Hi, haven't posted on MN before but just had to respond to this one. My sister had a lotus birth and it was not at all gross. I'm sure that there are lots of ways of making it gross, though, from the sounds of things that have been posted on this thread...
Basically what she did was wrap it in a nappy with sea salt and dried lavender. the cord dried up really quickly to something that looked a bit like leather. She had all sorts of ideas about leaving it on until it fell off naturally but got fed up with carrying it around after about 24 hours and decided that since it was clearly completely dry baby could not be getting anything from it anyway so cut it off then.
On the plus side, baby's belly button never smelt at all, he just had this stubby thing for a couple of days and then it fell off, no fuss no smell no nothing. Placenta itself was wrapped in nappy so didn't smell (I think sea salt and lavender ensure that). Sister had romantic ideas about planting the placenta under a tree in garden (clearly she is not a gardener) but after having pointed out to her that large amounts of salt would not be likely to be good to any tree she decided that it would be too depressing if the tree then died so it just went in the bin.
I am currently 12 wks and definitely do not want the cord cut at birth, I think I will probably wait 'overnight' (whatever that turns out to be) and cut it before taking the baby around to meet the relatives, provided it's dry. My main reason is that I remember with some trauma how disgusting my little siblings' belly buttons were (their cords were cut).
Anyway, just wanted to add that in case someone genuinely is interested.