From the Cradle to the Grave: Cultivating Community in a Philadelphia Cemetery
Added 2019-06-05 19:03:23 +0000 UTCHello Dear Deathlings!
Today we have a new article for you from one of our favorite Order contributors, Allison Meier: How Gardening Neglected Victorian Graves Brought Community to a Philadelphia Cemetery
Allison's piece highlights not only the value and importance of burial spaces within a community, but what it takes behind the scenes to cultivate meaningful partnerships between communities of the living and the dead.
I don't know about you, but this piece really made me want to get my hands in some cemetery dirt! Beyond my collection of deceptively healthy-looking houseplants – they're like neglected children who have learned to cook and clean for themselves – I don't have the greenest of thumbs. It's not entirely black...it's greenish...like a green-gray?
But now I have images in my head of me in a big floppy hat, planting abundance in a cradle grave! Surrounded by likeminded, floppy-hat wearing, cemetery enthusiasts! Cultivating life amongst death!
Have any of you ever done the grave gardening thing? Do you get to wear big floppy hats? Am I perpetuating a harmful gardening stereotype?
But there's more where this came from! June has just begun.
This Saturday we have a new video for you – with a special appearance from an old friend – and next week we have our final episode of Death in the Afternoon, season 2! Plus stay tuned for more videos, articles, and online extras coming up this month.
Caitlin, Caitlin quite contrary
How does your (grave) garden grow?
With silver (corpse) bells and (corpse) cockleshells
And pretty corpses all in a row.
~ Caitlin
Photo by Allison Meier
