THE MUSHROOM BURIAL SHROUD that covered Luke Perry’s face and famous forehead was black as night, or perhaps it was white as bone, made of organic cotton, and inlaid with white crochet tubes that resembled lightning and pointed from the shoulders, hips, feet, and hands toward his heart, which was still in his chest. Each tube contained mushroom spores that had been trained to eat his flesh. He was to be consumed, in the shallow grave of his choosing, and return to the quiet embrace of the earth at his farm in Tennessee, dead of a stroke at fifty-two.

I can’t say how Luke Perry looked before he was buried because I wasn’t invited to watch. The ceremony was a private affair for his family and closest friends, and I am neither. But I have heard descriptions of him emerging from the hearse, his face covered by the shroud, his hands gloved and crossed over his chest. And I have imagined what happened from there. The ground would close around him, sealing out light, then sound. His consumption would begin with erasure. It must have appeared like seeing him first through a fogged shower door, then tissue paper, those soft eyes now blankly open to the earth. Fungal growth tips, called hyphae (the Greek word for “web”), would emerge, following the lightning pattern inward toward his heart. The fungi would then expand outward and entangle with plant roots in an exchange of nutrients as old as life on the dry parts of the planet. The poisons inside his body would be neutralized by the fungi and Luke Perry would travel through mycelium to roots in a sprawling, if poorly understood, exchange that underwrites life. The edges of him would become blurry, then meaningless, as mushrooms reorganized his body toward life again. Then he’d push back into the sunlight of his farm, where he was happiest, maybe as a leaf or an insect, soil or bird, snake or rabbit. In practically no time, he would be gone and yet everywhere. Joined. Connected. Safe.

 

WE ALL KNEW Luke Perry from his breakout role on Beverly Hills, 90210, a teen drama from the 1990s. For years, his image was inescapable, sleeveless, hair coiffed into the second coming of James Dean. The lines of his forehead added with the thinnest paintbrush imaginable. He played Dylan McKay, the brooding, broken loner who exuded the kind of self-possession that is only ever won through tragedy, the kind that always leaves a mark. He of the white T-shirts and the too cool had eyes that shocked us with their softness, and a recklessness that made us worry for him. He wore vulnerability like an open secret. He taught a generation how to smolder.

The first episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is pretty standard fish-out-of-water stuff. But episode two introduces a bit of restrained menace in Dylan McKay, who debuts from a dark corner, coiffed and leather-jacketed, to intimidate a pair of bullies. “Your friend’s pretty cool,” remarks Brandon, the show’s protagonist, and he was right. Luke Perry played Dylan as cool and self-possessed, which he somehow conveyed despite having auditioned for several hundred roles before landing his breakout.

The rest of the world was not quite as restrained in its response. The show’s viewers went berserk in a frenzy of crushes and emulation. Everywhere wanted to be Beverly Hills and everyone either wanted to be with Dylan McKay or to be like him. There is a famous story about Luke Perry’s stardom when it was peaking in the early 1990s. He was doing a public appearance for 90210 at a mall in Seattle when a crowd of young girls had become so rabid that they started to riot. People got hurt. It was as if the mass had become an organism unto itself, spreading out in all directions and at whatever cost to consume Luke Perry.

 

 

He had to be smuggled out buried in a laundry hamper. It was his last public appearance for the show. He knew he was an object of desire, but in an interview with Rolling Stone at the time, it seems like it rattled him. In subsequent interviews he started to talk more about 90210 as a way to get parents and kids to confront the difficult business of growing up in a world where guns and pregnancy scares, AIDS and social justice find their way into the enclaves of privilege.

He learned how to keep the great want of the world away by closing off access to his physicality, his actual body. He raised his kids, Sophie and Jack, to be respectful and work hard, and he drove them around in a minivan. He bought the farm property in Tennessee (he came from Ohio farming stock) and gave out food and clothing during a flood in 2010. He worked to see and honor the humanity in all the folks around him, to separate the individual back out of the mass. He befriended a woman experiencing homelessness who lived near him in Los Angeles and let her use his shower. Everyone said he had a big heart and a strong desire to leave the world a better place. Many of the obituaries written about him say he cared about Earth, but I couldn’t find many specifics. Anonymous as a prolific philanthropist. Maybe that’s all we need to know.

