Grave Matters - A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial

The headstone that stands at the north end of Fountain Hill Cemetery doesn’t tell you much about John Simsack’s brief sojourn upon this earth: Born: 1849 Died: Jan. 11, 1905 Aged: 5...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2015/03/no-grave-marker-endures.html

Decades ago, cremation was the odd exit strategy for Americans heading to the Great Hereafter. Today, it’s fairly common. By the end of 2015, it will be more common than not. That’...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2015/02/us-cremation-nation-maybe-not.html

When I first began investigating the emerging green burial movement back in the early 2000s, you could just about survey this country's natural cemetery landscape in a single sweep. There was...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-many-us-natural-cemeteries-are-there.html

On a bright, sultry morning a few weeks ago, my family hiked up the small, blueberry-topped mountain that lies a few miles from the summer home my in-laws own in the wilds of New Hampshire. ...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2012/09/going-back-to-blueberry-mountain.html

Nature's Sanctuary is a one-acre natural cemetery that sits at the northwest edge of Philadelphia, a stone's throw from a long stretch of the Schuylkill River before it snakes into the urban g...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2010/09/green-burials-take-deep-root-in.html

Jane Hillhouse had no idea that the bamboo casket she shipped to a Connecticut family a couple of weeks ago would be used to bury the British actress Lynn Redgrave . "A woman e-mailed me to a...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2010/05/actress-lynn-redgrave-laid-to-rest-in.html

Nearly a hundred bodies lie buried at Usk Castle Chase , a natural cemetery an hour northeast of Cardiff, Wales. But visitors who trek these fourteen acres of rolling pasture might never know...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2010/04/going-all-natural-in-wales.html

The 100-acre burial ground that is the Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve is mostly meadow now. A variety of grasses and wildflowers overspread the rolling hillsides just outside Ithaca,...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2010/03/greensprings-back-to-future-in-2100.html

I returned to the Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve recently and found it looking just as bucolic and inviting as I had remembered. The hillside overlook offered the same breathtaking v...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2010/02/greensprings-natural-cemetery-three.html

October of 2009 is shaping up to be the month that may very well prove, once and for all, that green burial is not only here to stay but coming, sooner than later, to a Main Street Funeral Home...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/09/green-burial-coming-out-big-in-october.html

I have spoken to enough eco-leaning funeral directors since the publication of Grave Matters to see first-hand that the same greening that's washing over most industries in this country, from ...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/06/pennsylvania-valley-gets-its-first.html

From USA Today, more proof of eco burial's growing purchase on the American consciousness: nearly 65% of green-leaning adults say that they are considering or would consider a natural return, wer...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/04/writing-out-green-burialhome-funerals.html

Note to family: If it looks like I'll be taking my last breaths in the clinical environs of the local hospital, please, take me home. Like most people, I'd rather pass from the scene within the...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/03/diy-green-burial-step-2-learn-hospitals.html

Like the vast majority of green burial enthusiasts, I'm fortunate to live in a state where families may legally care for their own dead. Pennsylvania, as I wrote in last week's blog , is one ...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/02/diy-in-states-that-require-use-of.html

They may wail and rent their garments. They might toast their good fortune with my best Scotch. No matter how my family marks my passing from the scene, however, this much is clear: they have eve...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/01/step-1-in-green-funeral-planning.html

In the coming weeks I'll return to the topic I started but flagged on early last year: a step-by-step plan for my own eventual green burial. Planning in advance for a standard sendoff via the l...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/01/emily-dickenson-speaks-of-death-from.html

WATCH MORE GOOGLE VIDEO VIDEOS ON AOL VIDEO As the green burial movement gathers steam, organizations have approached me to ask if I speak to groups about natural return. If so, they've wante...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2009/01/green-burial-visual-tour.html

The fight for a green goodnight in Macon, Georgia, continues. You may remember my blog entry from earlier this year, in which I reported on the efforts of Jim Wood and Beth Collins to site a...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/12/open-letter-in-favor-of-green-burial-in.html

Grave Matters may not exactly be a holiday read -- well, maybe it is to the readers of this blog -- but on Tuesday, almost two weeks from Christmas Day, Scribner released an updated, paperback ...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/12/grave-matters-new-updated-and-cheaper.html

When the door to the cremation unit retracted and I looked into the still-radiating hearth, what I noticed first was not the low-spreading mound of bones. It was the metal hip joint that caug...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/12/metal-implants-find-second-life-via.html

When I first ventured into the green burial underground more than half a decade ago, I had to travel far afield from my home in eastern Pennsylvania to gather the material that would become Gra...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/11/youve-got-green-burial-friend-in.html

It could be that funeral directors averse to green burial decided to sleep in on the morning that Joe Sehee , Darren Crouch and I hosted a panel on green burial at the annual convention of the...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/10/funeral-directors-conference-gets.html

Last week's first-ever green burial conference, in Boulder, Colorado, brought together the broad, eclectic mix of adherents that continue to bear out my long-standing belief that natural burial...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-green-burial-conference-lively.html

There's still time to register for the first-ever green burial conference, in Boulder, Colorado. The date is this Saturday, October 4. Organized and hosted by Natural Transitions , a home fun...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-green-burial-conference-more-on.html

In a previous blog about eco-friendly funeral directors , "T" posts a question I suspect a number of funeral directors have been asking themselves as they look to cater to the growing green bur...

http://grave-matters.blogspot.com/2008/09/funeral-directors-serving-both-green.html