Making all the decisions involved with funeral planning can be an overwhelming task, even under the best circumstances. So many factors can influence the choices the planners must make, such as family and faith traditions, social pressures, the desire to have it personalized, taste and aesthetic decisions, and of course the costs. As with any large purchase, many of us also consider the environmental footprint and the ethics of where the money will end up.
But funeral planning isn’t just a milestone of family finances, it can be an emotional time that prepares us for life’s ultimate rite of passage. Anticipated or fresh grief can influence the decision making in unexpected ways. It can be impossible to narrow down the deciding factors to just one guiding principle, even when we all agree we want it to be appropriate and come together easily.
Natural burial offers a transformative funeral experience that answers many of the important criteria we must choose from. Not everyone will base their end-of-life decisions on climate change, but not everyone wants to base them on price, either, and these simple funerals can be a rich middle ground where services and rituals are meaningful and accessible, no matter what your background or faith.
Ritual plays an important role in moving our community through the transition of bereavement, when words alone can’t measure up to the gravity of the loss. Good funerals capture the essence of the honoree and engage the guests to feel part of something bigger than themselves. That experience of gathering in community affirms our connection with each other and with the ideals that bind us together. Adhering to traditions is a way to access the collective wisdom of generations before, at a time when it would otherwise seem impossible to know what to do.
Eco-friendly death options, with natural burial as the best example, can help reverse our culture’s trend of doing nothing when a loved one has died. Natural burial puts the ritual of interment at the center of attention in our response to death. Pallbearing, hand lowering, and moving earth by handful or shovelful can create unforgettable opportunities for loved ones to interact with the process of saying goodbye to the body.
Natural burial may sound like some new trends you have heard about, but it’s also ancestral wisdom. Since the dawn of humanity, most people have relied on earth burial as the basic response to one of us dying. Funeral traditions and beliefs were developed around this simple act of returning our bodies to the earth. Throughout history, ground burial has provided a safe and practical form of disposition, and it continues to have a unique ability to inspire and teach us today.
Themes of returning to nature’s cycles help us feel connected to something bigger than the individual. Seeing the site where regrowth will occur can remind us that death is a natural part of life. These concepts offer mourners a framework for understanding their loss that seems to be applicable in many faiths and cultures. So many of the recent attendees at services in the Preserve are of the age where they have been to many conventional funerals and modern celebrations of life, and it is profound to see them moved by the intimacy of this more organic experience. Most of them use the word “meaningful” when they say they didn’t know this was possible, then thank me.
As an environmentalist, I am proud to reduce the impact of ground burial funerals with the measures we take in the Preserve. The native plant restoration mission in the Burial Preserve will sequester carbon from the atmosphere for generations to come. But the strongest argument for green burial is as timeless as it is timely: experiencing a funeral that represents a return to earth is a transformative rite of passage. The ancient lessons of natural deathcare have always helped families through difficult times, and they will always be sustainable and kind to the earth.
