Field Guide to the Haunted Forest (Haunted Forest Trilogy)

by Jarod K. Anderson

Unlearning Death When we die, they may bury us or collect our ashes, but remember this: from baby teeth to skin cells and everything in between, most of the matter that has worn your name is already spread throughout the world. We bury our remains in the soil of our lifetimes. Can you feel it? So many of the cells that have formed the community of your body have returned to nature. Most of the water that has fueled your life has returned to the sea. The substance of your form is not fixed. It flows like a river to and from the wilderness. Moss doesn’t think about being alive and mountains don’t consider themselves to be dead. Death has no place in the vocabulary of nature. To worry about death is to forget that we, the moss, and the mountains are all part of an undiminished whole that isn’t measured in breaths.