Resources and Information Supporting Green Burial in North America
By Robbie Byrd, THE HUNTSVILLE ITEM
OAKHURST, TEXAS— She had been battling cancer for nearly two years now, and finally she drew her last breath surrounded by friends and family. They took her frail body — wrapped in a warm down comforter — and lined her grave with Spanish moss, just as she had asked them to. They placed her on a plywood plank and, with ropes, mourners slowly lowered her into a hole on one of the many wildlife preservation sites she had dedicated her final years to protecting.
Shannon Beahen, Ottawa Xpress
How we die says a lot about how we live
This issue is our first Art of Living special and for it we’ve chosen stories that look at some unique or artful ways some of us choose to live: It may be where we skateboard, where we meet others of the same ideology, or where we drink coffee and wait for genius inspiration to strike. And though the photograph on the cover seems contrary to the theme of the special, it’s not; the way we choose to say goodbye is often reflective of how we’ve chosen to live. (Matt Harrison)
Eco-friendly burials eschew headstones, embalming and pricey caskets made from exotic imported wood
By Nancy J. White, Toronto Star
Imagine a gently sloping hill covered with fallen leaves, green ferns and bright wildflowers, the branches of sturdy oaks and maples arching overhead. Birds chirp in the trees. Squirrels and chipmunks scamper on the ground.
Now imagine yourself buried underneath.
Green-burial movement gets more ambitious
By Gregory Dicum, Grist
“I’d prefer to be put in the ground, under a tree,” says Joe Sehee, contemplating his inevitable demise. “But I don’t want to go in the ground with anything, I just want to be buried in a simple pine box or shroud, and that’s it.”
If Sehee has given his preferences a lot of thought lately, it’s not that he’s planning to shuffle off this mortal coil any more imminently than the rest of us — it’s just that, as executive director of the Green Burial Council, it’s his job.
In search of an earth-friendly burial
By Linda Falkenstein, The Isthmus Daily
You’d expect any place called the Gardens of Eternal Peace Mausoleum to be peaceful. Maybe too peaceful. In the central area of the Y-shaped building, rows of chairs face a large modernist mural of angular praying people. A soft symphonic version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” wafts from invisible speakers. Lining the walls are white marble squares with discreet brass lettering. Behind the marble squares, of course, lie the bodies of the dead.
Reclaiming the realities and rituals of death
By Nancy Rommelmann, LA Times Cover Story
For centuries in America, we tended to our dead. People died at home, and relatives prepared the body, laid it out in the parlor and sat by as callers paid final respects. The body was buried in the family cemetery, if there was one, or on the back 40; pieties were spoken, and life went on until the next person died. Death, if not a welcome visitor, was a familiar one. This changed, incrementally, during the Civil War, when others were paid to undertake the job of transporting the bodies of soldiers killed far from home; this is when formaldehyde as an embalming agent was first used. But it was only 100 years ago that we began routinely to hand over our dead to the undertakers. Soon the gravely ill as well were deemed too taxing, and moved to hospitals to die. Within decades, what had for millennia been familial responsibilities were appropriated by professionals.