Those of us who read and write on talkgreen want to think we’re fairly environmentally savvy. That as the years go by, we’ll keep trying to find ways to live that are easy on Mother Earth? And we’ll continue those habits right up until the day we die, right?

Well what about after that?

Greensprings Natural Cemetery has the answer.

Now you can follow your environmental bliss right into the grave! Greensprings (http://naturalburial.org/index.php) is a one hundred acre nature preserve in rural New York State, a beautiful bit of rolling hillsides and grassy fields not to far from Ithaca. There you can purchase a plot in which to be buried. But this is no rows-of-depressing-headstones type of place. Each plot is 15×15 and is meant to revert back to nature once you are deposited in the dirt. You can plant a tree, or a bush, or some flowers to mark the place if you want. And, if you really are a traditionalist, your final resting place can sport a flagstone marker. But it must be small, made of local stone, and flush to the ground.

The result is, judging from the pictures, a much more peaceful place that a normal cemetery, a place you wouldn’t mind having a picnic or getting rained on.

And if that’s not natural enough for you, check out the Natural Burial Company (http://www.naturalburialcompany.com/). There you’ll find a wide array of biodegradable caskets. They come in natural wood (no pressboard or plywood please), wicker (if you’re interested in feeling like you’re getting buried in your patio furniture), and the ultra-modern recyled paper “ecopod” (see below).

Here’s hoping when our time comes, we’ll do the right thing for the earth, because at that point we’re about to become part of it.