SERVICES

What I can do, with reverence, respect and permission:

- Advise and support options for families
- Advocate and find resources
- Educate groups about conscious dying, options for families and ceremonies
- Help facilitate life reviews and advance directives
- Plan and make ceremonies for the time of dying, and for afterwards
- Memorialize your loved one
- Work with loved pets as well as humans
- Provide trained Shamanic services to help the beloved cross over, and families grieve
- Provide the above services for any major grief or loss 

What I don’t do:
- Provide legal advice
- Help someone die
- Provide medical or any clinical services

I am based in Christchurch. However, distance is no problem. I can help online, by video link, phone or email. Shamanic services are all possible at a distance.

SHAMANIC SERVICES

. I have trained with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. I I am a member of the Foundation.  Using drumming and rattling, I journey to other realms in non ordinary reality, in order to gain wisdom and healing for you, from compassionate helping spirits. I offer the following services:
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- Divination: using many methods to receive guidance for your future, and to help with questions both material and spiritual. My main method is with Runes, an ancient Norse magical alphabet, but I also work with dreams and crystals. See a separate blog entry about the wisdom of the Runes. 

- Finding loved ones in the next world, and helping them communicate with you

- Helping souls move from this life to the next (psychopomp work)

- Shamanic extraction and soul retrieval
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- Drumming and journeying circles

SHAMANIC PRACTICE - IN PRACTICE

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The Gundestrap Cauldron, about 2000 years old, showing a Shaman with power animals

What is Shamanism?
Possibly the oldest spiritual practice in the world, Shamans journey to other worlds in non ordinary reality to gain wisdom and help and heal others. Common Shamanic practices include divination, extraction, help for the dead, and soul retrieval. As Karen Effie Deathcare Worker, I am trained in all of these.

Here is a link to a short article which is an interview with Dr Michael Harner, the founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. I am a member and have trained with the Foundation, in what is called Core Shamanism. This is a universal form of Shamanism which is accessible, ethical, and works with only compassionate and transcendent spirits. I strongly recommend reading this article before you go any further.

https://www.shamanism.org/articles/article01.html

Divination
With my helping spirits and power animals, I employ several methods of divination - using crystals, casting sets and dreams. I can help you make decisions and find guidance. I use rattles, runes, and a casting set. These are processes that are kind, fun and truthful.

Shamanic Extraction
We all have what Shamans call intrusions, small unhelpful entities that enter us when we are vulnerable or come to us from other people. I can remove these safely, in ceremony, with guidance from the helping spirits.

Work with the dead
Being a Deathcare Worker, the dead are a primary interest for me. I can journey to other worlds to find someone who has died, check on their welfare, and help them if they need it. I can also assist a soul to find its way to the next world. This is wonderful and fulfilling work.

Soul Retrieval
This is the main healing practice of the Shaman. It helps here to see the soul as the essence of life, not necessarily residing within the body, and not necessarily in one 'lump' or as one substance. Some cultures have an idea of several souls,or souls with several discrete aspects. We can lose portions of our souls. Loss can occur from an assault on the body, such as surgery or trauma, or a significant emotional loss, or a soul portion can be stolen by someone else. We have a language for this. We say someone took our heart, or we are not ourselves lately, or we are out of our minds. I journey to other worlds, find portions of your soul and return them to you.

Power animal retrieval
We all have power animals who love us and want to work with us. Often they were with us when we were little, but they left us after we stopped paying attention. I can find your power animal and return it to you.

Journey circles and teaching
I teach Shamanic journeying using drumming and rattling in groups. We journey to the Lower World and the Upper World, meet power animals and spirit teachers, and seek answers to questions. We can also journey in the Middle World to the spirits of Nature. These journeys are safe and natural. the atmosphere is supportive and fun. We are psychonauts, exploring realities that have been open to us for many thousands of years!

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The 'Lion-Man", 40,000 years old, carved from Mammoth tusk, the oldest piece of figurative art in the world.

FUNERAL CELEBRANT SERVICES

I craft beautiful, unique ceremonies for the one who has died and their families and friends.

​I am trained with the Celebrants Training College. I love words and specialise in the writing of ceremonies. Listening and taking time with you is important to me. There is always time, and I will never rush you. 

Funerals and the transitions of loss are my only interest. I do not do weddings or other celebrations. 

ETHICS

- I will work with integrity and maintain a professional relationship, at all times.
- I will work only with the permission of the dying person and their family members.
- I will be transparent about all charges and costs.
- I will relate to clients as per the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights, where they are applicable.
- I am friendly to all cultures, genders and belief systems.
- I recognize the Tiriti O Waitangi and the rights of the Tangata Whenua here in Aotearoa, and as a Pakeha woman I attempt to avoid all forms of cultural appropriation.

​RESOURCES

WRITTEN WORD

​Atkins, Martha Jo ‘Signposts of Dying; What You Need to Know’. Very simply put, compassionate, practical.

Cant, Sally ‘Conversations about Death: A Practical Guide to Talking about End-of-Life Care and Dying’. Australian celebrant and ceremony writer.

Doughty, Caitlin ‘From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World in Search of the Good Death. From the founder of the Order of the Good Death and the Ask a Mortician Series.

Harner, Michael ‘The Way of the Shaman’ and ‘Cave and Cosmos: Encounters with Another Reality”. Master anthropologist and founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

Gawande, Atul. ‘Being Mortal’. Death and dying in the Western world.

Hone, Lucy ‘What Abi Taught Us: A Mother’s Struggle to Come to Terms with her Daughter’s Death. A New Zealand psychologist with some hard won wisdom.
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Ingerman, Sandra ‘Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self’. FSS classic.
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​Jenkinson, Stephen ‘Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul’. Furiously and beautifully written, a challenging read.

Kowalewski, David ‘Death Walkers: Shamanic Psychopomps, Earthbound Ghosts and Helping Spirits in the Afterlife Realm’. The work of a psychopomp.

Mannix, Kathryn ‘With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial’. From the wise physician’s perspective.

Prechtel, Martin ‘The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise’. Passionately written from a South American perspective, on the depths and heights of grief.
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Tomlinson, Philip ‘Arranging a Funeral: What You Can Do Yourselves, A New Zealand Guide’. Highly recommended, a booklet that is also a call to action. Available from kiwi caskets on TradeMe.
 
Tompkins, Ptolemy ‘The Modern Book of the Dead: A Revolutionary Perspective on  Death, the Soul, and What Really Happens in the Life to Come’. Personal, occasionally witty, often erudite, an  account of the author’s attempts to synthesise traditional religious views with New Age thought.
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ONLINE

http://soulpassages.ca/  the website of inspirational Canadian Death Doula Sarah Kerr

http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/ at the forefront of the ‘Death Positive’ movement; see also Caitlin’s Youtube series Ask A Mortician

https://www.shamanism.org/ the Foundation for Shamanic Studies

APP
WeCroak: based on a Buddhist practice, it tells me five times a day at random times ‘Don’t forget you’re going to die’ and provides an inspirational quote

NEW ZEALAND RESOURCES
http://www.advancecareplanning.org.nz/ advance directives in a New Zealand context

http://www.naturalburials.co.nz/ burial sites, coffins and funeral directors

http://www.diyfuneral.co.nz/ much of what you need to know about the law and your rights in New Zealand
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https://www.celebrantsassociation.co.nz/ funeral celebrants

https://www.fdanz.co.nz/fdanz-funeral-directors: FDANZ, registered funeral directors