Community Highlights: Meet Olivia Bareham of Sacred Crossings

Today we’d like to introduce you to Olivia Bareham.

Hi Olivia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I began this journey twenty years ago when mother died at home, on hospice, and the nurse invited me to help prepare her body for burial. It seemed like the most beautiful, natural thing to do, my final gift to mom. It changed me. Taking the time to step into this sacred space gave me the opportunity to feel how achingly tender, fragile and vulnerable we are. I had all the time I needed to say goodbye, in a private, unhurried space. And then neighbors and friends stopped by and the home turned into the funeral parlor, only it was cozy and familiar and tea and cakes were served. Everything about it felt right and I realized that we have given away a powerful healing ritual to professional strangers in black suits from a funeral home.

I made it my mission to bring home-based after death care to families in Los Angeles. My work began as a Home Funeral Guide but when it became increasingly difficult to find funeral homes who would support a 3-day vigil at home, I decided to create my own unique funeral home that would educate, empower and uplift families to reclaim what I term, ‘the lost art and healing ritual of a home funeral’.
Sacred Crossings Funeral Home was born.

At first we just offered basic cremation and home funerals, but over the past ten years we’ve added a full range of mortuary services and become certified by the Green Burial Council. We now proudly offer only green, environmentally friendly products and services. Our caskets are made without nails, screws or toxic glue, we don’t embalm but use dry-ice for preservation, we encourage the use of natural fabric shrouds or simple cotton or wool garments and for final disposition we offer cremation, green burials, full-body sea burials, Aquamation (Alkaline Hydrolysis) and Terramation (human composting). We can assure families that our cremation facility strictly regulates emissions and will handle loved-ones with the utmost care.

I am very proud of the personal, compassionate care we give our families. Our Sacred Crossing Guides are all Death Midwife graduates from the Sacred Crossings Institute Training Program and offer spiritual support, grief rituals and Celebrant Services.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Perhaps the biggest struggle was doing everything alone for the first five years. I kept a regular office day-job to pay the bills and spent my lunch hours and evenings running all over town helping families with their deceased loved-ones at home home-funerals. It became quite stressful.

Finding funeral homes that would work with me was challenging. It was difficult to persuade them that allowing families to care for their own dead was a great benefit to everyone involved. Most funeral homes were very old-school 25 years ago and didn’t take kindly to change, especially since doing it their way was very lucrative.

When it became clear I needed help if I wanted to serve more families, I began teaching Conscious Dying and training students to become Sacred Crossing Guides. Not long after, I created The Sacred Crossings Alternative Funeral Home and began supporting families from all religious faiths and cultures to care for their loved-ones in the way that felt right to them.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Sacred Crossings?
Sacred Crossings Inc. was created in an effort to change the culture of death and dying through education, support and home-based after death care. The mission is three-fold:

1. To inspire, uplift and empower people to talk about death, learn tools for reducing death anxiety and complete their advance directives for health care and death care.

2. To offer green alternatives to traditional funeral home services through a compassionate, alternative funeral home owned and operated by certified Death Midwives.

3. To train Death Doulas to support dying individuals and their families have a peaceful transition and introduce this service into the community.

The Sacred Crossings Institute for Conscious Dying offers an intensive certificate training program for Death Doulas and Death Midwives both online and in-person.

The Sacred Crossings Alternative Funeral Home offers a complete range of mortuary and funeral services using natural products and non-invasive procedures.

If you are interested in death education to help prepare yourself for a peaceful transition or if you would like to train as a Death Doula to support others, please go to sacredcrossings.com/institute.

If you are looking for a kind, conscious funeral home to assist you after a loved-one dies, please visit sacredcrossingsfuneralhome.com.

If you are seeking grief support or counsel about a death related issue, please write to sacredcrossings@gmail.com for a free consultation.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Join our training program to learn how to prepare for a conscious dying without suffering. sacredcrossings.com/courses-and-trainings

Refer families to our alternative funeral home. sacredcrossingsfuneralhome.com

Complete your advance directives for health care and death care and relieve your loved-ones from making difficult decisions on your behalf. deathcaredirective.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sacredcrossings.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacred_crossings/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sacredcrossingsinstitute
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sacredcrossings