Old graveyards can be places of great wild beauty. This one, St. Mary’s Church of Ireland in Dungarvan, County Waterford, fronts onto the shoreline and is blanketed in wildflowers. Did some one with an eye for eco-design create such a beautiful tranquil meadow?
Over time the graves here have become one duvet of daisies. Modern graveyards too often reflect our values of individualism and urbanisation; enclaves of grandeur and real estate. When I go would you all see to it that my ashes are scattered in some wilderness that has survived our human tendency to try to concrete over nature?
I have blogged about death, dying, graveyards and mushroom suits before. Here is the post about the beautiful grave-yard in Stockholm which is a Unesco World Heritage Site and here is the post about the Mushroom Suit a green alternative to traditional embalming and chemical burials.
I’m fussy about working with rather than against Mother Nature, even in death couldn’t we all be a bit greener……?
especially then … not to leak embalming fluid. For what, for why??
Rather a place to wander thru trees and admire wildflowers and butterflies.
Yes the embalming fluid is creating toxic dumps of all our modern grave yard sites…….what would be so wrong with organic decomposition?……Not a topic you hear discussed much though is it!!!???
Yes and more yes. To visit a loved one in such a beautiful setting would bring so much comfort. To think that having a lawn gone to wildflowers would get you fined where I live is pretty confusing.
Maery Rose there can be no logic in that!! It’s becoming that way here too…..What’s so beautiful in Sweden is that there are very few manicured lawns anywhere so that suburbia has a magical woodland feel……we need far more imagination when it comes to planting?
Yes, we could all be a bit greener! I love the idea of a duvet of daisies just as much as I’ve always loved the planting of gardens instead of lawns. So much, so very much makes absolutely no sense to me right now at all.
I love that you took the image of the gentleman sitting on the bench, I think doing that from the back so as not to intrude is a wonderful & acceptable thing to do. This looks like such a pretty & calm place to be.
Ah Susan….yes the lack of sense is deeply felt here too….So many people would consider the humble daisy as a bit disrespectful maybe? So they spend lots of money on fancy wreaths of imported flowers. But to me so many daisies and wild flowers ( aka weeds) blanketing the dead is a great tribute……is it just us, the hippies in the frame?
I can’t imagine a more beautiful resting place for those who choose to be buried. Such a moving post and such sense and wisdom in the comments, too. I’d never considered the embalming fluid issue before. I’m going down the scattered on the sea route so that anyone who remembers me and wants to be closer can go anywhere there’s sea, clouds, rain or some greenery that the rain helps to grow.
I love the idea of being put out to sea, or in the forest or the meadow. It seems that would be making more use of my old bones too! Also it must be something beautiful for those who are left behind? Not some place that’s just a step up from being in a hospital bed or a prison cell……..or maybe I’m over stating it…..
This post is one of my favorite of yours. It is filled with light and beauty, and so moving. Oh! the back of this old man. Death seems lighter amongst wild flowers. It is such a beautiful places to rest.
Yes it’s not exactly where any of us want to be, but I do find peace there amongst the daisies…..
Slowly working through emails that I missed out on while being away…and so glad I didn’t miss this posting! Oh how I love the old graveyards…where nature has taken its course bringing so much more to the scene than the more modern ones. I never want to be contained in a cemetery…but to be tossed in areas where my ashes will support the wild. We sprinkled my sister’s ashes around one of the butterfly bushes on the farm…and it has flourished over the years. Bigger and more brilliant than any of the others.