About

I am Kristine Bentz, a Tucson based Life-Cycle Celebrant® and Home Funeral Guide, as well as a grief companion who offers 1:1 bereavement support. I assist people during times of dying and loss by offering sacred listening as well as creating custom rituals or ceremonies and empowering family-led end-of-life care. When you need to celebrate and remember your departed – either people or animal companions – I help you do so based upon your stories, beliefs and values.

I believe in the power of ritual and ceremony to help us remember loved ones with meaning and begin healing. We can powerfully reclaim what our ancestors knew well about caring for our own departed, mourning and simply remembering the lives they led. When the time is appropriate for families or communities, celebrating a life well lived is a very powerful affirmation of LIFE!

Through my practice at Sweetgrass Ceremonies, I assist and guide people by co-creating rituals and ceremonies to acknowledge loss. I spend hours with families to  learn about the deceased and then prepare a very custom ceremony script. I lead memorials, funerals and home vigils with a very calm and wholehearted presence.

I am a certified Funeral Celebrant from the Celebrant Foundation & Institute. I am also trained  as a Home Funeral Guide by Jerrigrace Lyons, founder of Final Passages,  to empower families during family-led funerals. In 2013-2014, I served on the National Home Funeral Alliance board of directors to help further the mission of public education around families and communities caring for their own.

In my heart of hearts, I am a rite of passage activist, especially when it comes to dying and death. So many vibrantly aware and alive cultures in the world see death as a natural part of the our greater life-cycles. I passionately work toward our western culture warming up to this way of being! I believe the shift is beginning to occur . . .

I look forward to sharing resources on this blog. I hope to learn from you. I aim to open a warm and ongoing dialogue about seeing death as a natural part of our life-cycles.

PLEASE NOTE: I am a consultant and am in no way considered a funeral director. Any fees or donations I receive are for consulting or education services. In the case of home funerals, any funds received are for assistance to a family in charge of leading their own funeral, as per Arizona Revised Statutes.