Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: The Optimist Daily.
Website the Optimist Daily says, “Mushroom caskets offer an earth-friendly goodbye in North America’s first burial of its kind.”

Blogger Will McMillan at A Musical Life on Planet Earth gave me the lead for today’s story. And because my husband and I just recently entertained two mushroom enthusiasts from a recent conference, I decided today was a good day to tell you how some folks take their love of mushrooms to the end — and beyond.

“Traditional burials,” writes the Optimist Daily, “though deeply meaningful, often come at a steep environmental cost. The chemicals, hardwood, and land use involved can have long-term ecological impacts. But a quiet revolution in burial traditions is beginning to bloom and its roots are made of mushrooms.

“In a first for North America, a burial using a fully biodegradable mushroom casket took place on a serene hillside in rural Maine. The Loop Living Cocoon, developed by Dutch company Loop Biotech, is made entirely from mycelium, the intricate root system of fungi. The casket is grown in just one week, naturally breaks down within 45 days, and enriches the soil it returns to.

“ ‘My father always told me that he wanted to be buried in the woods on the property that he loved so much,’ said Marsya Ancker, whose father Mark C. Ancker was laid to rest in the pioneering casket. ‘He wanted his final resting place to nourish the land and plants he cherished.’ …

“Though this was a first for North America, Loop Biotech has already facilitated more than 2,500 burials across Europe using mushroom caskets. Green burials are an alternative that avoids embalming fluids, hardwood caskets, and steel-reinforced concrete vaults, and they’ve been steadily growing in popularity since the 1990s.

“ ‘Since 2005, the Green Burial Council has certified over 250 providers and recorded 400+ green cemeteries across the U.S. and Canada: a clear sign of growing demand for environmentally conscious end-of-life choices,’ said Sam Perry, president of the Green Burial Council.

“The statistics are striking. According to the Council, conventional U.S. burials consume roughly 20 million board feet of wood, 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid, and 1.6 million tons of concrete each year.

“Bob Hendrikx, founder of Loop Biotech, believes funerals can be more than a final goodbye. ‘We created the Loop Living Cocoon to offer a way for humans to enrich nature after death. It’s about leaving the world better than we found it.’

“The Global Green Burial Alliance, founded in 2022, is helping reshape global perspectives on death. Entirely volunteer-run, the organization connects families with green providers and empowers people to reclaim their voice in end-of-life decisions. …

“Ed Bixby, founder of the Global Green Burial Alliance, believes these choices create a legacy of compassion. … ‘To embrace the living with our death becomes the final act of kindness we can bestow upon our planet.’

“With innovations like the mushroom casket and a groundswell of interest in sustainable options, a cultural shift appears to be underway. It asks that we reimagine death not as an ending, but as a way to nourish new life.”

So there’s that.

Sometime I’ll tell you about our mycologist visitors. Theirs is a whole different world. And when you live in a retirement community and are in danger of too much sameness, “different” is especially welcome.

Consider for example, how we learned from these guys that truffles are actually all over the world but buried very deep. And how they might even have been the “manna” in the desert described in the Bible. They do grow in desert places like Saudi Arabia.

So says the CEO of MycoSymbiotics, William Padilla-Brown, who, we learned, was a speaker at the conference. His bio describes him as a “Multidisciplinary Citizen Scientist practicing social science, mycology, phycology, molecular biology, and additive manufacturing. William founded MycoSymbiotics in 2015, and has since developed it into the innovative practical applied biological science business it is today. William holds permaculture design certificates acquired through Susquehanna Permaculture and NGOZI, and a certificate from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in algal culturing techniques. He has published the first English-language books on cultivating the cordyceps mushroom and regularly leads courses on their cultivation. William’s research has been sponsored by several organizations and his work has been featured in multiple publications, including Fantastic Fungi and VICE. He also founded and manages MycoFest, an annual mushroom and arts festival, now on its eleventh year.”

So many unusual pursuits in this world! I am not knowledgeable enough to recommend the ideas of any mycologists or herbalists, nor am I planning a mushroom burial, but I sure am a sucker for anything interesting.

Doesn’t curiosity keep us all going?

More at the Optimist, here.