RITUAL HEALING FOR GRIEF AND LOSS

Learn soul-based practices for finding your way again after a death.

Losing someone you love is hard, but living in a grief-illiterate culture makes it even harder.  

Most of us have never been taught what grief really is, or how to meet it well. Without this knowledge, the healing journey after a death can be much longer and more painful than it needs to be. 

When you understand how grief is the soul’s natural healing response to deep loss, you can collaborate with the energetic dynamics of the process in a profoundly healing way. 

A new understanding of grief gives you new tools for meeting it. 

When you have a framework for working with the subtle energies of grief and loss, you’ll find practical ritual tools to help you, your family, and your community.

Death is hard and sad, but if you have the skills to meet it well, it can also be grace-filled and heart-opening.

Death is hard and sad, but if you have the skills to meet it well, it can also be grace-filled and heart-opening.

Dr. Sarah Kerr, PhD
Death Doula, and Founder of The Centre for Sacred Deathcare

Transform your pain into healing

Discover how deep loss can be a gateway to a wiser, more compassionate you.

Develop practical ritual skills

Learn to create healing rituals that make peace with pain and help reconnect you with life.

Join a welcoming community

Connect with others who feel called to meet death in a sacred, soul-based way.

Find a new perspective on grief 

Change how you look at grief, so you can change how you meet it. 

Feel confident supporting others

Find the language to explain the soul’s healing journey, and the skills to support it.  

Transform your pain into healing

Discover how deep loss can be a gateway to a wiser, more compassionate you.

Develop practical ritual skills

Learn to create healing rituals that make peace with pain and help reconnect you with life.

Join a welcoming community

Connect with others who feel called to meet death in a sacred, soul-based way.

Find a new perspective on grief 

Change how you look at grief, so you can change how you meet it. 

Feel confident supporting others

Find the language to explain the soul’s healing journey, and the skills to support it.  

Wisdom and practical skill-building

“Sarah’s class was an amazing experience, containing tremendous depth and breadth of wisdom and practical skill-building. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!”

– Maxine S.

Meeting grief as a healing energy helps you integrate it 

Transform your grief journey

• Help participants be present with pain and heartbreak
• Welcome beauty, celebration, laughter and delight
• Strengthen the bonds of love and connection for everyone involved

Meaningful grief rituals allow the system to clear and cleanse

Design your grieving rituals

• Understand core ritual principles and how to apply them
• Adapt a best practices ceremony template to your own needs and values
• Feel grounded and confident, even if you’ve never planned a funeral before

Integration happens when body and soul are aligned

Transform and move the energy of grief 

• Launch the deceased on their voyage to the next realm
• Support the living as they begin a new life with their loved one gone
• Offer a chance for reflection, mourning, and meaning-making

Meeting grief takes a village, if it’s done well, it also creates one

Support your family and community

• Develop and apply your unique healing gifts to support others 
• Validate your intuitive understanding about the soul-journey of death and loss
• Play your part in the movement to build a more death-positive culture

Transform your grief journey

• Help participants be present with pain and heartbreak
• Welcome beauty, celebration, laughter and delight
• Strengthen the bonds of love and connection for everyone involved

Design your grieving rituals

• Understand core ritual principles and how to apply them
• Adapt a best practices ceremony template to your own needs and values
• Feel grounded and confident, even if you’ve never planned a funeral before

Transform & move the energy of grief

• Launch the deceased on their voyage to the next realm
• Support the living as they begin a new life with their loved one gone
• Offer a chance for reflection, mourning, and meaning-making

Support your family & community

• Develop and apply your unique healing gifts to support others 
• Validate your intuitive understanding about the soul-journey of death and loss
• Play your part in the movement to build a more death-positive culture

Healing my grief more deeply

Thank you Sarah for sharing this profound and sacred wisdom. Your teachings have helped me meet death better, and heal my grief more deeply.

– Rebecca G.

ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Sarah Kerr, PhD

Sarah is a Death Doula, ritual healing practitioner, and sacred deathcare educator.

With a PhD in Transformative Learning, and a focus on ritual and rites of passage, Sarah’s approach blends the spiritual with the pragmatic. Sarah has more than two decades of hands-on training in spiritual and shamanic healing practices, and she offers a clear roadmap for students and clients who are called to meet death and loss in a soul-based way.

As a Death Doula, Sarah serves as “clergy for the unchurched,” bringing inclusive and nature-based spiritual values to her work. With a strong community-focused approach, Sarah helps her clients meet mortality in a conscious and open-hearted way.

As an experienced teacher and trainer, Sarah has helped thousands of students validate their intuitive knowing that death is a soul-journey, not just a physical experience. Sarah’s courses give students the understanding, tools, and confidence they need to support dying people and their families.

