The Forest Conservation Burial Ground of Southern Oregon

09/23/2025

🍂 Fall Equinox at The Forest 🍂

Yesterday, we gathered at The Forest Conservation Burial Ground to honor the turning of the season. Together we shared poems, stories, and reflections about what autumn means in our lives.

Themes of our circle echoed the season’s rhythm:
🌾 Gratitude for summer’s abundance and the harvest at hand
🍁 The poignancy of change—the beauty of leaves turning, the bittersweet letting go
🌙 Balance of light and dark, work and rest, endings and beginnings
🔥 Preparing for colder days, slowing down, and turning inward
🌻 Trusting that nature’s cycles of release lead to renewal

As the light shifts and the air cools, we are reminded that letting go can also be a form of growth.

✨ We’d love to hear from you—what does autumn mean to you this year?

09/19/2025

🌲✨ This fall, The Forest Conservation Burial Ground is honored to be part of a new OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Southern Oregon University) class in collaboration with Willow-Witt Ranch and The Crest.

In the final week of the series, sexton and cemetery manager Mary Ann Perry will guide participants through the burial ground for a reflective walk on land that holds both memory and renewal. 💚

We’re grateful to share this experience with the OLLI community and look forward to future opportunities in the spring.

09/12/2025

We're looking forward to joining this end-of-life resource fair in Corvalis on November 1, and you're invited! Spread the word to your friends and family in the area. This is going to be a special offering!

09/12/2025

Yes! This is exactly what we are offering at The Forest! Thank you Conservation Burial Alliance for a clear and concise picture of conservation burial.

Come on up for a tour in the welcoming fall weather and unique seasonal beauty. We offer private tours on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10am and 1pm. Register online:
https://theforestconservationburial.org/tours-at-the-forest/

09/07/2025

To choose natural burial is to choose love: for the earth, for future generations, and for the rhythms that carry us all. 🌿

The Forest Conservation Burial Ground offers a place of reverence, where life and death are interwoven in the land’s story.

Visit our website to sign up for a Free Tour or for an e-copy of our guidebook:
www.theforestconservationburialground.org

09/01/2025

On this Labor Day, we pause to honor the many hands and hearts whose work sustains both people and planet. True labor is not only found in offices or fields—it is in every quiet act of care, every tending of soil, every effort to build a future in balance with the earth.

At The Forest Conservation Burial Ground, we are reminded that our final labor is also one of love: returning gently to the land, nourishing new life, and becoming part of the forest once more.

💚 May this day of rest be filled with gratitude—for the work we do, and for the earth that receives us in the end.

08/27/2025

08/26/2025

🐾✨ Honoring Pippa on National Dog Day ✨🐾

At The Forest Conservation Burial Ground, we share our home with many beings who help care for this land. One of the most devoted is Pippa, our Maremma/Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog.

Trained by Willow-Witt’s late founder, Lanita, Pippa learned to move gently among children, visitors, and goats while carrying the serious work of protection. Since the passing of her guardian partner, she has taken on the task alone — watching through the night to keep the ranch’s animals safe from coyotes, foxes, bears, and other wild neighbors.

Her presence is a reminder that guardianship takes many forms. We are grateful for Pippa’s devotion and for the quiet ways she protects and tends this place we love. 💛

08/26/2025

A worthy read! The NY Times covers green burial, and other alternative disposition options. A favorite quote from Ms. McFarland: At 76, I don’t know how my future will unfold. But I know where it will conclude.

Have you read this beautiful article yet?

It features Lee Webster, former President, John Christian Phifer, our former CBA President and the amazing burial ground Larkspur Conservation, .

“Larkspur is one of 15 conservation burial grounds in the nation operating in partnership with land trusts — the Nature Conservancy, in this case — to preserve the space. “It’s what keeps forests from becoming subdivisions,” said John Christian Phifer, Larkspur’s founder.”

“He listed the common elements of green burials: “No chemical embalming, no steel casket, no concrete vault. Everything that goes in the ground is compostable or biodegradable.” A small industry has evolved to produce artisanal woven caskets, linen shrouds and other eco-friendly funerary items.
Green funerals often feel different, too. Mourners at Larkspur tend to walk the trail to the burial site wearing denim and hiking boots, not black suits.”

See the link in bio to read the full article. There are some really amazing photos in there, too.

📸: A green burial honoring Joy Doherty at Larkspur Conservation, about 40 miles outside Nashville. Orion Pahl/Larkspur Conservation

08/25/2025

🌿 On Time and the Earth 🌿

Time moves gently here.
Leaves fall, rivers shift, stones weather.
Each season writes its story into the land.

So too do our lives.
Moments become memories,
memories become legacy,
and legacy becomes part of the soil itself.

At The Forest, we honor this truth:
that every ending is also a beginning,
and that time, like the forest,
holds us all in its quiet embrace. 🍂

08/23/2025

🍂 Autumn at The Forest 🍂

As the days grow shorter and the leaves begin their gentle descent, The Forest enters a season of reflection. Each golden leaf returning to the soil reminds us that endings and beginnings are part of the same cycle.

Here, natural burial honors that truth—allowing us to return to the earth simply, gently, and in harmony with the land. Autumn is a time to remember that life and death are not separate, but forever interwoven in nature’s tapestry.

This August, during National Make-A-Will Month, we are reminded that planning ahead is an act of love. By including your wishes for natural or conservation burial, you ensure your legacy is one of care—for your loved ones, and for the earth itself. 🌿

✨ Plan with intention.
✨ Leave a legacy of love.
✨ Rest with the earth.

Learn more about conservation burial: www.theforestconservationburialground.org

Or call (541) 625-9697.

08/11/2025

🌿 Tending the Living Forest
Every act of care is an offering. When we remove invasive plants like teasel, we are not just pulling weeds—we are opening space for native wildflowers to return, for bees to hum among blossoms, for the forest to breathe more freely.

This land is both sanctuary and story, holding the memories of those who rest here and the promise of life still unfolding. By keeping the forest healthy, we honor the delicate balance between life, death, and renewal—and ensure that beauty and biodiversity will flourish for generations yet to walk these paths.