Death is a permanent feature of every community, and many choose embalming, caskets, vaults, interment in mausoleums, and even freezing for attempted reanimation. There is also an increasing trend in cremation. Headstone-covered fields dot the landscape and some choose to have the largest or most unique marker as their legacy.

But an option in some cemeteries is called “green burial.”

Conservationists are now championing the idea that we can preserve the state of the land, and welcome the living and also the dead. Elisa Donovan, from an article in National Geographic, has planned and implemented a conservation cemetery in a Southeast Texas Indiangrass Preserve. “No caskets or concrete liners, embalming won’t be used, and each body will be lowered into the ground in biodegradable clothes and shroud.”

As development gnaws away at habitat, this is a way that we can nurture the relationship between nature and death. Undertaking evolved into preserving bodies for temporary viewing and in some cases permanent display. Lincoln’s body was preserved for 19 days and today the deathcare industry generates more than $20.5 billion annually.

“Bury me not on the lone prairie where the coyotes howl and the wind blows free” is a cowboy folk song, but I’m not advocating backyard burials. Ground level markers in conservation cemeteries would be optional, survey pin or geoposition marking could also be used, but the land would be left in native flora and not groomed. Perhaps it is time we considered the Bible’s rendition of “Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.”