So then perhaps it wasn’t a total surprise when he told his daughter about the mushroom burial shroud. He was around fifty then, seemingly far from death. He “was more excited by this than I had ever seen him,” she wrote on Instagram about six weeks after he died. “He was buried in that suit, one of his final wishes.”

 

THE SPORES INSIDE Luke Perry’s burial shroud had been trained by an artist named Jae Rhim Lee, who fed them her hair, skin, and fingernail clippings. She called them Infinity Mushrooms. “As I watch the mushrooms grow and digest my body, I imagine the Infinity Mushroom as a symbol of a new way of thinking about death and the relationship between my body and the environment,” she said in her 2011 TED talk. Her idea originated out of concern for what our bodies leave behind after a lifetime’s worth of bioaccumulating poisons in our fats, plastic in our lungs, and mercury in our dental fillings. It gets worse after all the fillers and formaldehyde and makeups that keep the sallowness out of our cheeks, restore color to our lips, and make the deceased shelf stable, so that the living may have pleasant final memories. We think of this as a denial of decay, if not denial of death itself. But it is more or less a debt to the distant future.

Death is life’s sturdiest muse. As Robert MacFarlane points out in Underland: A Deep Time Journey, the idea of what happens after death is the subject of our oldest recorded story, when Sumerian king Gilgamesh sent a warrior to the underworld for news of his deceased child around 2000 BCE. Nor did Beverly Hills, 90210 flinch from it, most notably in the second season when a hanger-on named Scott Scanlon accidentally shoots himself in the belly. World religions construct worldviews around the idea that there is something preservable and irreducible (a soul, maybe, or a spirit) that can be made to be durable against death.

He learned how to keep the great want of the world away by closing off access.

But that still leaves the body. It is a little indelicate to think of burials or cremations as body disposal, but that is what they are, dressed up in a bit of ritual. Unless you are the type to have your cremated remains put into orbit around the sun, your body is going to end up with the earth.

For the vast majority of us, there are two scenarios. You will either be reduced to carbon dioxide and ashes in a process that uses the same amount of gas as two tanks for an average car and draws oxygen into the crematoria like a vast, unrelenting inhale. Or you’ll be plumped with chemicals and fillers, slathered in makeup, and put in a hole in the ground that is deeper than most soil microorganisms—a sort of cold storage in the root cellar.

 

LUKE PERRY WAS A STYLE ICON and a trendsetter of the cool (sideburns, notably) and stayed out ahead of the rest of us in thinking about death. When he saw Jae Rhim Lee’s TED talk, he invested, and unknown to Lee at the time, he purchased a shroud for himself. A couple years later, after a cancer scare, he formalized his last wishes and told his family about them. Luke Perry, it seems, viewed death as a plannable eventuality worth being clear about, rather than a taboo. He could talk about his death.

Green burial, as such wishes are known, is gaining in popularity. In 2022, a study by the National Funeral Directors Association showed that 60.5 percent of respondents were interested in green burial, up 5 percent from the year before. USCatholic.org ran a poll in 2011 in which 80 percent said they’d prefer a greener burial if they had the option. People cite the lower cost (no embalming, simple caskets, no crematorium fees or cemetery maintenance), a lighter footprint (no embalming again, no fossil fuels or vaporized heavy metals), and a better connection to the earth (carbon dioxide is a pollutant). But the desire precedes the technology, and much of what’s being marketed today is the idea of a green funeral.

Most of us have seen the picture of a tree with the pod at its roots. Inside the womb-like pod, in the fetal position, is the deceased. The language promotes this as a way to feed and nourish a tree, although a body in early-stage decomposition releases enzymes that are harmful to plant roots and chase its life away. Maybe you’ve seen the tree with a compartment in the dirt for cremated remains, but those turn as hard as concrete when mixed with water. There has to be an intermediary.

Enter the mushroom burial shroud. Fungi are decomposers, and the easiest way to think of them is as a sort of expanding, underground plaster. They spread out in the seams of the soil and can become very large—those capped stalks we see are merely the small fruiting bodies. Over eons, fungi have learned to handle death and convert it into nutrients, which they then trade with plants for carbon and sugar. An estimated 90 percent of plants are connected to this network, but most of the trade is in plant-derived decay.