In addition to creating the Centre for Sacred Deathcare’s library of virtual classes, Sarah lectures and teaches internationally. Her deathly advice column, “Dear Sarah,” appears in print publications in Idaho and Montana. Sarah’s work has been featured in Maclean’s and Zoomer Magazine, and on CBC Radio’s The Current, Global, and CTV National News.

ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Sarah Kerr, PhD

Sarah is a Death Doula, ritual healing practitioner, and sacred deathcare educator.

With a PhD in Transformative Learning, and a focus on ritual and rites of passage, Sarah’s approach blends the spiritual with the pragmatic. Sarah has more than two decades of hands-on training in spiritual and shamanic healing practices, and she offers a clear roadmap for students and clients who are called to meet death and loss in a soul-based way.

As a Death Doula, Sarah serves as “clergy for the unchurched,” bringing inclusive and nature-based spiritual values to her work. With a strong community-focused approach, Sarah helps her clients meet mortality in a conscious and open-hearted way.

As an experienced teacher and trainer, Sarah has helped thousands of students validate their intuitive knowing that death is a soul-journey, not just a physical experience. Sarah’s courses give students the understanding, tools, and confidence they need to support dying people and their families.

In addition to creating the Centre for Sacred Deathcare’s library of virtual classes, Sarah lectures and teaches internationally. Her deathly advice column, “Dear Sarah,” appears in print publications in Idaho and Montana. Sarah’s work has been featured in Maclean’s and Zoomer Magazine, and on CBC Radio’s The Current, Global, and CTV National News.

When life takes us through big transitions, rituals help our souls catch up.

Course Content


Course Content


New, Soul-Based Perspectives

Discover a spiritual and energetic framework for understanding grief and loss

  • Unpack unhelpful assumptions about grief in dominant culture
  • Explore a nature-based spiritual perspective on death and bereavement
  • Uncover the core energetic dynamics of what grief is, and how it works  
  • Consider how soul and body move at different speeds during times of transition
  • Align your healing journey with the archetypal wisdom of death and rebirth
  • Distinguish between grief and grieving, and why that the difference matters
  • Understand grief as an energy that needs to flow in order to heal
  • Identify the energetic impact of unprocessed grief on yourself and others

New, Soul-Based Tools

Learn ritual healing practices to restore balance after transformative loss

  • Consider ritual as a forgotten technology for soul-healing
  • Understand the basic principles for creating sacred ritual space
  • Explore the essential ritual gestures, including offerings, altars, prayers, and blessings
  • Align your ritual practices with the land and the larger healing powers
  • Develop personal grieving rituals that fit your unique spiritual values
  • Adapt ritual practices to integrate different stages of your grieving journey
  • Create daily rituals that expand your capacity to be with pain, stress, and strong emotions
  • Increase your skills and confidence in supporting others through grief and loss.

New, Soul-Based Perspectives

Discover a spiritual and energetic framework for understanding grief and loss.

  • Unpack unhelpful assumptions about grief in dominant culture
  • Explore a nature-based spiritual perspective on death and bereavement
  • Uncover the core energetic dynamics of what grief is, and how it works  
  • Consider how soul and body move at different speeds during times of transition
  • Align your healing journey with the archetypal wisdom of death and rebirth
  • Distinguish between grief and grieving, and why that the difference matters
  • Understand grief as an energy that needs to flow in order to heal
  • Identify the energetic impact of unprocessed grief on yourself and others

New, Soul-Based Tools

Learn ritual healing practices to restore balance after transformative loss

  • Consider ritual as a forgotten technology for soul-healing
  • Understand the basic principles for creating sacred ritual space
  • Explore the essential ritual gestures, including offerings, altars, prayers, and blessings
  • Align your ritual practices with the land and the larger healing powers
  • Develop personal grieving rituals that fit your unique spiritual values
  • Adapt ritual practices to integrate different stages of your grieving journey
  • Create daily rituals that expand your capacity to be with pain, stress, and strong emotions
  • Increase your skills and confidence in supporting others through grief and loss.

Finding a more integrated understanding of grief allows us to meet it in a more healing way.

When you understand the key principles and practices of ritual healing, you’ll be able to craft powerful grief rituals that allow heartbreak to become a catalyst for deeply authentic living.

You Will Receive:

  • Lifetime access to the Sacred Deathcare Learning Portal
  • Course videos, with closed captioning
  • Audio-only recordings
  • Transcripts of course content
  • A personalized Certificate of Completion, suitable for CEU’s

You Will Receive:


  • A printable course outline and note-taking template
  • Transcripts of course content
  • A personalized Certificate of Completion, suitable for CEU’s
  • Lifetime access to the Sacred Deathcare Learning Portal
  • Course videos, with closed captioning
  • Audio-only recordings

Learn to Bring Healing to Death

The course includes 2.5 hours of lecture and Q&A, filled with practical information, stories and examples of lived rituals.

You’ll learn sacred deathcare practices for meeting an upcoming death in a meaningful and conscious way.

