All donations are tax-deductible through our Fiscal Sponsor SIMA Studios, a 501(c)3 non-profit.
We are grateful for and heartily welcoming donations! Your support will help us to share vital conversations and resources with a wider audience, we thank you. You can learn more and about how your donation will be used, and what resources you’ll be supporting here.
Series update: stills from our interviews with our heroes (guest experts)…
Teaser: these are some of the most epic conversations we’ve ever had, they are provoking, inspiring, and we do want to share one spoiler…
When all the interviewees answered our question about what they do to sustain their life since they spend so much time supporting death, they all answered with a version of this: They go outside, they sit with wild plant and tree people, their death work is fed by the life of the wilds…
Thank you Lashanna Williams, Oceana Sawyer, M. Abeo, Morgan Yarborough, Stefani Kaufman- Mthimkhulu and Thabiso Mthimkhulu: your contributions to DMDT’s documentary are of unspeakable importance.
We are currently fundraising for the FINAL leg of our documentary, which will allow us to document ground breaking changes in several death care communities and even more vital grief resources. To complete production we need to return to Seattle’s death care home Asphodel to learn how A Place To Die is supporting its community, as well as film a body shrouding workshop and human composting tutorial. We only need $4,500 to do this, can you help!?
The DMDT team is so grateful for your support. We are fiscally sponsored by SIMA STUDIOS, so your donation is 100% tax deductible.
If by check please make it payable to SIMA STUDIOS and write the project name death, me, dying tree in the memo line and mail it to:
SIMA Studios 551 Norwich Drive West Hollywood, CA 90048
Production achievements at a glance~
WHERE WE’VE BEEN:
Seattle, WA
San Antonio, TX
Sangerville, ME
Verona, WI
Gainesville, FL
Palm Springs, CA
Chicago, IL
Mexico City, MX
WHO WE’VE MET:
Medical Aid in Dying Volunteers
Grave Digger
Green Funeral Tenders
Death Midwifes
Human Composters
Day of the Dead Scholars
Hospice Volunteer & Pastor
Community Gardner & Activist
In Detail:
Will return to Asphodel (A Place To Die) to film a body shrouding workshop, a mock medical aid in dying educational moment, and human composting tutorial in Seattle (2026)
Will film a seed bombing workshop and composting expert to weave the reminder of reciprocity and rebirth into the story (2026)
Día del los Muertos mourning and celebrations- stayed with and learned from a family in Mexico- which will be the ending inspiration of the documentary (2025)
Filmed a mock green burial workshop at the green burial sanctuary Natural Path in Wisconsin, interviewed their Director/Grave Digger, and a volunteer who buried her husband there recently (2025)
Attended several community gardens and community efforts in San Antonio as gardening shares many similarities with death (2025)
Filmed at and interviewed the generous folks at Recompose and Return Home– both natural organic reduction facilities (human composting for the environment’s health) (2024)
Visited and filmed at Asphodel (A Place To Die) and followed up with A Sacred Passing’s Director Lashanna Williams to learn how she and ASP are supporting their community with their new home and space for dying (2024)
Toured, filmed and interviewed at Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery in Florida (2024)
Returned to Seattle to follow up with our guest experts, A Sacred Passing, and learn how their communities are doing as we move out of Covid times (2023)
Interviewed a hospice volunteer and grief supporting minister in Maine (2023)
Awarded Puffin Foundation Grant for filming (2022)
Applied for many grants and completed green burial research. We had to take the year off filming so director Lana could support her mother who had a near death illness (2022)
Interviewed the guest experts of the Une Bonne Mort death conference in Seattle (2021)
Fundraised over $6,000 for production, applied for grants, built relationships for future filming (2020)
Filmed and hosted death and grief event in Chicago with local death doula Q&A (2020)
Interviewed artists and death workers in California, Illinois and Maine (2020)
Awarded Mitchel Fellowship for production filming (2019)
Filmed and hosted death and grief event in Palm Springs with death/artist practitioners (2019)
Development and Research for docuseries (2018)
We’ve been hosting virtual and in-person mourning events, monthly grief support gatherings, death meditations, end of life file creation resources and more from 2018 to today as well- as outreach is an essential component to this documentary.
