Newsletter 4.22.2024
Connecting with the land and an announcement about an upcoming event.
Happy Earth Day! It’s Tony again. Welcome to our April newsletter. After this three minute post on connecting with the land and each other through natural burial, you can find ways to engage with Jeremiah Commons at the bottom, including an upcoming talk on natural burial on May 15th!
Connecting with the Land
What connects you to the land? You can probably conjure memories, whether from film, literature, or (if you’re lucky) personal experience: fingertips gently running through tall stalks of wheat (thank you, Gladiator), digging hands into moist, rich earth, splashing in creeks and rivers as a child or eating fresh-picked berries. You can imagine the smell of Spring rain hitting dry soil (petrichor) or damp rotting wood mixed with fresh forest air; of fragrant pines in Northern Michigan luring you to spend time with them. In Spring, here in the midwest, the sounds of the red-winged blackbird’s robotic screeching and the repeated chirr of chuckling robins incite wonder. Farmers connect to the land through the food they grow and everyone is, in some way or form, connected to the land through the food they eat. Spring peepers at night, chickadees in the morning, apples and pumpkins in the Fall, sun on skin, toes in grass urge us to recall, bodily, the ways in which the natural world is a part of our human world. But to speak of two different worlds betrays a belief that what is human is separate from what is natural. These visceral memories, senses, and experiences are reminders that we are very much a part of the green, vibrant, and living land around us. Whether you feel it or not, you are connected with the land.
The soil is the hinge of this connection. As Wendell Berry notes, “The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all.” Soil is miraculous. There are more living organisms in a handful of healthy soil than there are humans on the planet. I had a professor who would say that soil scientists know something of the sacred because they think in the millennia. In the Christian tradition, soil is a symbol that carries deep meaning. Christ uses soil in his teachings and parables, and in Hebrew and Christian scripture, the Garden of Eden story presents God as the one who creates by bending down and kissing the soil, breathing into it the life that is in all living things today. For many religions and cultures, soil carries deep spiritual significance. It is a site and symbol of death and life.
Connecting to the Land and each other through Natural Burial
Natural Burial revives the ancient and meaningful practice of laying loved ones to rest in the soil free of anything that would stop their re-connection with the natural world; anything that would stop the transition from ashes to ashes and dust to dust. One of the primary ways this practice connects us to the land is that communities—families, friends, acquaintances, neighbors—participate in an act that is intimately connecting their dead, and themselves, to a particular patch of soil, together. It is more affordable, more intimate, more sustainable, and adds meaning to an already meaningful act. Natural burial brings the community together for a common cause and the common care of that land respects the lives and deaths of all those attached there. It strengthens these relationships of reciprocity. To quote Jeff Masten, one of the founders of Bluestem Cemetery in North Carolina, in an article from the Land Trust Alliance, “Our bodies are a gift to the land. The Land is a gift to us.”
Connect with Jeremiah Commons
There is a growing natural burial movement across the nation that has been gaining traction in Michigan for the last several years. The mission of Jeremiah Commons is to continue this momentum and create a space in South-Central Michigan for all humans to restore the land and connect with each other through community conservation and natural burial. Our hope is to reconnect people with the land on which we all depend and preserve public open and natural space for all to rest in and enjoy.
Recall those memories above, those experiences of connection with the land. Who is with you in those moments? How do you remember feeling? Do you have a fondness for a particular place? A natural burial preserve is a place where loss and hope, death and life are entwined in a way that makes surprising connections possible: with the land, with strangers and friends, with the divine, with those we’ve lost. We hope you join us in creating space for and strengthening these connections in whatever way you can. You can find opportunities to engage below! We are hosting our first community event at the Dahlem Center in May and would love to have you join if you are in the South-Central area of MI.
Dust to Dust: A Presentation and Conversation on Natural Burial
When: Wednesday May 15, 6-7PM
Where: The Dahlem Conservancy (7117 S. Jackson Rd. Jackson, MI 49201)
What: Tony Mayotte will give a presentation on natural burial with Q&A and conversation to follow. Snacks and light refreshments provided.
Signing up is not necessary (feel free to just show up!) but taking 10 seconds to put your name and email in this registration form helps us plan for space and food!
Share this newsletter or the upcoming talk. If you know of friends, a small group, or that cool person at the garden store who might be interested in natural burial, tell them about our talk in May!
Donate. We are still receiving gifts for our initial goal of $5,000 to fund research and applications for land-acquisition grants, join non-profit and conservation groups, and fund resources for spreading our vision (brochures, educational events, website costs, etc.). We are so grateful for the gifts we have received and we will continue working with community partners and applying for grants. If you’d like to give a gift, you can donate through Zeffy, here.
Learn. If you’d like to learn more about Jeremiah Commons, natural burial, and conservation cemeteries, check out our website and groups doing great work to share knowledge, like The Green Burial Council and the Conservation Burial Alliance.
Meet With Us. As always, give us a call, text or email and we’d love to connect.
517-879-7829
info@jeremiahcommons.com
Good at Web Design? We’re updating our website! If you’d be interested in sharing your time and talents as a gift, we would love to talk with you.
