Series · 6 parts
The Old Ways: Nature-Based & Ancestral Death Care
For nearly all of human history, death was tended by hand: by family, by ritual, by the earth itself. Somewhere in the last few generations we handed that over to institutions, and lost the thread of how to do it ourselves. Six pieces on the nature-based and ancestral death care most of us were never taught: holding a vigil, green burial, deathbed herbalism, Italian folk ancestor rites, bringing it into practice, and a conversation on what a green witch actually knows.
Start reading →Begin anywhere · Pull Up a Chair: How to Sit Vigil With Someone Who Is Dying
6 partsHeal with Death22 min read
- Format
- Series
- Length
- 6 parts
- Reading time
- 22 min read
- Price
- Free to read
Parts · Read in Any Order
6 Parts.
Start Anywhere.
There is no order to these and nothing to finish. Read the one that matches the day you are having.- Pull Up a Chair: How to Sit Vigil With Someone Who Is DyingWe've forgotten how to sit with the dying. A death doula on what a vigil actually asks of you, and how to hold space for someone in their final days.3 min read
- The Body Is a Gift: A Death Doula's Case for Green BurialWhy green burial is, for many families, the thing that finally feels honoring instead of processed — the old way of returning a body to the earth, explained by a death doula.4 min read
- Plants Were Always at the Deathbed: The Herbal Wisdom We ForgotLong before hospitals, the village strega came to the deathbed with plants in her hands. A death doula on the herbal death care we forgot we had, and why it still works.3 min read
- Stregheria and Death: Italian Folk Magic, Ancestor Altars, and the Old Ways of LeavingOn Stregheria, the indigenous Italian folk-magic tradition, and what it teaches about ancestor veneration, home altars, and the sacred rites of dying and leaving.7 min read
- Why Nature-Based Death Care Belongs at Every Doula's BedsideMost death doula training teaches the logistics beautifully and skips the sacred entirely. On the gap in modern doula training, and why nature-based practice fills it.3 min read
- The One Thing a Green Witch Knows About Death That You Don’tElayne Sallemi on what it actually means to be a green witch: an ancestral, plant-based approach to death care, why she covers mirrors, what is in her apothecary bag, and what a full green burial…2 min read
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