What if you could protect your unquiet dead by being in better relationality with Death?

In The Dangerous Old Woman, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes expresses ‘danger’ in one of its oldest forms, ‘to protect,’ as in, “I stand in your danger to protect you with the strength of our relationship. Through interdependence, we are protected.”

                       Excerpt from From Elder to Ancestor

We must stand in the danger of our dead.

In American settler culture, we have a backlog of unquiet dead because we haven’t given proper death rites in thousands of years. It is our job as human-persons in this culture to do thorough deathwork so that our dead move on to What Comes Next, and so that the worlds of the living and of the spirits stay in balance.

To protect our unquiet dead, we have to overcome our fear of death. That is the only way that we can thoroughly tend our dead. We do this by living into our capacity to be fit elders and to do functional deathwork, which gives our unquiet dead what they need at death, so that they move on well.

The more we learn about deathwork, we stand in the danger of our unquiet dead. We reclaim death as a natural progression of life, which means we open ourselves to seeing its healing and supportive aspects as much as its shadows and grief.

This In the Danger of Death session will be comprised of two parts: a class, followed by a group ritual. In the first half of our sacred space, we will discuss basic deathwalking, which is part of animistic awareness, why the dead don’t move on, how we can help them do so, and take time for Q&A about deathwalking. In the second half of our gathering we will hold space for our dead to move on in a ritual to facilitate their release.

These sessions will be flexibly priced with a payment plan, discounts for students who have previously taken deathwalking coursework with me, and a discount for members of the Runes for Change community. Seats are limited to keep the gathering intimate; as such, no refunds are offered.

Explore my FAQ if you want a better context for deathwork, and contact me with questions.

Class Objectives

In this gathering you will learn:

• The difference between animism and soul tending
• What deathwalking is
• What The Broken Path is
• Why we don’t deathwalk
• Why we must deathwalk our dead
• Why the dead are unquiet
• Rituals for deathwalking
• Our group ritual

Why I Teach Deathwork

I saw souls of the dead as a child and knew I was called to work I didn’t know how to do. Oddly, it was a Disney movie at age 7 that explained my role, and I spent the rest of my life learning how to help the unquiet dead. There are aspects of deathwork that require deeper understanding soul tending to be able to do well. However, just as I knew there was something I was being asked to do as a child and had no elders to teach me, I feel there are aspects of deathwork that we are all intended to recognize if not do, even if we don’t feel called to soul tending. 

In the Danger of Death is the only deathwork class that I teach outside The Spirited Path, the longterm training intensive that I mentor. It is intended for folx who want an animistic knowledge of working with the unquiet dead. Likewise, we should all have an opening in The Dark Time, during which we can release what is ready to go, whether it’s loved ones, stale energy, unfit paradigms, or collective dead. In American settler culture we no longer honor seasonal death rites, such as The Wild Hunt. In the Danger of Death is an opportunity to learn about deathwork, but also to have that seasonal community space for release.

For this reason, it is open to those who are beginning deathwork, and also to those returning to it, who want safely held sacred space to release their dead.

S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.

Kelley Harrell is an animist, author, deathwalker, and death doula held by Tuscarora, Woccon, and Sissipihaw land. For the last 30 years, through Soul Intent Arts she’s helped others ethically build thriving spiritual paths. Her work is Nature-based, and centers soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral tending, and deathwork. She hosts the podcast, What in the Wyrd, and also writes The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Work with her in the Runes for Change community or in her intensive soul tending training, The Spirited Path.  Full bio.

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@kelleysoularts

• 6 Things the Dead Want Us to Know about Life
• The Samhain (and deathwalking) Roundup
• If Spirit Allies Could Deathwalk Souls
• If Colonization Didn’t Disrupt Awareness of Oneness
• If We Don’t Die Well
• We’ve Always Done Death Rituals
• Folx on Unbroken Paths
• Deathwalking is Required
• Deathwalking
• Summon You

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