From his humble days as a “lawn guy” at a local funeral home, to his current role as a funeral director and leader on the board of the Green Burial Council, Samuel Perry stands out! I am excited to bring you this conversation about green burial, because it includes not just the facts, but also a thoughtful discussion of what green burial represents and could mean to any one of us. When we say “traditional burial,” maybe green burial is the real deal?

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Transcript:

Hi, I am Diane Hullet, and you’re listening to the Best Life Best Death podcast. And today I, I’m covering a topic that I’ve been really interested in doing more episodes about, which is green burial. So joining me today is Sam Perry from the Green Burial Council. Hi Sam. Welcome. Hello. Thanks for having me Diane.

So, Sam has been a part of the Green Burial Council for a while and he’s a licensed funeral director or a licensed mortician, if you will. So, you know, tell us a little bit about your path to be a funeral director. ’cause I think people are often interested in that. And then we’ll kind of get into what is Green burial, what is the Green Burial Council?

Sure, yeah. My path to funeral directing and the green burial council and green burial has been kind of winding. But it started just because I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors. My dad always said that I was always outside as a kid, so, I just really loved supporting people. I love people and then I love the outdoors.

I started as a lawn maintenance kid at a funeral home and slowly kind of got more involved in my local funeral home. And people were kind of surprised that I wanted to be a funeral director because I’m kind of a smiley person and they didn’t understand why such a happy person would do something so morbid.

But I got really curious about it. Because so many people didn’t know about death and what a funeral director was, and I started to find a lot of a lot of life in the work, honestly. From learning about death, I started to learn a lot about my life and I just love that. So I. Had some pretty difficult times deciding whether I wanted to stick with the industry or not, because certain parts of it were a struggle for me.

I’m pretty liberal progressive thinking. I’m not your typical. I I wouldn’t have considered myself a typical funeral director of the time and I just didn’t really know. I, I. Tried to drop out a couple times. But I had a really great professor in mortuary school who saw that I was interested in these, you know, different perspectives in the industry and really got me to stick with it.

And I ended up traveling in school abroad and learning about death cultures around the world, which left a huge impression on me that like. We don’t have to do it this way. There are so many ways to do death. Right? And I, it really re-inspired me. And along that time I also found Green Burial, the Green Burial Council.

And I started to get involved with them and learn about what that was. Because as a person that loves nature and who was in the field, this felt like the spot that I belonged in. Right? You know, green burial. Honoring the environment, honoring the planet in death. And I, and that wasn’t taught in school at all.

I had to find it by myself. And I really got kind of pulled in under the wing of some folks at the Green Barrel Council along the way. So I’ve been there since 2010 doing various volunteer work and more recently became the president of the Green Barrel Council education side. So, yeah, I, I just really, I think it found me in a lot of ways and I, I struggled to find it at some places, but I feel like I’m in my field now.

And, and it’s really exciting. So currently I teach at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and I’m a full-time lecturer here, and I have, one of the, I have the only in-person class on green funeral services for funeral directors. So I teach at a mortuary program here and really excited about that, that we get to have that and then hopefully you know, bring that to the rest of the mortuary programs around the nation.

’cause there is definitely a hunger for this education. Oh wow. There, there is so much you said in there that I just was biting my tongue not to interrupt. So many interesting pieces to what you said. Number one, I love that you started as a lawn care guy, like high school, middle school, whatever it was.

Right? And then that was the entry point. I mean, how. Funny that our life sometimes gives us these meandering paths, right? And so you start as a lawn guy, you think, oh, maybe I’m gonna be in lawn service, or maybe I’m gonna go to college for finance or something. And the next thing you know, you’re pulled into the funeral industry.

I just think that’s amazing. And then this piece where you had a mentor who really said, I think this is, I think this world is changing this world of funeral industry, and you have the potential to be kind of on this edge of something new. So stick with it. That’s so cool. And then the fact that you traveled and you saw so much around the world.