$129 USD

All material is available as closed caption videos.

Participants will receive a Certificate of Completion, suitable for submission for CE’s or CEU’s (licensure dependent.)

Financial assistance is available. If the price is a barrier, please get in touch.

Learn to Bring Healing to Death

The course includes 2.5 hours of lecture and Q&A, filled with practical information, stories and examples of lived rituals.

You’ll learn sacred deathcare practices for meeting an upcoming death in a meaningful and conscious way.

$129 USD

All material is available as closed caption videos.

Participants will receive a Certificate of Completion, suitable for submission for CE’s or CEU’s (licensure dependent.)

Financial assistance is available. If the price is a barrier, please get in touch.

Join more than 3000 students who have studied with Sarah

I am excited to connect with like-minded people

Sarah’s desire to build community is evident, and I am excited to connect with other like-minded people through her offerings.

-Brenda K

I feel a kinship, feel supported

“We are going through a teetering on the end death experience with my dad and I am the outlier in the family. I am thankful for the training I have, related to death and finding comfort in it and in ritual. Many times I feel alone in this process. But every time I get your newsletter, I feel a kinship, feel supported, and feel like I will be okay.”

-Sarah D

A community of people with the calling

Thank you for creating and presenting this material so well and beginning to develop a community of people with like callings.

-Bridget P

Connecting the spiritual with the pragmatic

I felt like I walked into an entirely different world today. I come from a rational, concrete, pragmatic world, and I have always had a feeling for—and a yearning for—the spiritual world but have never really gone there. I’ve always stayed very practical, very pragmatic. This was absolutely wonderful.

Thank you so much.

-Ellen K

Validated many profound experiences

Validated many profound and inexplicable experiences…A great foundation and roadmap for learning.

-Tana P

A groundwork for learning

Sarah took care to lay the groundwork for learning, and made it easy to ask questions. I appreciate her sincerity and her desire to share her knowledge, in a way that makes the world a better place for all, including the creatures and the planet that sustains us...

-Margaret V

I am excited to connect with like-minded people

Sarah’s desire to build community is evident, and I am excited to connect with other like-minded people through her offerings.

-Brenda K

I feel a kinship, feel supported

“We are going through a teetering on the end death experience with my dad and I am the outlier in the family. I am thankful for the training I have, related to death and finding comfort in it and in ritual. Many times I feel alone in this process. But every time I get your newsletter, I feel a kinship, feel supported, and feel like I will be okay.”

-Sarah D

A community of people with the calling

Thank you for creating and presenting this material so well and beginning to develop a community of people with like callings.

-Bridget P

Connecting the spiritual with the pragmatic

I felt like I walked into an entirely different world today. I come from a rational, concrete, pragmatic world, and I have always had a feeling for—and a yearning for—the spiritual world but have never really gone there. I’ve always stayed very practical, very pragmatic. This was absolutely wonderful.

Thank you so much.

-Ellen K

Validated many profound experiences

Validated many profound and inexplicable experiences…A great foundation and roadmap for learning.

-Tana P

A groundwork for learning

Sarah took care to lay the groundwork for learning, and made it easy to ask questions. I appreciate her sincerity and her desire to share her knowledge, in a way that makes the world a better place for all, including the creatures and the planet that sustains us...

-Margaret V

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this course for me?
What is a soul-based approach to death and loss?
How does this course fit with other Sacred Deathcare courses?

Ritual Healing for Grief and Loss is the fifth course in Doing Death Better, a five-course series on practical skills for meeting death in a conscious, meaningful way.

The content of the five courses flows from one to the next, but each course stands alone, and they may be taken in any order.

What accessibility accommodations are included?

All of our video lessons include closed captioning, both during the live Zoom call, and when they’re uploaded to the course portal.

After the live class, we generate a transcript (unedited), which is uploaded to the course portal, along with the videos, and an audio-only version of the class.

If you need other accessibility support, please reach out. We’d love to know what would make things easier for you.

Will I be certified?

As there are no assignments or evaluation involved in this course, this is not a certification program, and participating does not directly certify you in any way.

All participants will, however,  receive a Certificate of Completion, which may be submitted for Continuing Education Units (depending on your licensure.)

Is there financial assistance available?

The Centre for Sacred Deathcare is committed to equitable access to our programs. If financial issues would prevent you from taking the course, please reach out.

What is the refund policy?

If you registered for a course that’s not right for you, or if the course content didn’t deliver what you were expecting, let us know. We’ll happily issue a full refund.

We’re always working to improve the course content and delivery, and appreciate any feedback you can offer about what didn’t work for you.

What if I have questions that aren’t answered here?

We want to help you have the best learning experience possible. If you have any further questions about the course, please get in touch and we’d be happy to help.

Broaden your knowledge
Deepen your skills 
Grow your confidence