The cycle of life

How I angsted over the title of this post. It is still very unsatisfactory to me but sometimes I just have to get on with it and write.

I've been thinking about how we leave this world. Or in some ways I have not been thinking about that at all. Because bodily, we don't leave this earth when we die. But I have been thinking about what happens to our bodies when we stop breathing.

My friend is burying her husband in a woodland. I've found the website which gives more information but I'll leave UK readers to google. I have funny feelings about posting a link like a commodity for this topic.

I thought that in NZ, embalming was compulsory. But a bit of googling showed it isn't. A place called Natural Funerals on Auckland seems a bit progressive and also I found an archived Listener article (google 'green funeral') which suggested some woodland burial opportunities in Wellington.

I would like worms to help decompose me, to leave my nutrient to grow trees for the living world to enjoy. I would not like embalming fluid and toxic caskets to be my legacy to the ground. I would not like the fumes of a crematorium to be my legacy.

Please God and nature that I have the opportunity to breathe here a long while yet. There is yet room, I hope, for small towns and rural areas to also offer burials more in keeping with the spirit of renewal, with the needs of our nutritionally impoverished earth.