Imagine a place where you can walk through a favorite forest, across a meadow, along the edges of a creek, or a pond. The path in front of you winds its way past native plants and around the diabase rocks so familiar to you, and to our region. Trillium burst upward in the spring, piles of leaves crunch under your feet in the fall. Your peace and quiet are broken only by the sounds of your footsteps, the wind, the river, the pond, or the birds singing from trees.
This is the experience we are building in a conservation burial ground or cemetery, in the North Carolina Piedmont.
As land conservationists focused on connecting people with land, we are creating an experience in the Triangle that seeks to protect and restore land, provides a place where we can return to traditional practices of taking care of our dead, and offers our growing community a place for rest and regeneration.
Our conservation project will be a nature preserve with a natural cemetery contained within it. A natural trail system will wind throughout the property. Natural pathways will offer space for healing and meditation amidst the final resting place of loved ones. Favorite pets may also be buried alongside their people. Every element of the burial ground will be designed utilizing the tenets of integrity, simplicity, ecology and stewardship.
The preserve and cemetery will be open to all religions and affiliations, providing a destination of rest and reflection for all.
"Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another ." — John Muir
Top photo: Conservation Project, Durham County, North Carolina Bottom photo: Cove Trail and Middle Ridge Trail sign,
