The Arts
Deathwork
of
A 4-day tour through the deathie arts: death doula training, reiki attunement, and intuition and altars
Most deathwork trainings teach you one thing at a time. This retreat teaches you everything at once. Over 4 days and 4 nights, this intensive brings together death doula foundations, energy work, altar making, and emotional embodiment into one holistic deathwork education. Morning ocean offerings. Evening cacao ceremonies. Classes by day, community by night. The way it was meant to be: in person, in community.
May 11–15 in Cape May, NJ
Hosted by:
The La Mort Collective
The Mystical Arts of Deathwork
Join us in Cape May, NJ to step through a portal - into death doulaship, into devotion, into deathwork discernment.
Spend 4 nights in a Victorian house near the sea, building a robust, holistic deathwork toolkit: learning to tend to the physical and practical act of dying through hands-on death doula training; practicing easing the sacred, energetic transition of death with Holy Fire Reiki; and understanding how to keep yourself healthy and honored as an embodied threshold guide.
Our trainings
certificate training
energy work for dying
A journey into the sacred practice of Energy Work for those called to support the dying and the grieving. This training explores energy hygiene, intuition, and the flow of life and death as interconnected forces. You’ll receive Holy Fire Reiki I and II attunements, learn to work with your own energy and with others, and practice opening portals to ease transitions at the end of life.
Receive: Holy Fire Reiki 1 & 2 Attunement
Led by Dr. Melissa Delizia
death doula Training
A hands-on foundation in the ancient, sacred art of accompanying the dying. This training moves through the full spectrum of death doula work: understanding the dying body and what changes to expect, the home care practices families can reclaim, the legalities, paperwork, and red tape, and the options available beyond the industrial funeral complex.
Receive: Death Doula Proficiency Certificate
Led by Lauren Carroll + Collective
workshop
intuition & altar making
A half-day workshop built to help you carry your intuitive wisdom into the deathwork space, and honor it with a physical form. Through tarot, wax readings, partnered intuitive practices, and journaling, you'll deepen your relationship with your own inner knowing. Then, you'll craft an altar to your sacred self - a tangible, living monument to the wisdom, grief, gifts, and mystery you bring to this work.
Learn: How to use your intuition as a deathworker & build a sacred self altar
Led by Lauren Seeley
workshop
the inner compass
of deathwork
Death work asks more than knowledge. It asks presence, intuition, and the ability to remain steady in emotionally complex spaces. This half-day workshop explores five pillars of intuitive death work: intuition, receiving, discernment, wisdom, and devotion. Through reflection and practical exploration, you will learn how to trust what you sense, distinguish what is yours to hold and what is not, and root your work in integrity and care.
Learn: How to trust intuition, use discernment, and practice devotion at the Threshold
Led by Morgan Fava
Energy Work for Dying
Holy Fire Reiki 1 & 2 Attunement
A journey into the sacred practice of Energy Work for those called to support the dying and the grieving. This training explores energy hygiene, intuition, and the flow of life and death as interconnected forces. You’ll receive Holy Fire Reiki I and II attunements, learn to work with your own energy and with others, and practice opening portals to ease transitions at the end of life.
Led by Dr. Melissa Delizia
Death Doula Training
the fundamentals of death doulaship
A hands-on foundation in the ancient, sacred art of accompanying the dying. This training moves through the full spectrum of death doula work: understanding the dying body and what changes to expect, the home care practices families can reclaim, the legalities, paperwork, and red tape, and the options available beyond the industrial funeral complex.
Led by Lauren Carroll
Intuition & Altar Making
intuitive deathwork & sacred-self altars
A half-day workshop built to help you carry your intuitive wisdom into the deathwork space, and honor it with a physical form. Through tarot, wax readings, partnered intuitive practices, and journaling, you'll deepen your relationship with your own inner knowing. Then, you'll craft an altar to your sacred self - a tangible, living monument to the wisdom, grief, gifts, and mystery you bring to this work.
Led by Lauren Seeley
Emotional Complexities
Remaining present in emotionally complex situations
A half-day exploration of the emotional interior of death doula work. How do you stay present when presence is hard? How do you provide what a dying person or grieving family needs without losing yourself in it? Through the lenses of intuition, discernment, and devotion, this class moves through the emotional complexities of holding space at the threshold, and helps you find your own steady ground within them.
Led by Morgan Fava
Our Sanctuary
Our trainings will be hosted in a meticulously restored 1800s Victorian home that perfectly embodies the spirit of Cape May's golden age. The house features period details, high ceilings, and the kind of atmospheric charm that makes Cape May one of America's most beloved historic destinations.
We'll gather in the spacious shared spaces throughout the house. From the formal dining room where we'll share our meals to the cozy parlor for evening conversations and tarot readings. Those staying with us for the whole retreat will have their own private bedroom.