Animals die differently. Right now, inside you, are the very organisms that will begin to break down your body after you breathe your last. Carbon dioxide accumulates in your body, creating an acidic environment and rupturing cell walls, which release an enzyme that then digests the cells. The first stage of decomposition is autolysis, literally self-digestion, with the intestines and pancreas being the strongest actors. You carry your death with you everywhere you go. This turned out to be too much for Infinity Mushrooms.

In 2016, Melissa Meadow, known on Instagram as The Modern Mortician, and a researcher from the University of Texas at Austin were hired by Jae Rhim Lee to test the mushroom suit. Meadow found a candidate who was excited about the trial, shrouded her body, and buried her three feet deep at the bottom range of the soil’s life zone at Eloise Woods Natural Burial Park in Austin, Texas, after she died. They inserted a thin PVC pipe into the grave so they could thread in a camera to monitor what was going on.

 

Months went by, but no mushrooms were forming on the skin following any kind of lightning pattern toward the heart. There was just the normal, natural, unimpeded process down there in the loamy Texas dirt, ticking in the clockwork way that evolved alongside life.

That might have been it for the mushroom shroud. But Luke Perry died of a stroke three years later and his stardom and the tragedy of his early death resurrected it. Jae Rhim Lee spoke at his funeral. Today, if you Google mushroom burial shroud, his story comes up, as do tons of others promoting the virtues of this style of green funeral. You have to get deep before you learn the shroud doesn’t work.

Luke Perry knew about desire, having been buried in a laundry hamper to escape it. He also knew it as the holder of a notion about physical erasure from the planet, that our bodies don’t have to harm the earth when we die. We all know desire. Death is a muse, but desire is a blunter sort of thing. Maybe it doesn’t matter that the mushroom suit didn’t work; maybe it’s all that matters. Life crafts and carries its own death just the same.

 

THE ENDURING LEGACY of Beverly Hills, 90210 is the way it defined youth culture at a certain moment in time. It was the era of the first televised war (Operation Desert Storm), of Rodney King’s assault by the LAPD. We were witnessing history unfolding in real time on TV. The world was a terrifying place to be young and vulnerable. And it was onto this backdrop that the show’s producers let us see tragedy coming.

The scene is a birthday party in Beverly Hills. One of 90210’s main characters, David, is roped out of pity and a sense of loyalty into throwing a surprise party for his old friend Scott, whom he had known forever and who is no longer really his close friend. Most of the guests leave after a short time. Tension develops between Scott’s mom’s desire for a birthday party an eight-year-old might enjoy and the high school horndogs who simply must make out wherever they go.

No one can find a lighter for the birthday candles. Scott, with a sweep of blond hair and a rodeo belt buckle on his jeans, goes upstairs into his father’s desk to look for one. Then he gets curious, dumps out a container of pencils, and finds a key. The synthesizer music starts up, mysterious and kind of menacing.

Life crafts and carries its own death just the same. 

Scott unlocks a drawer, finds a brown leather box, and opens it. He pulls out the black semiautomatic and flips it over in his hand a few times and his finger slides onto the trigger.

The scene switches back downstairs, where Scott’s father has found matches. David is dispatched upstairs to retrieve Scott. The synthesizer picks away at a few more notes.

David opens the door. “Scott, come on. They found some . . .”

“Hey David, check this out.”

He starts to spin the gun on his finger.

“Scott. Scott. Scott! Put that—”

The gun flies off his finger and smacks against the desk, discharging with a flash. David throws his hands to his head in shock. There is no blood. No screaming. There is just the empty surprise of someone who just saw too much, who saw a life whisked away, who saw death.

Luke Perry’s children rushed to his bedside after the stroke in late February 2019. Things weren’t looking good and they all knew. It took a few days to find recipients for his organs before they took him off life support. His lungs and liver and kidneys were dispersed by the most fundamental desire of all, which is the desire to go on living.

But they could not find a match for his heart. His heart, inside his chest, inside the mushroom burial shroud, was pressed against the silty soil left behind by eons of flood cycles in what we now call Tennessee but that has only been known by that name for a short time. The soil teems with the organisms that will convert his death back into life. It will return—even now, is returning—back to the full embrace of the earth.

After Scott dies of his gunshot wound, the 90210 gang dedicates its time capsule to him. We are informed that every fifty years, a group of students breaks into the West Beverly Hills High campus at night and buries a keepsake. They fill theirs with the accoutrements of the day: fluorescent pink Lycra spandex, a Corvette key chain. Dylan McKay throws in surfboard wax to “symbolize the waves that have been pounding the shores for thousands of years, when really it’s just a brief moment in time.”

