I think I'd like to have a C. sativa planted at my head. Perhaps a nice Trichocereus hybrid at its base. A sacred cemetery like this... would probably best be tolerated in California or perhaps Colorado... but I'm hoping its a ways off and my options for something like this will grow as the years pass.

Any takers?

What plant would you have planted over your head?

Is there a better way to give back to the Earth when your dead?

I can't see all the nutrients in my body being poisoned by embalming fluid and buried in a coffin simply to eventually poison the Earth one last time as a final blow to the environment on my way out. I'd much rather think of this more positive way of giving back and healing the environment... but then perhaps thats just me.

I've eaten so many mushrooms in my lifetime, it's the least I could do.

Don't forget about the funghi - mycelium works hard to decompose animal bodies and exchange nutrients with the plant (usually via tree roots).

Oh I see dreamer042 already mentioned mushrooms

Now, I certainly don't see why you couldn't wear that mushroom suit in addition to the pod, but it certainly works by itself as well.

The MBS is an interesting idea, but I've read some articles on it in myco forums that it would not work unless burial is done very shallow and in suitable areas, which is illegal and unlikely. Sorry i don't have a link to cite but i doubt the info is hard to find if you want to google it.

I'd love to see our culture embracedeath as the natural and beautiful thing that it is instead of living our lives in so much fear that we can't dialogue over it. Common modern burial practices are an extension of Euromaterialist disconnection from nature. The mindset that nature is to be overwhelmed, resisted and bulwarked against, in life and in death.

Why else do we give a F what happens to the solid container of our subtle body and minds, so much so that we protect our dead bodies from decomposition and scavenging?

I took a group to the animal jail recently and got to watch two vultures eat a deer carcass that had been presented to them. They almost seemed to ceremonially eat it, taking turns tearing the flesh and extending their long beaks into the body. While i don't like the fact that they were caged, it was a magnificent performance.

Embrace death, resist taxes.

Since it's on topic....

Japan is doing some pretty cool stuff to address their lack of space for traditional burial plots.

Umm... mango trees may raise an objection...

So far, my take away is that there are many possible combinations possible such as a myco suite with C. sativa... or if buried in S. Texas one could have a field of Lophophora planted over ones body with a circle of Trichocereus scopulicola x T. terscheckii surrounding your body which could also provide shade to anyone who entered the area if the specimens were planted close enough to allow for that. Sort of a medicine wheel made of cacti if one will I am si in the moment where the spokes are perhaps one one cacti and the periphery another.

Still, the result one may be looking for may require different plants and different connections... but in the end I can see no better way to give back to the Earth than a practice such as this.

The old practice of poisoning ones tissues with carcinogenic embalming fluid and letting that chemical leach out over the years just does not appeal to me at all. Nor does the practice of having a traditional grave site in which dead flowers are brought to the grave site impress me. I'd much rather see a bed of hemerocallis over my grave site which would bloom year after year and even allow future generations to come and dig up plants for their own use and their own gardens.

Perhaps draw and quarter my body so that I can have a portion in the desert growing cacti... another portion growing C. sativa... and yet another portion with a bed of Hemerocallis over it. The options are indeed intriguing and could if done in such a manner give family members alternate sites to gather to remember their loved ones if need be.

I can envision a world in which sacred mycelium forests are created, groves of C. sativa are found, and even simple flower beds spot the country side where a loved one has died. Where all can come together to rejoice in the life once lived and collect the bounty left behind. As year after year the plants so nourished continue to thrive and continue to offer up their bounty to those who would wish to come and remember those that have come before them.

Fantasy coffins... yet another option in a world of evolving ceremonies and rituals where it concerns death. Now, who wouldn't want a fantasy coffin?