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Greensprings Cemetery offers natural choice PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Sunday, 26 November 2006
By MARCELA ROJAS
THE JOURNAL NEWS

NEWFIELD, N.Y. -A short drive southwest of Ithaca, past the timeworn silos and one of the state's last remaining covered bridges, sits Irish Hill Road, a winding dirt byway that stretches to a place where nature meets eternity.
It is here where Greensprings Natural Cemetery - a 100-acre expanse of rolling hilltop meadows flanked by 8,000 acres of forest - can be found. The eco-burial ground, a relatively new concept starting to take hold, is the first of its kind in New York and one of about five in the entire nation.

"Greensprings is an alternative to conventional cemeteries. It gives people a choice," said cemetery President Mary Woodsen. "We can marry land conservation and fair death care."

Since its opening this summer, four people have been interred at Greensprings in simple graves surrounded by miles of woodland and distinguishable only by rocks that have been laid around them. Native saplings such as white pines and sugar maples serve as headstones. Families may opt to engrave a flat, natural fieldstone indigenous to the Finger Lakes as grave markers.

Greensprings offers a truly "dust-to-dust" approach where the deceased are returned to the earth in shrouds or biodegradable coffins, preferably from locally harvested lumber. Bodies cannot be embalmed, a process that treats a corpse with chemical preservatives to temporarily prevent decay.

"I once thought that everyone had to be embalmed. People need to know that they don't have to be embalmed or buried in a manicured cemetery," said Greensprings secretary Jennifer Johnson. "This is just the natural way. The ultimate in recycling."

Irvington resident Matthew Pearson joined the cemetery's board of trustees because, he said, he believes strongly in preserving open space. Pearson, 45, and his wife are among the 45 people who have purchased plots at Greensprings.

"Nature is forever and we are all part of nature," said Pearson, an investment banker. "This is a happy place and a nice resource. It presents a much more positive spin on someone's death."

So far, there have been more than 550 inquiries about the cemetery, Pearson said. Greensprings has a total of 18,900 available plots. A 15-by-15-foot site - where only one person is permitted - costs $500. By comparison, an average traditional funeral, with cemetery charges, may cost upward of $10,000.

Interest in natural burials is indeed growing and Pearson said he is now working with conservation groups to bring a "green" cemetery to the Hudson Valley, within 60 to 90 minutes from New York City.

"When people die, they have few alternatives. A lot of people are bereaved and poor," Pearson said. "We're just trying to create choices."

The movement began in the late 1990s when physician Billy Campbell opened the first natural cemetery in the U.S., the 32-acre Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, S.C. Since then, eco-graveyards have been established in Florida, California and Texas. Many people first learned about green burials from the popular HBO series "Six Feet Under" when one of the main characters, Nate, was buried in a nature preserve, covered only by a shroud, during one of the show's final episodes in 2005.

At Greensprings, hiking, picnicking, cross-country skiing and bird-watching are encouraged. The land was once used as a dairy farm and the plan is to restore it to its natural wooded state with walking pathways, Woodsen said. There are some trails now that wend their way past milkweeds and raspberry bushes.

"In another 50 years, I'd love to see a lot more of these in the country where you can really say you are saving a chunk of land," Woodsen said. "Being here makes death feel very real. It's completing the circle of life."

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061126/NEWS01/611260359/1019/NEWS03
 
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