FROM EARTH TO EARTH: THE LOST ART OF DYING IN AMERICA

“From Earth to Earth” takes a critical look at the rituals dictated by America’s death-denying culture and asks, “how can people trying to cope with the death of a loved one be better served?” Our documentary takes the viewer deep into the woods of Vermont and the meadows of central New York where deathwork pioneers are inspiring a new way of thinking about life, death, and our enduring connection to nature. Along the way, we explore the systematic problems of the death industry and provide insight into alternative paths for returning our bodies to the embrace of the Earth. You will meet traditional morticians, advocates of natural burial, people dealing with the death of loved ones,  and Vermont's very own “tiny death witch.” Along the way, you will discover a whole new approach to burial, funerals, and life itself.

From Earth To Earth: The Art of Dying In America begins with Michelle Acciavatti, aka the tiny death witch. She was integral to changing legislation for natural burials in Vermont, allowing her to open Vermont’s very first natural burial cemetery. We meet her amid her journey of becoming a natural burial cemeterian after co-founding the Collective of Radical Death Studies. Michelle’s background in neurology and hospice care brought her to death work. It was her compassion for the way she saw people dying that brought her down the path to build systems that help to properly dignify their grieving process. Natural burial, through Michelle’s eyes, is a more humane way for us to grieve, to die, and, by extension, to remind us why we live.

Michelle Menter lost her unborn child. She would lie beneath trees and grieve in nature at Greensprings Natural Cemetery in New York. It held her grief at a time when she had nowhere to place it. Soon afterward, she became the manager of Greensprings to help others be held in nature while grieving. She created the Remembrance Grove, a secluded wooded area where all parents could come to grieve their lost children. It is a place where parents can remember, mourn, and honor their late children no matter their age at death. 

Pat Ladley is a woman who finds a deep solace in nature and has dedicated her final years to giving back to Earth. Pat, 80 years old, does not shy away from her death, nor visiting her and her husband’s “next residence” - two burial plots at the edge of the forest at Greensprings. After her brother’s funeral, which left the grieving family with little closure, Pat felt the traditional way they buried him felt impersonal, cold, and ecologically unsound. An alternative burial brings deep solace and peace to the Ladleys instead. Pat describes the butterflies, the summer Goldenrod, and all the future picnics their grandkids can have with them out in the meadow of Greensprings. Pat reaches her last few years of life with deep gratitude for nature and is ready to give her whole self back to the Earth that has provided for her these past 80 years.

Kate Abrams lost her husband, Ron, at the time we were filming this documentary. He was the first person to be given a legal forest cemetery burial in Vermont’s history. Ron refused to speak about death and his end-of-life plans while he was still alive. Kate sought to open up the conversation, not just between themselves, but to subvert America’s death-denying culture. She takes us through their life together, his decision to be buried at Acciavatti’s cemetery, and her family’s content with their burial, natural and serene beneath the Vermont fall foliage. 

The anticipated long-form version of the project will include Dr. David Penepent, SUNY Canton Funeral Services Administration Director, and Professor Darien Cain of mortuary sciences also at SUNY Canton. Dr. Penepent has worked as a funeral director, mortician, and embalmer in several states. He believes in the sacred art of embalming and the respected profession of a funeral director. Dr. Penepent and Professor Cain believe that embalming helps a family pay their final respects, seeing the dead as they once were alive, and possibly even restoring their body from an accident or discoloration. The FTC regulates commerce under the Funeral Rule, where several funeral homes have been found in violation by taking advantage of grieving families. Dr. Penepent teaches his students the rules of the profession and grows emotional over funeral directors who are not serving the living by taking care of our dead. Their perspectives will situate the documentary not only from a traditional perspective of using chemicals and burial vaults but also further demonstrate how deeply our death denial culture penetrates the funeral industry.

The Spirit & Soil Productions team has curated relationships with a variety of organizations whose mission statements align with the purpose of our documentary. Some of these organizations include the Death Doula Association and the Green Burial Council. Spirit & Soil Productions has already had conversations with representatives of those organizations about sharing updates of the documentary throughout their networks.

Other forms of community engagement include the Spirit & Soil Productions Newsletter, managed and written by co-producers Alyssa Beebe, Chess Cabrera, and Mikayla Hall, which will be delivered via email as updates in production occur - including publicity photos, film festival awards, grant/fund acceptances, etc. Recipients of the newsletter have been gathered through our interviewees as well as word-of-mouth from those networks.

Throughout production, the Spirit & Soil Productions team started an Instagram page @spirit.and.soil which was given exclusive behind-the-scenes access and posts and will include a link to join the Spirit & Soil newsletter in the website section of the business profile. The @spirit.and.soil Instagram account has also engaged the Ithaca College community by following and engaging with a variety of other Ithaca College thesis film project Instagrams.