This Mortal Terrain
Answering the Call Into Deathwork
A five module, self-paced course from Death Doula, Jade Adgate available on demand.
About the Course
This course offers an overview of the current end-of-life care landscape in North America and explores the role of community-based support within it. Participants will examine how people experience dying today, who is well served by existing care models, and where gaps in support remain. The course also introduces the ways non-medical end-of-life practitioners can help address these gaps.
Before learning specific tools or practices, the course begins with an examination of contemporary end-of-life systems, equity in care, and the diverse needs of individuals and families. Participants are then guided toward developing a thoughtful, grounded relationship with death as a foundational aspect of this work.
“To answer the call to end-of-life work is to listen deeply: to the realities of dying today, and to what death asks of us personally.”
Jade Adgate
More About This Course
The course includes over two hours of recorded and written content, thoughtfully organized into accessible modules. Participants receive five custom self-study pages (one per module) featuring curated resources that expand on the curriculum, including talks, articles, documentaries, music, and book recommendations. Each module is accompanied by practical, hands-on exercises designed to support embodied learning and integration.
Participants will:
Gain a broader, non-reductionist understanding of death informed by cross-cultural and animist perspectives
Develop concrete practices for supporting loved ones before death, at the time of death, and in the months that follow
Learn tools for grounded presence when fear, grief, uncertainty, or spiritual complexity arise
Acquire language that counters the isolation, avoidance, and fragmentation that often surround dying
Build ethical clarity for supporting others without imposing beliefs, bypassing grief, or exceeding one’s role
Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on humility, consent, relational awareness, and cultural sensitivity, recognizing that death care is deeply shaped by ancestry, worldview, and lived experience.
