WILLIAMSVILLE-After several years of gestation, Higher Ground Conservation Burial will finally be celebrated this weekend when its natural, aka “green,” burial offering is introduced to the public.
The public benefit nonprofit organization, which is focused exclusively on natural burial, will offer this burial alternative on conserved land at the Manitou Project in Williamsville.
Brattleboro Area Interfaith Leadership Alliance, natural burial advocates, Higher Ground, and Latchis Arts have come together to create a weekend, “Celebrating Community with Nature: the First Conservation Cemetery in Vermont,” which acknowledges the first conservation-burial cemetery in Vermont and, as described in a news release, honors “the uplifting, natural connections in the flow of conscious living to conscious dying that feeds our soul, our community, and the living earth.”
The celebration features a by-reservation-only tour of the burial grounds Saturday, July 11, at 2:30 p.m., limited to 20 people. It will be followed by a concert with a string quartet, Skylark, there at 4 p.m.
Skylark will perform again in Brattleboro’s Latchis Theatre on Sunday, July 12, at 5 p.m. in a concert dedicated to award-winning local musician, composer, and master of world music Derrik Jordan, who loved performing woods music at Manitou. The performance takes place on the one-year anniversary of his death.
Going green
Higher Ground is a partnership of the Vermont Land Trust, the Manitou Project, the Conservation Burial Alliance, the Green Burial Council, New Hampshire Funeral Resources and Education, and Vermont Funeral Resources and Education.
Its seed was planted over 10 years ago when Lee Webster, a writer, educator, and public speaker from Holderness, New Hampshire, offered a weekend home funeral workshop at Manitou (manitouproject.org).
A major force behind the project and a prime mover in the natural burial movement, Webster is a self-tagged “recovering English major.”
As such, she tells The Commons, “we spent all our time reading about death. So I actually feel pretty primed for this experience.”
She says that both her previous conservation work and hospice work were “offshoots of my general understanding of the world” in which she “just want[s] to fix things.”
Webster said her advocacy of natural burial has given her a way to use her skills and experience in development, marketing, and public relations, primarily for nonprofits, including the Green Burial Council, the Conservation Burial Alliance, and the Home Funeral Alliance.
At that 2015 workshop, Webster says, “I spent time with all these folks who then formed a community care group that’s been the basis” for this initiative.
“Interest started growing,” recalls Higher Ground’s director and resident steward, Michael Mayer, both with that workshop and, in 2017, with “the well-attended, deeply-moving natural burial of a well-loved community member, Rupa Cousins.”
Many present, he says, wanted “to make such an extraordinary experience available more broadly.”
Thus, Higher Ground was created in 2018.
At the same time, says Mayer, an informal “Caring for Our Own” community took shape and has been meeting monthly ever since “to provide volunteer services in support of bereaved families: home funeral, transportation, gravesite celebration, advance directives,” as well as death doulas and hospice workers. Their cohesion is enhanced by shared “stories and ponderings about life and death care.”
Webster credits Mayer and Fred Taylor for doing “the lion’s share of the work. They’ve been incredible in keeping it going and meeting every obstacle with equanimity and good common sense.”
She said she has “just been in the background, helping them sort of develop the plan.”
Becoming the soil
Other burial options “are industrial in one form or another,” Webster says. “Natural burial is not. You aren’t farming it out to somebody else. And that’s a big plus.”
As explained on Higher Ground’s website, embalming is replaced with sufficient cooling methods. The process uses biodegradable caskets made of woven materials such as willow or seagrass, as well as shrouds, blankets, or sheets made of linen, cotton, hemp, or other natural fabric.
Burial is deep enough to discourage animal disturbances, and at the same time, the environment provides ideal conditions for natural decomposition.
Who might opt for natural burial? Webster replies that “a lot of people approach this choice on a scale from environmental to spiritual,” as she highlights the appeal of ”being buried in nature and becoming actual soil.”
Beyond the spiritual, she adds, “There’s an emotional piece to it. There’s a family piece to it, a cultural one and, I would say, a social justice piece to this. But the No. 1 lens that we look through when we’re talking about this is environmental.”
Natural burial is, she adds, the “most environmentally responsible thing that you can do with your body.” Without embalming, concrete vaults, or metal caskets, the practice has become increasingly popular now, both in and beyond Vermont as “a sound ecological choice.”
While there are other green burial sites in Vermont, Higher Ground’s conservation cemetery status sets it apart in that it requires that “a conservation easement be held by a nonprofit land trust,” Mayer explains.
“That ensures that documented stewardship guidelines are closely monitored under the agreement and practiced in perpetuity,” he says. “For us, a conservation strategy was developed with and committed to by the Vermont Land Trust. It’s the only such arrangement [the Trust] has in the state.”
