutely observing: No longer does responsibility change hands at the door of the church or crematorium.

He looks ahead to the future and declares that the NDC will drive innovation and act as the industry’s imagination and conscience.

And he finishes on a conciliatory note: For some of you we will always be the troublemaking lunatic fringe ... We hope you will view us as colleagues, not the enemy within ... together we can create something that works for everybody.

That the NDC can identify so much common ground with funeral directors shows just how much it has achieved. Does all this smack of cosiness? Nah. The radical, visionary edge is back alright.

All shades of green in the green shade

http://www.flickr.com/photos/colabguy/231672852/

Progressive movements in the world of funerals mostly march resolutely forwards into the past. The past is that place where they did things properly, the place we need to return to if we are to reclaim the care of our dead and the rituals of their passing; the place we must to return to if we are to slough off the professionalisation of death and the supremacy (you could call it the dead hand) of the undertaker.

Not that it’s the undertakers’ fault that they became preeminent; that’s the fault of self-disempowered consumers. Let’s be certain of that.

Even for people who want to distance themselves from the care of the corpse, green burial looks like an attractively retrogressive, daisy-pushing option—low carbon, high ethics, no toxins, primal simplicity, rustic loveliness, all nature rejoices, bluebird sings, deer and antelope play, feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole, etc.

It’s not necessarily cheap. Privately owned natural burial grounds do not benefit from subsidies and tax breaks available to local authority owned cemeteries. But green burial makes an attractive offer. Statistics generated for our guidance tell us that over 60 per cent of us would prefer burial to cremation if we could be buried in a nice place. And, as James Leedham of Native Woodland points out, there’s a saving to be made in not having to buy a headstone.

If you’re planning to go green there are things you need to know. Not all these things are nice if you are going to get real and compel ethical necessity to subjugate aesthetic wishfulness. Real green buriers do it for strenuously puritanical and ecological, not sentimental pretty-pretty, reasons.

Many criteria for natural burial are obvious and easy to adhere to—simple coffin made from locally sourced material, no embalming, local flowers unwrapped in cellophane. No problem.

Some criteria present definite difficulties.

First, you can’t have a delineated grave, neither may you, if you want to do it properly, mark the spot. Most natural burial grounds won’t let you. This can be very hard to bear. No, you can’t plant a tree on the grave—it would be too close to the other trees on the other graves, and in any case trees don’t like being planted in disturbed earth. Those natural burial grounds which have relaxed their strictures forbidding memorialisation now fight a losing battle against shrubs, teddy bears, windchimes and all manner of sentimental gewgaws which, in a natural setting, amount to trash. A thoroughgoing natural burial ground looks as if no one is buried there. If you want to overrule the dead person’s wish that you “Do not stand at my grave and weep”, then you will be able to find it using GPS, electronic marker or unobtrusive wooden markers only.

Second, true greens turn their faces against climate warming machinery. This comprises both machinery used to dig graves and maintain the burial ground, and motorcars used to get there. Almost all natural burial grounds require an object-defeating longer car journey than your local authority cemetery, and subsequent visits rack up what natural burial guru Ken West calls ‘grieving road miles’. If you have to visit after the funeral, therefore, you ought to do it on foot or bike. If you can’t, stay away.

Third, probably everyone who uses a natural burial ground fondly supposes that the corpse will decompose in an environmentally agreeable way in a process graphically described by Hamlet:

‘Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table. That's the end.’

It’s a desirable ecological outcome for the body to compost rapidly and push up daisies, fatten maggots and enrich the soil. It’s called aerobic decomposition and it happens only if a body is buried in bug-filled topsoil. Any lower and decomposition is anaerobic; the body simply turns slowly to methane and sludge. It is against the law in the UK to bury a body with less than 2’6” of soil on top (2’ where soils conditions allow). But this law arguably only applies to local authority burial grounds and, in law, there is nothing to stop you from burying a body in a shallow grave or even on the surface, so long as it is covered with at least two feet of earth.

Many natural burial grounds bury at an unaccountable, cold, dark and lifeless six feet. This, more than anything else, makes a nonsense of present-day natural burial and is a typical example of what Dr William ‘Billy’ Campbell of Ramsey Creek, the first US green burial ground, calls ‘green-washing’. So far as I am aware there have been no studies conducted in the UK to determine optimal green burial depth. Billy Campbell has done something I have not heard of anyone doing in this country: he fills in graves with twigs, creating micro-channels to speed decomposition and encourage soil nutrients to rise to the surface rather than be leached into the water table.

When asked why they don’t bury closer to the surface, UK burial grounds tend to rehash what may or may not be a rural myth, namely that foraging foxes and/or burrowing badgers will use the burial ground as a restaurant and charge off with dangling limbs in their jaws. Green grounds also point out that if a corpse is buried close to the surface it stinks out the surrounding area. Well, from another point of view you could regard this as encouraging evidence of merry, useful decomposition. Noxious smells may make you gag but they never harmed anyone’s health. And they abate in a short time.

Billy Campbell confounds (or does he?) the myth of foraging animals:

'Burial is a very ancient and very successful “low tech” solution for the concern that animals would be attracted to bodies. Pioneer cemeteries located in wild areas that contained animals such as grizzly bears were not disturbed. In the last decade at Ramsey Creek, we have seen absolutely no evidence whatsoever that animals are attracted to natural burial sites, despite the presence of dogs, coyotes, and the occasional black bear. Anyone who has ever dug or filled in a grave would be doubtful about such worries. Even relatively shallow natural burials where no casket is used are safe from animal interference.'

Fourth, are natural burial grounds sustainable? Do they have a reuse of graves policy? No, none of them. So, while such burial grounds, by virtue of having bodies in them, ensure the conservation of their sites, they remain in exclusive occupation until Doomsday by far fewer bodies than makes good green, or even common, sense. Vanity of vanities. What’s the solution? It’s difficult. Once a body is skeletised (8-10 years) it’s time to move on. In the middle ages they had charnel houses to put dug up bones in, but they seem unlikely to make a comeback. Would there be any objection to digging up the bones, grinding them and spraying them over the woodland or meadow? Aesthetic objections, possibly—but grinding’s what we do, after all, to bones burnt in a cremator. Legal objections for sure: you’d need an exhumation order to do it. But, let’s get real, it makes good green sense, doesn’t it?

Natural burial grounds have some way to go to become truly green, a truly ethical option, and they shrink from becoming so because they are commercial operations and need to be alluring to the consumer. Billy Campbell’s analysis is this:

'In the U.K., dozens of “green burial grounds” are cropping up, but no clear standard is emerging. Projects differ widely in terms of aesthetics, social utility and ecological functionality. For example, most of the projects in the UK are so small - often less than 5 acres - or are located so haphazardly that they fail to achieve even modest conservation goals beyond that associated with not using excessive resources for burial or introducing toxics into the environment.

Consequently, the public will be confused, and might not recognize the difference between a superficially green (“green-washing”) project and one that makes a significant contribution to conservation and sustainability. The range of possibilities for the conceivable permutations for greener or more sustainable cemeteries is dizzying, and the market barriers for creating superficial projects are lower than that for creating larger and more functional projects. Without some broadly accepted rating system for projects, we can expect greater market fragmentation and a lost opportunity for funding socially and ecologically meaningful open spaces.

Natural burial grounds have a duty to educate the public and stop permitting aesthetic green-washing at the expense of ethical imperatives.

At the same time, the public has a duty to educate itself and stop being so squeamish and sentimentalising in the matter of disposing of its dead.

And, yes, Mr Campbell, it’s high time we had a rating system.