The season of death

... and my visit to a "green" cemetery

As we follow a meandering path into the woods, yellow leaves twirl around us. Each step crunches the dry carpet underfoot. The air is rich with the smell of moldering earth.

“There are so many pretty places to be buried here,” says our guide.

It’s fall in the Northern Hemisphere, which means that trees are shedding their coats of many colors. They’re not dying, of course—this is their natural response to diminishing daylight. Once we pass the equinox, trees begin their winter preparations.

Even so, this season of shorter days and crisp air has become associated with loss and death. We have All Hallows Eve, known as Samhain (SOW-en) in wiccan circles. Other cultures give us All Saints Day and Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead. It’s a cluster of holidays devoted to souls who have shuffled off this mortal coil. As nights grow longer, the veil grows thin between the worlds of the living and the dead. We build altars to honor our ancestors, make offerings, and listen for messages from beyond.

This time of year, my mind brims with thoughts of death. I don’t mean that in a morbid way. Quite the opposite, actually. Once you learn that loss is the other side of love, it all comes together. The two are intertwined, in a heart shape.

Where will I end up?

My parents married in early November, 85 years ago, just before Dad shipped off to World War II. They’re both long gone now. I remember the day we committed their ashes to the Earth, on their anniversary, at a pine-shaded cemetery in their hometown. They chose the plot when they were way younger than I am now.

So I have begun to ponder where I’d like to be buried. I wasn’t born where my parents were. I have no strong connection to that place. My life started a thousand miles away, at a small country hospital in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the first green cemetery in the United States is only 12 miles from that hospital. That I could choose to “come home” after my death. I could be laid to rest in a burial ground that reflects my love of the Earth, my wish to spend eternity in a setting as natural as possible.

The rituals of burial

Generations ago, people who lived in rural areas buried their dead near home—in the woods, in a pasture, at the family plot under a cluster of trees near the barn. At some point, that shifted to churchyard burials. And eventually, large commercial cemeteries. The funeral industry decreed that bodies must be swiftly removed after death, and placed in sealed containers. Our rituals around death and dying got further and further removed from home, from simplicity, from nature’s way.

The difference between a commercial cemetery and a natural burial ground is remarkable. A green cemetery has no manicured lawns, no sidewalks. The graves are not decorated with plastic flowers and tall headstones. The bodies brought there are not embalmed, not locked in indestructible coffins. Everything is biodegradable.

People who choose this type of burial want to end up in a place where the land is undisturbed, where their mortal remains can sink peacefully into the earth. They want to participate in something that aligns with their values.

Those are precisely the reasons I have come to this place.

‘We are all equal in death’

Our guide today is Kimberley Campbell. She and her husband Billy, a physician, have owned this swath of land for decades. In the early ‘90s, they allowed a few friends to bury loved ones on their wooded property. Eventually, their vision widened. In 1996, they created a business, Memorial Ecosystems, Inc., which officially made their 36 acres a burial ground that would be managed sustainably, ecologically. They named it Ramsey Creek Preserve, to honor the mountain stream that borders the property.

The Campbells knew they needed to make sure the property would remain in its wild state for perpetuity. So in 2006 they partnered with Upstate Forever, a local nonprofit land trust, to place a permanent conservation easement on the property. Ramsey Creek Preserve was then designated by the Green Burial Council as the first Certified Conservation Burial Ground in the U.S.

At Ramsey Creek, graves are scattered throughout the woods. They’re so unobtrusive, it’s easy to miss them as you walk past. The markers are flat, irregularly shaped stones, often chiseled from rocks unearthed on the property. Each burial site is hand-dug, refilled with native soil, and landscaped with plants endemic to this area—ferns, mostly, and Appalachian wildflowers.

“We try to make it look as natural as possible,” Kimberley says.

Over the years, the Campbells have added to the preserve. When they heard that a local one-room country church was slated for demolition, they had it trucked the two miles to their property and set to work renovating it. The white clapboard building, which was built in 1924, holds only 40 people. Since its installation at Ramsey Creek, the sonorous bell in its steeple has called mourners to many a funeral.

(Yes, my memorial service will take place here.)

As interest in conservation burial continued to grow and the number of people buried at Ramsey Creek reached 900, the Campbells bought adjoining property, another 38 acres. As we gaze across a narrow valley toward that section, Kimberley points to the smooth-shouldered hills in the near distance.

“You’d have a lovely view here,” she says. We laugh. I won’t need a view when I’m gone, but … it’s a nice thought.

Kimberley suggests other sites while we walk, and pretty soon I’m overwhelmed by the plethora of choices. She reassures me I can’t really go wrong.

“The whole preserve is a memorial to the people buried here,” she says. Her voice is soft, reverent. “We are all equal in death.”

Kimberley Campbell

Finding the perfect spot

Walking around a cemetery “shopping” for a gravesite is an odd exercise, to be sure. I had expected to feel emotional. Maybe I would cry. Instead, a quiet joy bubbles up in me. As we wander the trails and Kimberley suggests other potential spots, I imagine my children and grandchildren walking these woods, bringing me home to this beautiful place.

“I think it’s soothing to people as they contemplate their death,” Kimberley says. “They can imagine being in this place, with the trees, the birds, the flowers.”

We head down a steep trail toward the creek. I hear rushing water. The woods along the stream are inviting, dotted with mountain laurel and stone benches cloaked in moss. But there aren’t many gravesites available here; most were snapped up years ago. Also, only cremains can be interred next to the stream.

I intend to be buried “whole,” wrapped in a quilt. No coffin, no embalming, no cremation. My body will compost into the earth like a melon rind. So I need to pick another spot, farther from the creek.

We come upon Billy Campbell, who has been helping a family who stopped by to visit their loved one’s grave. Billy, a self-taught naturalist, is elated with something he just discovered in the woods: a fall-blooming wildflower in the mint family. He looks it up on his phone and shows us the listing: “blue curls”—Thrichostema dichotomum.

(The Memorial Ecosystems website contains a beautiful photo gallery of the many flowering plants that grow there, as well as a botanical inventory of the 300+ species of trees, shrubs, and forbs they’ve documented.)

Billy also mentions the preserve’s population of wildlife.

“Bobcat, fox, turkey, bear, deer. You name it, we’ve seen it,” he says.

Farther along the trail, I notice three hardwoods clustered at the edge of a hill. Somehow, they seem to beckon me.

“A trinity of trees,” Kimberley says.

I wade into the clearing and stand beneath a young beech that arches gracefully over the site. I can hear the song of the creek, below. A Carolina wren flits overhead. Something feels right. Very right.

“Here,” I say.

Kimberley nods. She has been through this process so many times, with so many people. She recognizes the moment someone finds their eternal home. Her silence steadies me.

I ask if I can lie down on the ground. My voice sounds shy, but also determined. This is something I decided ahead of time I would want to do.

“Of course,” says Kimberley. “We have a lot of people do that.”

I kneel in the leaves, then turn over and ease onto my back. I spread out my arms and legs—the yoga “corpse” pose. Mother Earth cradles me like a baby. The sun, slanting through the trees, beams its approval. A crimson leaf spirals down into the palm of my hand.

This ground I’m lying on is my native land—if not my ancestors’, my own. These forested hills are where I belong. It’s where I came to be and where I’ll go when it’s time to be carried to my final resting place.

I’ve found the exact spot where this body, at the end of this life, will return to its origin. Lying here doesn’t feel weird or macabre, or even sad.

It feels like home.

Are you maybe interested in conservation burial for yourself? Here is a map of green cemeteries around the U.S.: https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/cemetery-provider-map/ and here is another good resource: https://www.conservationburialalliance.org/.