… and of course we are still always accepting donations for our project as a whole, you can learn more about why you may want to donate below…
What donating to the death, me, dying tree project means:
This passion project lives at the intersection of social change and artistic creation, and it’s something we see a deep need for in many parts of the United States and world. After death, me, dying tree’s founder Lana Smithner Greenleaf volunteered with hospice in nursing homes and became a death midwife, she was heartbroken by the way we are failing our dying elders and, as a society, missing out on the vibrancy of life due to our collective fear of death. (A death midwife acts as a spiritual guide, emotional supporter, and logistical counselor, aiding either the person dying and/or their loved ones with legal forms, arrangements, and all the headaches that come with the funeral industrial complex.)
Our care for our aging populations is almost nonexistent, and the system as a whole is ignorant to the healthy and positive options available – essentially the system is broken. This is especially apparent as the Covid-19 pandemic rages on. This is why Lana created death, me, dying tree (DMDT). Our main purpose is to spread awareness about healthier death practices in order to deal with the forthcoming crisis of the largest aging population to date, and to transform our country’s suffering around the concept of death into a deeper and more supported understanding of the cycles of life and death.
Why should you care?
Death is the one thing we all must encounter in our lives. At some point you and your loved ones will be faced with difficult decisions (nursing homes, DNRs, funeral arrangements, etc.) and in that moment, there are few systems in place to assist you in this intense transition of life to death. DMDT is a curated series of events, online resources, videos and a future documentary meant to address this gap. Not only will these resources be available to you, but also by supporting this project you will be helping people in ten different cities release fear of death at the live events, and at least 50,000 people become aware of the healing and helpful options available in the first year alone. By helping people heal their negative relationship with death, DMDT is creating a wave of change: through word of mouth and our extensive outreach program we plan to empower policy makers, government officials, funeral industry professionals, and as many interested citizens as possible to fix our broken system surrounding death and dying.
How would your money be spent?
Initial donations will be used to finish the docuseries, as this is a way to get essential information to people in need, on a large scale. Once the series is out, your donation will be used to pay death care workers and artists around the country for their contributions to death, me, dying tree events (death doulas, grief guides, singers, dancers, art therapists, poets, comedians, ceremonialists, rappers, puppeteers, etc). This project began by hosting events, turned into a docuseries, and soon it will return to hosting events across the U.S. to connect people with their local death support systems. Your donations will also make hosting the events *for free* in communities/cities across the U.S. possible by covering space rental costs among other things.
What your donation will cover:
$25 covers one physical resource integration guide for event participants
$50 covers one day ground transportation for entire DMDT team
$125 covers artist materials for one event
$275 covers one virtual follow up integration event
$500 covers stop motion resource video about green burial end of life options
$750 covers three artist’s stipends for one in person event
$1,000 covers the space rental of a community business for one event
$4,500 covers travel and food for the documentary crew to film the last leg of the docuseries
$100,000 covers full death, me, dying treepost production costs
What your donation’s impact will have:
When our country’s painful relationship with death is changed or perhaps even healed, we will all have more time to enjoy life instead of avoiding or fearing death. We will all be able to mourn and celebrate our loved ones when they die, instead of getting weighed down in financial and legal documents. We will have confidence that the systems in place are here to support us, as opposed to alienate and confuse us.
The DMDT team is so grateful for your support. We are fiscally sponsored by SIMA STUDIOS, so your donation is 100% tax deductible.
If by check please make it payable to SIMA STUDIOS and write the project name death, me, dying tree in the memo line and mail it to:
SIMA Studios 551 Norwich Drive West Hollywood, CA 90048
We deeply appreciate you!
