Death Cafe profile for cassandra yonder
Location: Canada
About cassandra yonder:
I live with my partner, 3 children and livestock (including horses, goats, rabbits, chickens, pigs, ducks, cats and dogs) in the forested highlands of Cape Breton at North River, just off the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, Canada where we are developing a self sufficient homestead using timber framing and cordwood building techniques. I have a master degree in architecture which was preceded by a BA in gerontology and sociology. After living and practising in downtown Toronto, Ontario for several years following graduation, I sought a more rural and environmentally conscious lifestyle.
As the daughter of a veterinarian it was important for me to reconnect with animals and nature. I went back to school to study grief and bereavement at The University of Western Ontario's thanatology department and also became certified as an animal assisted therapist, hypnotherapist and lay horse trainer.
Recognizing the therapeutic potential of the homesteading lifestyle, we moved to Cape Breton in 2006 where I intended to seek work as a rural bereavement coordinator while establishing a retreat for grieving families. The unexpected death and resultant home funeral of a close friend and neighbour precipitated a deepening of my consciousness in the field of dying and deathcare, and as a result I became certified as a home funeral guide in 2009.
Always an active volunteer, I have been the chair of the Victoria County Hospice Society, secretary of our local Community Health Board, a member of the Grief Nova Scotia working group and a board member of the National Home Funeral Alliance. I'm also part of a core group to found a Canadian Community of Practice for Death Midwifery.
I maintain a private practice in death midwifery through which I offer education, home funeral guidance, bereavement support and am asked to speak publicly about various aspects of alternative deathcare and the potential value of community centred responses to end of life and post death care.
My past employment as a research assistant with Dalhousie Family Medicine conducting telephone surveys for an After-Death Bereaved Family Member Interview was rewarding. Currently I'm seeking to enrich my private practice through collaboration with others in this burgeoning field.
My long term vision is to live closely with death in a self reliant way here Beyond Yonder Homestead, which I hope will become some kind of interpretive centre for death and dying and a school for practices related to death midwifery.
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cassandra yonder's posts on the Death Cafe website
New Blog post: Death Midwifery vs. Death Denial
Posted by cassandra yonder on Feb. 13, 2014, 3:47 p.m. 5 comments
With increasing frequency and ferocity we accuse ourselves of being a death denying culture as though it is something to be ashamed of. Its true, we have become alienated from the rituals associated with end of life and post death care. Understandably, those who awaken to that fact often feel angry, frustrated or motivated to shift our awareness.
We let death back into our lives a little bit by journeying with those who are terminally ...