Forest of Memories

By Clare Paterson, It’s your funeral (blog)

Very few people make plans for their own funerals despite most of them thinking it would be a good idea, according to recently published research. My grandmother pre-paid her funeral as a matter of course. She knew what she’d be getting, that it would be paid for and that it would be done according to her wishes. Today that’s not the fashion although curiously there is now a massive consumer market and a baffling array of choices not available in her day. Some people do want to choose for themselves rather than leaving a myriad decisions about cremation, burial, rockets, urns, natural burial grounds, church, chipboard, wood and the rest to the bereaved.

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A new book discusses natural burial options
By Mary Landers, Savannah Morning News

Savannah’s Colonial Park Cemetery is the perfect place to talk about green burials. After all, none of those laid to rest there was embalmed with toxic chemicals or encased in concrete or entombed in metal coffins.

They were left to return to the earth quickly, much as their ancestors had been, much as more Americans are wanting to be, says Mark Harris, author of “Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial.”

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By Michele Chandler, San Jose Mercury News

Bay Area shoppers interested in patronizing environmentally-friendly businesses will soon be able to refer to a new consumer guide that lists 1,400 “green” companies, from rental car firms offering hybrid vehicles to eateries serving organic food.

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By Lisa Carlson, Burlington Free Press

As the author of “I Died Laughing: Funeral Education with a Light Touch,” I enjoy funeral humor — it’s a great way to break the ice for a sometimes difficult discussion. (Don’t knock on death’s door. Ring the bell and run. He hates that).

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Green development intends to offer 965 residences in 300 acres

By David Collins, The New Mexican

Plans for the area’s most ambitious green-building development moved a step closer to fruition Thursday when the County Development Review Committee recommended approval of the master plan for the Village at Galisteo Basin Preserve.

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Learn about more eco-friendly, meaningful, less expensive and natural alternatives to a traditional graveyard burial.

By Everett Sizemore, Gaiam Community

This article is not suggesting that anyone be forced to bury friends and family any certain way. It merely discusses another option that some might find more appealing than a traditional Western burial. Death is a very personal topic, and the ultimate decision is for you, your family or loved ones to make. Green burials and ‘tree burials’ are options you might consider for the following reasons:

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By Jonathan, Move Blog

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Instead of the friendly union, of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the archenemy of life.

But let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.

-John Muir from A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

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Michael d’Estries - ecorazzi

While Anna Nicole Smith took the traditional road of embalming and a hardwood casket, Rachel McAdams is saying no to the glamour and expense of modern burial and opting to go green. (more…)

By Paul Comstock, California Literary Review

So not only do we have to worry about the effects of our daily activities on the environment, but according to your book we should also be thinking about the damage we inflict after our death. Walk us through the traditional funeral and burial process, and the ecological harm it causes.

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By Caroline McClatchey, Sunday Telegraph

More than 30,000 funerals in Britain last year were nonreligious, as families turn increasingly to “celebration-of-life” ceremonies rather than church services, according to new figures.

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