I, you know, I haven’t done a ton around the, the world kind of possibilities, but I did read Caitlyn Doughty’s book, Oh. Which I’m in a space, the name of, what’s the name of that book? I. From here to Eternity. Yes. From here to eternity. And, and that was just a simple read and it, similar to your experience, but yours was obviously much more firsthand and hands-on.

It blew my mind ’cause I just, yeah, I just sort of thought, well, of course we all do death, like we do it here in the us. Not at all. Not at all. And of course when you and I say do death, I mean we’re talking both about the care of dying people we’re talking about. The way that people are celebrated and memorialized.

We’re talking about how, what the family does and what happens to their body when they die. So, and what happens to Grievers too rightly, is this whole process of living and dying and how it impacts both the living, the dying, the dead. All of it. It’s such a huge package and, and you and I are working in this sort of stream of what that is and what that could be and what that can be, and I’m sure you see, like I see some families and some communities, you know, create situations around death that, not that it’s not hard, not that it’s not difficult, but it is more moving and connected than.

Others and, and those feel more healing, I think is the bottom line. So how amazing that you got to go around the world and, and see different pieces and how you then brought that back to Southern Illinois where you, where you’re working and teaching. I’ve been very, very lucky. So I, it does, I. You know, there’s some privilege there.

So that I, I don’t take for granted and try to, you know, pass on, pass forward. So pass forward. That’s it. That’s it. It’s not, it’s, you got the opportunity to do that. That then allows you to bring it forward to your students, which has to be having a huge impact. Is, is that, so mortuary school is that, are a lot of people signing up for that these days?

What’s the. Word. So there seems to be a uptick in interest in mortuary school. So just to give you an example, at our school when I started, my senior class was nine students, and my freshman class last year was 65 students. So just in the span of like. Four years. Three, four years, it’s like exponentially grown.

And I think that is from the internet, you know folks having more access to this kind of information and the curiosity around that, like not I. Not always being talked about, but having the information at her fingertips and then people really getting interested through folks like yourself, through Caitlin Doty, through, you know, all of these public figures who are, are, are kind of bringing down the veils of the industry and really getting people thinking about, okay, I could probably do that.

So yeah. Yeah. Is and are the 65 people, I mean, do they, are they all from Southern Illinois? Do they come from other places specifically for this school? We are one of the few schools in the nation that offers a four year bachelor’s program. So we do get people coming from a distance. Like I do have a student from la I do have a student from Ohio, but a majority of our students are from Illinois or Missouri Indiana, even so a majority are from like the Midwest.

Yeah. Oh, so interesting. So then, so then all of that brought you to be involved with the Green Burial Council. So tell us, tell us a little more about that. Yeah, so way back when, when I was a student, I, I was just involved at a very kind of superficial level, just, you know, doing some day-to-day volunteering work.

I was actually helping with certifications at the time, so since I had a. You know, a background in funeral homes. I worked at a funeral home. I was going to school to be a funeral director. I did funeral home certifications. And all of our certifications are done by a third party who, you know, they’re not on the board necessarily, but they have expertise in the field.

And there’s a format that we follow, you know, so I just kind of check. Boxes, and then it gets reviewed in that way, and then a certifier, certifies that. So that’s how I started through their websites, through making phone calls. And along the way I’ve done so much, like I’ve, I’ve been an advisor, I’ve been a speaker, I’ve been an educator.

Been yeah, I. And always kind of on the outskirts, just volunteering when people asked. And not a ton of my time went into that until more recently. So almost two years now I’ve been doing the president position and gotten way more involved in the executive role and the board and what that looks like.

You know, it’s the first time I’ve been on a, a nonprofit and it really. It has been interesting and to kind of see on the inside of the Green Barrel Council, and we’re currently, you know, doing a lot of great educational work that, that I’m proud of. We have a programs committee that puts out webinars every other month for the public and for the industry.

