The Beginning

In the early hours of 30th July 2012, my father died, suddenly, quickly.  We knew he had terminal cancer, but the doctors hadn’t predicted a timeframe, and it took everyone by surprise.

Out of the process of planning his funeral and burial came the seeds of this project, the Tara Sanctuary and Natural Burial Ground.  My brother and I discovered how much it all mattered – the ceremony, the burial place, where the wake was to be held, what people said to us – e.g. the people at the hospice, the registry office, the funeral directors.  We were wide open, super-sensitive.

There were particular constraints determining the choices we made; e.g. my Dad wanted to be buried in Oxford and have a Jewish funeral, even though he had an atheist upbringing and was a non-believer.  But with hindsight, I felt sad that his burial place wasn’t more beautiful.  Too cramped, too near the main road… not a place to sit and dwell.  There was a tiny woodland corner in the cemetery, but it wasn’t possible to reserve a place for my Mum there, so no good.   There was a participative element to the ceremony which was traditional; everyone helped heap earth on the coffin.  This was very good.  I wished we’d carried the coffin to the grave, rather than it being done by unknown men in black.  Often natural burial grounds make that possible by having a cart that can be wheeled by relatives and friends.

I thought how great it would be to create a stunningly beautiful place for burials, more spacious, a place where you would want to spend time, and somewhere you could do the whole thing, funeral, burial and wake – not have to get in a car or bus and travel somewhere else, breaking the momentum of the whole ritual.  I didn’t know that there was a whole growing network of natural burial grounds in the UK, part of a wider natural death movement and that what I was thinking of was along these lines.

The idea also grew out of my experience with Buddhafield, a Buddhist charity running outdoor events, including retreats, camping on lovely pieces of land.  It showed me the beauty of living simply on the land, unplugged from the mains, immersed in natural beauty: how it slows you down and opens the heart, and how a strong sense of community arises very naturally from a shared connection with the land.  I thought that using a piece of land for burials could go perfectly with running Buddhist retreats there:  because reflection on impermanence, fragility, death, are absolutely central to Buddhism.  It’s a way to wake up to the beauty of this life and to find the true freedom that comes from seeing that nothing is fixed or solid.   Centuries ago, Buddhist practitioners would for these reasons meditate in cremation grounds, where bodies had been burnt (often just partially, due to lack of fuel).  This could be a modern – health and safetied – equivalent!

My Dad had been caring for my Mum, then himself got ill.  It’s apparently common for a carer to die before the partner they are caring for.  My mother lived for another year and a half.  We cared for her at home, and she died there.  I’d told her I’d like to put some of my inheritance towards creating a natural burial ground and explained the vision, and she really liked the idea.

Written by Dayajoti