TRAVERSE CITY -- Bob Butz is going to build his own coffin. It may double as a coffee table or bookshelves until he needs it.
Butz, 38, is a Lake Ann author whose newest book, "Going Out Green: One Man's Adventure Planning His Own Natural Burial" will be published July 1. While he was researching the book, he visited a burial preserve, talked to death midwives and even visited his father's grave for the first time in more than 20 years. And, yes, he bought plans for a coffin, but says they're also available for free.
"Green burial to me," Butz said, "was more than just picking the things I needed. It was about reclaiming a ritual we lost."
Green burial typically means using biodegradable materials for a coffin and foregoing a burial vault and embalming. Home funerals usually involve the body staying at home instead of going to a funeral home. A death midwife attends to the unembalmed body; Butz said the few he met likened it to caring for an invalid or infant.
Butz said the nascent trends of natural burial and home funerals harken to only a generation ago. His own mother-in-law remembers home funerals and burials, but at some point, he said, death has become "outsourced."
"We lose touch with the past so easily," he said. "One generation and it's gone."
"It's far easier when someone dies to just hand it over," he said.
Butz thinks home funerals and green burials -- things that don't necessarily have to go together -- may have a resurgence in these times of grow-your-own food, homeschooling and home births.
Kimberli Bindschatel, of Traverse City, is more than ready for that to happen. She's in the process of buying land to create a cemetery that specializes in conservation burials.
"Conservation burial is for people who want to be part of a nature preserve," she said. "In your last act on earth, you can conserve land."
The cemetery she hopes to run would not require vaults, which typically cost $1,200 and are made of cement. Vaults are not required by law, she said. A body must be buried in a licensed cemetery, which often thwarts families from putting Grandpa on the family farm because of the paperwork required, she said. Caskets also are not required by law. However, cemeteries are allowed to require a vault, and most do, she said.
What is required by Michigan law is the hiring of a funeral director.
"Michigan is the worst state in the nation when it comes to funeral law," Butz said.
But the reasoning behind the laws, said Vaughn Seavolt, owner of Life Story funeral home, is to protect the consumer.
"There are situations where people aren't taken care of properly or money isn't handled (properly)," he said, so regulations are there to protect families.
On the other hand, Seavolt supports green burial and is hoping Bindschatel is successful in her attempt to start a conservation cemetery.
"I would work with the family to do whatever they want," he said, including home funerals. "We'd have to plan for logistical things," he said, like making sure the doors are big enough.
"But in the 22 years I've been doing this, I've never had anyone ask," Seavolt said.
That is why both Bindschatel and Butz are hopeful things will change. The chemicals used in embalming are toxic to the ground, Bindschatel said, and even cremation is not good for the environment. "It leaves a huge carbon footprint, there can be mercury emissions from dental work," she said. However, the ashes are OK, she said.
And planning doesn't have to be morbid, Butz said.
"This book shows people that it can be kind of fun and interesting to think about," he said. "We all have to deal with death and taxes, but no one talks about death. The book makes it palatable to talk about.
"All the people I talked to who have planned a green burial or gone through one with a loved one have said it was the most moving thing they've gone through," Butz said. "It's harder to accept a loss if you're not part of it. A green burial requires the family to take an active role."
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