“Yeah,” Kelly says, after Brandon and Steve have stepped out of the two-foot-deep grave for their time capsule, “but how do you know someone’s gonna be here in fifty years to dig it up?”

Dylan answers: “Time will tell.”

Luke Perry died at fifty-two. The final act is always a tragedy, but there is still room in the epilogue. In another ten years, more or less, all his earthly remains will be completely mined for life, given up to the embrace that would hold him at last and always has. He will be gone but returned, reunited, safe. Time always tells.


Casey Lyons lives in Colorado and is writing a book about dandelions. When he goes, he’ll go into the ground about three feet deep.


New Paragraph

Why I Left Varsity Tutors to Help Mortuary Students More Fairly

November 23, 2025
Funeral Service National Board Exams Tutoring

Kristie and The Spirit of Nature

November 22, 2025
Kristle and The Spirit of Nature

Healing Through Creation: Carolyn’s Journey to Sacred Embers

November 17, 2025
Healing Through Creation:  Carolyn’s Journey to Sacred Embers

Green Burial New Hampshire

November 6, 2025
New Hampshire In New Hampshire, the land itself tells a story of endurance, granite ledges, maple forests, and quiet fields that have held generations of families. It’s no surprise that many here are drawn to green burial, a practice that reflects the state’s independent spirit and deep respect for nature. Whether resting beneath sugar maples in autumn or beside a field of mountain laurel, natural burial connects people to the same landscape they cherished in life. It’s a simple, sincere return to the elements, free from chemicals, vaults, and excess, where the body nourishes the land, and the land, in turn, offers peace. 🌿Lotus and Lavender Natural Burial (in progress) - Portsmouth, NH Nestled in the heart of New Hampshire’s Seacoast region, Lotus & Lavender Natural Burial is leading the charge toward a more peaceful, eco-conscious way of returning to the earth. As a 501(c)(13) nonprofit cemetery organization, they are dedicated to creating a true natural burial ground, one where the cycle of life continues uninterrupted, and the land remains protected for generations to come. They’re cur rently looking for land to establish this sanctuary and are inviting the community to be part of this next step. Here’s what they need to get started: 🌾 At least 3 acres in a rural or semi-rural setting ☀️ Mostly cleared land is ideal 📍 Within 30 minutes of Portsmouth (preferred) 💧 No wetlands within 100 ft A gift, sale, or long-term lease of lan d to Lotus & Lavender comes with many benefits, including contributing to a legacy of conservation and community service. All discussions are confidential and handled with care. If you or someone you know has land that might be a fit, reach out and help make New Hampshire’s next natural burial ground a reality. 🌸 If there isn’t a green burial ground nearby, many of New Hampshire’s small-town or church cemeteries are open to dialogue about becoming “hybrid.” Start by speaking with cemetery trustees or the town’s selectboard to ask if bylaws allow for vault waivers or biodegradable caskets. Offer to share examples from nearby states or from local conservation groups that have helped establish natural sections. New Hampshire’s strong tradition of local control means community support carries weight, gathering signatures or hosting an informational session can show genuine public interest. With respectful collaboration, even long-established cemeteries can evolve to honor both tradition and the environment that defines the Granite State. If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!