-The DMDT Team
Testimonials from Event Participants & Death File 1:1 Sessions
“death, me, dying tree was a profoundly moving experience that helped me recognize deep fears and questions in a welcoming and supportive space. Lana effortlessly weaves together ritual and performance while also providing a vast catalogue of information about death and dying. Participants will not only be touched on a deeply personal and spiritual level, but they’ll also take away much practical information that will allow them to communicate more openly about the cycles of life and death with themselves and with loved ones. “
“Attending the Chicago event on Monday night and flying to be at my grandmother’s bedside the next morning, while she died for three days (finally passing on Friday at 5pm) was life changing. It prepared me to be present with her, to attend to my grieving grandfather, to logistically arrange things for my mom who was not in town, and prepared me to be in deep communion with my family for 12 days.”
“Lana transformed what would have been a challenging and confusing process into one that was approachable, actionable and fully supported. Lana’s efforts kept me organized and clear on what tasks needed to be completed next while honoring my own rhythms. This included providing resources and information to support my environmental values and gently educating me on various rules and regulations that helped me to make more informed choices. I am extremely grateful to have been able to work with Lana in creating my death planning file and paperwork. I cannot think of a better person to have guided me through this integral and meaningful process.”
“I’m in a little bit of a transition… well my grandpa died last week, so it was really crazy timing, so it was the next day that I saw this event, I really want to have a better relationship with death, because I feel like it could be a beautiful thing, and I would like to help my family with it as well, because they’re all struggling you know.”
“I had this feeling today that my mom was having a good time, she was like oh it’s a party for me! I had this moment of like there are all these presences in the room of people who are like oh they’re remembering me and talking about me instead of being like, I don’t talk about my dead mom.”
(Why did you come to this event?) “Because I avoid it all the time… if I’m in a group of people who are all talking about it, it’ll be easier than if I’m doing it on my own.”
“I just wanted to thank you for this gathering, I uh, I lost my mother, my mother passed two months ago and we went through enormous grief but I’ve also been feeling her presence… I feel like she’s been- you know- urging me to complete the grieving process and live my life. But I’ve been feeling a lack of purpose and having a hard time feeling light, and this tonight was so full of light, and so life affirming. But in the context of a recognition of the profundity of the passing and I really appreciate the way you brought that together, because it really enabled me to open to it in a way that I’ve been having a hard time doing, and I really appreciate the work you all are doing.”
“Working with Lana is pure joy even when confronting hard topics like death and dying. She makes it easy to dive deep into uncomfortable zones and the unknown in a safe sacred space, held by her vibrant spirit. Her genuine care matched with her connection to all life & its counterpart death, Lana helps bridge the worlds with an unparalleled sweet sensitivity. She is a gift! A pure channel of love, blessing other’s lives as a reiki practitioner, yoga teacher and death doula.”
About
The DMDT Team
Lana Smithner Greenleaf is the director and creator–tender–curator of death, me, dying tree. As a grief guide, death midwife, herbalist, gardener, green funeral advocate, and filmmaker she works to bring reciprocity with the wilds of our world into art and storytelling. Her efforts seek to navigate the harms we humans have done to each other and the planet. Her desire to support a tidal shift in how we care for the dying, the grievers, and the earth is at the heart of this project and series.
Lana was awarded the Puffin Grant and received a Mitchell Fellowship in order to develop this project and docuseries. She’s been a recurring guest expert on death and grief for organizations such as School of the Sacred Wild and the Freelance Artist Resource Producing Collective. As a death midwife she co-facilitated a companion animal death doula course, co-created a colonization wound ritual workshop, and devised/produced a participatory ritual play with La Lune De Mort that addressed climate crisis grief through hilarity called YOUR FUNERAL.
Her ongoing grief work includes curating a recipe and art book called “Mourning Elixirs”, supporting gardeners and community-minded folks in creating grieving gardens around the world, and hosting monthly grief gatherings since 2020.
