Where I want to be buried
For most of my life I’ve assumed I would be cremated.
It seemed obvious to me. Simple. No elaborate coffin, no fuss. And, while some believe in cemeteries as these places of historic record, I don’t.
That was actually part of the reason I wanted to be cremated. I believe it is a final selfish act. As if to say, I am so important and that this piece of land should be locked and marked for me, for all eternity… well, a century or so.
I still want to work toward establishing natural burial here, but till then, if I had to make the decision today, I would want to be buried at Nikenbah Natural Cemetery.
It isn’t really about claiming a piece of land and saying this is mine. It is about becoming part of the land.
There is something about that which makes much more sense to me.
No polished headstone. No concrete surrounds. No manicured patch of grass that needs to be maintained because I once occupied it.
Just a place where the landscape is allowed to be the landscape.
At Nikenbah, natural burial means using something that can return to the earth. A biodegradable coffin or a natural-fibre shroud. The cemetery is intended to remain a natural bushland setting rather than becoming another landscaped monument to the dead. Nikenbah Natural Cemetery — Fraser Coast Regional Council
And that fits much better with what I think I’ve come to believe about death.
I’ve spent enough time around funerals now to realise that we put an awful lot of effort into trying to stop death from looking like death.
We take something that is completely natural and spend a huge amount of effort trying to prevent nature from doing what nature does.
I’d rather go back to the earth.
But, and it’s an important but. There is the practical problem that Nikenbah isn’t exactly around the corner.
For me, choosing Nikenbah instead of being cremated locally means about 630 kilometres of additional driving. If I’m going to talk about natural burial as an environmental choice, I can’t simply ignore that. It’s easy to say that natural burial is better for the environment because there is no cremator, no natural gas and no combustion. And there is truth in that.
Planet Mark’s research into the funeral industry estimates the operational emissions from a natural burial at essentially zero, while a gas cremation produces around 126 kg of CO₂e from the gas used in the cremation process alone. Planet Mark — Funeral Industry Report
But the catch is, their figures don’t include transport. So to be fair, I did the numbers on my own journey. Those extra 630km (return journey) in the vehicle we use for work normally, is about 50 litres of diesel.
Which means that, purely from a carbon perspective, the extra distance to Nikenbah could actually produce about the same amount of carbon as the gas used to cremate me at Warrill Park (Our preferred crematorium).
That’s not quite the environmental victory I might have imagined. And it’s important to acknowledge, because I don’t want to turn natural burial into some sort of green funeral marketing exercise where we only count the things that make our preferred choice look good.
Remember that cherry picking doesn’t make a lie out of facts. It makes a lie out of the whole picture.
Instead, I’m put into the ground in something designed to return to the ground.
And then I become part of the place.
That matters to me.
Perhaps not in a way that can be neatly measured in kilograms of CO₂.
There is also something else I find interesting about this.
The environmental cost of my final journey is finite.
What remains isn’t a monument that has to be maintained, or a piece of land permanently separated from the landscape because I once occupied it.
Eventually, there is just the land. And hopefully, not much of me. That is probably the part that appeals to me most.
I don’t need a place that says I was here.
I’ve already been here.
I don’t need a stone with my name on it to prove it, I’d rather leave the land to the living.
And maybe that’s why I’ve changed my mind about cremation.
I still believe in it and I still think it can be a simple, dignified and perfectly good choice. But right now, I no longer think it’s what I want for me.
For years I thought I’d be cremated until I could help establish a natural burial ground here. Now I’m thinking perhaps I don’t need to wait. Can’t wait.
If I had to make the decision today, I’d choose Nikenbah. Not because it’s perfect. Not because it produces zero emissions. And not because I think everyone should make the same choice.
I’d choose it because, when I think about what I want to happen to me, going back to the earth feels right.
I don’t want my final act to be about preserving me.
I want it to be about letting me go.
Just a reclaimed fabric shroud (silk or wool if possible), a hole in the earth, and eventually, hopefully, not much left of me at all.
And when I think about it, that seems like a pretty good way to finish.