Cemeteries have historically been tarnished by associations with superstition, horror films and an eerie sense of religious sanctity. They are cold, filled with sorrow and an unsettling smell of fresh earth. Or must they be?

New environmental trends have changed the economy, creating space for natural burial cemeteries. I too was skeptical.

There must be a reason for evolving into civilized humans who no longer lay their dead to rest in unmarked fields, no?

Hardly, the idea for modern natural burials is much more dignified in reasoning. It is essentially a last effort of an individual to save the planet.

In the Finger Lakes region one of these new age #- reversion to colonial practices - sites has been developed. GreenSprings Natural Cemetery is in Newfield, right outside Ithaca.

Their website boasts photos of rolling fields, all various shades of the color green and a rustic sign marking their property as a #“Natural Burial Preserve.” There are no looming shadows from headstones, or gaudy statuettes marking graves.

GreenSprings has formatted their cemetery so that it stays au natural by requiring plot holders to follow certain protocols, including:

€ Using coffins made from locally produced hardwoods, not plywood.

€ No use of cement in the burial.

€ Recommending shrouds, especially wool or cotton products.

€ No embalming.

€ Local stone for marker flush with the earth.

€ Option of using natural shrubs or trees such as Pagoda dogwood, Moosewood, Ironwoods, Witch hazel, Juneberry, Elderberry and Spicebush as plot markers.

Why so many unusual regulations? The GreenSprings board of trustees has a plan to restore and maintain a naturalized landscape.

One that will remain free of manmade materials which fail to decompose over time and may alter the land remarkably.

For something that seems like an age-old practice, there is an incredible amount of planning involved.

All materials must be approved, sites must be specific in order to avoid possible leaching into ground water, and permits are required.

For the people at GreenSprings though, the process isn't about following the absurd modern practices of burial and death, but a promotion of the renewable life cycle.

Alexa Weigel-Krause is an AmeriCorps environmental education assistant at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County.