Bury Me in Burlap

~ This article first appeared in the Leader Vindicator newspaper. ~

Fundamentally, I don’t care what happens to my carcass after I die.  Once I’m dead, it really doesn’t matter, does it?

That doesn’t stop me from thinking, during moments of deep introspection, about the fate of this assembly of skin and bone once my spirit departs.  Frankly, the options on offer aren’t too appealing: On one hand, my worldly body will, at considerable cost, be drained, disemboweled, decorated, and essentially turned into plastic before being placed in a padded coffin, sealed in a subterranean concrete vault and marked with an expensive piece of rock.  Only slightly more appealing is the alternative, being stuck in an oven and incinerated like Aunt Betty’s infamous chocolate chip cookies. 

One cannot be a student of the subject of death for long without realizing that it is death that creates new life, which is itself something to be celebrated.  People, to my knowledge, are the only species on Earth that isolate the two halves and fail to participate in the cycle.

Nature automatically converts death and decay into air-purifying vegetation, fruits, vegetables, herbs, beautiful flowers, and towering trees.  This death / re-growth pattern takes place in healthy ecosystems.  Environments featuring abundant death and decay are more lively (deemed “non-brittle environments” by Allan Savory); those with less death and decay are more barren (deemed “brittle environments” by the same man).  Brittle environments like deserts can become lush by stimulating the decay cycle.  Conversely, non-brittle environments can become deserts by suspending the decay cycle.  Humanity’s habits are trending the earth towards a brittle environment.

A strong argument can be made that even in death people mustn’t be compartmentalized and maintained separately from natural cycles.  We collectively represent a large mass of organic matter that contains minerals, vitamins, and other nourishment we’ve accumulated and retained throughout life.  When we’re dead, we don’t need the physical ingredients anymore, but other living organisms do.  As a result, natural burial grounds are becoming more numerous in order to fulfill rising demand for environmentally friendly funerals. 

Rather than being chemically preserved, the dead are treated with herbal mixtures that will fully decompose.  Burial clothing, too, is selected from material of organic origin so that it will return to the soil after microbes have worked their magic.  Even coffins are simple wooden boxes that will most certainly disappear with time.  The graveside effect for mourners is permanence in the form of new life, instead of permanence in the form of attempted preservation.

Natural burial grounds are maintained in a wild state with paths for the living to walk and reflect on the life all around them.  I was surprised to discover a natural burial property not far outside Pittsburgh; in this case, the landowners are using funeral rituals to reforest the landscape they love.  Grave markers are either simple wooden creations or small engraved rocks collected from the property.  The result is a lush forest environment that’s unencumbered by frivolous decorations.

Now, here is where I get excited: Farmers, too, are discovering a new source of income from the trend, converting unproductive or hard-to-access pieces of property into green parks to bury the dead.  In addition to adding revenue for the family, incorporating a burial ground can provide employment opportunities for children who want to stay involved with the business instead of leaving to find employment.

Some of the burial grounds aren’t removed from agricultural production.  Folks possessing a strong love for working farms prefer their burial spot to become a part of the farm operation.  Orchardists will mark graves with a fruit tree.  Over time, the collection of burial sites becomes a functioning orchard, and customers come to the farm to buy pears, apples, plums, etc.  In other cases, deceased are buried directly into grasslands that serve as pastures for meat and dairy animals.  Pasture graves aren’t physically marked; a simple bench is placed strategically to overlook the meadow so visitors can sit and relax with a view that feeds eye and spirit.

My first reaction to the marriage of funerals and farmland was unease.  Should the two be connected, or are we crossing some kind of boundary here?

I’ve decided the connection is vital.  This idea of planting loved ones on a farm is an extension of the local food movement, the solemn counterbalance to a lifetime of happy trips to the farmers’ market for tasty raspberries, cukes, and tomatoes.

Society has long treated cemeteries as sacred ground, yet the dead residing there require nothing from the land and the living take nothing from it either.  Farms are not considered sacred, or even important beyond a novelty for a small portion of the population, yet they are the plots from which the living stay alive.  Here is an opportunity to create sacred farms – by layering life and death together as a reminder that we are indeed much more connected to what we eat than anyone likes to believe.  Perhaps a closed-loop community will inspire great care for the land and, subsequently, great food, too.

I find this idea of a peaceful return to be much more comforting than the current tradition of birth, death, and separation from the world. When I go, bury me in burlap and make darn sure there’s a cow or two nearby.