It must be right at the top of the list of difficult things to talk about - death.
Few people cannot name at least one experience they've had with death that hasn't forced them to confront their own mortality or somehow left a scar they carry with them. Usually the last aspect one might think of is the environment.
But there is one man on the Sunshine Coast who is seeking to change that. Gibsons resident Don Morris presented some of his ideas to the Sunshine Coast Regional District Nov. 19, claiming it is time for us to start taking a look at the way we exit this world to see if we can't do it a bit greener.
Don is pitching the idea of green burials.
Green burials, much like how they sound, are the act of burying our departed in a way that is completely environmentally-sound - no net damage to the earth, water or air.
This means doing away with large coffins made from with various non-biodegradable materials, possibly endangered hardwoods and finished with toxic chemicals. No more concrete or fibreglass coffin covers that will remain long after our physical bodies have broken down back to the simple carbon atoms they are made of.
Instead, green burials involve much simpler things like cotton or burlap shrouds, wood that can biodegrade faster or wicker.
Also gone are the toxic chemicals used in embalming and the industrial practice of cremation. Instead of a headstone, a green burial involves the planting of trees or shrubs and modest plaques.
After about 40 years, that same green burial spot where our remains once were will be available for use again with absolutely no environmental damage. We can recycle even after we are gone.
There's more than the environmental benefits though. Don argues there is something about the way burial is done now that separates us from nature, rather than returns us to it, and we are missing out spiritually because of it.
"At heart, it's aimed to overcome our death-denying ways through bringing nature and spirit into grieving, along with meaningful rituals," he wrote to me recently.
Almost needless to say, green burials are cheaper too.
They can be startling ideas, but confronting that startlement and disarming it is something Don is very good at.
Don has spent the better part of his life working in the funeral industry, from the mortuary to the mausoleum, and it shows in his unique knowledge of and perspective on death.
He is incredibly soft-spoken and kind, and he finds a way to be both frank and gentle when talking about death and funerals.
In my first meeting with him, it was almost involuntary for me to bring up my own mom's passing when I was 22, something I am mostly quiet about.
Just speaking with him on the topic of death gives one a sense of calm that pharmaceutical companies would love to bottle and sell.
It's only natural to wonder if we lived on this earth and did at least one thing to somehow make it better than how we found it. Going out green is an idea that is long overdue, and like many emerging environmental standards, Canada is behind the times. Victoria holds the title of being the first jurisdiction in B.C. to have a modern green cemetery and Vancouver recently joined the ranks, but every place is capable. And other countries are years ahead of us. The biggest obstacles we face are the ones in our heads, asking us to take another look at a practice that is wasteful, toxic and outdated. We can do better.
