What is the long-term future for burial practices? Come hear about sustainable alternatives to traditional burial and cremation. There is a small but growing movement away from toxic embalming, caskets built for forever, and even fossil fuel-intensive cremation. Methods like earth composting, water composting, and mycelial (mushroom) caskets are becoming part of the conversation. Join us as Long Now Boston explores ways we can positively affect the world we live in for future generations.
Green burial strives to reduce the environmental footprint created in the disposition of a body. Whereas traditional burial typically involves toxic embalming agents and durable caskets designed to withstand the elements and time, green burial enables the body to return to nature as quickly and cleanly as possible. Unlike fossil fuel-intensive cremation, green burial methods partner with the mycorrhizal (fungal) networks in the earth to release the valuable chemical and biological elements back into the soil. Green cemeteries avoid pesticides and herbicides, and may aid in land conservation efforts. Often they use GPS markings instead of grave markers. With the flourishing of wild plants, pollinators and animals, green cemeteries tend to brim with life.
Our featured speakers both have deep experience in mortuary issues. Our conversation will range from the practicalities of green/natural burial to the cultural, environmental, political, landscape, and urban planning implications of the practice, with time for Q&A. It will be moderated by Long Now Boston board member Margaret Friedman.
Regina Harrison is Director of Sales at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge/Watertown, Massachusetts, where she has worked in various roles for over 15 years, starting in administration and gradually becoming involved in cemetery services and sales. She and her team meet with families, couples, and individuals to match people with the burial options that are right for them, whether they are planning ahead or facing an immediate need for burial space. Many people start their end of life planning with a visit to a cemetery, so these meetings often involve providing education about end of life issues in general. As a result, general death education has become part of the mission of the sales team under Regina’s management. Regina also serves on the board of the New England Cemetery Association, which is dedicated to supporting the work of regional cemeteries through collaboration and shared knowledge, and is a member of the Cremation Association of North America’s Magazine Advisory Board.
With an undergraduate degree (University of Chicago) and a master’s degree (McGill University) in social anthropology, Regina sees her cemetery work in the context of overall cultural beliefs about death and how to take care of and commemorate the dead. As a bird watcher and gardener, she is glad to be involved in end of life matters at a time when environmental impacts and sustainability have become a part of how we think about our deaths, and to be at a cemetery like Mount Auburn where sustainability is a part of our mission.
Regina Harrison
.jpg)
Michelle Hogle Acciavatti (she/her/they), M.Sci., is a natural deathcare worker and the founder of Vermont Forest Cemetery the first natural burial ground in Vermont. She is a licensed funeral director, death doula, pregnancy loss guide, home funeral guide, end of life specialist and natural burial educator. In 2016 after 3 years of serving in the hospice system, she created Green Mountain Funeral Alternatives to help people preparing for the end of life, designing funeral services, caring for their own dead, and exploring natural burial options.
Michelle has trained as a mortician, an advance care planner, an end of life doula, a home funeral guide, a natural burial advocate & educator, a writer, a neuroscientist, and an ethicist. She is a founding member of The Collective for Radical Death Studies. She has practiced death work with people of all ages, including death during pregnancy. Her work has found her in settings as varied as the forest, Boston Children’s Hospital, the State House, and people’s own living rooms as well as the traditional funeral home. She loves being outdoors, ideally in the sun, usually by water, often with a cup of tea, and almost always with a book.
Michelle Hogle Acciavatti