She is currently a death field consultant for the feature “Home” (in development), director of photography for the documentary “David” (in production), and the director of a mockumentary about death doulas “Women Weaving a Casket” (in development).
Kasey O’Brien, Creative Producer for Docuseries, is a director and producer working across fictional narratives and documentaries. As a producer she has worked on many projects including the first project ever to be filmed at the The Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center, “Crossing Over” (ft. Judy Marte, Raising Victor Vargas, and Okieriete Onaodowan, Station 19,Hamilton) and “Keeping It Together” (ft. Jordan Tyson, The Chair, The Notebook Musical). She is the writer/director of short films “Breaker Box”, “Secret Service”, and “The Pageant” (ft. Hannah Adrian, FBI: Most Wanted, Law & Order), all of which have screened at festivals around the world. Some of these festivals include Tacoma Film Festival, MINT Film Festival, QFest St. Louis, Montreal Independent Film Fest (award winner “Best LGBTQ”), Toronto Intl Women Film Festival (award winner “Best LGBTQ”), Reel Love Festival (award winner “Best Performance”) and Portland Short Fest (award winner “Best Actor”).
Kasey’s upcoming projects include a documentary which features a senior living with a developmental disability (director, titled “David”), and a fictional body horror feature film centered on an alternative climate future (in development). She is a guest juror for the 2026 Santo Domingo Global Film Festival in the Dominican Republic.
She led the launch of a new Master’s of Professional Studies in Virtual Production program at NYU Tisch and serves on the board of the PANO Network, a nonprofit organization that champions underrepresented voices in film and media.
Abigail Vega, Creative Producer for the DMDT Project and Live events, is an organizer, theatremaker, and the Director of Programming of The Jar, an organization building a cultural community at the intersection of equity, relationships, and art in Boston, MA.
She was one of the founding members of the Freelance Artist Resource Producing Collective, and the first Producer of the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), a network of Latinx and allied theatre practitioners working to grow the field by forging new connections, from 2014-2019. With the LTC she produced eleven convenings in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Princeton, Austin, Miami, and New York.
Her writing can be found in Micha Espinosa’s Monologues for Latino Actors, and her directing has been seen in Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston. Abigail was named one of Latino Leaders Magazine’s “Latino Leader of the Future” in 2014 and she is a graduate of the NALAC Leadership Institute. Abigail was a participant in the Leadership U: One-on-One Mentorship Program, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, where she worked under Dr. P. Carl and David Dower at ArtsEmerson.
Nicole Richwalsky, Live Event and Docuseries Producer, is a creator, director, producer, and performer. She worked on the Oscar winning film Pinocchio with Guillermo Del Toro and has produced works with Emmy award winning Meister TV. She is an internationally recognized puppeteer, and has toured across the US and Europe with Manual Cinema Club.
She holds a BFA from Northern Illinois University, studied under playwright Andras Visky in Romania, and was selected to study with the Moscow Art Theatre School. After surviving a decade of Chicago winters, she relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where she rekindled her love of nature and its influence on her artform. Since arriving in Portland, she has also worked with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, The Portland Ballet and Portland State University, Pendleton Woolen Mills and Rejuvenation. She is honored to be a part of this amazing team!
Kate Marie Smith, Docuseries Producer, is a Chicago-based producer, photographer, and interdisciplinary storyteller with over a decade of experience creating and supporting socially engaged performance, documentary, and community-based arts projects.
Kate was a company member with One Year Chekhov for six years, where she co-produced hundreds of performances staged in nontraditional venues, including local bars across the Chicagoland area. This work emphasized accessibility, experimentation, and bringing live performance into everyday public spaces.
For six years, Kate produced and performed One Woman Hamlet: Shakespeare the Stigma on Mental Health, a solo performance project exploring classical text through the lens of contemporary mental health narratives. The project toured nationally, including a presentation at United Solo Theatre Festival, and was later adapted into a filmed version during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received multiple awards and expanded the project’s reach beyond live performance.
