FAQ

Though Gently Deathcare

  • I begin by inviting you to share your story or situation, in whatever form it’s ready to be shared, and any goals, intentions, or questions you might have at the outset. I attend carefully to what is arising for you and help you identify what feels most active, heavy, interrupted, or otherwise resonant. From there, I will offer reflections and gentle reframings, imaginative guidance for engaging with the particular material of your experiences, and, if requested, further resources tailored to your needs. A session is collaborative, unhurried, and responsive to what you bring to it. I aim to help us encounter death as both less mysterious and more mysterious at once, holding space along the way for tears, laughter, and anything in between.

  • In working with me, a client will often feel more grounded, less alone, and more capable of being with the weight of their situation. They might gain new language and frameworks for making meaning of profound experiences, validation in how they respond to loss and change, confidence in their own ritual or creative instincts and skill in developing practices around them, and permission to move at their own pace—especially if they’ve felt cultural, institutional, or interpersonal pressure to “move on.”

  • My work in death-and-grief companioning is trauma-informed, but it is not therapy and is not intended to replace it. Therapy and counselling are essential when grief is intertwined with trauma or significantly disrupts daily functioning. What I offer can complement an existing therapeutic relationship or stand on its own, though it is generally best suited for people who feel steady enough to sit with intense emotions. I am always transparent about my scope of practice and will offer referrals to other supports as needed.

  • After booking with me for the first time, you’ll be asked to complete a simple intake form and invited to write a brief account of your situation. But there will be plenty of space for you to share in detail and depth at the beginning of your session, and we can almost always trust that what most needs attention will naturally float to the surface. Beyond that, no preparation is required; I encourage you to arrive exactly as you are.

  • Some people come for a single 90-minute session and find this gives them enough of what they need; others return periodically or book a handful of 60- or 30-minute sessions over a few months, especially if they are working towards a particular grief- or legacy-related project or event. There is no expectation of ongoing work with me, though of course I welcome this if you find our time together helpful.

  • Many people have experiences around death and grief—including precognitive dreams, visitations, and powerful synchronicities—that don’t fit neatly within secular, scientific-materialist paradigms. Rather than dismissing or sensationalizing these experiences, I try to help normalize and contextualize them—to renaturalize them in the sense of encountering them as expressions of nature we cannot fully explain. This approach to what are sometimes called “paranormal” or “supernatural” phenomena is a special interest of mine not only as a deathworker but as a writer, researcher, and educator. I believe we can engage with these moments as sources of meaning and connection without requiring certainty about what is or isn’t literally true. That said, there is absolutely no need for you to have had such experiences in order to benefit from working with me, and I will not bring them up unless you invite the conversation.

  • While I don't currently advertise a full range of end-of-life doula services, I am available for many of these on a case-by-case basis and do carry a small client load at any given time. If you're interested in working with me and are looking for assistance with advance care planning, hospice or at-home space preparation, in-person vigiling, or navigating after-death care options, please reach out. If I'm not available, I will help however I can by sharing resources and recommending other practitioners.

  • Yes. If there’s anyone you’d like to have present when we meet, I welcome you to name them when you complete your intake form. If you're interested in having me design and lead a workshop for a community or creative group you’re part of, please email me and we can discuss collaborating.

  • I offer my services primarily over Zoom and have found that meeting virtually actually supports the focus and energy of this work very effectively. But if you live in the Greater Vancouver area and strongly prefer to meet in person, please email me to inquire about options.

  • In addition to my doula and deathcare-guide certifications through Douglas College and The Centre for Sacred Deathcare, my practice is informed by my time as a hospice volunteer at Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Vancouver, BC and Crossroads Hospice in Port Moody, BC. It is sustained by ongoing study and credentialing in grief companioning, thanatology, ritual, comparative mysticism, and heterodox psychology. And it is grounded in more than two decades of lived experience around death and bereavement—of both navigating several of my own major losses and informally companioning many friends, coworkers, and students through theirs.

    As an artist and academic with over a decade of professional experience in writing and publishing, event design, and university teaching, I bring the totality of my curiosity, creativity, and discernment to my role as a deathworker. I take seriously the cultural and political stakes of this work, which is at least in part about relearning to trust a range of human intuitions, practices, and ways of being in relation to natural cycles that dominant belief systems have long sought to erase, delegitimize, or otherwise distort and exploit. There is nowhere I feel more comfortable, more attuned, or more useful to others than in the deathspace, and it is the honour of my life to be serving here.