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Death Midwifery Training

Caring for our dead is a practice as old as humankind.

March 27-29, 2026

Earthaven Ecovillage
Near Asheville, NC

Caring for the body of our beloved dead can be a powerful experience, especially in community. In this deathcare training, we’ll dive into the physical, emotional, legal, practical, and spiritual aspects of caring for the dying and dead, as well as their families. Please join us if you wish to reclaim a more meaningful, hands-on experience at end-of-life and gain the skills and knowledge of midwifing death with grace and confidence.

Hands holding a peony flower
Patricia's body on her grave

NikiAnne has exemplified the most compassionate, while also honest and realistic, approach to death, dying, and funeral care. Likewise, her work in the field of grief support was a timely and effective presence in my life, via grief ritual. It is most reassuring to have her clarity and willingness to engage in this most sacred realm of life. Thanks for leading the way NikiAnne!

Deborah

Who is this training for?

This training is for those who want to learn how to skillfully and respectfully care for the dying, the dead, and their families at and around the time of death. This class is for you as a caring citizen of your community, a death caretaker (midwife or doula), a physician, a funeral director, or a hospice nurse. If you wish to offer home funeral guidance professionally, you’ll need additional training and experience.

We expect and will respect the diversity in our backgrounds, experiences, and belief systems. There are infinite ways to tend the dead.

Topics Covered

History, Background, and the Law

  • History of death and dying and the funeral industry in the US
  • Death Doula and Midwife: What do they each do? What are their respective scopes?
  • Caring for your dead: The law and your rights
  • How to navigate local bureaucracies after a death
  • Green burials — in cemeteries and on private property

Inner and Outer Preparations and Planning

  • Embodied apprenticeship: Envision your own death, integrate its certainty, work what you’re learning into your body
  • Death planning and advance directives — for yourself and those you support
  • How to organize your sacred paperwork: checklists, forms, instructions, and more

Care of the Body

  • What happens when we die? How do our bodies respond to death?
  • Preparing the body for a wake, funeral, celebration, and/or final disposition through burial, cremation, etc.

Sacred Space and Ceremony

  • Self-care as community care
  • Grief tending and bereavement support
  • Cultivating community engagement and forming circles of support
NikiAnne brings presence, care and awareness to helping others be more familiar and prepared for dying and death. She has so much personal experience and wisdom to share while maintaining humility towards the depth and scope of the content.
Jonathan

Deathcare workshop

Tentative Schedule

9:30 am – 5:30 pm (with lunch break)
BYO lunch (lunch is not provided)

Expect to spend an hour each evening, after class, deepening into the curriculum through contemplative practice.

Prerequisite

Filling out your Advance Health Care and After-Death Care Directives prior to this training. Notary services are available in class to make them legal.

If you haven’t completed your directives, you’re not alone; most people I know never get around to them until space is held for them to do so or someone helps them with accountability.

If you want more understanding of your options, there’s all kinds of online resources. If you want support and accountability, please join me for Death Prep: End-of-Life Directives Start to Finish — a four-session, online workshop January 18 & 25 and February 1 & 22, 2026.

Logistics

Cancellation & Refunds

If you cancel your registration, you may:

  • Donate your tuition to support our continued work
  • Request a refund per our policy:
    • 90% refund for cancellations prior to 30 days before the start of the program
    • 50% refund for cancellations prior to 10 days before the start of the program
  • All refund requests received within one week of the start of the program will be considered within two weeks of the end of the program.

If SOIL cancels this program for any reason whatsoever, you would receive a 100% refund.

Contact us at info@schoolofintegratedliving.org with registration questions.

Crowdfunding & Fundraising

Check out our Crowdfunding & Fundraising page for creative ways to engage your community and launch a "Community Supported Education" campaign. This approach can help support your investment in yourself, your community, the planet, and future generations.

Location

This program takes place at Earthaven Ecovillage. This permaculture-based community offers a unique living classroom where participants will engage with the natural world, eco-infrastructure, and the intimate experience of rural community living.

What to Expect at Earthaven

Financial Co-responsibility and Scholarships

Because some people have more financial means than others, we have created a sliding-scale fee system to accommodate a range of economic realities. We offer several price tiers and leave it to you to select the most appropriate tier. The price range aims to take into consideration economic disparities, historical injustices, and personal circumstances. The system is designed for those with more resources to support those with less.

At Earthaven and through the School of Integrated Living (SOIL), we strive to practice a culture of financial transparency, authenticity, and generosity. Trusting each other to assess their needs, what is within their ability, and when to ask for help. We are excited to include you in our experiment with financial co-responsibility.

We are now offering self-selected scholarships for many of our programs. No proof of need, no questions asked. Just the clear intention of trust that registrants can assess whether the cost of a program is truly a barrier to attendance and the growth of self and community our programs seek to foster.

In addition, we offer partial scholarships (50% of the middle of the sliding scale) to black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) with financial needs who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend, even with the self-selected scholarships. We understand that BIPOC may experience more financial and institutional barriers to participation, and this is one way we are able to create more access. If you identify as BIPOC with financial needs and would like to receive a deeper scholarship, please contact us.

SOIL endeavors to support the healthy flow of all resources; whether that be monetary or the skills and information that seed cultural change; and widen the doors of accessibility to what we offer.

Cost

Tuition: $650 – 850
General scholarship: $500
BIPOC rate: $450

Tuition includes instruction, materials, and notary services.

Meals and accomodations are not available for this training.

Registration

Complete the registration form once per participant. It takes 5-10 minutes, and you will complete your enrollment with a credit card authorization.

After your enrollment is processed, you will receive several confirmations…

  1. An automatic confirmation of receiving your registration form
  2. A payment confirmation from our card processor
  3. Confirmation that your registration has been processed

Please contact us before registering if any of these apply:

  • You have a service animal.
Contact Info - Step 1 of 3

Death Midwifery Training

Given what's alive for you in life right now and the gifts you long to give in your life, how would participating be most valuable to you?
The directives required for this training are Advance Health Care and After-Death Care Directives. Notary services available in the training if needed.

Instructor

NikiAnne Feinberg

NikiAnne Feinberg

Director, Founder, Facilitator

Throughout the last two decades, NikiAnne has dedicated much of her life energy to facilitating transformative learning journeys, particularly in community settings, and with folks in transition — between vocations; stages of life, including death; and those working to live into new, more life-giving stories of the world and themselves. In all her work, NikiAnne partners with the ancestors, the natural world, the power of ritual, and others to best serve the whole.