Green Burial Oklahoma

November 6, 2025
Oklahoma Oklahoma’s story is one of land and legacy, a place where wide skies meet endless prairies, and where the rhythm of the seasons still shapes daily life. Beneath those skies, a quiet movement is taking root: one that honors both ancestors and the earth through natural burial . In a state defined by resilience and reverence for the land, it feels only right to return our bodies to the soil that sustained us, allowing the prairie to reclaim and renew itself with each passing season. Green burial in Oklahoma reflects the region’s deep agricultural and Indigenous respect for the natural world, no vaults, no chemicals, no polished marble, just earth, wildflowers, and sky. At Green Haven Cemetery and a growing number of community sites, families are finding comfort in simplicity, participating in hand-lowerings, planting native grasses, and watching new life bloom where loss once lay heavy. 🌿Green Tree Burial Ground - Mead, OK In the rolling countryside near Sand Springs, Green Tree Burial Ground is leading Oklahoma toward a more natural and sustainable future in deathcare. This peaceful 10-acre woodland sanctuary offers families a way to return to the earth simply and gracefully, no vaults, no embalming, and no harm to the land. At Green Tree, graves are dug by hand, and only biodegradable shrouds or caskets are used. Families may take part in the burial, laying their loved one to rest amid native trees and wildflowers. There are no concrete markers or manicured lawns here, just the quiet presence of nature, thriving as it always has. Every burial supports ongoing land stewardship. The cemetery’s founders are dedicated to preserving Oklahoma’s natural beauty and educating the public about the ecological benefits of green burial. Their mission is both simple and profound: to make every farewell an act of restoration. Green Tree welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds. It’s a place for reflection, belonging, and connection, a reminder that in returning to the earth, we become part of something enduring and alive. As one of Oklahoma’s first true natural burial grounds, Green Tree Burial Ground is setting a new standard, proving that even in the heartland, sustainability and remembrance can grow side by side. 🌿Green Haven Cemetery - Stillwater, OK In the quiet countryside west of Stillwat er, Green Haven Cemetery offers Oklahomans a way to return to the earth naturally, in harmony with the land and free from modern interference. As one of Oklahoma’s few dedicated natural burial grounds, Green Haven allows the physical body to rejoin the soil without vaults, embalming, or heavy caskets. At Green Haven, the body is placed directly into the ground in a biodegradable shroud, allowing for a complete and natural return to the earth. The landscape remains uncluttered by individual headstones or monuments, instead, a single Monolith Cenotaph stands at the cemetery’s entrance, where families can have their loved one’s names engraved. The grounds are maintained as a native meadow, rich with wildflowers and native grasses, reflecting Oklahoma’s natural beauty. As a perpetual-care cemetery, Green Haven uses sustainable land stewardship methods to preserve the land’s integrity for generations to come. While often called “green burial,” this practice is anything but new. Green Haven continues the oldest form of burial, one that honors both the dead and the living world. Here, families can choose a resting place that mirrors their values of simplicity, conservation, and respect for the environment. For those who lived close to the land and want their final act to reflect that connection, Green Haven offers peace among open skies and prairie blooms, a burial that sustains life long after it ends.  🌿Chisolm Trail Burial Park - Enid, OK 🌿Woodland Memorial Park (Hybrid) - Sand Springs, OK For those without a local green cemetery, progress begins with conversation and collaboration. Reach out to your town’s existing cemetery or churchyard and ask whether they would consider offering hybrid green burials, a simple section set aside where vaults are optional, embalming is discouraged, and biodegradable caskets or shrouds are welcome. Cemeteries are often willing to adapt once they understand that natural burial is legal in every state and can reduce maintenance costs over time. Share information from the Green Burial Council or examples of nearby cemeteries that have already made the shift. Oklahoma’s land has always carried stories of return, from the dust that rose and settled again to the seeds that found new ground. Green burial is just another chapter in that story, a way for Oklahomans to rest, not apart from the land, but as part of it. 🌻 If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!

