For years I have thought that I would like to be cremated when I die, but today, I decided that I want my body to be covered in earth, so that it might give back life and health to the ground that supported it. I like the idea of bits of me being carried throughout the world on the backs of millions of organisms.
I remember learning about air when I was little – that this air that I am breathing, even now, as I type, has been inhaled by dinosaurs, and Catherine the Great, and my long dead grandparents – that we all leave traces of our selves in our shuffling through the world, that we bring the past into our bodies in every breath we inhale.
How beautiful. How perfect.
I think of this and I feel such a comfort in my humanity, such a connection to my past and delight in my future.
So don’t burn me up and scatter me off. Come that day, burry me down deep and cover me up tight, that what remains of the anchor that held my soul to this planet, will get to mix with the earth, travel through water beds, be drawn up by roots and rush into baby green leaves, some spring, years away, in trees not yet planted.
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