Jason Zimmerman was just 42 years old when he died, and now his dad Mark is saying goodbye at Larkspur Conservation.

“He’s a wonderful man,” he says. “Yeah, he was wonderful. He was a great guy. Oh man. He was full of life, full of beans, you know?”

Larkspur Conservation is about an hour northeast of Nashville. It’s the only conservation burial ground in Tennessee — and one of only about a dozen in the country.

It’s a place dedicated to restoration of the land to its native state, and it’s a place where people can choose to be buried in a natural way. No embalming, not even a casket if you don’t want one.

As it goes, the natural burial process is something of a ritual for family and friends. It’s a ritual that starts at the bottom of a steep hill.

John Christian Phifer is the executive director of Larkspur Conservation. Growing up on a farm in western Tennessee, he was fascinated with nature. He actually had a little cemetery where he’d bury family pets when they died, including grasshoppers he’d find. He says he’d wrap them with a shroud made from leaves and mark the spot with a fork from the kitchen drawer.

“In seventh grade I told my parents I wanted to be a mortician,” he says, “not fully understanding the weight of what that work was.”

Phifer did end up going to mortuary school and spent 15 years in the conventional funeral world before transitioning to natural burial. It’s like he was completely wired for this work. He says he wants to honor a life’s existence, and he feels this kind of burial does that.

He says Larkspur uses natural burial as a tool to conserve and save land. When someone is buried here, a portion of the cost goes towards future land conservation. Larkspur aims to create another affordable option other than cremation — one that’s even better for the earth.

“This is what great-grandmammy and great-grandpappy did back on,” he says, “It’s back to our roots and literally back to the roots, you know, our roots and the roots of the trees and the plants and everything else, becoming a part of a living memorial and an ecosystem that’s here to honor people and create open green space.”

In a quiet moment sitting up on a picnic table in a meadow not too far away from Zimmerman’s burial site, Phifer takes a minute to reflect when asked what he thinks happens to us after death.

“I think we’re OK after we die, whatever is on the other side and whatever it looks like, whether that’s streets of gold and living above the clouds or that’s our energy dancing through the grasses and coming up with the weeds,” he says.

“I can tell you one thing, when I die, and I’m buried here at Larkspur and my body starts returning to the soil and goes up through the roots of these plants, this stalk of ironweed, and comes out as pollen on the tip of that flower and rides a bumblebee — that’s going to be pretty neat.”

The burial shroud

Courtesy of Mark Zimmerman

Jason Zimmerman and his dad, Mark.

At the burial site, Zimmerman is wrapped in a cream-colored, biodegradable, shroud that Phifer made himself. The shroud is chilling, and it’s actually beautiful. The snug wrap around Zimmerman’s body is intricate and perfected with multiple folds along his frame. The cloth is twisted neatly over his head and then tucked down behind he shoulder. You can clearly make out the shape of his entire person. Cloth straps secure him to a pine platform with evergreen trees supporting his lower back and knees — and roses are tucked into cloth folds near his chest.

Early in the morning, Phifer visited the local funeral home to wrap Zimmerman himself. He says not many people know how to do it right — if anything, they’re only familiar with a loose covering like a pillow case, he says.

“Our shrouds are completely different from that,” he says. “It’s more like we’re swaddling an adult body in a way. So because it’s a practice that is very much unknown to funeral directors, I go and deliver the shroud to the funeral home and we’ll instruct and teach them how to do it.

“I guess it hearkens back to those leaves that I used on grasshoppers when I was a kid. You just create a design that looks appropriate and beautiful and simple, and that does what it’s intended to do.”

At Zimmerman’s burial site, the six people present gather around his body. A few family members join by FaceTime. Mark is the only family here in person. He peers down at his son.

“Okay. I guess he ain’t getting up, doggonnit,” says Mark.

“I really wanted him to wake up when he was in the hospital because we collectively wanted to beat his ass. You know what I mean? Get your ass up. True to form, he ain’t doing nothing that he don’t want to do.”

‘You get to participate in covering the body’

The plot has been custom dug for Zimmerman’s height. The edges have been smoothed by hand and a bed of leaves, twigs, pine needles and flower petals are placed at the bottom. Phifer says it reminds him of the way a mother bird prepares her nest to receive something special. With help from Phifer and others, Mark lowers Zimmerman into his grave by rope.

Then everyone takes a turn with shovels.

“This is hands on,” Mark says, “rather than everybody’s standing there in their overcoats, you know? You get to participate in covering the body.”

Phifer says his goal isn’t to direct the process.

“We will guide them and allow them to do everything that we are doing,” he says. “We don’t want to take anything away from them.”

In that vein, he asks Mark if he’d like some music while the shoveling continues. After some silence, Mark wants to start with Booker T. & The M.G.’s. Then it’s on to Monkey Man by The Rolling Stones.

Tasha A.F. Lemley

The pin for Jason Zimmerman’s grave waiting to be placed.

The burial process takes about an hour. Mark finishes by covering the plot with pine needles and flower petals. Then he and Phifer place a pin into the space with a medallion with Zimmerman’s name. It’s the only non-biodegradable part of the grave.

After sipping hot cocoa, talking about his son and looking a childhood photo, Mark is ready to walk back down the hill.

“We ain’t supposed to be planting our kids,” Mark says.

Then, he reflects: “I mean, since he has to go this is the best way. You know, at least he’s giving back and I feel that’s important. And I’m going to do the very same thing. Hopefully in this area.”

More:

• This feature is part of a larger This Is Nashville episode on death care.
• A documentary on Larkspur will be available on PBS beginning April 18. Learn more here.