Natural Burial Quotes

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs.

I don't want to be buried in the ground, rotting, with all those worms. What I would love is to have my body dropped where you have those big icebergs and the water is so cold and pure, to be eaten by a polar bear or a seal or an otter.

I want upon death to be buried, just like in the old days, where I decompose by the action of microorganisms, and I am dined upon by any form of creeping animal or root system that sees fit to do so.... I will have recycled back to the universe at least some of the energy that I have taken from it. And in so doing, at the conclusion of my scientific adventures, I will have come closer to the heavens than to Earth.

We seem wired to grieve with greenery. Allowing the dead to dissolve into the earth, to become part of the cycle of the seasons, has, for millennia, held the promise of cheating mortality.

To her bier Comes the year Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do, But, to guide her way to it, All the trees have torches lit; Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through.

Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds ofjasmine, lilies, and myrtle; and when they Grow above me and thrive on my body's element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space.

If humans died in a healthy culture, they would not lock out the earth in metal coffins and carve their names on stone monuments, but would instead place the naked body in the earth and plant a tree above the silent heart.

'I shall have heaven and earth for my coffin and its shell; the sun and moon for my two round symbols of jade, the stars and constellations for my pearls and jewels; and all things assisting as the mourners. Will not the provisions for my funeral be complete? What could you add to them?'

I am a born-again atheist, so there isn't going to be a funeral. I will be buried in a linen wrap in a cardboard coffin in my forest with an oak tree planted on my head.

I want my body to help fertilize the growth of a cactus or cliff rose or sagebrush or tree.

The earth, that is nature's mother, is her tomb.

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.

She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean.

When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin.

If you want to become a fossil, you actually need to die somewhere where your bones will be rapidly buried. You then hope that the earth moves in such a way as to bring the bones back up to the surface. And then you hope that one of us lot will walk around and find small pieces of you.

If you want, you can have a coffin made out of cardboard or wicker or papier mache. There's one like a seed pod, or you could buy one that doubles as both a bookcase and a coffin. During your life, you stand it in your living room, and then after you die, the books are taken out and your body put in their place and the whole thing buried.

Not only is natural burial by far the most ecologically sound way to perish, it doubles down on the fear of fragmentation and loss of control. Making the choice to be naturally buried says, 'Not only am I aware that I'm a helpless, fragmented mass of organic matter, I celebrate it. Vive la decay!'

I want a natural burial. Just straight into the ground in a shroud.