Holly Pruett Life-Cycle Celebrant

03/30/2026

Join us next week to reflect on how we can serve our communities with ceremony. Registration link in comments.

03/14/2026

Kudos to Friendly House Elder Pride Services for this terrific resource guide, and for hosting both the Resource Fair & Planning with Pride!

03/12/2026

Excited to share a few stories and community connection tips with others passionate about bringing people together for shared meaning-making in these lonely times.

🤩 Don't Miss Out!

📆 Mark your calendars and register early to get a front row seat to these insightful and rousing enrichment events.

Over the next three months, join us for a night of inspirational insights and conversation with three remarkable experts, each bringing to NTI’s Connecting Our Community Series their wealth of experience and heartfelt guidance.

⭐️ Join Us for Three Inspiring Evenings with:

Morning Altars Holly Pruett Life-Cycle Celebrant Grateful Living

These sessions promise to spark ideas, deepen your practice, and strengthen our community. You won’t want to miss them.

Note: All registrants will receive access to the session recording.

registration: https://www.naturaltransitions.org/store -1593046178513

03/07/2026

Starts Monday! Still time to join us. Registration link in comments.
Week 1: Befriending Mortality
Week 2: Final Disposition
Week 3: The Dying Time
Week 4: From Death to Disposition
Week 5: Remembering Together
Week 6: Making a Death Plan

02/21/2026

In the lead-up to my next Befriending Mortality class series, I've published a two-part retrospective on my 40 years of activism – from fighting for women's and LGBTQ rights to protecting funeral rites. Links to Befriending Mortality registration and the 40-year retrospective are in comments.

01/29/2026

I'm excited to offer the latest round of my virtual six-part series through the inspiring new gathering space in Portland, The Lantern. More info/ registration link in comments.

11/24/2025

Does this new Telephone of the Wind at White Eagle Memorial Preserve look suspiciously like an outhouse? Find out more in my latest blog post (link in comments). Here's a taste of how I got there...

Even as the world feels as though it’s falling apart, I often find myself experiencing a profound sense of integration. Of coming full circle. That felt sense of the truth of our connectedness. Of being woven in.

The seasonal shift, the short and darker days, the holidays that move the calendar towards its annual completion, and the approach of my December birthday – these always put me in a reflective space. Taking stock. Looking back over the blessings and challenges of the months gone by. Making plans, dreaming dreams, of the year ahead.

This past month a series of events deepened my attention to the web of interconnection that’s come alive for me since I found my current vocation 15 years ago.

10/29/2025

It's been more than a minute since I've written on my blog. This post offers an update on what I've been up to in my work life this year.

It’s been 15 years since my vocational path veered away from the non-profit leadership and consulting I’d done for several decades. I was reborn as a Life-Cycle Celebrant who then became a Home Funeral Guide, a Death Café organizer, and a community death literacy evangelist. Along the way I earned a certification in Thanatology and Proficiency Badges as a Death Doula and After Death Care Educator from the National End-of-Life Doula Association.
All these titles that nobody has heard of! Terms that mean wildly different things to different people, even if they are familiar. (Read more --> link in the comments).

06/05/2025

I’ve always been a fixer. Contentment has not come easily to me, nor acceptance. This sense that we can and must do better by each other fueled my work in my twenties, thirties and forties.

Then my first big initiation into dying and deathcare arrived, with something else to teach me. As Megan Devine puts it, “Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.”

We’re in a time of crisis and moral injury nearly everyplace we look. It’s a time that asks us: Can we love what can’t be fixed? How can we carry, together, what’s too heavy to bear alone?

Read my latest blog post:

I've always been a fixer. Contentment has not come easily to me, nor acceptance. This sense that we can and must do better by each other fueled my work in my

06/04/2025

Mark your calendars, Portland, for this special event.

Save the date! Accorda Benefit Concert Sponsored by SacredFlight. Join us for an evening of renewal through music, featuring local music-thanatologists, select guest musicians, and Accorda students and faculty—all in support of Accorda.📅 Friday, July 25, 2025, at 7 PM 📍 Portland, OR 🎟 Free Admission—Donations Welcome

Reception immediately following the concert at: Rose City Presbyterian Church 1907 NE 45th Ave (at Sandy Blvd) Portland, OR 97213

05/30/2025

Portland, if you'd like a chance to be in company to view this thought-provoking film about dying in community, join me at the Beaverton Library for a post-film conversation hosted by the wonderful Hopewell House. (Free but seating is limited.)