We are working on redesigning our website, which is a great place to go and get educated about green burial. There’s a wealth of information there and a lot of that has to do with Lee Webster. She’s a name I always wanna mention because she’s a big part of me being in this field, coming, staying in this field.

She helped me start the class on green funeral services. And she did a lot of the education work on our website, which is getting redesigned, but not, you know, her, her spirit is absolutely gonna remain there. So she’s, she’s someone else that I highly recommend looking into. If you’re interested in the field at large, I.

I realize we should probably even just back up for listeners who might be just, you know, regular folks, like what is green burial? How is green burial different from burial? I mean, what are we even talking about? Body disposition, burial versus green burial. Tell us. Yeah, I’m glad you brought us back. So green burial to me is just a simple burial.

So the full body directly in the ground, no embalming biodegradable containers hopefully biodegradable clothing as well. A lot of times. It lends itself to ritual, to participation, to involvement of the family you know, organic development of, you know, of, of ritualization, which is really beautiful.

And so this connection to death in a very physical way, in an environmental way, in a spiritual way. Those are kind of the things that I think about when I think about green burial. And those are really. Kind of broken into three parts when we’re comparing it to conventional burial. So I think about them as the body, the container, and the cemetery.

And when you’re talking about the body, you know, with conventional burial, you’re usually embalmed with pretty harsh chemicals that can be really harmful to the embalmer to, and potentially the environment. In green burial, we skip all of that. You know, the body is left natural, it, the body is still given dignity.

Of course, washed, cared for, dressed, honored but death, the reality of what death looks like is something that you see with natural burial. And then we have the container. So in conventional burial, that would be a metal casket. Something made of exotic woods with lacquers and metals that can be, you know, resource intensive, where in natural burial, green burial, and I use those terms interchangeably.

So just let you know. Those are the same thing in my mind. But in green burial, those are biodegradable containers, like the things you see behind me, you know? Wicker or bamboo containers that the body goes into that are very readily biodegradable or even a shroud, cotton shroud, linen shroud, silk shroud, so that they break down more quickly.

The, the environment has quicker access to all of those valuable materials that your body is composed of. Right? Our body is. Made of all of the things that help it break down and be valuable to the environment. So we’re not trying to impede that. We’re trying to embrace that and give that back. And then the cemetery in conventional burial at the cemetery looks very much like a golf course.

It’s very manicured. There’s stones. There, it can be kind of sterile. There’s a lot that goes into that, a lot of resources that go into that gas to mow gas, to weed, whack materials for the actual stones. You know, the monuments that are put up, concrete they even use concrete vaults. They usually require those as a rule at cemeteries and concrete is.

Very harmful to the environment. The creation of that concrete is very harmful to the environment, has a lot of carbon emissions, and it’s just a thing that goes directly in the ground. We never see it again. We use it again, but it’s for the maintenance of the cemetery. So conventional cemeteries require that so that they can be more efficient, they can have.

Burials more closely together they can dig and not disturb that grave because they have that vault. The grave then holds itself up so that they don’t have to keep, you know, adding dirt when it sinks in over time. So there is some benefits to that, you know, efficiency to that maintenance. Whereas in natural burial, you know, we, we skip all of those things.

It can look really different depending on what cemetery you’re at. The Green Burial Council, we do certify three different types of cemeteries. We have hybrid, which is both conventional and natural, which have natural, which is only natural. So no embalming, no vault directly into the ground. And then, conservation burial, and these I find to be the most beautiful, the most environmental. They really just look like a space you’d go hiking in, you know, be trees, be a meadow, a natural environment. The body goes back and you’re part of that beautiful space. There may or may not be, and likely in a conservation cemetery.

Not gonna be some sort of monument for your actual grave. They may have something like a synta, which would be at the maybe entrance of the cemetery where your name is honored in but not at the grave. You still have access to that space. It might be marked with a satellite marker or by platting so that you can find it still and honor your.