Why Cape May?
Cape May is known as one of America's most supernatural cities, where spirits linger in nearly every Victorian home and historic hotel. From the "Lady in Blue" at the Inn of Cape May to the ghostly innkeeper still tending guests at Hotel Macomber, the city's tragic history of fires, drownings, and Civil War-era drama has left an abundance of otherworldly residents. It’s the perfect backdrop for those of us who work at the threshold.
This experience is for…
…thresholdkeepers of all kinds, who want to tend to death on every plane: physical, practical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual…
…those whose deathwork training has felt one-dimensional: too practical without the energetic, or too spiritual without the grounded skills to back it up…
…those just beginning, who want to start with a foundation more holistic than most get in years, or those with rich experience who need more support navigating the emotional weight of this work…
…those who want to ease transitions not just with presence, but with their hands and their energy…
…those who want to bring more reverence and devotion into their practice.
I’m wondering…
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Good! This retreat was built with you in mind too. The Death Doula Training will deepen and formalize what you already know, but the real value for experienced doulas is in the layers this retreat adds around it: the energetic tools of Holy Fire Reiki, the intuitive practices for staying present, and the emotional interior work that most training programs never touch. You'll leave with a more integrated, holistic practice than most doulas build over years of experience.
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No. The retreat is designed to meet you where you are. Whether you're just beginning or have years of deathwork experience, the curriculum builds a holistic foundation that will add depth to you at any level.
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Reiki 1 will be completed ahead of time via an online module before we gather in Cape May. Reiki 2 attunement happens together, in person, with Melissa. No prior experience is necessary.
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All trainings and workshops, your own private bedroom in the Victorian house, all meals, snacks, and drinks throughout the retreat, and an exclusive private ghost tour of Cape May.
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There is a direct bus from NYC into Cape May, and some students may be carpooling in. A travel connection form will be provided in your student portal.
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You'll leave with a Holy Fire Reiki 1 & 2 Attunement certification and a Death Doula Proficiency Certificate.
Pick the payment plan that suits you best
Stay with us in our haunted Victorian home, eat and drink with us at no extra cost, receive attendance to all trainings and workshops (includes your Reiki 1 & 2 attunement and Death Doula proficiency certificate), and experience a private ghost tour.
May 11–15 in Cape May, NJ
Your teachers
Lauren Carroll
Lauren Carroll, co-founder of La Mort, is a Death Educator & Holistic Funeral Director who is passionate about weaving community and family back into the death space. Her work centers around re-aligning our culture with Mother Earth and helping humans remember how to love one another. She is a former board member for the National Home Funeral Alliance and co-founded The Deathwives. She lives on an urban farm at the base of a mountain where she tends to her animals, raises her two children, and dances around bonfires on the full moon with friends while listening to Nick Cave.
Melissa Delizia
Melissa Delizia, MSW, LSW, DSW (she/they) is a death doula, educator, professional coach and social worker whose work lives at the intersection of sacred care, transformative education, and social justice. With a Doctorate in Social Work and certifications in grief companionship, deathcare, and sacred ceremony, Melissa brings both clinical insight and spiritual depth to their offerings.
Their practice is rooted in ancestral connection, mediumship, and energy work, with a focus on holding space for queer and trans individuals navigating death, dying, and grief. Melissa approaches this work with reverence, tending to the liminal with embodied presence and a belief in the healing power of collective care and ritual.
As an educator and adjunct professor, they are dedicated to reshaping how death is taught and understood—centering marginalized experiences, challenging systems of harm, and cultivating spaces where grief and identity are honored in all their complexity. Whether teaching or learning, Melissa holds a deep commitment to equitable deathwork and heart-centered education.
Lauren Seeley
Lauren Seeley is an artist, death and grief doula, and death educator whose work weaves together death literacy, spiritual practice, and end-of-life care. Her interests and research span the tender edges of both human and pet end-of-life care, LGBTQIA+ and trans-centered deathwork, memory care, ritual and ceremony, and the many ways we honor the dead through funerary and disposition practices. Lauren currently works at a funeral home in Brooklyn, NY, where she holds space for the living and the dead, and facilitates the Silent Book Club of Death, Brooklyn’s quiet little refuge for readers who aren’t afraid to sit with the big questions.
Morgan Fava
With over a decade of study in the realms of death, dying, and grief, Morgan has journeyed through significant loss and transformation in her own life. As a certified death doula, energy healer, Akashic record practitioner, and ceremonialist, she is dedicated to supporting individuals and families through the sacred transition of death.
In her work, she provides compassionate guidance and education, helping to create a more peaceful and serene end-of-life experience.