It Was Not a Coincidence

My first of several meetings today happened to be with David Ponoroff and Meg Wade of Larkspur Conservation, a nature preserve for natural burial here in Tennessee. David is the assistant director at Larkspur, and Meg is a poet and Vanderbilt University grad student in Divinity. She's working with Larkspur on a number of projects, and not too long ago, I happened to take one of her writing workshops on the elegy. I sat down with the two of them at The Cafe at Thistle Farms in Nashville early this morning to talk about all things Larkspur (more on my reasons for that conversation in a bit). Ten days previous, when David and I had set the date, I intuited that there was some significance to November 9, but at that moment, I pushed the whisper aside and forgot about it.

Until today. I woke up remembering that this November 9 marks four years since I was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 lung cancer. It also happened to be the day that I gave David all the signed paperwork and a deposit for the two burial places John and I are reserving for ourselves at Larkspur. Also, my last set of scans back in September showed that my cancer is still "asleep" and I have no evidence of disease. So what the heck was I doing meeting with the Larkspur people? On my fourth cancerversary no less.

It was not a coincidence. I'm beginning to believe that nothing is. Burial at Larkspur is something I've been planning since my diagnosis in 2018, but natural burial has been on my mind since long before I got the cancer. I do know that making burial arrangements, especially for a place like Larkspur, was one of the most life-affirming things I have ever done. When the time comes (not too soon, though!) my bones will sleep there for eternity, and the thought of that brings me great peace in the here and now. It makes my life better and more beautiful today, in this moment. The decision aligns with my values and longings—to conserve and preserve our wild, natural places, to use land rightly and for the good of all, to be one with all creation. Our actions and decisions have consequences for the land, even in death. I want my legacy on the land to be one of minimal harm. If my decision results in an action that helps sustain the earth—which sustained me for all these years upon it—then so much the better.

Larkspur is a natural sanctuary teeming with life. Even in December, when John and I toured it with daughter Rachel and son-in-law David back in 2019, the place was rustling with small creatures burrowing in the tawny high meadow grasses, and winter birds and squirrels nestled down in the cedars and oaks. Larkspur takes its name from the proliferation of the lovely purple wildflowers that cluster in the preserve each spring. One must make a short hike into the burial grounds from a small parking area on the side of a country road. Some folk are buried in the high meadow, some in a glade near a brook, some on a forested ridge. Some of the places are marked with a natural stone (no engraved polished marble or granite here) or a native tree or wildflowers, some only by GPS coordinates. None of the people buried there have been embalmed, and their bodies are clothed only in natural fibers, wrapped in a simple muslin shroud, and, if there's a coffin, it's made of wicker or simple pine. People's cremated remains are buried at Larkspur as well. When the grave is dug, the soil is removed in layers and restored to its original layers during the burial, because the earth is a living breathing being, a holy creation. 

In fact, Larkspur invites people to walk the preserve for pleasure and remembrance. It is, after all, a place for the living, perhaps even more than it is a place where we may bury our dead. In fact, fees paid for burial go to sustaining and growing the natural preserve in perpetuity, for the benefit of all. Thus, one's burial in that place sustains the soil and mycelium, the entire ecosystem, and the economy of the wild.  What investment in the living future could be better than that?