A long road
“Crossing over is not just for the dying,” Mayer says. “It’s for each of us when we’re one with the land, spacious and grounded in awe.”
Higher Ground’s long road to fruition has “culminated in a sign-off from the state’s Act 250 office last fall; imminent recording of the final town-approved site plan, and pending updated acknowledgement of the Newfane [Development Review Board]’s prior approval,” Mayer explains.
“These together are what [will] trigger the town’s issuance of the conditional use permit to operate natural burial grounds,” he adds. “After eight years of processing, all are on board with final paperwork set to be executed.”
Clearly relieved to see Higher Ground become a reality, Mayer wants to move past the struggles encountered along the way and focus “on the upbeat, community-building, consciousness-raising nature of the project as part of a growing movement.”
Beyond Mayer, founding members of Higher Ground include 20 initial placeholders — subscribers to conservation burial — and two other founding board members: Taylor, longtime president of Manitou and professor of ecology and nature-based spirituality; and Andrea Capron, documentation and organizational coordinator.
The Manitou Project “has been honoring Community with Nature on 223 acres of conserved land,” for 40 years “with 9 miles of trails, sacred sites, and labyrinths for wandering and hiking. It’s an intergenerational playground with camps in collaboration with Vermont Wilderness School; seasonal celebrations; guided time in Nature known as ‘forest bathing;’ and woods concerts among the pines such as with Skylark.”
Helping out
Skylark, a contemporary string ensemble based in northern Vermont, has, according to its website, “decades of experience in the professional music community” with an eclectic sound and repertoire that “challenge the boundaries between classical and folk traditions, creating innovative and original works for all audiences. Influenced by the Nordic, Celtic, and American regions, Skylark’s music is melody-driven with unique energy, irresistible flair, and undeniable beauty.”
The quartet, featuring Jane Kittredge (violin), Ben Lively (violin/guitar), Ana Ruesink (viola), and John Dunlop (cello), is, a press release states, “thrilled to be hosted by two such magical places,” Manitou and the Latchis.
Kittredge and Dunlop grew up in Vermont, trained elsewhere, and ultimately came back. Lively, the group’s violinist, guitarist, composer, and arranger, graduated from Middlebury College, then moved to Vermont from New York City several years ago.
Ruesink attended University of Vermont and now teaches there, as does Kittredge. All perform with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra (VSO).
Kittredge recently described Skylark’s music as “innovative and eclectic. We all have classical training, and we all have a love of folk music that comes from the Nordic, Celtic, and American regions. It’s really interesting — the contemporary fusion that’s happening in European countries and in terms of folk roots. There’s a lot of innovative composition and arrangement that’s going on.”
Skylark caught the attention of Mayer at a VSO-sponsored performance in Windsor in early March when Mayer noted that Skylark’s would be “a great performance” to hold at the Manitou Reserve.
“We hit it off,” Kittredge recalls. “I loved what he was describing in terms of Higher Ground, and thought it’d be a great venue to bring our music to.”
Natural burial, she adds, “is a wonderful way to honor one’s life and to honor the land that we live on. And there’s a certain harmony there that I think connects with music in a very special way.”
Both concerts, Mayer adds, are intended “to celebrate community with nature, captivating music, and diverse faith traditions, all honoring Vermont’s first conservation cemetery.”
Prior to each performance, Mayer “will briefly introduce Manitou and Higher Ground, their connection, how the nonprofits formed, land was acquired, and other work was done to meet community needs shared by loved ones, friends, and neighbors.”
Latchis Arts Executive Director Jon Potter recalls: “We did a film and Q&A last year about medically assisted suicide, and folks involved with green burial in this area were there to share information about it at the event. It certainly piqued my interest. It’s something a lot of us don’t think about and probably should.”
The idea for Latchis Arts to support the Higher Ground project came about when Potter and Mayer were singing together in the Brattleboro Concert Choir this spring. During a break, Potter recalls, Mayer “brought up this great quartet, Skylark, and suggested we have them for a concert at the Latchis. I just took it from there.”
At the Latchis, Potter explains, “so much of what we do is about gathering people together to learn about each other, support each other, and to nurture understanding of the world around us.”
This event “fits that bill,” he says.
And, Potter continues, the “the music will be breathtaking.”
For Skylark’s Saturday Manitou Woods concert, a reservation and carpooling are strongly encouraged; reserve tickets at [email protected]. Tickets for the Sunday concert at the Latchis are $20 at latchis.com ($25 at the door). Participation in the pre-concert tour Saturday at 2:30 p.m. is free for the first 20 people who respond to [email protected]. For more information about Higher Ground, visit highergroundconservburial.org.
This News item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.