Critique of “green burial standards”
December 16, 2009
The Green Burial Council has set itself up as a watchdog to ensure that burial becomes “more sustainable, economically viable, and meaningful” in North America. We applaud such an effort - our Mother Earth can only benefit from any help. And burial is no insignificant environmental factor when the earth’s massive population and consequent burial needs are considered.
We reviewed their environmental standards for burials and find them excellent … as far as environmental factors are concerned. However, as a new initiative, we should not expect its aims or ideas to be perfect from Day 1. In fact, we find that in certain aspects green burial favors environmental aspects at the expense of human ones. Following their standards will certainly make burial “more sustainable and economically viable” as they hope - but not necessarily more meaningful for human beings.
Burial - human needs vs environmental ones
Human meaning is not at all irrelevent, for burial and death rituals have been a cultural and spiritual cornerstone of humanity, perhaps the most important, ever since Man understood that he was mortal. The environmental factor in burial on the other hand is a modern phenomena - starting with Napoleon’s removal of the Parisian cemeteries to the catacombs under the city. We should remember this relation - for if we disregard what has always been of importance to humanity exclusively to benefit a temporary (albeit acute) environmental factor, we do so at our own cultural, psychological and spiritual risk.
Now I am not suggesting the Green Burial Council excludes the human factor altogether. They certainly understand that a conflict between man and environment, nature and culture is natural and unavoidable. And that nothing is black and white, that compromises are inescapable - one simply cannot have it all. But in their compromise between nature and culture, the Green Burial Council has clearly chosen to err on the side of the environment. That is their perogative - but it necessarily entails compromises for humanity, for the cultural and spiritual aspects of burial.
In fact, the environmental factors in a burial are far easier to understand and change than the cultural and spiritual ones - we must return to what mankind did until very recently. (In fact, even that is no longer so simple - today’s population size does complicate matters. But the green burial movement as a whole does not address this more global issue - see Green Burial’s Shortcomings ).
The shortcomings in human terms of modern burial practices take more creativity and sensitivity to overcome: creating attractive, meaningful new ways of memorializing; discovering new mechanisms to guarantee grave perpetuity in an overpopulated and ever-changing world; finding acceptable new aesthetics to replace the gloomy old Victorian one we have inherited.
Freedom of expression in memorials
Returning to the Green Burial Council’s Standards, we find nothing specific to take issue with at the lower two levels, which essentially aim to eliminate ground pollutants (concrete, formaldehyde, pesticides etc) and conserve energy. It is at the third level of standards (the second-most stringent) that we cannot agree with them - at this point the nature/culture conflict emerges in the question of memorialization, an archetypal human need with no possible environmental benefits.
Here we see that a “natural burial ground” must:
- “Develop a plan for limiting the types, sizes, and visibility of memorial markers/features to preserve or restore naturalistic vistas in the cemetery landscape and (where appropriate) to landmarks outside its borders.”
- “Develop a plan for dealing with unauthorized grave decoration and landscaping.”
Certainly enduring monuments and personal grave decorations will interfere with the natural aesthetics of a site - but should we be limiting the last freedom of expression left to human beings, the one that will represent them long after all other reminders of their existence have melted away? I can’t accept this personally and I suspect that a majority of society will feel the same way, if they reflect on it. This will self-limit the popularity of green burial.
In regard to freedom of expression in memorials, I believe the Perpetua’s Garden concept offers a far better compromise between nature’s needs and humanity’s.
Grave perpetuity
In the past, the perpetuity of a grave site, the eternal “Rest-in-Peace”, was considered a sacred right, perhaps the most important consideration of all in a grave. That has long since disappeared in the modern world, with whole cemeteries turned into parking lots, golf courses and shopping centers. And unless a radical new solution is found (Perpetua’s Garden?), the future can only be even darker in this respect.
But instead of addressing this grave cultural deficiency, the Green Burial Council first addresses perpetuity in their last (and least accessible) level, the “conservation burial ground”. Here their highest goal becomes transparent - the perpetual protection of the land, not the grave sites:
- Conservation Burial Grounds, in addition to meeting all the requirements for a Natural Burial Ground, must further legitimate land conservation
- A Conservation Burial Ground must protect in perpetuity an area of land specifically and exclusively designated for conservation.
- A conservation burial ground must involve an established conservation organization that holds a conservation easement or has in place a deed restriction guaranteeing long-term stewardship.
Perpetuity is nowhere expressed as a benefit to humanity and the dead who can rest in perpetuity, but only in terms of the perpetual stewardship of the land. And the perpetual stewardship of the land does not necessarily imply the perpetuity of the grave sites - indeed, there is no mention anywhere of the perpetuity of the individual graves. According to their phraseology, it is only the “land-as-nature” that will be conserved, not the “land-as-cemetery” and not the individual graves. One wonders if this last point has even been thought of…? Or does the Green Burial Council anticipate grave recycling in the European model? This would be a very bad compromise - but we don’t know, this question is not mentioned on their site.
Conclusion
We agree that the elimination of ground pollutants and the conservation of energy in burials are important goals and we wish the Green Burial all the success in the world here. And though we are skeptical about the long-term effectivness of it, we also love the idea that nature can be conserved because our bodies protect it from redevelopment. But if the human questions of memorials and grave perpetuity are not better addressed, then we suggest the Green Burial Council stick simply to their pollution-reduction goals and let others address the human questions.
Denying death in green burials?
December 10, 2009
I am unconvinced that green burial as currently conceived necessarily represents a healthier integration of death as a part of life - for some of its fans, it may be yet another subtle form of death denial. Moreover, although it claims to have an environmental motivation, it may also hide unresolved spiritual issues - that is, it as much a soul issue as a body one.
