Newsletter 11.18.2025

Greetings friends,

My heart is still full with gratitude from our benefit concert in September. A huge and hearty thank you to Nie Funeral Homes, Drumhiller Farms, St. Paul’s Episcopal, The Gratehaus, Uncharted Film Co, Ganton Senior Communities, and Heartwood Caskets. And thank you to the bands, food trucks, and many wonderful folks who helped make it a great night. It was a joyous evening of music, food, and raising funds and awareness about our efforts to start a land commons and conservation burial ground.

All of the funds raised are going directly towards sharing Jeremiah Commons’ vision in Southern Michigan and educating the surrounding community about natural burial. If you’d like to host or organize a gathering to learn more about natural burial or Jeremiah Commons, you can fill out our gathering form.

Giving Tuesday T-shirts

Giving Tuesday is two weeks from today. While we would love for you to give a gift and help us continue establishing a strong base of individual donors, we would also love to give you a gift as well! If you share a gift of $25 or more by the end of Tuesday (12/2), we’ll send you a T-shirt! (pic below) You can donate here, and make sure to enter your address and size in the note! (For the judicious T-shirt wearer, we’ve enjoyed the cut and fit of ours—runs true to size.)

New Website

We have a new mobile-friendly and accessible website. Thanks to our friends at Uncharted Film Co. for the info video on the home page. Feel free to check it out and share with your friends!

A reflection on leaf litter

The cold snap and snowfall in Michigan last week did the leaves in. Our neighbor, Jacob, directly to our west must have one of the tallest Sycamore trees in the county in his front yard. It’s always fun to see the large star-shaped leaves make their way into our driveway and, often, into our mudroom. They’ve always reminded me of tree stars from the Land Before Time. But what was particularly exciting last week was that the Oak in Jacob’s back yard, whose limbs hang mostly over our yard, as well as our other neighbor’s Mulberry dropped nearly all of their leaves in our backyard in one go. Except after a heavy snowfall, I’ve never seen our lawn look so transformed. As I walked through the several inches of wet leaves, I heard Berry’s manifesto,

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

I could feel the leaves—the light turned food turned plant flesh turned soil, and back again—softening each footstep. I could have left the leaves, but I also could fairly easily transport the thousand little gifts to slowly decompose in our garden. The leaves, coupled with our compost, made an experimental bed for our late sprinkling of winter wheat berries. We may have bread next summer from the berries, if they sprout, and Oak and Mulberry to thank. I’m attempting to prophecy such returns.

I’ve been thinking about the way that trees grow, particularly in contrast to the ways that non-living entities grow, or are forced to grow as the result of market pressures. Trees, of course, if left untouched, or perhaps nurtured, keep growing and growing. But if rooted in the right environment—in right relationship to the other creatures around it—typically grow in a sustainable, and ever-rooted manner. In contrast, the way that for-profit entities grow is often with the goal of spreading like wildfire, capturing competitors’ portion of the market, and gaining the competitive edge. The Onceler’s reluctant biggering in The Lorax is a nice example of these market pressures.

That’s not to say that trees haven’t developed competitive advantages, and don’t go to miraculous lengths to spread their seeds. But they are firmly rooted in place, nourishing the environment around them. Their growth isn’t driven by shareholders, stock prices, and strategic plans to carve out new demographics.

I was talking with a classmate after walking out of a class today on sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship. We were both expressing frustration at the foundational principle of unlimited growth that undergird even some of the most sustainable ventures. At one point he said “unlimited growth isn’t inherent in communal thriving.” Indeed, perhaps it’s quite the opposite. Perhaps planned degrowth, or rather, the intentional shedding of leaves from time to time, is what enables communal thriving. (A friend of mine just wrote a great piece reflecting on the personal and economic degrowth movements if you’d like to explore this a bit more.)

When we started Jeremiah Commons, the aim was always to help root the surrounding community to a place. Our aim has never been to spread like wildfire. Our hope is to find a piece of land, orient ourselves to it, together, and see what magic might happen. To find ways to nourish the land and community together—with our bodies, with our actions, with our habits and rhythms—and let the land remind us of our creatureliness. Let it remind us that we were not meant to transcend our limits. We would do well to, like Oak and Mulberry, find ways to root and bind ourselves to a place and seek that place’s flourishing. It’s a reminder I certainly need.

Be well,

Tony