Burial + Memorial Permaculture Design

We were asked to do a design for the Doorway Into Light Death store, which is a really amazing burial store where you can go in and buy a wicker casket or you can have the ashes rolled into glass beads or they have the urns and they do burials at sea.

The vision was a sanctuary park that served many functions and would be open to the community. Our design included a two story gazebo, a lava rock memorial area inspired by the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C, a star gazing area, a flower farm, children’s play area, pet cemetery and more.

Click below to hear the back-story from Jenny Pell or scroll down to read about this design.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

A couple years ago, we were asked to do a design for the Doorway Into Light Death store, which is a really amazing burial store where you can go in and buy a wicker casket or you can have the ashes rolled into glass beads or they have the urns and they do burials at sea. They do all those different things where our friend, Bodie B, is a Reverend.

He does a lot of sermons for deaths of all faiths. And Bodhi for years has had a vision to have a community burial ground that would serve many functions. In that sanctuary park, he wanted different places where people could experience all the range of emotions that comes with the love and loss of our departed.

Our design included a two story gazebo that overlooked the coastline of Maui.  It gave an expansive feeling, one that is part of the grieving and remembrance process. Then we had other places on the property that were very introspective.

We were inspired by the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. and on one part of the property there was a hillock that came down. So, the design has been a straight shot down off the hillock. With lava rock, we made this embracing wall, and you walk into this area that has mosaic floor and the lava rock wall has areas with little pukas, the Hawaiian word for whole, and these little private holes are where people can put their urns and have a little space to have memories of their loved ones. There is a beautiful bench inside the area providing an area of introspection.

We had ponds with benches where you can sit and be with the dragonflies and the beautiful ponds.The other thing that we put in the expansive side of that was a stargazing gazing pavilion that was based on a Fibonacci pattern. It’s a big open area with benches that lean back so that when you sit down on the bench, your whole back is supported as you lean back, and can gaze at the stars at night.

We also included the little spirits cemetery for people who had a stillbirth or a miscarriage. It had small memorials that you could put anything you wanted in those. Instead of rows of gravestones, there was a flower of life pattern with curving patterns through the design. At the center of that was a labyrinth. And then your garden burial plot was one of those fractals in the flower of life. And you could get a tree or you could have a little rock with an inscription on it. There were different ways that you could celebrate people’s passing in that design.

This then segwayed into a commercial flower farm operation that would be profitable. That area then led into a natural playground, where the kids had logs to climb on and ropes to run around with, tunnels to go through and nothing plastic was the goal. The fullness of the design was a pet cemetery with the statuary.

The main core of the design was for it to be a combination of agroforestry and a beautiful memorial destination place where anyone from the community is welcome to come and be in this sanctuary park. There was a big ceremonial hall, a community center, death doula trainings, and that was the point.