Natural BurialThe White Eagle Memorial Preserve is essentially a nature preserve where death nourishes life. Through out history, the burial of human remains has mostly functioned in this way . . . recycling nutrients back to the Earth. The modern cemetery is a different story however, functioning as a way to prevent the human body from returning naturally to the Earth. Isn't this afterlife separation from nature a perfect mirror of our modern world's alienation from Nature which is destroying the planet? Each year America’s 22,500 cemeteries bury approximately: - 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid (mostly formaldehyde) It’s no wonder cremation has become so popular! Once you learn the facts, who wants to be buried in a modern cemetery? Cremation has it’s problems however. Besides being a cold, industrial process done by strangers, cremation requires a fair amount of fuel and pumps a large range of waste products into the environment: vaporized mercury from dental fillings, dioxins which can cause cancer, etc.. In the grand scheme of our individual impacts while living upon the Earth, perhaps all this isn't so much. However . . . it is indeed, our last act. AND . . . with what we now know regarding the emerging global climate crisis, the burial of our bodies become a way of sequestering carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. Our last act can be literally a "carbon offset", a very, very important act of conservation at the forefront of efforts to solve the climate crisis! And finally, a common complaint echoed by those who have cremated their loved ones and scattered their ashes to the wind is that they have no place to go and gather when they feel the need to connect with their departed one. Natural burial at White Eagle is simply the return to what was once standard practice in this country. The goal then and now is the same: allow the body at death to rejoin the elements that gave it birth, to use what remains of a life to regenerate new life. Our burial sites are big and spacious, approximately 20 x 20 ft in size, little, wild, intact ecosystems which one can get get acquainted with while alive and know they will nourish when they pass on. The large size of these sites allows us to find the perfect spot between a rock, a bush, a tree or a stand of native grass or wildflowers to create a grave like Ray's below, lined with a herringbone pattern of sage, an act of beauty we like to do when time allows. We believe that in choosing natural burial one chooses to help end the separation between human and nature. Conserving land through the perpetual endowment of natural burial grounds is an exciting and growing movement to protect and nourish damaged landscapes across North America. The Green Burial Council has taken a leadership role in this movement and we are in the process of being certified through them as a Conservation Burial Ground. Choosing natural burial is a way of saying YES to the transformation of the death care industry and the reclamation of a lost, simple and ancient practice. Returning our bodies to nature after we die honors the Earth, the deceased and the families and friends that love them both.
How we choose to deal with our body upon death is the final choice we make on Earth. We welcome a visit to White Eagle Memorial Preserve to see if this is a choice you would like to make!
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And since we will have no separate sections for various religions as many cemeteries do . . . it is also a way of ending the separation that exists between cultures, races and belief systems which are the root cause of war.
