Susanna is currently working on her End-of-Life Doula certification through INELDA – International End of Life Doula Association whose program is comprehensive and establishes a professional-level standard for this field. She is also a Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Hypnotherapist.

    Working closely with a local non-profit hospice organization in her area as a visiting and vigil volunteer, she will be the lead volunteer who will coordinate vigil shifts and assist in teaching the NODA (No One Dies Alone) program for other volunteers.

    Susanna is part of a growing movement dedicated to bringing the conversation of death out into the open, and providing greater comfort to dying patients, transforming the last months, days, and hours of the dying experience for a more meaningful death.

    The journey toward death may not be easy for some people, but it can often be an opportunity and a time for spiritual transformation, significant personal growth, and healing. Many people may look at the meaning of their life, their place in the universe, have a sense of completion, be at peace with themselves and the finality of their life, and give in to the unknown.

    Grief support during and after a person’s death experience is very important. Susanna attends many workshops and conferences associated with death and grief to be of better emotional support to the dying and their family.

    This work is a calling. It takes a very special person to be this close to someone’s personal and intimate death experience, and it is an honor and often a humbling experience to be a part of someone’s final journey in physical life. An end-of-life doula, in a sense, is helping to give birth into the after-life.

    Susanna is very unique as she is also a medium. From a very early age, she has been sensitive to the souls of people who have departed from this world. So much so that she cannot dismiss the evidence from her personal experiences, concluding that we do indeed survive physical death. Her abilities give her a much broader view of the afterlife and she is open to discussion if a person or family member wishes to explore such ideas. She respects the religious or spiritual belief system that a person or family has, and would never project her personal beliefs onto anyone’s death experience.

    In 2003, her journey led her to the upper region of the Amazon in Peru for the purpose of working with Don Agustin Rivas Vazques, nationally and internationally known wood sculptor and shaman. His compound, Yushin Taita, is in the small town of Tamshiyacu on the shore of the Amazon River.  She participated in the shamanic and healing tradition of ayahuasca (eye-ah-waska), which has been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years in Amazonian Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Western Brazil.  Ayahuasca is referred to as “The Mother” and is called La Purga (the purge) because it purges toxins on every level of our being—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The experience of ayahuasca leads to profound self-discovery and healing through visions under the skilled guidance of an ayahuasquero, a maestro trained in the use of this sacred vine.

    In 2006, her interest in indigenous shamanism took her to Tuva, an independent state in the southernmost part of Russia also known as “The Land of the Shamans.”  The small group worked with numerous shamans during the course of several weeks learning their culture, ancestral roots, and ceremonies that came close to near extinction during Soviet times.

    Susanna has also participated in the Montana Naraya: A Native American “Dance For All People” and a “Four Winds” ceremony in Finland.

    She is the co-author of "The Art of Reclaiming Your Intention & Power and she is currently working on her own book that will be available next year.

    Susanna, and her husband Tom, have facilitated spiritual retreats, workshops, have been on numerous radio shows, and hosted monthly MeetUp meetings for over two years. They both are available for private sessions.

  

Susanna Massari