Planting Seeds in My Husband’s Body

An essay commissioned by seedbroadcast.org and my wonderful friend, eco-artist/activist Chrissie Orr

There’s a little mound of dark brown dirt at the back of my garden. It’s a special pile of dirt because it’s been weeded clean of grass and other vegetation; it seems to be luxuriating in its presence as soil as it waits to be useful in other places. Occasionally, I scoop up several clumps and transfer it to a bed being prepared for seeds or starts, or I transport a container somewhere for ceremony. It was originally a cubic-yard of nutrient-rich soil, but over the past 10 months it has greatly diminished in size as it’s been distributed to many gardens, near and far. As I dug into the pile last week, I was thrilled to discover veins of mycelium running through its rich brown thickness. Somehow seeing this riot of fungal energy made this modest heap a bit holier. Interbeing was and is very visible.

Adjacent to the mound is a line of columnar apple trees in bloom standing like gentle sentries. They were planted in ceremony, less than a year ago. Those trees face the renovated garage that officially became a Zendo in 2022 to house our newly formed sangha, a meditation group in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh. Our sangha came together to support the healing of our community as we emerged from the trauma of the pandemic. It was also created for my beloved late partner to offer his experience and wisdom to others while traveling on his cancer journey. Dr. Bob Spivey was a long-time practitioner of Zen, an ordained lay monk, and was trained in several lineages, but he always was careful to say that he was a buddhist with a small “b.”

Some of the members of the sangha came to sit with us because they had collaborated on our community art project, The Tacoma Story Hive, and wanted to learn meditation practices from Bob. The two of us co-facilitated this pandemic public art project with interested neighbors. Our sculptural hive invited passersby to write down and leave or read stories about how people were navigating this time, what challenges they were facing, what skills and resources they were developing, and what their dreams were for the world we could co-create. For the past 3 years, the hive’s site has often been animated with visitors reading and writing, and some of the dirt mound in my backyard has nourished the plantings that surround the hive.

When my late husband and I wrote our wills back in 2015, there were few options for green burials. We found a green burial project near the Columbia River where they planted a tree over your shrouded body, and it sounded suitable, at the time, but we never got to visit the site. There seemed to be no rush.

Sadly, in 2023, Bob had arrived at the end of an 18-month cancer journey. I consulted with a local death doula about the current burial options and learned about a relatively new and legal industry in Washington State: you can now have your body composted. Given that Bob had been a devoted ecological and social justice activist, working on many projects through his organization SEEDS (Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School) that included soil remediation on Vashon Island, turning his body into nutrient-rich soil felt deeply in alignment with his life’s purpose: he saw the carbon sequestration that came from healthy soil as an important way to address a piece of the climate emergency.

The Quantum Healers, Procreate Digital Painting, 2023

After contacting the funeral home, I made the required arrangements. Bob had been in the hospital for 10 days to address serious complications from his cancer treatment and had agreed to come home for hospice care. On his first day home, I shared with him the possibility of human composting. He looked at me with an expression of dismay on his face, and said, “compost?” I knew then that the cancer had affected his mental capacities, and he was picturing his body becoming a slimy pile. After talking with the death doula, she suggested that it might sound better to tell him that his body would become nutrient-rich soil.

The following day, Bob could no longer speak, and his arms and legs had become paralyzed. The cancer, an aggressive form of melanoma, had probably entered his brain stem, rendering him unable to communicate and move. It was devastating to witness this brilliant mind caught in that realm of muteness. While I engaged with his loving gaze, I told him about the process of his body becoming nutrient rich soil and trusted that he would bless this decision.

Reorganizing and Recovering, Procreate digital painting, 2022

Bob took his last breath at 10 am, April 28, 2023. Members of our sangha had been taking shifts with him so that I could get a little sleep, and one of them, one of my former students, a lovely man from Rwanda named Patience, had been sleeping on the couch in case I needed support. When Patience learned that Bob had transitioned, he contacted the other members of the sangha so that everyone who could be present, could join us.

I was left alone to wash and oil Bob’s body and offer it the gentle tenderness it deserved. I clothed him his brown Vietnamese Zen robe, draped him with the “rakusu” he was given when he was ordained as a lay monk, his prayer beads, and the beaded collar he’d been gifted at a pow-wow several decades earlier. The sangha gathered pink magnolia petals from our blooming backyard tree and adorned him as he lay in state.

Exactly 49 days later, I received the call that his compost was ready. My neighbor drove me in her pickup to gather the cubic yard of soil in a very large, white vinyl bag. We lifted the bag through the alley gate and left it sitting solemnly facing the Zendo and the garden. I was a bit intimidated by its presence at first, but eventually was able to put a gloved hand into what felt like soft loam. After lowering a pail and a shovel into the bag, I gathered some of the soil to use in my garden beds. With trowel in hand, I moved gently, hovering over each of the eight wooden raised beds and above each of the four raised canoes on cinder blocks where we have grown huge harvests of vegetables, spooning a bit of the sacred soil into each. The funeral home warned us that the soil is especially potent and would need to be diluted with regular garden soil in a 1 to 5 ratio. My path through the garden was an improvisational dance with spirit. I carried saved seeds in a basket, planting them with intention.

Finding Strength, Procreate digital painting, 2023

In June of 2023, seven columnar apple trees were delivered to the garden. Each was planted in some of the nutrient-rich soil at Bob’s life’s celebration event. The ceremony was full of poetry, ritual, music, and lots of storytelling; the seeds planted by Bob’s life were visibly sprouting in the friends who attended. It gave everyone some joy to connect through our grief.

Richard and Sam plant the last of the 7 trees during the Life Celebration Ceremony 6/24/2023

On the first-year anniversary of Bob’s transition to ancestor, I went on retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs, a sacred place that has most recently suffered from devastating fires. The community is rebuilding the site with love and care, as are the multiple species of revived organisms clamoring for space on the wounded land. In the company of two lovely friends, we offered some of Bob’s mycelium rich soil to be part of the circle of care. Now, some of his microbes now have a beautiful river/mountain view, where they can meditate for all of time.

Planting seeds in our loved ones’ composted bodies may become a more common practice for those looking for more ecological death rituals. When we do “walking meditation” or solo work in the garden, there’s some comfort knowing that we will all become dirt someday. This embodied version of “interbeing” very tangibly represents the circle of life that feeds all our descendants.

Garden Alchemy, Procreate digital painting, 2023

In “The Work that Reconnects,” a network and way of thinking/being shaped by Joanna Macy and others, there are interactive practices to help people move through this time of “great unraveling.” The movement we get to participate in, if we feel compelled to be part of positive possibilities amid dire circumstances, is called the Great Turning. As a participant in that work, I often refer to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. He discusses the process of watering wholesome seeds in our store consciousness and choosing not to water the seeds that might cause more suffering. It is not spiritual bypassing. You own and express the grief and rage, and then you water some gratitude to move through it, and then you do the process again and again, taking actions and finding others to share this with, whenever possible.

This year of grief, compounded by the multiple horrors taking place globally and very raw scar tissue evident in the collective, has encouraged me to find practices to steady myself and to share those with others. Catastrophizing is a pattern that aggravates suffering. Finding the emotional tools to promote positive possibilities, as grief visits us, is crucial in this time. The inspiration to place these tools in my internal resource kit by came from my beloved Bob, who introduced me more fully to meditation and the reconstructive visions of social ecology; I’m forever indebted to him.

The pain of loss visits all of us, but we can grow from it and plant new seeds, even when heartbreak seems impossible to tolerate.

Spring 2024 - how the pollinators found these blossoms is anybody’s guess. Lots of apple thinning in the near future.

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