Imagine…

Facing death with far fewer fears
A funeral ceremony being held in a home or a private, intimate setting; allowing for a longer and more personal good-bye
Bodies being respectfully cared for by family and friends, not by strangers
Family and friends decorating or building a casket or urn as a healing act of closure
Environmentally conscious final disposition
Children learning that death is a natural part of the lifecycle by participating in a home funeral
Knowing more affordable options compared to conventional methods

Started in 1995, Final Passages was the nation’s first non-profit, educational institute and resource center dedicated to conscious dying, and a holistic, green, compassionate and dignified alternative to conventional funeral and after-death practices. We are also the first nationwide organization to create a death midwifery and home funeral guidance training program.

Celebrating more than 25 Years in Death Doula/Midwifery and Home Funeral Guidance!

Our work serves the needs of community members who come from a variety of cultural, economic, and religious perspectives. Final Passages is an active participant in the National Home Funeral Alliance.

Day of the Dead bags

Shop for these sturdy, flat bottomed shoulder bags and cosmetic bags in a variety of designs.

In the News

Up until last week, it has been a grey area what End of Life Doulas and Home Funeral educators were legally allowed to do. Now a California court case recently decided that End of Life Doulas don’t have to be licensed to help with home funerals. They have the right to educate families about home funerals, and can receive compensation for their guidance. Read an article about this precedent-setting decision at California Can No Longer Require End-of-Life Doulas to Obtain Costly Funeral Director Licenses

While we were in Hawaii to teach at the Death Doula training, I did an interview with Amorah at Gutsy Women Radio. Click here or on the image below to watch the interview on Facebook. (No login required.)

Upcoming Trainings and Events

Level 2 IN PERSON Training

Death Doula/Midwifery Care, Green Burial, Home Funeral Guidance

Friday – Sunday, April 25 – 27, 2025

Level 1 ONLINE training

Conscious Dying, Pre-Planning for End of Life, and End-of-Life Doula Practice

Friday – Sunday, May 16-18, 2025

LEVEL 2 ONLINE Training

Death Doula/Midwifery Care, Green Burial, Home Funeral Guidance

2025 date to be announced – Click here to see description.

Level 3 ONLINE 2024 Training

Becoming a Death Midwife/Doula, Home Funeral Guide and Educator: Reclaiming the Wisdom Traditions and Art of Death Midwifery and Home Funeral Guidance

Sat-Sun, Nov. 16-17, 2024 AND Sat-Sun, Jan. 11-12, 2025 PLUS Half-Day Q and A

Training Super Special!

Embracing End of Life Educational Series

3rd Thursday of each month

Threshold Choir with Maria Culberson

Thursday, April 17, 2025 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific Time

We had a last minute change for tonight’s schedule of Embracing EOL series. Due to illness our previously arranged speakers are unable to present tonight. Presenting will be a dear friend and Threshold Choir beloved Maria Culberson will join us to share about the Threshold Choir and her father’s life story and home funeral. She is sure to bring both joy and tears to everyone.

The Threshold Choir brings ‘kindness made audible’ to those facing life’s thresholds through songs of comfort.

Maria Culberson, founding member and former Managing Director of Threshold Choir, will be joined by friends to share some songs and stories of the bedside with us.

The Threshold Choir brings ‘kindness made audible’ to those facing life’s thresholds through songs of comfort. With chapters in many nations, Threshold singers offer this compassionate service around the world. We celebrate 25 years of walking each other home in 2025! Threshold Choir is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. www.ThresholdChoir.org

Support from Professional Fiduciaries in Aging & End of Life

Thursday, May 15, 2025 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific Time

Attorney Lori Ingram has worked as a Professional Fiduciary in Sonoma County for the past sixteen years. Before opening her fiduciary practice, she practiced law in the Bay Area for three years, and owned or managed businesses in San Francisco and Sonoma County for 17 years, including work as a community organizer in San Francisco in the field of women’s reproductive health.

