CONTACT:
donnabelk@gmail
512-922-8043
BOOKS WRITTEN:
Undertaken With Love
How to Follow Your Heart
Restorative Flow Yoga
Home Funeral Ceremonies
VIDEOS:
“Passing Through Our Hands”
A documentary style video showing how families can care for their own loved ones when they die at home. It shows how caring for one’s own after death can be a simple and dignified process.
CERTIFICATES:
Officient and Celebrant
Home Funeral Guide
End of Life Coach
Grief Facilitator
Yoga Teacher, 200 RYT
Bachelor of Arts degree, journalism
OVERVIEW:
Donna Belk, is an exponent of conscious living and dying. She became interested in funerals following her father’s death when she was 16 years old. She recalls, “His military funeral was a loud, meaningless, and empty affair. Now I work to tell people about alternatives to that type of death and funeral.”
Donna became a LifeCycle Celebrant® in 2005, receiving her training from the Celebrant Foundation and Institute.
In 2010, she became a Certified Life Coach through The Life Coach Institute, specializing in death and dying.
She trained as a home funeral guide with Jerrigrace Lyons of Final Passages and Elizabeth Knox of Crossings, and was also inspired by Lisa Carlson and Nancy Poer, pioneers bringing back the simple tradition of families caring for their own.
Donna was a founding member and served on the Executive Board of Directors of the National Home Funeral Alliance, a non-profit organization educating consumers about home funerals. They promote education, professional development, and community for home funeral guides, green funeral advocates, and all those who support the rights of families and communities to care for their own dead.
TIMELINE:
1973 started studying spirituality and the afterlife because of psychic experience
1985 near death experience
1992 wrote “How to Follow Your Heart”
2000 became Universal Life Church Minister
2005-2010 volunteer for hospices
2005 attended courses on home funerals, and also presented workshops and presentations to local groups and at conferences
2007 produced video “Passing Through Our Hands” demonstrating family after-death care
2008 Board Member and past president of Austin chapter for FCA (Funeral Consumer Alliance)
2010 founding member and executive board member of the National Home Funeral Alliance
2010 bereavement facilitator, Hospice Austin
2015 wrote “Home Funeral Ceremonies” co-authored with Kateyanne Unulissi
2005 LifeCycle Celebrant®, Celebrant Foundation and Institute
2010 Certified Life Coach through The Life Coach Institute, specializing in death and dying
2010 Created Beyond Hospice, an online certificate course on home funerals, and death midwifery
PRODUCTION NOTES
Notes from Donna about producing this website. Most photographs taken by Donna and following is their history:
- “Website” page photo, taken May 5, 2017. I was frustrated that I couldn’t find a shot of a computer with old people hands. So I took one myself. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re so dumb you can’t use a computer. End of rant.
- “Home” page photo, taken June 2022 in the tiny home, or granny pod where I now live. Part of my dying process is downscaling and focusing on the things that are really important such as grandchildren. I don’t want to take care of a too-big house.
- “About” page photo, taken August 2022. This is a selfie I took in my granny pod. Super authentic … just like me! Aging is another example of going with the flow, making the best of things, and gracefully surrendering the things of youth. It seems like the wiser choice to me.
- “Resources” page photo, taken in Patzcuaro, Mexico 2019. This wooden angel is a piece of art I saw in a store. I didn’t buy it at the time because it seemed too expensive. However, it has haunted me and I’ve wished a thousand times over that I had bought it. Even now I can look at a space on my tiny house wall and see where it would look beautiful. Somehow I find it inspiring. The colors, the direct look of the angel, the depth of the piece uplift me.