Becoming a Death Doula/Midwifery, Home Funeral Guide and Educator-Level 3 IN PERSON

Our Level 3 course offers more in-depth information surrounding home funerals and the national movement.

Along with further instruction by Final Passages director Jerrigrace Lyons, there will be several guest instructors to share their skills and wisdom on subjects such as:

• Consultation and Home Funeral role-play
• Psychedelics at End of Life
• Grief & Family dynamics
• After death body care review and homework assignment to practice
• A variety of ceremonial styles and rituals
• Death meditation practice
• Dealing with autopsy and pacemakers
• Current political issues
• When NOT to offer a home funeral
• Shroud wrapping and shroud-only green burials
• Still birth and fetal home funerals
• Natural methods of disposition (green burial, aquamation (water cremation), and Natural Organic Reduction)
• End of Life Option Act, MAiD (Medical Aid in Dying), and VSED (Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking)
• Resources for presenting to your community
• Exploration and guidance for starting a business or home funeral support group in your area

We are planning lively panel discussions of various topics by our staff and guest presenters. We are very excited about having many new graduates at the conclusion!!

Jerrigrace is a minister, death midwife, Reiki Master, and a renowned pioneer of the home funeral movement since 1994. She is the Founder and Director of Final Passages. She created a 3-tiered certificate training program, guided nearly 500 family-directed home funerals to date, and pioneered a new field of “home funeral guidance.” Jerrigrace is featured in the acclaimed PBS documentaryA Family Undertaking,The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Jerrigrace consults with individuals who wish to plan for their end of life at anytime in their life stream. She specializes in home funeral planning and is a certified MAiD (Medical Aid in Dying) Doula, supporting those who choose this option and those who are present to witness and hold space.

Jerrigrace is also a member of the SoCoElda (Sonoma County End of Life Doula Alliance).

Michelle Vesser has a deep connection with the wild and spiritual world. After 30-years as a farmer/gardener, she created Everything Sacred: Tending Your Inner and Outer Landscape  which  offers her passions as an End-of-Life Doula, Home Funeral Guide, Spiritual and Grief Counselor, and organic garden coach.

Michelle brings practical, emotional and spiritual experience to individuals and families in the dying process, at the time of death, during after death care, and through their grieving process. She is a Tibetan practitioner and offers the end-of-life practices of Phowa and Zhitro. Michelle now shares her skills with provocative one-four day Living Into Dying Workshops to create villages of care, opening conversations about dying and death within her community and abroad.

Linda Suhr taught K-12 and ESL in California, Japan and Syria for 25 amazing years.  After caring for her partner on his journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and peaceful death at home, Linda found her calling as an end-of-life doula.  Linda completed trainings with Going with Grace, Final Passages, Inspired Endings and numerous workshops.  She is a founding member of Sonoma County End of Life Doula Alliance and leads workshops on Advance Health Care Directives and End-of-Life Planning.  Linda supports clients with pre-planning and those who are actively dying.

Manena Harper, BA and End-of-Life Nanny, created Heart Centered Memorials (HCM) after attending the Final Passages Workshops. She has a diverse business background including managing a non-profit free clinic for seniors in Santa Monica, California that was featured on 60 minutes and 20/20. She left a position as VP of a national company to start HCM. She has been involved with end of life care since 1974 she has facilitated many home funerals and memorial services. She was her husband’s end-of-life care-giver, and directed and facilitated his home funeral. She has been part of the Final Passages family for almost 20 years.

Leslie is a former Occupational Therapist, Five Rhythms movement Teacher, Childbirth educator, working in End-of-life since 2009. She has worked with Final Passages as a co-producer of the Embracing End of Life, Death, Dying and Grief Educational Program for the last 5 years and is a Board Member. As an End of Life Doula/midwife, she is committed to educating and offering emotional, spiritual and logistical community-based care and support to people and their families thru the continuum of dying and death, and after death care. She believes bringing intentional honoring into one’s life is deeply important.

Constance Miles, RN, MA (Counseling Psychology), Birth Midwife (37 years), Certified Death Midwife and End of Life Doula, Poetess and Celebrant, transitioned from birth work to end of life work was a natural segue, after midwifing her son by marriage through his final journey and removing her mom from life support.

She offers deep listening, a compassionate presence and a quirky sense of humor. She is on the Final Passages Core Council and Sonoma County End of Life Doula Alliance (SoCoELDA) and has guided many home funerals.

Coby Leibman is a Somatic experience practioner (SEP), Grief ritualist, diviner and Cranial Sacral Practitioner. He was trained directly for over 15 years with Malidoma Somé and Sobonfu Somé (Dagara indigenous spiritual teachers, authors), on ritual and grief from an indigenous perspective. He also studied for over 10 years with indigenous elder Martín Prechtel (carrier of Mayan Tz’utujil tradition, author of bestselling grief book: The Smell of Rain on Dust).

Coby has also trained directly with Peter Levine and Gabor Maté. He has been leading group grief spaces and rituals for over ten years. He carries his teachers’ teachings with integrity and reciprocity with the peoples they come from. He is descended from a mix of ancestors of European and Central Asian descent.

Hannah Whitmore, PhD, RN, CHPN, is a certified hospice and palliative care nurse and NIH post-doctoral clinician scientist at UCSF. Her research specializes in psychedelic-assisted therapy for death acceptance and improved coping in serious illness, with a sub-specialty of care and considerations for the older HIV+ community. Inspired by her background in plant-spirit ceremonies, clinical hospice work, and Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices, Dr. Whitmore aims to improve palliative and end-of-life care through psychedelic research grounded in rigorous science, compassion, and ethics. As a post-doctoral fellow, she focuses on developing clinical models for psychedelic therapy to help seriously ill individuals cope with their prognosis. She also provides expert consultation to individuals and their families facing a terminal diagnosis to help them navigate their way through uncharted territory.

Willow Taraja

Mark is a wisdom keeper with many life skills. He is a minister who facilitated psychic- meditation groups for a decade in LA and an Intenders group in Sebastopol for 10 years. Mark is an Herbalist, Reiki Master, Acupressure Practitioner and a Certified Diet Counselor.

He provides core support to Final Passages and Home and Family Funerals by assisting in guidance and hands-on family support and he is Final Passages’ Audio/Visual Technician.

Final Passages could not function without this man behind the scenes.