Leaves With You provides rituals to create healing and ceremony in death and grief. Our main offering is a biodegradable coffin made using macrame, the ancient process of tying rope. Leaves With You invites family members and mourners to participate in and weave their prayers into the coffin’s creation. The act of weaving the coffin provides space for mourners to be present with their own grief and healing process. The deceased is then wrapped in an object of love that their family and friends created.
Our Mission
Leaves With You holds intention in our work to help people remember the rituals their cultures have practiced for centuries, while also inspiring them to create new ones. We hope to help others to feel more connected to one another and the earth through the intersection of art, sustainability, and end of life. Leaves With You understands that historically, death care is a communal practice, and there we strive to provide accessible care to those in need. We believe that speaking about death and creating ritual around this conversation can help especially the during our world is in – when many humans are seeking deep connections to one another and their roots.
Who we are
Shaina Garfield is a Death Doula, Grief Guide, Ceremonialist, and the founder of Leaves With You. With her devotion to the sacred continuum of life and death, she extends compassionate support to all beings navigating the dying and grieving processes. Her mission is to cultivate a profound connection with the Earth and the Divine, fostering harmony within the web of life.
Shaina’s approach is deeply rooted in ritual, which she believes is essential for transforming grief, reclaiming spirit, and honoring the profound mystery of death. She offers group and individual grief sessions, hand crafts natural macrame coffins, plans and facilitates pre and post death funerary rituals, and more. Her services are not only for the dying but also for those who experience losses of all kinds throughout life.
Beyond these services, Shaina provides an array of nurturing offerings including Blue Lotus Ceremonies, Rose Healings, and Sound Healing. Through her heartfelt work, Shaina Garfield is reshaping the way we honor and embrace the cycles of life and death.
Core Principles
Devotion
Leaves With You is guided by unwavering service to uplift the Web of Life. We are devoted to providing offerings that leave a better Earth for future generations. We recognize that the nature of soul work impacts future lineages and is rooted in sustainable choices for the Earth and natural realms.
Curiosity
We approach the topic of death with an open heart and mind, embracing its rich diversity of beliefs, traditions, and perspectives. With curiosity and respectful inquiry, we seek to deepen our understanding in the mystery of death.
Regeneration
Leaves With You actively practices making mindful offerings to the various ecosystems and spiritual realms that this work engages with. We strive to create a balanced exchange that restores, supports, and brings harmony to the Earth.
Remembrance
Leaves With You honors the wisdom of ancient teachings. We recognize the importance of remembering and uplighting ancestral traditions to ensure heritages remain alive and so that this healing work is done on behalf of our ancestral lineages backwards and forwards
Transformation
We recognize that life is a continuous journey of growth and transformation. Through navigating death and grief, Leaves With You supports and honors each individual’s path and the challenges, changes, and breakthroughs that transpire with this sacred work.
Reclamation
We embrace and honor that moving through deaths and grief of any kind is soul work. Leaves With You supports reclaiming our soul’s wisdom, purpose, and connection to life’s greater mysteries.
Ritual
Leaves With You believes that ritual is an integral part of everything we do, infusing every offering with intentionality, presence, and sacredness. With ritual, the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual experiences felt can be tended to the seen and unseen.
Our commitment to the Earth
The coffin is made with recycled cotton rope, natural dyes, and fair trade-sourced wood. Leaves With You encourages sustainable burial practices, embracing the culturally-forgotten truth that humans are a part of nature, and that when we return to Earth, we grow into or make offerings to new life. We also support all end of life choices and can be adapted to the wishes of its users and grieving parties.
