eBook

Home Funeral Guides: Illuminating the Path, a book in 20 chapters sent to you via email. Scroll down to Paypal button to purchase.

In 2012 I wrote an eBook about just what home funerals are, what “home funeral guides” do and how to educate families who want to have one. These twenty chapters are full of instructions, stories and interviews from me and from others in the field. I think you’ll like it.

Eventually I hope to make it a printed book. But right now it is only available as pdf attachments. When I get your order, I’ll email you!

Let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you. -Merilynne Rush

Serialized Subscription eBook

More about the eBook:
Why did you publish it as an ebook? My original intention was to publish in installments, like what used to be done in magazines in the old days, and also be able to hear from readers as it went along. I wanted to just get started and get information out there as I was writing it, not wait for it to be done and publish it all at once. I thought readers would sign up and join in conversation as each chapter came out. As it turned out, the process of writing chapter by chapter, with a 2-week deadline for each one, was really helpful for me. I was daunted about the process of writing a book but writing it chapter by chapter wasn’t difficult. But it ended up folks didn’t read it that way so the conversation part didn’t really happen.
Does this eBook constitute training to become a home funeral guide? No. There are many aspects of training that will not be covered, not the least of which is hands-on experience. This eBook is meant to be an additional innovative avenue to training and a way for us to learn and teach each other as our new profession grows and defines itself.What’s to prevent me from printing out a chapter and sharing it with my friends without them paying for it? Well, frankly, you could do that. I want the information to be shared and the more people who read it, the better. However, it would be dishonest and unethical to do that. Just like it would be to plagiarize. My hope is that you will encourage your friends and colleagues to buy it. The eBook is a way I can earn income while dedicating myself to being available for families. Much of my consultation work is unpaid. Home funeral guides often seek multiple sources of income to support themselves, as many of you know, and as will be addressed in one of the chapters.

Chapter Titles:

  1. The Art of Being a Home Funeral Guide
  2. Getting the Word Out
  3. Building Positive Relationships: Understanding our Own and Other’s Perspectives
  4. Professionalizing the Vocation of Home Funeral Guide
  5. Women’s Work and the History of Remuneration
  6. Staying Healthy
  7. Focus on the Threshold Care Circle
  8. What do Families Want?
  9. A Home Funeral Story
  10. A Green Burial Story
  11. Other Outcomes
  12. An Interview with Char Barrett
  13. Still Life With Baby
  14. The Home Funeral Consultation
  15. Our Relationship with Death; Fear and Love
  16. An Interview with Jerrigrace Lyons
  17. An Introduction to Home Funeral and Green Burial
  18. A Home Funeral Story from Montana
  19. Home Instead, by Gabrielle Tazzia
  20. Where do we Go from Here?