2025 – 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.
Last year, I started “catching up with myself” by launching a new website to bring everything together as Holly J Pruett: Celebrant. Guide. Creative Partner. Behind-the-scenes, when I can get to it, I’ve been preparing to transfer a treasure trove of blog posts from my old websites. A library of stories and reflections, these posts are a tribute to the courage and generosity, the grief and love, of all I’ve been privileged to work with and learn from over these 15 years. At some point I’ll be able to retire the old websites and reduce the technological clutter in my head and my bank account.
I’m also starting the process of tightening up my sprawling email list, to make sure that when I start posting again more regularly, my words go out only to those who are still interested.
Over the years I have used the term “hiatus” to describe a pause in a particular arena of my work – organizing events, for example, or offering classes. But almost always, I’ve been doing the work in one form or another. Fielding inquiries and making referrals. Supporting family, friends, colleagues, and my communities with the big things that arise. It’s true that I travel more these days, with my spouse retired and my aging mom (on the opposite coast) needing more support.
I remain “open for business.” And grateful, every day, for the good work that comes my way. Here’s what it’s looked like this year:
Celebrant
Over the past few years, my ceremony work has settled into a rhythm of about one a month. Given the intensive nature of co-creating, writing, officiating, and supporting my clients through the process, that pacing feels right.
Memorial celebrations of life this year have spanned the full spectrum of life – from a heart-wrenching and unexplained sudden infant death, to a 30-year-old whose undetected heart condition took her in her sleep the night before a family vacation, to an octogenarian and a nonagenarian whose deaths were long-anticipated and yet mourned no less. Remembrances took place in a backyard summer rainstorm, on the Oregon coast, in a historic mansion, at a municipal landmark, and on paper – for one client the “ceremony” consisted of many story-telling sessions resulting in a written life tribute.
Mixed in with these bereavement rituals were a joyous multi-generational community celebration marking the end of a long career of service; support for an 80th birthday family reunion (10 years after I’d helped mark the 70th); and an intimate wedding in our gorgeous Columbia Gorge.
Guide
The term “Guide” is a catch-all for my Death Doula, Home Funeral, and Death Education work.
Increasingly, I meet with individuals and families on an ongoing basis, either monthly or as needed. Our focus may range from general conversation about mortality to addressing specific deathcare or after-death concerns to partnering on needs that arise. I’m honored by their trust and vulnerability. And I’m gratified to be able to pass on to them the resources and experiences that are part of the legacy of the clients whose deaths, like Marcy’s, serve as teachers.
I’m grateful to field a busy schedule of invitations to offer presentations, conversation facilitation, and workshops. This year that’s included continuing care residential communities in Oregon and Washington; an in-service for The Peaceful Presence Project (the doula training program I studied with); a neighborhood association; a book club; and a hospice/ library partnership.
For the past two years I’ve hosted my own series of education presentations as well – my six-part Befriending Mortality series. I’ve offered the series five times with 150 participants from across the U.S. and Canada. I’m happy to discuss bringing the series to interested community hosts, and to work with individuals on any of the topics. I’m currently exploring a partnership to offer the series in a few new formats in 2026.
Creative Partner
In all of my work, I consider myself a creative partner with my clients, hosts, and class participants. Occasionally I come full-circle to marry my old non-profit skill set to my current field of work. Recently this included strategic planning for an alternative deathcare advocacy organization, helping an educational institution grapple with a difficult history of collective trauma, and hosting a Grief & Remembrance space throughout a three-day activist conference.
Every now and then I try to bring my focus back to my own catch-as-catch-can technology and the writing I long to do more of. This is a start. I’ll keep you posted.