Reflections on the Equinox of 2022

by Benjamin Martin, Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant®

A Moment of Balance and Transformation

On March 20th, 2022, on a makeshift stage looking out over the rugged landscape of the Colorado Burial Preserve, the Tibetan Bowl sounded. Its reverberations signaled that moment when the light and the dark are in perfect balance, marking that tipping point when the day’s portion of light starts to outpace the night’s portion of dark. We call it Spring or more specifically the Spring Equinox.

The bowl, tuned to an A, a common tolling pitch used to honor the recently departed, sounded three times. This marked a historic moment in Colorado, as the first Coloradan to emerge from the body composting process was laid to rest. The three reverberations of the bowl set the stage for a ceremony of prayerful gratitude honoring those pioneering families who had chosen this method, with special recognition given to the first family to do so.

On the Spring Equinox of 2022, a group of deathcare pioneers gathered at the Colorado Burial Preserve near Florence, Colorado. After mixing seeds of native wildflowers and grasses into his rich, dark soil, we helped his parents reverently return their loved one's transformed remains to the Earth. While shovels were provided, to my surprise everyone chose to use their hands to gently scoop up the transformed remains—now rich soil—of the first composted human and return him to the Earth that had given him 19 years of life. This full-circle offering of this young man’s earthen remnants back to the Earth was a profound experience, as everyone experienced, in such a tangible way, how he would enrich this planet and help revitalize a somewhat ravaged landscape with his essence.

A Ceremony Rooted in Symmetry

As I approach the Spring Equinox of 2025, I reflect on that day balanced between light and dark, which allowed space for both the grief of losing a loved one and the wonder of a former life being offered back as life to the Earth that gave it life.

As was expressed in the invocation for the ceremony:

“We are all here out of mutual and reverential respect for the Earth; it is the Earth we have come to restore; it is the Earth that we have come to listen to, it is the Earth we have come to enrich and thank with these blessed composted remains.”

There was a profound symmetry in the fact that this young man was placed in the chrysalis (the holding container for the body) on the Fall Equinox, a time when light and dark, day and night are in perfect balance, and his body was committed to a process of transformation. Six months later, a full 180 degrees through the year, we gathered again on an equally balanced moment, when light and dark, day and night were once more in harmony, to lay out his transformed essence and mix it back into the Earth.

The Living Presence in Composted Remains

Traditional funerals with embalmed bodies often leave me struck by the absence of life—the lifeless form, no matter how artfully prepared, feels like a shell. In contrast, witnessing the laying out of composted remains reveals a richness, a vitality within the soil itself. One grieving father, handling the soil of his son who had died from pancreatic cancer, texted a friend that he was putting the "soul" of his son in a mason jar for his friends’ gardens. He meant to type "soil," but the autocorrect felt deeply fitting.

That day, we also welcomed the media to draw attention to this renewed, earth-friendly way of returning bodies to the land. (You can watch the media footage here: Remains of first Colorado person to undergo body composting laid out.) Since then (and as of this writing), body composting has become legal in 12 states, with growing support across the United States and Canada. It is heartening to see more people embracing this ecological choice.

In honor of the occasion, we built a commemorative cairn by stacking five stones from the land, making it the centerpiece of an Earth Altar. This temporary artwork—crafted from leaves, grasses, branches, stones, cactus blooms, and feathers—was a tribute to the sacred, ephemeral connection between life and the Earth, and the earthen container that once housed such a vibrant human spirit. It also marked a day honoring The Balance, with the hope that we as humans can achieve a better balance with Nature through our choices.

The five-tiered cairn symbolized a milestone moment for Colorado and served as a trail marker for those seeking sustainable burial options. Around it, we fanned out pinecones in the shape of a five-pointed star—each a symbol of legacy, a warehouse of future trees. In this act, we acknowledged the cosmic truth that our bodies are composed of remnants of stars—93%, according to physicists.

A Blessing for the Future

We ended our ceremony with this blessing:

“In honor of the body of earth that contains us, in honor of the tears that connect us, in honor of the transformative power inherent in nature to recreate life from death, we bless this monument of commemorative stones and this sacred altar as we mix in the remains of this one we have loved. May we join in community to not only create new ground for the restoration of the land but also for the renewal of Spirit around us and a clear path for an eco-friendly way of returning the body to the Earth. We are making sacred the ground we are co-creating with Mother Earth as we seed her with these generative seeds for the future.”

We closed our ceremony with once again the sounding of the Tibetan Bowl three times letting its reverberations attune us to the intentions and gratitudes of that day.  As it sounded, we paid tribute to what was in the Balance: light and dark, grief and awe, life and death.

And somewhere in the Balance, the ephemeral beauty of Nature and the ephemeral beauty of the Human.

Somewhere in the Balance, the Spring Equinox serving as the threshold for increasing light and leading us into the Beginning of the beginning-buds so full of the promise of a full bloom.

May it be so.