"Pandemic: Care for those who die at home."
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White Eagle Memorial Preserve

Photo: GROUNDED

Goldendale, WA

White Eagle Memorial Preserve

Photo: GROUNDED

Goldendale, WA

FAQs

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Can I be buried green in a non-green cemetery?

Certainly. Green Burial isn’t an all or nothing deal. Think of Green Burial as you do recycling. There are scrupulous recyclers  who bring their recyclables home from vacation if the hotel doesn’t have a recycling program. There are the garden-variety recyclers who sort and recycle when it’s convenient and there’s no fuzz on the #5 plastics. And there are obstinate non-recyclers who think the whole thing is a sham or at least someone else’s problem. You can plan ahead for a Green Burial, get your green coffin lined up, get your funeral director or home funeral guide on board with refrigeration or dry ice, and find your cemetery in the woods. What if it’s really important to your family that you be buried in the family plot in the municipal cemetery with generations of kin? The vault-requiring cemetery. You do the best you can: no embalming, a biodegradable container, and you compromise on the vault by having it installed upside down over your body, which is in contact with the soil. The cemetery gets the soil support needed for their machinery, and your body is in contact with the soil so that you nourish it.

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"To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."

— MARY OLIVER
From “In Blackwater Woods”