St. Hildegard’s Community recently talked about plans for a natural burial park. I’d love to rest forever in gorgeous Texas geography and help take care of the place at the same time. Ten acres of natural burial practices will avoid 1,000 tons of casket steel; 20,000 tons of concrete burial vaults; and enough coffin wood to build 40 homes. And then there’s the embalming contaminants.

The ten acres set aside for the project are not beautiful at the moment. They’re overgrown with mesquite thicket. There are no trees. Even though mesquite is a staple of Texas geography it will take quite a bit of work to create the serene refuge it can become.

The idea of mesquite beauty took me to another place. A sacred place in my childhood that my brother Jimmy called The Fort. Inside several empty lots filled with mesquite trees and prickly bushes and sticker grass near our house, Jimmy discovered a refuge formed by a group of mesquite trees surrounded by cacti and thorny bushes. There was enough space under the circle of mesquite canopies for a few kids to sit on stolen milk crates to tell stories.

Jimmy had the best stories. Most of them were made up. Sometimes when it was just the two of us he would tell me things about real people but those were our secret stories. We loved hanging out in The Fort. He spent a lot of time there alone, too.

I love the idea of creating a mesquite fort for my burial place. A place where I can be laid to rest and feed the roots of the mesquites that form the fort. A place with a head stone that has both of our names, even though he’s already gone and his ashes scattered in the spring fed creek where we learned how to swim as children.

Yogi Bhajan said, “We are spirit beings here for a human experience.” I take that to mean we continue being spirit when we are done being human. I imagine finding Jimmy in that other place and the two of us hanging out in the mesquite forest.

Today is Jimmy’s birthday. I hope he’s smiling as I write this. I hope he’s at peace. I hope to find him someday in our mesquite sanctuary.