Image of Stirling Cemetery in Scotland courtesy of The Daily Undertaker,
an interesting blog about love, grief, and remembrance.
Cemeteries as healing landscapes? I can just imagine some wise-guy's comment: "Um, I hate to break it to ya, but those folks are, well, you know, beyond healing." Sure, cemeteries are for people who have died. But just as much, they are for the living: We plan them, bury and visit our family and friends in them, and maintain them - individual gravesites, family burial plots, and cemeteries as a whole. People also visit cemeteries as parks - more on that in a bit. Grief is one of the most painful of human emotions, and mortality is one of most people's greatest fears. Nevertheless, cemeteries can be powerful landscapes not just as sites to inter the dead but as places for us to grieve, remember, and even celebrate life. All of these life-affirming actions contribute to our health and well-being. Therefore, in my opinion, they are healing landscapes.
Image of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial
For years, I've thought of memorials as healing landscapes, and there's a section of the Therapeutic Landscapes Database devoted to memorials. Memorials serve as reminders and touchstones for the living to remember people and events. But it wasn't until recently, when a local cemetery board contacted me about a design job, that I started to think of cemeteries (or what we called graveyards in the no-nonsense New England village where I grew up) as healing landscapes. They both serve as landscapes of remembrance, catalysts for individual and collective grieving and memory.
Frederick Law Olmsted, "the father of landscape architecture," was inspired to create public parks in urban areas after learning that people were spending their Sundays at Mt. Auburn Cemetery because it was the only park-like setting within close reach of the city (to learn more, link to this earlier blog post). Olmsted also designed some beautiful and historically significant cemeteries, including Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, CA. When I was in graduate school at UC Berkeley, I used to visit Mountain View; I had no connection to the people buried there, but it was a beautiful, quiet, serene landscape for walking and thinking.
There are millions of cemeteries, of all different kinds, in all different places. Some are sad and bleak, some are beautiful and park-like, some are tourist destinations for famous people (Elvis, John Lennon, J.F.K. - there are even celebrity gravesite tours) or just for themselves (Arlington National Cemetery, the "Cities of the Dead" in New Orleans). Many reflect a time period, place, and culture. My father-in-law's ashes are buried at Colney Wood Natural Burial Park, one of a growing number of natural burial parks in Europe (we've got a few in the U.S., too - see The Centre for Natural Burial for more information and lists of sites). Not a religious man, he did not want his remains to be buried in a church graveyard; but rather than just strewing his ashes, the family wanted to have a place we could visit - a beautiful place that he would have liked to walk in and that we and other family and friends would be comforted by visiting. Colney Wood is just that: A lovely forest that is also a cemetery. We chose a spot under a majestic multi-trunk chestnut tree, and we continue to take comfort from the place.
My father-in-law's ashes are buried here.
View of the chestnut trees over my father-in-law's burial plot.
As for me, I've got a plot picked out in the small town where I grew up. It's a very rural spot, surrounded by trees and grass and old New England stone walls. I'm hoping it'll be a long time until my relatives have to think about that, but there's comfort in knowing that when the time comes, they'll be able to wish me goodbye and visit me in a landscape that continues to give solace even after I'm gone.
3 comments:
Thoughtful post. My mother unexpectedly passed away a couple of weeks ago and we were left with the decision as to what we would do with her remains.
As I struggled to gain composure in the first few days, my thoughts continually went back to all of the good times we had spent camping as a family throughout my childhood. Memories of redwood forests, the Sierra Nevada, the Big Sur coastline and how happy we all felt being there gave me the strength to mourn.
These places that I visited as a child, that my parents were compelled to share with me, have become the theme to my mother's memorial. Our original thought was to spread my mother's ashes in southern California, where she had spent most of her life.
After much thought and discussion, we have decided to take my mom on one last trip. We will visit the places where we made so many memories together. We will celebrate her life that we shared and we will spread a little of her ashes where all of these precious memories were made.
It's no coincidence that place and environment shape who we are and the relationships that we form. I feel that everybody has their own unique experience on this planet, but that the one common thread weaving it's way through our collective conscience is place.
I will always remember the roar of the ocean, the smell of heavy rains in the forests, and the beautiful views from the tops of mountains. I'm so thankful that my mother thought to share these extraordinary places with us and I hope she rests well knowing that we've returned part of her to the source of so many beautiful memories.
Oh, what a lovely and thoughtful post. As an undergrad, I spent a lot of time in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. It's a Memorial Park --lots of historical makers & monuments, etc. But it was the natural landscape -- the trees and flowers, the birds singing -- that made it such a special place. Peaceful and beautiful. I wish more people had access to spaces like that for their loved ones.
- Bethe
All of the above (both post and comments) is thought-provoking. I want to enlarge on the idea of cemeteries as one of the few green spots in many cities (and, increasingly, towns). My mother, as a child, took a visitor to the cemetery nearby for a picnic, because to her it was a prime spot to be and to take someone to. I also prowl cemeteries for their quiet greenness, something we are all in need of.
I've read of studies which showed that crime rates are lowered in multifamily buildings when areas between them are planted with trees and greenery. We've all heard about the successes of community gardens. Some might think it odd to equate cemeteries with these, but I think I'm in the right company here. Green spaces make us saner, calmer, and friendlier, and yes, they help heal grief.
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