Date & Time
2:00pm EDT - 4:30pm EDT
About This Event
Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion and discovery session about our place in nature—the questions you didn't know who to ask about green burials, human composting, eco-cremations, and how to sustainably prepare for death, presented on the beautiful LongHouse grounds, maintained without chemicals.
Come hear Joseph Charap and Gabrielle R. Gatto of New York City's Green-Wood Cemetery; Darren Crouch, president of the Green Burial Council, on eco burial options; Amy Cunningham, death educator and funeral director; Faith Popcorn, futurist, on planning ahead; and Edwina von Gal of Perfect Earth Project, and meet the people who provide the newest, oldest, and always graceful ways to return your body to the Earth in the embrace of the peaceful and toxic-free LongHouse landscape.
Discovery Session
Meet death doulas and representatives from Green-Wood Cemetery, Aeon Woods Conservation Cemetery,Departure Lounge, and Passages International, check out urns, watch a shrouding demonstration and body blessing, and more!
“Guard well our human chain, Watch well you keep it strong, As long as sun will shine, And this our home, Keep pure and sweet and green, For now I’m yours, And you are also mine.”
—Pete Seeger, from To My Old Brown Earth
PERFECT EARTH PROJECT
Informed by science and a passion for the healing power of nature, Perfect Earth Project is helping people transform yards, parks, and campuses into ecologically healed and healthy places—and to change lives in the process. We present events to engage and inspire our audience to stop the serious ecological and human health harm caused by traditional landscaping and provide simple and beautiful solutions.
GROUNDED CONVERSATIONS is a series of events originated and organized by Perfect Earth Project to raise consciousness about the human/nature relationship and how it affects our health—and our future. What Remains follows two successful past events. This past April, On Being’s Krista Tippett and author Michael Pollan explored the idea of consciousness at the W – Union Square in New York City. And last summer Krista Tippett and Biddle Duke discussed how to find hope in a world of environmental uncertainty at LongHouse.
ACCESSIBILITY
LongHouse Reserve has an Accessibility Coordinator onsite to help assist guests with disabilities. To request accommodations, or with any questions or concerns, please contact our Accessibility Coordinator via email access@longhouse.org, or phone at +1 (631) 329-3568. Please allow for up to seven business days for a response.
About This Event
Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion and discovery session about our place in nature—the questions you didn't know who to ask about green burials, human composting, eco-cremations, and how to sustainably prepare for death, presented on the beautiful LongHouse grounds, maintained without chemicals.
Come hear Joseph Charap and Gabrielle R. Gatto of New York City's Green-Wood Cemetery; Darren Crouch, president of the Green Burial Council, on eco burial options; Amy Cunningham, death educator and funeral director; Faith Popcorn, futurist, on planning ahead; and Edwina von Gal of Perfect Earth Project, and meet the people who provide the newest, oldest, and always graceful ways to return your body to the Earth in the embrace of the peaceful and toxic-free LongHouse landscape.
Discovery Session
Meet death doulas and representatives from Green-Wood Cemetery, Aeon Woods Conservation Cemetery,Departure Lounge, and Passages International, check out urns, watch a shrouding demonstration and body blessing, and more!
“Guard well our human chain, Watch well you keep it strong, As long as sun will shine, And this our home, Keep pure and sweet and green, For now I’m yours, And you are also mine.”
—Pete Seeger, from To My Old Brown Earth
PERFECT EARTH PROJECT
Informed by science and a passion for the healing power of nature, Perfect Earth Project is helping people transform yards, parks, and campuses into ecologically healed and healthy places—and to change lives in the process. We present events to engage and inspire our audience to stop the serious ecological and human health harm caused by traditional landscaping and provide simple and beautiful solutions.
GROUNDED CONVERSATIONS is a series of events originated and organized by Perfect Earth Project to raise consciousness about the human/nature relationship and how it affects our health—and our future. What Remains follows two successful past events. This past April, On Being’s Krista Tippett and author Michael Pollan explored the idea of consciousness at the W – Union Square in New York City. And last summer Krista Tippett and Biddle Duke discussed how to find hope in a world of environmental uncertainty at LongHouse.
ACCESSIBILITY
LongHouse Reserve has an Accessibility Coordinator onsite to help assist guests with disabilities. To request accommodations, or with any questions or concerns, please contact our Accessibility Coordinator via email access@longhouse.org, or phone at +1 (631) 329-3568. Please allow for up to seven business days for a response.
Date & Time
2:00pm EDT - 4:30pm EDT
SPEAKER BIOS
Darren Crouch is the president and co-founder of Passages International, which he founded in 1999 in the back of his family’s funeral home, and the president of the Green Burial Council. Over the past 25 years, Passages has grown tremendously by helping funeral homes better serve families seeking less traditional end-of-life options, including cremation, scattering, or more natural and personalized rituals. A thought leader in the funeral industry, Crouch has been published widely, quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and spoken at national and international conventions. He was a finalist for Fast Company's World Changing Ideas and was recognized on the 2025 TIME100 Climate list. He is a Vistage member.
Amy Cunningham became a fully licensed funeral director and death educator in 2012 after a thirty-year career in magazine journalism with a focus of modernizing and greening up end-of-life decisions. She studied with noted home funeral midwives, and green burial advocates and launched a blog on modern funeral language, music, and (CUT) urns and caskets called TheInspiredFuneral.com. When not directing funerals today, she teaches funeral planning and the greening of the funeral business at Green-Wood Cemetery and for the Integrative Thanatology Institute, spawned by the Art of Dying program at the NY Open Center.
Joseph Charap is the Vice President of Landscape at Green-Wood in Brooklyn, NY, where he leads the care and strategic development of its historic 478-acres. Overseeing all landscape operations—including arboriculture, meadow and turf management, monument restoration, and historic preservation—he integrates climate-adaptive strategies to enhance biodiversity and sustain Green-Wood’s living collection. Since joining Green-Wood in 2014, Charap has advanced resiliency initiatives, elevated the site's profile as an arboretum, and positioned it as a leader in urban green space management.
Gabrielle R. Gatto is the Manager of Public Programs and a Death Educator at The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. As a death educator and doula, she has presented at New York City universities and institutions, across the United States, and virtually to cemeteries around the globe. She holds certificates of completion from the University of Vermont’s Grief & Bereavement Specialist Program and the Open Center’s Thanatology Program, which readied her to facilitate peer support groups. In 2023, she was named one of the 50 Most Fascinating People in Brooklyn by Brooklyn Magazine. You can hear her on NPR and on podcasts including the award-winning Finally! A Show.
Edwina von Gal is a leading voice in sustainable gardening and landscape design. She founded the Perfect Earth Project in 2013 to promote ecological land care. An award-winning designer, Edwina created landscapes with a focus on simplicity, sustainability, and beauty for clients around the world. Her work has been published widely, and her book Fresh Cuts won the Quill and Trowel award. She serves on the board of What Is Missing, Maya Lin’s multifaceted media artwork about the loss of biodiversity, Longue Vue’s National Council, and is a member of the Native Plant Trust’s Council.