Her work with elders in a small medical practice in Sebastopol in the early 2000s inspired her shift into the fiduciary profession, when a beloved patient was diagnosed with dementia. After stepping in to help manage her friend’s finances, medical care, government benefits, and legal affairs she realized that she loved the variety and challenge of the work, and that her experience in law, business, financial and project management, and patient education enabled her to make a difference in the lives of elders who faced challenges and life transitions due to illness, disability or incapacity.

She has served on the Board of the Redwood Empire Estate Planning Council and as chair of the Education Committee for the Professional Fiduciary Assoc. of California (PFAC). She has studied death and dying since the late 1980’s after learning of her father’s two near death experiences, and has volunteered with the Living-Dying Project since 2009. She works with clients and their families at end-of-life, both in medical decision-making roles and as a care manager.

Jean McClune has been a California Licensed Professional Fiduciary for the past eighteen years. Prior to her fiduciary work she spent over twenty years as a consultant, trainer and management coach in the U.S. and abroad. She spent 7 years living abroad in Switzerland, Spain and Mexico and is fluent in Spanish. A lover of people, their histories and culture she found her passion in working with seniors, their end-of-life care and legacies. She has served as a State Director, Northern Region Director, and chair of the Education Committee for the Professional Fiduciary Assoc. of California (PFAC). In her time off she rows crew as part of an 8-woman team on the Petaluma River.

Once every 2 months on Wednesdays at 7 PM Pacific Time

May 7, 2025 at 7 PM Pacific Time

Let’s Talk About Death: Film & Discussion Evening

Postponed until further notice.

“Final Passages’ course work is life-changing. The education is transforming my perspectives on death and the healing that can occur at the end of life. I look forward to sharing, connecting and assisting with my family, friends and community about home funerals.”
— Victoria Joy

Final Passages’ trainings go far far beyond home funerals. I step into more of who truly am every time I come. There’s nowhere and nothing in the world like them. They’re consistently the most transformative trainings and workshops I’ve ever attended.
— Andrea, Santa Cruz

In reflection of the my path with your direction in May 2019, I must let you know how much that experience meant to me and continues to mean to me.

The opportunity to say good bye to my Beloved husband Tom by having his presence close to me for three days as his spirit left his body, continues to be such a healing for me.

Thank-you, so much for nurturing the peace and deep-hearted presence of love which still lives within me today.

I would love to be a part of your dedicated work; if and when there is a path for me to do so.

Please know, how thankful I am for your inspirational work.

Peace, Love and deep Gratitude,
Mathilda Cassidy, Home Funeral Guidance Client

We weren’t ready for how the veil was parted in our lives, but we appreciate all we learned at your course a few years ago. We relied heavily on what we’d just learned to a) share new options (and our wishes) with our adult children, b) advise them to let either us or someone they trusted know their wishes, and c) share with others, encouraging similar things.

We had no idea that in just a very short while, we would host a tender wake at home for our 24-year old daughter, Anlya Grace.

Her tragic death in August 2018 shocked us all – family, childhood friends, and extended community in several cities. Mourners repeated over and over how much it meant to be able to bring their art/poem/quote/peace to enfold and honor Anlya.

Many didn’t know such a thing as her community-decorated cremation casket and home-directed funeral was possible. All were agreed: Anlya’s at-home, earth friendly wake was exactly how she would have wanted her community to gather. An artist, poet, and equal rights activist, she was known for sheltering and feeding temporarily homeless friends, celebrating our beautiful planet, laughing heartily, dancing and galvanizing others to reach beyond indolence, cruelty, and discrimination.

I can hear her in my mind, anxiously watching while her country chooses its path, ferociously urging while she paces.

Thank you, Jerrigrace, for your instruction, hands-on demonstrations, and resource materials provided at the workshop.
Tami Monkman, Level 1 and 2 student

#end-of-life-doula #endoflifedoula #deathmidwife #naturaldeathcare #greenburial #consciousdying #homefunerals #familydirectedfuneral #finalpassages #jerrigracelyons