In partnership with Connecting Routes Project, Kate toured One Woman Hamlet to libraries throughout the Chicagoland area, pairing performances with facilitated discussions and mental health resource sharing. Each event was designed to reduce stigma, foster dialogue, and provide audiences with tangible support tools beyond the performance itself.
In addition to her producing work, Kate is a narrative photographer and founder of Mythos Lens, a Chicago-based photography practice centered on intentional storytelling.
Business Business, Stop Motion Animators for the Docuseries. Partners in art and life, Ryan McCarthy & Avery Ferguson are on a mission to prove that stop motion animation is not just a nostalgic throwback to a bygone era, but a vibrant, versatile, and vital art form that continues to captivate audiences of any age.
With a shared commitment to innovation, Avery and Ryan enjoy pushing boundaries and experimenting with new techniques to create evermore immersive and engaging work. But at the heart of it all is their deep love of puppets, miniatures, storytelling, and a desire to use stop motion as a means of exploring the human experience one frame at a time.
Andrew Boeder, Docuseries, Live Event & Project Producer
We are collaborating with artists and professionals throughout the world to bring as many perspectives as possible to this series. Many of the death care folks and artists who have enriched DMDT are featured below, we do recommend reaching out to them to learn more about their art and community services:
Lashanna Williamsdeath midwife, educator, human tender
‘death, me, dying tree‘ is both a service project and a living, breathing experiment that explores how we as a society can grow and evolve into a community that not only celebrates and respects life, but also celebrates and respects death, and by doing so is greener, healthier, and freer.
We curate free public events and resources where all can mourn the ongoing destruction and natural death in the modern world while being offered tools to bring joy and love into this essential process. We offer:
Free participatory events in communities across the U.S.,
An online platform providing free resources, and
Digital content that normalizes death and grief in our world, including an upcoming docuseries featuring essential death care organizers who are working to shift how we hold each other and stay present in these hard times.
Take Action
Talk to at least one loved one about your End Of Life Plans:
Above all else we see creating a death file (will, advance directive, burial preferences and more) as one of the most beautiful gifts you can give to your loved ones. In the event of your unforeseen death, all they will then have to do is focus on mourning your death, and celebrating your life.
We know that talking to loved ones about end of life plans is difficult. We know that these are turbulent times we’re living in. If you aren’t able to attend one of our virtual or in person events, don’t hesitate to reach out by emailing: deathmedyingtree@gmail.com. You can also check out our resources page to learn about many helpful platforms and professionals in the death field who can help you through this beautiful but intense process.
How To Make A Death File:
Check out our Resources page to learn more about how to make a Death File and all the platforms, professionals, and steps to keep in mind while creating your file.
“The Stages of Death” may help you with your own fear of death:
Watch our events trailer from 2020 (things have shifted since then, the pandemic certainly altered the course of this project, docuseries, and the story for us all):
An old teaser for this project that still has some life in it:
Additional death, me, dying tree outreach programs
We’re turning one of our community projects on mourning into a book:
It’ll be part herbal recipe, part coffee table art book.
So that the reader can digest a personal or collective grief while sipping one of the elixir recipes, and take in the work of an artist who has needed to do the same thing.
If you’d like to participate as a recipe maker or art maker in the book, please email deathmedyingtree@gmail.com, we have made about half of the book and are still looking for submission, do reach out.
Our dream is that through this community experiment people will feel less alone with the grief they are holding. More soon.
Grieving Gardens in communities around the world:
If you would like to join this initiative please email deathmedyingtree@gmail.com, and we’ll share our group document where we are organizing this project.
Examples:
Design, create, and share a garden on your front lawn with simple instructions, inviting people to take a moment to connect with their grief.
