Danielle Levy

A first happened in Industry, Maine not long ago:  Mark Ancker was buried in a mushroom casket. It was entirely made of mycelium, the intricate root system of fungi. Such caskets take a week to make and are wholly biodegradable, disintegrating in about 45 days. It’s all part of what is called a quiet revolution in burials. Green burials are in demand, and alternatives are being sought. This alternative, the Loop Living Cocoon, is made by a Dutch company Loop Biotech. They’ve done about 2500 such burials in Europe, but the one in rural Maine was the first for the United States. So far, The Green Burial Council has certified about 250 providers and has recorded over 400 green cemeteries over the US and Canada thus highlighting the growing interest in green burials. The emphasis on alternates to traditional burials seeks to be kind to the earth, give back in a way, show that even with our burial we can still contribute to ecology.  

Even for those not ready for a mushroom casket, just recognizing the idea as viable is itself a step to finding better ways than what we do at present.   

*reprinted from GGID page

There’s a contest going on in the UK: Choosing a tree of the year. I’m sharing that this contest is happening because the idea is rather magnetic and I believe we ought to imitate it and have our own.  From 40 trees ten have made the short list and people will vote on which one ought to be tree of the year. The trees are as different as can be. One is small and skinny, a couple are twisted and more wide than tall, some have beautiful trunks, for others it is the foliage that stand out, whether in shape or size or both. The Woodland Trust sponsors this contest yearly; it is national and the trees on the list come from different parts of the UK.

 I Love trees and in that am far from unique and join numerous others. We owe so much to trees and take them for granted. This contest reminds us of what they contribute and stand for. And that’s exactly what the Woodland Trust aims to do, to help us appreciate how vital trees are to our landscape and to our lives.

When the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 people said you can pass a law but you cannot change people’s hearts, meaning of course that racism could not be undone by a bill. In 2025, that thought still holds, but in the reverse. Laws and directives to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion can be passed and issued, but they cannot change the way DEI has become part of our hearts. The progress those 3 words represent has become part of how we think, how we live, mostly how we are, since too many of us by the nature of our being speak of their significance. In fact, corporations are discovering that their shareholders believe in DEI programs. Costco made headlines when its leadership continued to endorse it. Now reports tell us that 98% of shareholders believe in DEI initiatives. Those of Costco yes but also those of companies like Disney and Apple. That is even more important than it looks because it is interpreted to mean that shareholders believe that DEI programs are conducive to financial performance. And of course, shareholders are the public. There are currently efforts to defund any program remotely connected to DEI, to eliminate the idea altogether, to punish those who engage in it, to entice universities and other educational institutions to abandon them in toto. Will they succeed? On the surface and for the limited present. But there are too many of us who carry within us the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, whose lives reflect their existence and their rewards for it not to endure, persist and live on.