My name is Regan, and I use she and they pronouns. Some people call me a healer, some call me a witch, some call me a weirdo. Embodying some qualities of each, I prefer to think of my presence as a pointer to the healer, witch, and weirdo that already exists within your own self.  

I am an āyurvedic health counselor, death doula,and grief tender. I am a community organizer and community care advocate. I am also so much more than titles and check boxes.

My commitment to a life deeply rooted in inter-generational community has offered the gift of being with several beloveds through their deaths.  Companioning some more intimately than others, each of these incredible humans has shaped the person I continue to become.  Beloved community has helped me to see that this role called death doula has always been a part of my being, patiently waiting for me to mature into it.  I did not become a death doula becasue I attended a training.  I attended a training becasue I realized I was a death doula.

As a teenager, I remember sitting in a school room with other teenagers as we learned that a fellow classmate and friend had died by suicide.  Imagining their family finding them, and thinking of my own parents, the pain of being alive that I myself carried felt somehow less deadly.  Talking to folks who were closer, more intimate friends with them than I was, offered me the opportunity to doula well before I even knew how to care for myself.  Their death may have saved my life, and the only way I know how to pay that forward is to continue to be willing to talk about suicide and the pain many of us feel by simply existing.

As a human living a queer lifestyle within a society that is designed for the heteronormative nuclear family, I understand the challenges of navigating bureaucratic systems that do not gracefully offer space for anything outside of their limiting checkboxes.  I am familiar with estrangement and exile within family, and I understand that choosing the people you want to care for you and make decisions on your behalf is not always easy or obvious.

Living and dying within our modern systems can be complex for anyone regardless of lifestyle or family dynamics.  This can be especially challenging or alienating for trans and queer folks, and anyone whose marriage, partnership, children, family and community are not legally recognized by governing forces.  Because we live in a society governed by laws, rather than love, planning and paperwork is important. 

Death care is community care, and we are in this together, dear ones.  May we all have the privilege of living and dying within the sacred container of community.