Growing Wild: The Path to Natural Burial

A gravesite at Eloise Woods
(Credit: Texasobserver.org)

In Eloise Woods Natural Burial Park, of Cedar Creek, Texas, there are no headstones or mausoleums. GPS coordinates mark the plots and there are detailed paper maps, but the monuments that display gravesites in conventional cemeteries do not exist at Eloise Woods. Instead, what you get is a forest of pine and cedar trees and patches of wildflowers. Aside from the location’s hand-painted sign, there’s virtually nothing to remind visitors that they are among the dead — nothing but natural, wild beauty.

A natural burial ceremony
(Credit: Eloisewoods.com)

Ellen Macdonald is the owner and caretaker of Eloise Woods. Macdonald named it after her grandmother, a nature lover, who died around the same time that Ellen became the park’s owner. Naming the land after her grandmother — a ritual in itself — allowed Ellen to feel her grandmother’s life flow through the vivacity of the woods.

“I work with the lay of the land.” – Macdonald

The idea for a natural burial place came to her before her grandmother’s death, from Ellen’s own interest in diverse funeral customs and natural burials that require neither embalming nor caskets. With her PhD in neuroscience, Ellen is no stranger to the subject of death, but it was after watching an episode of “Six Feet Under” that she became determined to change the traditional burial paradigm.

Eloise Woods is a “Natural Burial Ground” according to the Green Burial Council. Only non-toxic, non-hazardous containers and natural embalming formulas are allowed. Ellen offers literature on environmentally friendly burial products and even has some shrouds handy that she herself has made.

Eloise Woods does not just offer a resting place to people — pets are also welcome, too. A few of the bereaved have brought in outside materials to mark some of the sites in the past, so Ellen now provides families with lists of plants native to the area that could instead serve as markers.

Naming the land after her grandmother — a ritual in itself — allowed Ellen to feel her grandmother’s life flow through the life of the woods.

Wildflowers in bloom
(Credit: Eloisewoods.com)

“I work with the lay of the land,” says Ellen. For some, her concept could take a while to get used to. But here, nature takes care of itself: weeds cannot be pulled and branches cannot be cut to define a grave. Anything unnatural to the area is not allowed. Eloise Woods is a far cry from cemeteries with manicured lawns and orderly rows of tombstones, rather it is the very idea of returning to the Earth and leaving behind unadulterated, uncultivated spaces while becoming one with the forest.