Green Burial Missouri

November 6, 2025
Missouri Missouri’s rolling hills, oak forests, and winding rivers have long reflected the rhythm of renewal. Here, green burial feels like a homecoming, simple, grounded, and full of meaning. Families across the state are rediscovering that death care can be both traditional and natural, honoring loved ones without the need for embalming, vaults, or excess. From the Ozark highlands to the fertile plains of the north, Missourians are choosing to return to the earth just as their ancestors did, wrapped in cloth, laid beneath trees, and surrounded by life. It’s a quiet act of love, rooted in the soil that has always sustained them. 🌿Green Acres Natural Burial Cemetery - Rocheport, MO In Missouri, Green Acres, also known as Pushing Up Daisies Inc., was created to give families “the ultimate way of going green.” As a natural burial ground, the cemetery allows only biodegradable materials: no embalming, no metal, no plastic, and no concrete vaults. Its mission is clear, protect the land, air, and water while providing affordable, compassionate burial options. Green Acres was founded on the belief that traditional funerals are often too expensive and environmentally harmful. Here, families can choose natural burial at a fraction of the cost of conventional practices, with flexible payment options and straightforward care. Everything at Green Acres is designed to preserve the earth: graves must use biodegradable containers or shrouds, vaults and liners are prohibited, and only natural flat rocks can be used as markers. The cemetery maintains full stewardship of the grounds, ensuring trails, plantings, and burials blend into the landscape. By choosing Green Acres, families eliminate confusion about their wishes, avoid unnecessary costs, and leave a final act of care for the planet. It’s not just a resting place, it’s a statement of responsibility and love. For Missouri, Green Acres stands as a beacon of what’s possible: an active, dedicated natural burial ground where remembrance and conservation walk hand in hand. 🌿Bellfontaine Cemetery & Arboretum (hybrid) - St. Louis, MO Green burial is permitted throughout all of Bellefontaine Cemetery, whether on a new or existing family lot, or a single grave in a public lot. Individuals can choose to mix green burial options with traditional burial practices to meet specific wishes and desires. For example, one may choose to be un-embalmed, in a shroud, biodegradable, is slower in its return to the earth than a shroud or simple casket. 🌿Zion Cemetery (hybrid) - St. Louis, MO At Zion Cemetery, we take great pride in being one of the few Green Burial Council certified cemeteries in St. Louis. Our commitment to sustainability and environmental preservation sets us apart, providing a meaningful alternative to traditional burial methods. By choosing a green burial at Zion Cemetery, you contribute to a more eco-friendly and natural end-of-life process, leaving a lasting legacy of care for our planet. If your community doesn’t yet have a designated green burial ground, start by reaching out to local cemetery caretakers or boards to discuss creating a natural or hybrid section. Missouri’s agricultural roots make this concept easy to embrace, land stewardship is part of the culture. Ask about existing requirements for vaults or embalming; many small-town cemeteries can amend bylaws with community support. Share examples of successful hybrid models across the Midwest and resources from the Green Burial Council. By working together, you can help transform traditional cemeteries into sanctuaries that celebrate Missouri’s connection to nature and the cycle of life. If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!

Green Burial Montana

November 6, 2025
Montana In Montana, the land feels limitless, mountains rise into the clouds, rivers carve through valleys, and the horizon seems to stretch forever. It’s a place where life and nature are inseparable, and where many Montanans are rediscovering burial traditions that reflect that harmony. Green burial here offers a quiet, grounded return to the earth, without the intrusion of chemicals or concrete. Each natural burial restores life to the land, echoing the rugged simplicity and reverence for nature that defines the Big Sky State. Whether in prairie grasslands or pine forests, Montana’s open spaces remind us that returning to the soil is the most natural act of all. 🌿Mountainview Cemetery (hybrid) - City of Billings, Billings, MT Available in Mountview Cemetery selectively. It's not much, but it's a start. If your community doesn’t yet have a natural burial ground, start by speaking with caretakers or local cemetery boards about adding a “green section.” Montana’s vast landscapes and rural culture make this especially practical, no vaults or heavy maintenance are needed. Ask about existing bylaws regarding vaults or embalming; many can be amended through board approval. Offer examples of hybrid cemeteries in similar climates across the West to demonstrate how simple policy changes can create eco-friendly options. By encouraging dialogue and sharing resources from the Green Burial Council, you can help Montana cemeteries evolve their practices to honor the land’s natural beauty while preserving it for generations to come. If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!

Green Burial Nevada

November 6, 2025
Nevada 🌿 If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!

