From Earth to Earth: The Lost Art of Dying in America

Description

This short, 20-minute documentary describes natural burial and its benefits through stories from the people who worked to make it legal in Vermont. It also discusses natural burial’s environmental benefits, the comfort this ritual provides to loved ones struggling with grief, and the ways in can help us contemplate our own mortality. The film includes scenes from the Vermont Forest Cemetery, the first and still only cemetery devoted to natural burial in Vermont and from Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve outside of Ithaca, NY.

The documentary, which won a number of awards in US and Europe, including a Webby Award for Best Short Form Documentary Film, will be followed by a Q&A session led by Jim Hogle the President and Communications and Outreach Coordinator of the Vermont Forest Cemetery, and by Michelle Acciavatti, Founder of the Vermont Forest Cemetery.

The Vermont Forest Cemetery, founded in October of 2023, is the first and still only cemetery in Vermont that is devoted entirely to natural burial. The cemetery is located on 56 acres of mixed hardwood forest in the Green Mountains above Roxbury, Vermont. The cemetery encourages families and friends to participate directly in the burial process, if they wish, allowing them to perform a final act of love for their loved one that helps deal with the grief of loss and with saying goodbye. It seeks to honor and preserve the stories of the people who are buried there, and to create a space where people can create art, engage in learning and research about natural burial and the forest itself, help conserve and restore the forest, or come and walk the trails to observe the birds and animals who live there, and learn about the plants and geology.