Person, but not to impede the, the natural environment, the conservation of that land in that flora and fauna in that space. So that’s of my short and long definition of green burial. So helpful. I love that you broke it down into the body, the container and the cemetery. And then of course, what pops in my mind is, so how common are these cemeteries?

I, I don’t have a good sense. I, I believe there’s one. But I’m probably wrong. I bet there’s more. There’s, there’s a big cemetery in Denver that has both, and there’s an incredible Colorado natural burial preserve down in more southern Colorado that is all natural. And I haven’t done enough research, this is just me in my area, but like if someone’s interested in this, number one, just that general question, how common are these?

And then number two, how does someone go about finding a place? Sure. So access to green burial can be a little cumbersome, to be honest. It, it’s a bit of a, a barrier at the moment. It, it’s interesting you should mention the Colorado Burial Preserve because Emily Miller one of the owners is actually on the board of the Green Burial Council.

So that space is different. So Green Burial, cemeteries, hybrid cemeteries, which is different from Emily’s cemetery, are easier to establish. So those tend to be the most available because with, it’s not easy to establish a cemetery. So you might find more of those where they’re doing both. Conventional burial and natural burial, they’re gonna often look more like a conventional cemetery, but they don’t allow embalming in those spaces for natural burial.

They don’t require a vault and your body can go directly into a ground. So those are, we’re establishing more and more of those in the United States more quickly because the barriers to creating those are fewer. Whereas natural cemeteries, conservation cemeteries are harder to establish. So they are a little harder to find.

There is a lot of interest in this though, and so, like I said, more and more of these are being established every day. If you want to find one in your area, I highly recommend going to our website. We have a map of the u, the US and all of those that are certified. We also have a list of state by state where you can find.

Cemeteries, but also funeral homes that are providing this and product providers that offer this. And if you don’t find them there, I don’t want you to get discouraged either because, just because they’re not certified you know, certification really, is important and brings a standard to those cemeteries.

But that doesn’t mean if you don’t have a certified one in your area that you can’t be buried naturally. I’m from a rural area and most rural cemeteries don’t have these requirements of a vault, and that’s the main thing at a cemetery that gets in your way of being more natural. And you know, you might just ask your, especially a rural cemetery, whether they even require that.

And then, I’m gonna make my grandma an example. You know, she, she has a plot in a conventional cemetery next to her husband who has already died. And she really wants to be next to him, of course, right? And they still require a vault, but she wants to be buried naturally. So we are having to kind of make some compromises in her burial.

Unfortunately she’s not gonna be embalmed. She will be buried in a wicker casket, much like the one behind me. And she is gonna be in a vault that allows the elements in. So it’s sometimes considered a rough box. And so we’re, we’re doing the best we can. It’s not the absolute best option, but for the situation, we’re, we’re kind of making the, the best of it.

So even if you don’t find one in your area, highly recommend. Keep looking, keep asking ask the cemetery what the rules are. Ask your local funeral director that you’re interested in this. They might be involved in trying to make this happen at the local cemetery already. Because the National Funeral Directors Association, they do a consumer survey every year and they.

Finding that every year there’s more and more interest in this. Once people know that it’s an option, they’re like, this is what I want to do. A lot of the problem is that most people don’t know it’s even an option. So, oh, oh. Again, just a mouthful of things there. That’s so great. I love that you’re saying.

Don’t be discouraged because, well, number one, you can go to the GR Green Burial Council website and learn a lot. And number two, it sounds like it’s really changing every day in month to month. And then third, I think with your grandmother, you brought up a really good point, which is basically intergenerationally.

You’ve had this conversation and intergenerationally you’ve kind of talked about like, well, what do you want and what’s most important? And it’s. Of course most important to her, that she’d be buried next to her husband. So then you’re making some compromises to make that work. And I’m also struck by how you know, I learned that in the sixties books and information started to come out about cremation.