Partner with your local government or another service organization to attain permissions to create a grieving garden in a park or out front of a common gathering place, all you need is a small patch of earth to realize this offering.
“PEOPLE NOT AFRAID OF DEAD THINGS”:
An expose on people who work with DEAD materials for a LIVING.
This mini-series aims to de-stigmatize having a relationship with death. Episode 1 will premier next spring… popping up with the saplings that often grow out of dead logs:
Temporary Mourning Rituals for Animal/Pet Death & Ecological Grief:
These rituals aim to be a physical catharsis and memorial for loss. And a reminder to you that grief is the flipside of love, it’s not fair, and it is a part of our lives. We hope this helps you to recognize all that you’re dealing with as you navigate grieving and honoring what you’ve lost (whether that be a loved one, a dream, a job, a relationship, a companion animal, ecological safety, or really anything you formed an attachment to to survive;) while living your everyday life.
Grief is something that we can’t see, and that makes acknowledging and feeling it all the more difficult: so these rituals may help by giving you permission to take time out of your day to metabolize and essentially digest your grief. Grief bruises the heart, but we can’t see that, thus these rituals are a way to see the unseeable, to have a reminder of what’s going on beneath the surface.
The temporary tattoo colors associated with each “week” of the ritual mirror a healing bruise… after the initial shock that only black can hold, we move into red, flow into blue, and the metaphorical bruise ages finally into yellow. These colors are guides to remind you that while grief never goes away, it does morph and change like a bruise moving from the surface back into your bloodstream and body.
These rituals are kid friendly, in fact we encourage you to move through them as a community or family, together.
While we originally designed this line of temporary tattoos and accompanying rituals for pet and or ecological grief: you can use these rituals to metabolize anything. You can custom order a tattoo to represent a beloved human, a big life transition, or really any grief or loss that you are processing.
All the profits of these temporary tattoo mourning ritual sales will be a donation to “death, me, dying tree”- so that we can continue to curate and produce events and resources to help transmute our societal relationship with death.
Here’s a work sample from our community mourning events:
…Another work sample merging mental health, life, and death:
To view our general death and grief resources go straight to the bottom of this page.
How To Make A Death File:
The reason you need to create a death file is that it not only allows you to have power over your body during the dying process (living will/advance health care directive, power of attorney(POA)/Health Care Surrogate, durable Power of Attorney (POA) for health care) but it also lets you express how you’d like your body and assets to be honored after death (last will and testament, durable POA for estate, child appointed guardian etc.)
When you create a death file you can make it as specific as you want, outlining exactly how long you’d like to be on life support if at all, who gets what when you die, and what kind of burial (green, marine, cremation, or traditional coffin in concrete in graveyard), memorial, living funeral, or funeral is right for you.
You can be of any religion (including not any), mindset, and age to benefit from this resource, we’ve of course shared some of our favorite options with our earth and animist leaning point of view, but if you want our help: your personal views will be the way into discovering what is right for you as we work together, (not Lana’s or anyone else’s).
Setting up a death file can be an overwhelming task but there are many resources now available to help you (see below). A 1:1 session may be right for you, or one of the many platforms that provide streamlined templates, or with special cases you may still need to consult your attorney. Whatever approach you decide to take, we recommend talking with at least one loved one throughout this process. This way you’re not alone, and they won’t be surprised by your choices or their potential role.
Check out our resources below to learn more about all the templates, professionals, and steps to keep in mind while creating your death file.
Above all else I see creating a death file as one of the most beautiful gifts you can give to your loved ones for the future, so that in the event of your death, all they have to focus on is mourning your dying, and celebrating your life (or the dance of fully grieving whilst fully loving as Stephen Jenkinson puts it).
-Lana Smithner Greenleaf
Lana Smithner Greenleaf also offers 1:1 sessions where she will help you compile your death file. They begin and end with a meditation, and are tailored to your desires, needs, and questions. In these sessions she can help you decide what you want to include in your will, who you want to name as your Power of Attorney, and make sure you have the correct advance health care directive filled out for your state (states have different names for this form). She can also share information on environmentally friendly end of life options such as water cremation, green burials, living funerals, and home funerals.