None of this means I don’t believe in green burials - on the contrary, some form of green burial is the way of the future - but at this point they need to be better understood in order to improve them.
Regarding the death denial possibility.
For many green burial may yet be another subconscious attempt to deny or exclude death by making it invisible, in this case by trying to hide death within nature, rather than visibly integrating it into nature’s cycles. Let me explain….
Yesterday I watched this Youtube video on green cemeteries. A man walking his dog through Forever Fernwood cemetery in California was interviewed (view from min 07:16).
He liked this green cemetery because it was a pleasant green space rather than a morbid traditional cemetery - a nice place for a stroll, to walk the dog in or relax on a bench in the sun. This is understandable - and I want the same …. Why not walk your dog in a green cemetery? But a green cemetery should aim to be something more than just a pretty place to walk your dog.
When the park has people buried in it, then it should manifest this function visibly and consciously. In this particular “cemetery”, at least in its green burial section, there are no visible signs of the dead who are buried there. This makes it feels like a park - but nothing more, only a park. It is no longer a cemetery but a park whose link with death is nothing more than its use as a space for environmentally-friendly body disposal. It has lost all connection with the personal and cultural memorial function of a cemetery.
All the above holds true for all forest, woodland, or conservation cemeteries where the visibility of the dead resting there is eliminated. As I have said elsewhere, this will result in beautiful but anonymous forests, not green cemeteries.
Green burial - also a soul issue, not just a body one
No - this reveals a soul issue. Death has been subconsciously denied in these cases, excluded, not integrated. That no visible signs are allowed is not accidental, however subconsciously motivated - this is a new disguise for the old “Let’s try to live as if there was no tomorrow and no death, no end to reckon with.” A literal attempt to push death “out of sight, and out of mind”.
On the contrary, a healthy and fearless psychological integration would consciously and deliberately include visible signs of the dead resting there. Death might be scary, but it is not a sickness; it is normal reality and handled properly, it can be enormously therapeutic for living.
Let me be clear. I fully empathize with the contemporary repulsion for traditional cemeteries, which for most contemporary people are gloomy, pessimistic places full of meaningless, pretentious and overpriced symbols. They speak neither to my sense of beauty, my private beliefs in life and after-life, or my connection with nature and natural cycles. I also want little to do with them.
But I do not want to deny death - on the contrary! Nothing is unhealthier for the soul, the psyche. Death must be, therefore we must integrate it into our life. But it does not have to have the negative association our traditional cemeteries arouse in us moderns. No - I want to find a way to deliberately and visibly integrate death with life in a positive relationship. Like many who embrace green burial, I love the idea of being buried in nature, be it a natural park or a forest. I love the idea that people will have picnics over my grave, play with their children, pick flowers or mushrooms, make secret love in the dark.
But in doing this, they should be given material to reflect that this is where I and many others lie, many others also who played and loved and picked flowers like them - but who have now moved on … as they will. This - and not denial - is healthy and brave. A cemetery should be a momenti mori, a reminder, not a denial of death.
Done with positive meaning and a timeless nature-oriented aesthetic, the bitter-sweet contrast between life and death could add greatly to our appreciation of life, to enjoying what we have while we have it.
Unfortunately what I describe here is NO LONGER in the spirit of traditional cemeteries. But it is also NOT in the subconscious spirit of denial apparent in much current green burial thought. This is why I am developing the Perpetua’s Garden concept: perpetual and green cemeteries, where time and human death are not denied but integrated with nature and life, symbolic and hopeful places where life and death meet and make friends.
“Purification” of human remains
December 3, 2009
From Charles Cowling’s excellent blog The Good Funeral Guide I copy a few lines from his last article entitled “Haunting Presence“.
“The beauty of burial is that it results in the permanent relocation of the complete body. You think it’s all over as the soil rattles down on the coffin. It is. Your hands are now empty.
Not so with cremation. You get a version of the body back.”
Actually Charles, this distinction in terms of final disposition between burial and cremation is not always as clear as you make it, certainly not in many aboriginal cultures and not even in all western ones.
This year, on the 3rd anniversary of the death of my Greek wife’s grandmother, my mother-in-law needs to go back to the tomb of her mother to clean out and reinstall the bones back into the grave. This is traditional in Greece. And it doesn’t merely serve practical purposes such as compacting the remains for the next family burial etc. It has a religious meaning I’ve yet to discover.
In many traditional aboriginal cultures, similar practices are common. There are two phases, corresponding to your “cremated remains dilemma”: the purification of the remains by decomposition or other destruction of the fleshy “earthly” parts; then the installation of the cleaned remains in a permanent place of rest. Until their purification, the remains are potentially dangerous to the living, spiritually speaking - although as a pure materialist one could speculate about hygienic concerns being the basis of the spiritual practices. Once purified, the remains become harmless to the living, indeed they become sacred, since they create a symbolic connection with the dead and the afterworld. They form the basis of the ancestor cult.
What is especially relevent here: in some of these cultures, cremation is used for the first purification phase. The cremated remains are then ritually placed in their final home. As something no longer fearful but rather sacred, they can even rest in or near the home.
Essentially your observation in this article points to the enormous need of our secularized society to apply themselves to these death-matters a little more deeply and less tritely. Other cultures understood better the “remains dilemma”, and they figured out psychological/spiritual solutions. Perhaps our own culture, confused and insensitive to these matters, could learn something from them. For example that the final home of cremated remains is an important issue and taking the path of least psychological resistance may not work. (I think in particular of scattering, which I personally object to.)