I. Sure. And it took many, many years for cremation to actually really take root and become a thing. And now I believe it’s the most common, right? I know like in Arizona, it’s something like 97% of people are cremated. So I think about green burial like that. It’s like it, it is taking time for that information to take root and for green burial places to develop.

But I have a feeling in. And because of the internet, it’s probably exponentially faster in, you know, five years or 10 years. I think this will continue to be a really popular option. And so just to kind of learn about it now, but to learn about it, you have to be willing to face your mortality, right? And say, this is actually gonna happen to me, or mom or grandma or sibling.

And then given that fact, how can we have a conversation and learn more and make a choice? That feels really good. Sure. Yeah. And I kind of wanna step in here and just say too that this isn’t necessarily a new thing in that, you know, there are so many cultures that have been doing this for all time.

So the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, the Bahai, faith, you know, all of these folks, and most honestly, a majority of the world has been burying in this way, even still. So we’ve gotten so far away from what that looks like, what that means, like how to do it, how to, how to be a part of it that. The industry has sort of taken it in a direction.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m part of the industry. So but it taken it in a direction that separated us a bit from it. And you know, we’re, you know, so for a majority of us, we have seen a casket, an embalming, and, but here in the United States, you know, we’re. There’s so many other views. There’s so many other cultures that, that know how to do this, that this is, this is how their, their community has done it for all time.

Like take the Jewish community for instance. You know, they I mean they have, I. The Shera Kadesha and I’m probably saying that wrong, so Haha. But it’s a community of people specifically for, for handling the body, for honoring the body. And they, they don’t embalmment, they, they wash the body.

They, they say prayers over the body. They shroud the body and they do this all for their community. Right. And then they bury pretty quickly within 24 hours typically. Directly in the ground, if not directly in the ground, maybe in a container that has no metal in it. So that is green burial. You know, and I, I really liked when the order of the Good Death kind of came out with their definition of green burial, because they said it’s just burial.

You know, it, there’s, you know, by calling it green, by calling it natural as sort of a modern, maybe even a little bit of like, privileged way of saying something that has already exists for all time. So I try to check that in myself because yes, I am a member, I’m a member of the Green Burial Council, but you know, we are not unique and this has been done for all time.

So I love that. I love that I started to say like, this new thing, it’s not new. You’re absolutely right. It’s, it’s, it’s probably the oldest human body disposition method. I mean, this is it. Sure. And I’ve been there too. I’ve had to check that myself, you know? ’cause I didn’t understand that when I first came into this field.

So, yeah, brought that up. And then to kind of go back to cremation too, yeah. Jessica Midford, she wrote her book in the sixties. It was, it was really critical of the industry. It’s really made the industry think more, you know critically about themselves and how we offer services how expensive they can be, right?

And how, you know, people want choice and so. Cremation, I feel like has gotten really popular in our world because of expense. It can be much more affordable. It’s not always more affordable depending on the services you choose. Something else that makes it really valuable is that you’re given something that then can go anywhere.

And in a world where we’re kind of in a diaspora, we. We don’t tend to live where we grew up. Right? We can divide that up and give it to our people and we can memorialize in different ways. I, I find that that can complicate grief and complicate our connection to death and dying. And that’s sort of the beauty of Green Burial to me, is that, you know, you get this choice.

It can be less expensive again, depending on the services options you choose. But, still allows that connection and that ritualization that that can be hard with cremation. So. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a really, really good point. What does the, what does the ritualization and the ceremony of it look like with these different types of body disposition?

And I always think it’s interesting. You know, I definitely come across people who say, oh, don’t, I don’t need a funeral. Funerals are terrible. Rah rah. And I love Sarah Kerr is a colleague of mine and Sarah says. If you think that funerals are bad, you’ve never been to a good funeral because a good funeral does something that’s really different than a bad funeral.

And so, I don’t know, do you have anything to add about that? I, I love that. I don’t really, that’s pretty that’s pretty eloquently put, you know, I think that’s so true. I think that’s so true. And with green burial. Even funeral directors, I’ve, I’ve heard a, a handful of stories of funeral directors who were against green burial, but then they saw the, the spirit, the involvement, the like harmony in community, the like.