Lana recommends a series of 3-5 sessions to complete your File and all proceeds from these sessions are donations to the making of the death and community care docuseries:
The investment for 5 sessions is a donation of $425
The Investment for 3 session is a donation of $300
You may prefer one session, which is $150 for 90 minutes, but just know that it will be faster paced with a bit less space for integration, breathing techniques, and opportunity for ritual.
Scholarships are also available, ***no one is turned away, Lana is open to trades as well*** and again just email Lana to apply for a scholarship or to set up a trade.
Finally if you are currently dealing with death or dying, are supporting a dying loved one, or are grieving; Lana offers 1:1 support sessions that focus on embodiment techniques to hold all your processing: these are offered for $100 for 75 minutes. Again, ***no one is turned away, discounted session rates and trades are available, and all proceeds go towards the documentaries fund.
Death is often unexpected and acute, so Lana always leaves open time in her schedule to accommodate these last minute situations.
This website tells you state by state what each of the forms are called that you will need to fill out in order to advocate for your dying or dead self. The forms are only valid for that state so if you live in multiple states, I recommend you fill out multiple forms.
***If you want to choose who has power of attorney over you and your body if you’re incapacitated: this is especially important to fill out. If you have a friend or partner you aren’t married to and would like them to have rights when you’re in the hospital, or have a say in your body’s after life care, this is extremely important to fill out. If you do not legally specify who you want to make important decisions for you- this duty will fall on medical professionals and your next of kin (wife/husband, parents, then siblings, and so on); it’s common to have friends or partners who actually know your wishes better than your next of kin, thus the immediate need for these forms.***
We could go into so much more detail, which this topic deserves, but our final plug here is that it’s helpful to have a detailed conversation asking the person who you want to be your surrogate (Power Of Attorney)
1. if they can take on this duty and honor and,
2. telling them your wishes so when it’s time to make hard decisions, they are as prepared as possible to represent you.
This website has all these forms and more: Advance Health Care Directive/Living Will/ Durable Power of Attorney/ basic Will/ durable POA for estate/ child appointed guardian forms for every state: first you fill it out online, then you print it, then you sign it in front of two witnesses and/or a notary (this requirement varies state to state).
We also recommend that you keep the physical copy in your at-home-death-file and also upload the document onto a database like Google Drive or Dropbox; and tell not only your main Power of Attorney (surrogate) but also other loved ones what the password is to your Dropbox account or send them the links to these forms— so that they can access them anytime you are hospitalized or die.
E-Forms offers printing for a price, but you can also download it and print it yourself. You can also find all of these forms for the state you live in on other online platforms. We want to emphasize that It is possible to do all of this for free– (you can use two witnesses instead of a paid notary, and you can download these forms and fill them out without a lawyer).
Here are Two other website where you can find and print your Advance Directive/Living Will for free:
This super helpful document from the American Bar Association goes into further detail answering questions in myth vs. fact format about Health Care Advance Directives.
This Death Care Directive was created by Olivia Bareham- the teacher of Lana’s Death Midwifery Course- and goes into much more detail than the basic Advance Health Care Directive. We recommend purchasing one of these if having a physical workbook sounds supportive to you ($10 plus shipping). Keep it in your death file for when you are ready to truly contemplate and prepare for your death. This directive helps you think of almost every little detail so that your loved ones don’t have to.
Personal Self-Assessment Scale (PSAS):
The PSAS goes over what DNR means in actuality and will help you to determine at what point you do not want medical intervention. As always you can be as detailed as you want by writing in variables (i.e. “I don’t want to be on any life support unless I’ve become a parent” or “I want the medical professionals to do everything they can to bring me back to life if I’m in a coma for two months, but after two months I want to be taken off life support”). This as with the Advance Directive, should be continually updated throughout your life as you learn and grow and change. The form with the most recent date will automatically cancel out all the previous ones. If you would like this in PDF form just email me and I’ll share: deathmedyingtree@gmail.com
Now what about a Will?
