Grave Digging

Notes from the Forests' Edge December 29th 2024

The spade breaks the surface of the grass covered earth with ease. Pushing down with my foot I feel the ground yield open, ready to receive the mortal remains of this dear one. A goat we helped be born into the world three years ago and have nursed back from a serious illness for the last two. My chest is heavy with the sorrow of finding him laid flat in the mud early this morning. Tears run down my face to further soften the damp soil.

I flip the first spade full of brown soil over onto the edge of what will soon be his grave. This rich tapestry of death lies just below the surface now covered with remnants of last summer’s plants. It teams with unseen communities, busy breaking down the structures of what were once magnificent expressions of Life, into pure potential, that which feeds everything.

His beautiful black and white speckled, fur-covered, body lies close by, completely still. Eyes staring towards the West as I found him. We have adorned him with winding vines of English Ivy, which he loved to eat, and boughs of a Frazer Fur tree that fell in the last storm. I found a small, vibrant Dandelion flower in the yard that now nestles between his gracefully curved horns. We keep digging.

I remember the softness of his nose as he would nuzzle my hand to see what treats I might have brought for him. I know just the spot on his neck he liked to be scratched. I can bring to mind his cry, calling to me when he'd get separated from the herd because his back legs didn't work like they used to. I'd go and sooth him, bring him food, wait for the others to return so he wouldn't be alone. Goats don't like to be alone for very long, much like us. I have to stop digging to let the grief tear through my body.

The ground is blessedly soft, very few rocks in this spot we chose for him. As we work through the mostly clay soil we come across pieces of charcoal in one end of the grave at about three feet down. The soil is darkened in this spot, richer with the addition of fire. Not a wild fire because it's only in the one end of the grave, it appears to have been an intentional fire in just this place where his weary hips will rest. We wonder together about the land ancestors, who burned what here and when?

Suddenly, the many lives, human, plant, fungal, animal, and insect, that have walked this land, laid their bodies in this dirt, harvested nourishment from this soil, swirl around me. An interwoven tapestry of life in a dazzling array of forms imprinted here in this goat-sized patch. I feel a rush of gratitude coming up from my guts into my chest, overflowing as more tears. Gratitude that I get to be part of this tapestry. That I was able to love this goat and now in this final act of tending his body return him to this soil that feeds us. Gratitude for this land that is just as willing to send up shoots of food as it is to receive and compost our beloved dead.

We lower him into the grave, arranging his body as best we can for comfort even though we know he's not feeling his body anymore. We do it out of respect and because it's hard to let go of a body we've taken so much care of over these last few years. We call out our prayers for him through the sobs.

As we start to use our bare hands to cover his body with soil I fix in my mind an image of him adorned in winter greenery. I don't want to forget this version of him either.

It all makes me wonder what memories we might have buried that we need to be honored?

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Notes from the Forest Edge is a bi-monthly exploration of the liminal space between human and forest consciousness, rooted in a small farm in the Southern Appalachian mountains.