​Welcome!
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But if you want to pull up your Wellies and take a look around, just be careful not to trip on anything.

Please feel free to drop a note to [email protected] if you find typos or just want to send encouraging comments.

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​hb

Assisting you with

Natural Burial Woodland
​Basics

Whether it's called Green, Natural, or Woodland Burial, the ecological motivations, tools and practices involved are basically the same for establishing and maintaining a burial ground that adheres to Earth-friendly, environmentally restorative standards.

​Death is and always has been an integral part of the cycle of life.

​That simple principle can guide our end-of-life choices to align with the basic understanding that even in death, life itself goes on because we choose to contribute our most precious gift—a body rich in life force that can actually nurture, enhance and restore the earth from which it came.

Reclaiming Death
​As Part of Life

Imagine a community park, where pollinators and native plants thrive on one another; birds nest in shade trees, and grave markers are fashioned from native stone.

​Summer is exemplified by seasonal foliage and Winter exposes a bare landscape that begs a treasure hunt for the fresh buds promising Springtime. 

This park-like setting is not a repository of fearful death, where visitors come only to grapple with feelings of loss and emotions they are ill-equipped to handle, but an outdoor place of solace, reflection, restoration, and visiting beloved dead in their final resting place.

Cemetery Design Options That Fit  

You have a vision and a location. How do you make them work together? ​Where do you even start? 

Maybe your starting point is over-grazed ranch land, mono-cropped agricultural acreage, or even an abandoned golf course. Perhaps your city has a neglected cemetery, with its rich local history buried beneath years of weeds.

​With the rapid increase in cremation as an option, you might even find an “active” cemetery with a drastic decline in sales of vacant plots or a section of undeveloped land that could be converted to a "green" section to keep up with growing consumer demand for earth-friendly options.

What we offer

Focus on Eco-Friendly Sustainability

Many of us experience cemeteries as austere places to approach with dread. Lines of granite markers punctuate manicured lawns. Beneath the surface is an underworld occupied by the stuff of Hollywood movies.

​But it doesn’t have to be that way!
Burial practices that work in partnership with the natural world serve to nourish and revitalize the soil, provide habitat for plants and wildlife, draw down and sequester carbon, and help to restore climate stability.
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Here our “last act” is to take part in the restoration of this fragile ecosystem. Just as life flourishes above ground, so does the biotic community beneath. As each human body, prepared simply and buried at optimal depth, merges back into the earth it came from, in an affirmation that there is no “death” where life is held precious.
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“It takes a village…” the saying goes. So many different kinds of expertise converge to create a natural burial ground. And it is not only the ecosystem that needs to be rebuilt, so does society's collective attitude towards death. Community engagement, legal structures, zoning codes, rules and regulations, on and on it goes. Creating—or revitalizing—a cemetery takes a village, too. 
That’s why we say:
“Your Vision. Your Journey. Our Expertise.”
"Without people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and try new things, natural burial wouldn't be expanding as it is today. Holly Blue Hawkins has taken up the cause with gusto!"

— ​Lee Webster, funeral reform advocate