Natural burial

You've spent so much of your life exploring how we can live more in relationship with the natural world.

But now through what you call the Morris Orchard Natural Burial, you've also We're exploring how we can return things to the earth.

How did that work come about and what does it mean to you?

So interestingly enough, all of these years working with whole system learning, even permaculture in many of the environmental fields, you'll probably notice that the end of life, death and burial are not included.

melded perfectly with my work and my life and then of course it all made sense then of how embracing the end of life and death and then bringing ourselves and our loved ones back into earth in this way is the complete cycle is feeding back into the cycle so there's a couple aspects there's the environmental aspect and then there's the human aspect and i'm going to go together They always go together.

But in this, it really comes together and they really supports this.

And we did this in a natural burial way, natural green burial, interchangeable terms.

And it just felt right.

This is where we're going to be going today.

The topic of natural burial from a Christian perspective.

Her deep interest in the theology of creation has developed over the past 15 years.

She got her PhD in systematic theology from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.

I don't even know what year it was, Kent.

And we surprised each other being there.

And the topic was natural burial.

Outside the church, it's known as green burial.

So let's talk about green burials or natural burials.

And when we spoke to you all about the nuts and the nut orchards, that also ties into the Morris Orchard natural burial.

So I wanted to have you back on to talk about that aspect of what is going on at the Morris Orchard.

Yeah, I've brought it full circle with my love of nuts and the cycles of life, which include our end of life and natural green burial, which are interchangeable terms.

Now that we have a natural burial ground in our nut orchard, we have this full circle, this full life going through and actually supporting the nut trees by doing burials there.

So it's A lot of times people are looking at, well, at least how can I neutralize my death or the process thereafter? But here you could actually feed back into the ecosystem because the animals right now, here and we're in October, they are just coming from miles around to our orchard, which is, I should explain, a 65-year-old Chinese chestnut orchard, 10 acres.

It's 10 acres of 65-year-old Chinese chestnut trees on 40-foot centers.

And that's our nonprofit focused on helping plant one million nut trees in the Mid-Atlantic.

But, you know, composting is maybe more descriptive for it.

But yeah, then there's the idea of, yeah, like the gardens are the natural burial sites where you have to be buried specifically.

So you decompose naturally.

Yeah, yeah.

This is Sarah Barry.

Sarah's lining an environmentally friendly coffin to prepare it for the body of a deceased person who'll be laid to rest in a natural burial ground.

This is one of the more environmentally friendly options for burial.

The body is placed within a non-toxic and biodegradable coffin or shroud, which is then covered with the original soil to allow for natural decomposition.

And because this is going in the natural burial ground, there's no plastic, so we're lining it with calico instead.

Wow.

I mean, I get, I get why the regulation is there, to contain any fluids that may leak out, but most of the time people's bodies are just fine, and yeah.

And editorial support from Farza Draki.

Okay.

We got requests for green burials.

Green burials? Yeah.

How do you define that? Okay, so it's not being buried in a vault.

It's not being embalmed.

And so we decided to look into it.

And this is just before COVID or right around COVID time that...

We met up with a woman in the New Hampshire Funerals and Education kind of resources who promotes green burials around the state and asked her for her presentation.