The Life of the Dead (Little Green Notebook)
Ever alive at a green cemetery
I’m intrigued by an ad that runs in our local paper, The Auburn Villager: Whispering Hills Natural Green Cemetery and Memorial Nature Preserve. When Ralph Howard, managing partner of Whispering Hills, extended a personal invitation to visit, I put it on my calendar in bright red ink. In fact, I was so eager that I double-corrected for the time zone difference, arriving an hour early.
That hour gave Joe, our three dogs, and me the chance to bond with the horses who greeted us, to wander down to the red barn, and to enjoy the life-sized metal sculpture, “After 190 Years the Plow at Whispering Hills Now Rests,” which presides at the entrance to the nature preserve.
Touching the rusting pieces of this sculpture, ornately handcrafted from scrap metal, got my brain all abuzz with thoughts of old and new, death and birth, and the recycling of relationships, metals, and the many elements that make up our physical bodies. We were, after all, visiting a green cemetery and nature preserve.
In this case, “green” insists no chemicals are involved. A body is allowed to decompose, and nutrients are returned to the soil, providing for new growth all around in accordance with the great circle of life.
Put that way, it makes me wonder why all burials aren’t green? Most in this country were, before the Civil War pushed doctors to tinker with embalming methods to prepare dead bodies for their last trip home.
I know that folks feel all kinds of ways about death, burials, and rituals for the dead, with thoughts ranging from curiosity to downright discomfort. I too have feelings, discomfort not among them.
By the time Ralph, his sister and managing partner Jean Howard, and Tour Director Shirley Hubbard arrived, I was already enchanted by Whispering Hills.
Ralph and Jean explained that they had landed on preserving their family property as a green cemetery for several reasons, including the assurance that it will never be developed, remaining the pristine oasis it is now in perpetuity.
Conversations shifted to barefoot childhood antics on the farm and to horses. I’m a threat to linger in horse talk. Still, I was eager to get into the woods, which beckoned just over the green hills. The dogs, Joe, and I climbed into the six-seater golf cart with Shirley and began our tour.
I leaned out to admire wildflowers along the drive. “That’s my grandson out there on the tractor,” Shirley said. I smiled at the big black dog running alongside the great, growling rig. “We wait until the native wildflowers go to seed before we cut,” she explained.
When we reached the edge of the forest, she stopped. There at the entrance to the green cemetery was a rock engraved with a quote from Cicero, “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
This simple statement struck me. Why was it so powerful? I read it again. Well of course, it’s those first five words, “The life of the dead.”
I won’t wax on about the soul and the afterlife, but here we were, entering a gorgeous greening forest where ferns were unfurling and daisies were nodding and lichen-covered rocks were cropping and snakes were slithering and deer were tiptoeing and the stream was trickling and spiders were spinning and all these precious living things were going about their lives right here in the company of the dead, whose mortal remains were literally feeding this complex choreography, and that felt like something big.
It felt like the life of the dead.
Shirley told us about the variety of funerals that have taken place here. I was heart-struck as she described a service attended by several horses, one riderless. “That’s what I want,” I whispered to Joe.
“People come here to walk. They bring their children and their dogs,” Shirley said. “You can even bring a horse and ride here.” I imagined riding horseback under these tall trees, surrounded by native plants, birdsong the only background music, up and down the hills, along the creek where the ferns tumble from the banks into water. That’d be one beautiful ride, I thought.
Whispering Hills will celebrate their fourth anniversary with a Down to Earth Fair this Saturday, April 26th, from 11:00 am to 4 pm EST. The public is invited to tour, vibe with live music, enjoy complimentary vittles from gourmet food trucks, glean gardening tips from environmental caretakers, and to learn more about this natural cemetery. See whisperinghillspreserve.com, News & Events, or find Whispering Hills Natural Green Cemetery & Memorial Nature Preserve on Facebook for more information.
Regardless of your plans for your eternal resting (or drifting, floating, cadavering, or freewheeling) place, I recommend a visit to Whispering Hills. A day strolling in a nature preserve is never wasted.
Do you have your copy of Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love yet? Here is a photo taken when I ran into the Original Hooligan, Chris Davis, of the eponymous essay, on the streets. We’ve known each other for fifty years. Isn’t life something?
Love this story! And I love the idea of a Green Cemetery, even though the genealogist in me would miss the headstones! The statue of the farmer with the horse and plow took me back some fifty plus years ago to the little town of Tate, Georgia. My Daddy would plow his red clay garden with a borrowed mule, and a plow much like this one. The hot Georgia sun would bake the ground into an early stage of pottery. The ground would be too hard for the plow to penetrate deep enough. So, he would place a pillow, and one of his young sons on top of said plow to use as a weight. I don’t know if we fought more to see who got to ride the plow, or who HAD to. You would think nothing would grow here, but we would always be amazed by my dad’s gardening skills. Thanks for sharing.