This is my favorite online template where you can easily create a simple Will:
Of course if you have a complicated situation you’ll need to consult an attorney. This article from Cake can help you to determine whether or not you need an attorney’s help to create your will: Should You Make a Will Online? 10 Things to Consider
Giving Back to the Earth: Alternative Burial Options
Humans are currently the only species on the planet who do not naturally give back or feed life with their death… (quite literally your body is full of nutrients the earth needs and when your body is encased in concrete (or a traditional burial) this is not possible, nor is it possible to make life from carbon ashes (or traditional cremation)): here’s an article with other “giving back options”.
Below is a diagram by Nathan Butler that shows the difference between a traditional coffin-in-the-graveyard burial and a green burial:
The laws vary state to state and it’s shockingly difficult to dispose of a body, some of these laws make sense as taking extreme care of our sacred flesh vessels is profoundly important, and we don’t want to contaminate the earth for those who are still living.
Yet many don’t make sense and are oriented towards allowing the funeral industry to maintain their monopoly. Fortunately there is a new movement towards green burials, environmentally friendly cremation options, and home funerals (very affordable)… this can be overwhelming and sometimes Lana wishes her body could just be eaten by crows but alas there are many humans and dwindling resources… thus we’ve created this resource.
Previously Lana’s favorite option was a marine burial where her body would be wrapped in a biodegradable shroud and released into the ocean… She would only want to do this if her body was chemical free in the end as to not pollute the whales and birds that would hopefully consume her minerals and molecules (her body). But…
Now Lana’s favorite burial option is simply a green burial (seen above), it’s the most affordable after cremation (which is so very harm causing to our ecosystems) and it’s becoming more and more popular as it was the norm 150 years ago and hopefully will be again.
The founder of Recompose recently helped to change Washington State’s legislation to make this progressive and environmentally friendly alternative to cremation legal. She is a hero. Definitely check this out.
This company is also an example of a cutting edge alternative to traditional cremation (which is not environmentally friendly)- this option is expensive- but it does allow you to give back to the earth in your dying…
Writing Letters of Love and Forgiveness
A beautiful exercise Lana learned in her death midwifery training was to write letters for loved ones before you or they die. If you have loved ones who are in the last phase of their lives consider telling them what they mean to you (and mail that letter now)! Another powerful exercise is to write letters for the future and leave them in your death file, to be discovered and read along with your last will and testament. This is a great opportunity to write down any final words of love or forgiveness both resolved and unresolved.
And now a little more from Lana:
I am now a death midwife: here are the main reasons I went through this process and training:
1. In order to really appreciate and understand my own life:
***I needed to learn about the death process***
***what dying meant to me***
***and how I wanted to die***
I knew that if I did this I would have a better understanding of how I wanted to live… and I do!
2. I want to be a resource for my loved ones. I know that not everyone wants to or can delve into this business of death so I am here for you. If you are dying and want my help, contact me.If you are afraid of dying and want my council, contact me.If you are curious about death, contact me. If you need help preparing for your imminent or eventual death, contact me. If you need help filling out any of these forms or have questions about anything I’ve mentioned above, contact me. If you want to know more about green burials, marine burials, infant tree burials, or pyre cremation, contact me. If you want to discuss the reality of organ donation, contact me. If you want to learn about caring for your loved ones’ body after death (i.e. home funerals), contact me. If you are curious about the three day vigil for your body after death,contact me. If you are interested in being led in a death meditation drum journey in order to confront your death and learn how to invoke your life desires more, contact me. If you would like to learn tools in order to access your own spiritual wisdom (that already resides in your body) regarding death, contact me.