Sort of the joy that comes from that sort of experience that flipped their whole perspective on it. And that service, that ritual that kind of builds itself into to that type of burial is special in a way that’s unforgettable and it leaves a really big impact on, on even some of the haters, right?

Because they’re like, wow. Yeah. Like you’re saying, I’ve never experienced something like this before. And so I, I agree with Sarah that, you know, you haven’t had a good one because until you felt that Right. And it, it takes a lot of vulnerability to be a part of something like that too. So, you know, being open to that is, is can be really hard, especially in our death denying culture.

So, yeah. I’m one of those weird people who I really appreciate funerals and I, I, I, I gladly go to a funeral to show up for people, and I’m always curious about what they feel like and what they are experienced like. And one of the most amazing funerals I attended was someone who had been a lifelong alcoholic, and so many people from his AA group spoke at this funeral and they stood up and said.

I’m, you know, I’m so and so. I’m an alcoholic and this is how this person impacted me because he had gotten sober and it was so heartfelt and so community minded and so much about honoring what he had brought to others in his life. And at the same time, very simple. We were at, you know, picnic tables under an outdoor pavilion, and yet it comes to mind as one of the more moving funerals because there was so much.

Truth spoken at this funeral that wow. You know, so I think funerals can have this incredible possibility for the living and the dead to help us be where we are. And you know, and then there are funerals that are very tight and stiff and nothing feels like it moves and it feels very performative or something, and disconnected, and those are so tough.

Yeah. Yeah. And some people find comfort in that, right? Like that, like they know what to expect. They so they can kind of get through it. But yeah, for me personally, the sort of like, yeah almost woo woo of, of what can be is, is exciting and healing. But yeah. Yeah, I think of. Sort of the Catholic ritual, right?

There’s some beauty in that, like, you know what to expect and and it’s laid out for you. There’s not a lot of decisions, especially like if you haven’t thought about death and you don’t know what to expect, and, and then you have to deal with a death. Like having that already sort of like fulfilled for you is nice.

Which kind of goes back to, you know, the benefit of pre-planning and thinking about this ahead of time. Like, if the Catholic faith doesn’t meet you where you are, then you do need to think about it ahead of time. So when you do come to a death, you have something in place that’s gonna make you feel good about, and, and have some answers for like, what next?

Because it can be so difficult. Otherwise, yeah. Those, those rituals, those long rituals of faith or whatever community you create are such an anchor. I mean, they really, they can create an anchor in the midst of grief and death and difficulty. Yeah. Well, well, Sam, I appreciate this so much. Are is there any last pieces you wanna say about the green burial movement or how people can find out about your work and the work of the Green Burial Council?

Yeah, right now the best place to go is to our website, which is www.greenburialcouncil.org. So please go there, learn more about green burial. We put on webinars all the time. We have an in**@gr****************.org that you can reach out to us anytime. That’s a great place to, to just kind of get involved.

If you wanna volunteer, we have a volunteer. Tier page, you can fill out that application, we can get you into the Green Burial Council. We are just excited to have people excited and wanna keep you excited and connected to, to this community. So yeah, I don’t, I can’t think of anything else.

This conversation has been really, really nice and I really appreciate you, Diane, for reaching out, for having me here today and being open to this conversation. It’s been a really good conversation. Yeah. Super. Thanks Sam. I appreciate it so much. It’s, it’s, I think it’s interesting to hear people’s stories of how they come into work in the end of life field and what they’re doing and what they’re seeing, because as you’ve said, we’re grief, death, denying or illiterate at best, and how do we change that?

And there’s so many people working to change that. And you’re right there on the front line teaching students and bringing this to families. So thanks so much for all you do. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you as well. As always, you can find out more about the work I do at Best Life. Best death.com. Thanks so much for listening.