‘Look for me under your boot-soles’
Thursday, August 25, 2022 - 20:17
To the Editor:
Your editorial of Aug. 11, 2022 [“Can Guilderland help save the planet? Maybe if we plan it.”] mentions trends in funeral customs.
In addition to embalming and cremation, there is a third option called natural burial or green burial.
The body is neither embalmed nor cremated, but is placed in a biodegradable casket that is placed in a grave with no vault.
I believe Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Niskayuna and Calvary Cemetery in Glenmont offer natural burial.
I do not judge one option over another but natural burial makes me think of Walt Whitman’s lines from “Song of Myself”:
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
Mary Jo Batters
Altamont
Thanks Mary Jo Batters!
I am having a green burial at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady. They have a new green burial area. It was disturbing to learn the amount of chemicals involved in embalming that then leach into the earth from a “traditional burial” . Green burials are green and they are very traditional, from way back. I have a big fan of compost and the earth!