Green Burial New Jersey

November 6, 2025
New Jersey Known as the Garden State, New Jersey has always held a deep reverence for its landscapes, rolling farmlands, pine forests, and coastal meadows. Green burial here feels like a return to the state’s original promise: harmony between people and place. As urban and suburban communities seek more meaningful, sustainable ways to honor life’s end, natural burial is quietly taking root. Families are rediscovering that simplicity, no embalming, no vaults, no polished metal, can be profoundly beautiful. Whether in the hills of Hunterdon County or near the salt air of the Shore, New Jersey’s green burial movement is reminding families that true peace lies in returning gently to the earth. 🌿Steelmantown Cemetery - Woodbine, NJ Tucked in the Pine Barrens of Cape May County, Steelmantown Cemetery is one of the oldest continually operating natural burial grounds in the country. With burials dating back to the 1700s, this sacred woodland has been restored as a conservation cemetery, where the forest itself is both sanctuary and memorial. Steelmantown permits only biodegradable caskets or shrouds, no embalming, and no vaults or liners. Graves are dug by hand, and families are invited to take part in the process of lowering and covering their loved one, adding to the intimacy and meaning of the farewell. Markers are natural and modest, often simple wooden or stone pieces that allow the forest to remain the focus. Over time, each resting place blends back into the landscape, supporting the ecological health of the Pine Barrens. Once nearly abandoned, Steelmantown was lovingly restored to preserve its heritage and to create a model for how burial grounds can also serve as conservation spaces. Today, it stands as a testament to both history and sustainability, offering New Jersey families a natural way to return to the earth.  🌿Rosemont Cemetery (hybrid) - Rosemont, NJ The Rosemont Cemetery Association is committed to providing quality end of life choices to meet the needs of all in the community it serves while enhancing the Cemetery’s natural beauty and heritage. As such, in addition to providing traditional burial spaces, on Earth Day 2017, the Cemetery unveiled its newest section, the Rosemont Memorial Garden and Natural Burial Area. This opening represents the culmination of years of work to create a meaningful, well-thought out area where those wishing to lessen the environmental impact of burial can choose to rest. Much thought was put into the design of the Rosemont Memorial Garden and Natural Burial Area, which sits at the bottom of the hill, bordered on one side by beautiful woodlands and on another side by a farm field. The concept of this burial area is to provide a peaceful place for loved ones to visit and that is inviting to the community; to those that have loved ones buried here, as well as to those that simply want to find a space of peaceful quiet reflection. The graves in the Memorial Garden are laid out in a series of concentric circles, with the circles representing the circle of life and the community that surrounds the Cemetery. This design concept represents a paradigm shift from the traditional rectangular grave layouts to a more natural layout. To bring natural burial options to your area, start by opening a conversation with local cemetery trustees or sextons. Many New Jersey cemeteries, even historic ones, are finding ways to adapt by offering hybrid sections that allow biodegradable caskets and vault-free burials. Share examples such as Steelmantown Cemetery or Maryrest Cemetery’s natural section to illustrate how successful these integrations can be. Emphasize that adding green options doesn’t require an overhaul, just flexibility in policy and a willingness to meet changing family values. Suggest hosting a community talk or workshop to gauge interest and show that offering green burial isn’t just an environmental choice, it’s an act of stewardship and renewal in the Garden State. If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!

Green Burial New Mexico

November 6, 2025
New Mexico In New Mexico, where the vast sky meets mesas painted in red and gold, death is seen not as an ending but as a return. The desert has always been a place of stillness, ceremony, and transformation—and green burial fits naturally within that rhythm. Here, simplicity carries deep spiritual resonance. Families choosing natural burial find meaning in allowing the body to return to the earth without barriers, nourishing the same land that sustained generations before them. From the high desert to the mountain foothills, green burial in New Mexico honors the harmony between human life and the timeless landscape that holds it. 🌿La Puerta Natural Burial Grounds - Belen, NM Just outside Belen, New Mexico, lies La Puerta Natural Burial Ground, the s tate’s first and only conservation burial cemetery. Tucked within nearly 40 acres of desert landscape, this site offers families the chance to return their loved ones to the earth in a way that is both simple and sustainable. La Puerta requires no embalming, no vaults, and only biodegradable burial containers. Graves are hand-dug, and natural markers like local stones are used so that over time, the land remains undisturbed and wild. Families may take part in the burial process, making the farewell deeply personal. Each burial helps conserve the fragile high desert ecosystem, ensuring that native plants and wildlife thrive. This is burial that doesn’t just avoid harm, but actively contributes to land protection and ecological health. For families in New Mexico, La Puerta represents a return to older traditions, burial that is straightforward, affordable, and connected to place. Here, loved ones are laid to rest beneath open skies and mesas, becoming part of the desert’s living cycle. If your community doesn’t yet have a green burial ground, begin by reaching out to caretakers or boards of existing cemeteries. Many traditional cemeteries are open to dedicating a section for natural burials once they understand the process and benefits. Share examples of desert-friendly practices such as using local stone markers, drought-tolerant native plants, and biodegradable materials suited for arid climates. Present the ecological and cultural value, reducing concrete use, preserving water, and respecting Indigenous understandings of the land. By working collaboratively, you can help transform existing cemeteries into places that both honor tradition and embrace New Mexico’s enduring connection to the natural world, If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please reach out!