My name is Shari Wolf and I'm the founder of Natural Grace
Funerals and we are a funeral home here covering the Los Angeles area offering
exclusively environmentally-friendly death care options for families.
Green burial or natural burial—which is often an interchangeable term—is in its practical sense,
a way for us to care for our dead and allowing the body to go back to the earth in a simple
natural fashion with minimal environmental impact. The biggest difference between what
we do at Natural Grace and conventional funeral services, is that we do not embalm the bodies,
so the bodies are kept preserved through refrigeration and the family still has the
option in for a private or a public viewing and this can be incorporated into any kind
of funeral service that a family would like to have. So we work with families that have very
traditional religious services to very just simple get-togethers, celebrations of life,
etc. The three components of a green burial would be an unembalmed body wrapped either
in a shroud or a biodegradable container and then put directly into the earth. There are basically
three different types of burial grounds coined by the Green Burial Council as being: a hybrid,
natural, and a conservation. And hybrids are when you have a conventional cemetery, for example,
that will set aside an area where they were allow for vaultless burial. They will allow for the
decedent to be buried either in a shroud or a very simple biodegradable container and then of course,
the body is not embalmed. With a natural burial ground you have a complete natural setting and for
example, as you would look across a natural burial ground you would not see the large headstones.
If there's a marker on top of the graves, then it would be a natural stone from that area. And then
the next level of burial ground is conservation and with those burial grounds the funds that are
put into the burial of that family member go on to actually purchase and preserve more land. Many of
the natural burial grounds also allow for family participation and that may be even as simple as
helping to fill back in the grave and families ask to be part of a natural burial very often.
Some of them will even mention that it has been a life-changing event. So to be a part of a natural
burial, whether it's a home funeral aspect and to be close to someone that has not been embalmed,
or to be out at a natural setting and be participating in a burial, leaves them
with a different experience and as we all know we're all uncomfortable with death but somehow,
with both of those aspects, people are able to embrace what they are experiencing and
actually feel part of it and feel that they come away with some healing and with some solace.