Saturday 1pm: Sacred Death: Ritual, Herbs & Folklore with Erik Montoya and Summer Downs
Saturday 1pm: Sacred Death: Ritual, Herbs & Folklore with Erik Montoya and Summer Downs
Across cultures and centuries, herbs have been trusted companions at the threshold of death. Long before modern medicine, plant were called upon to comfort the dying, tend to the body, protect the living, guide the soul through the final passage, and remember the Beloved Dead. This workshop explores the folkloric, historical, and ritual uses of herbs in deathcare, inviting participants to reconnect with traditions that once shaped how communities honored death as a sacred transition.
Drawing from European, Indigenous, and cross-cultural death traditions, the class examines how herbs were woven into vigils, funerary rites, body preparation, and ancestral remembrance. Participants will learn how plants were used for protection, purification, blessing, and spiritual guidance, as well as how these practices supported both the dying and those left behind. We will also discuss the natural dying process, the loss of ritual in modern systems, and ways to advocate for more compassionate, culturally rooted end-of-life care.
The workshop includes teachings on vigil holding, home funerals, body blessing, and ancestral prayer, alongside a brief overview of earth-honoring deathcare options such as green burial, water cremation, human composting, and memorial trees. A hands-on demonstration of shrouding and body blessing offers an embodied understanding of intimate deathcare rooted in tradition and reverence.
Participants will leave with a deeper appreciation for death as a communal, ritual process and a renewed relationship with herbs as guides, protectors, and allies at the passage between worlds.
Erik Montoya
Erik is a nurse, community herbalist, and death worker whose practice is rooted in education, reverence for nature, and compassionate presence at the end of life. He earned his first Bachelor of Science from Metropolitan State University of Denver in Integrative Therapies, completed his 500-hour herbal certification through the Herbal Academy of New England, and received his BSN in Nursing from Regis University.
Erik previously served as President of the Denver Medicinal Plant Society at the Denver Botanic Gardens, where he helped foster community education around medicinal plants and ethical herbal practice. He wildcrafts, teaches, and continually learns from the lessons offered by herbs, death, and the natural world.
As a hospice nurse, Erik has been honored to walk alongside more than 100 patients at the time of their death and has been present for several Medical Aid in Dying ingestions, experiences that deeply inform his work and worldview. He is a devoted follower of Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, often post-colonially translated as Santa Muerte, and approaches death as a sacred and instructive companion rather than an ending.
Summer Downs
Summer (they/she) is an ancestral ritualist, death doula, witch, writer, funeral director, and grief tender based on the lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Ute peoples in Colorado. They spend their days crafting meaningful ceremonies, planting memorial trees, and walking alongside individuals and families through grief, dying, and remembrance. In her five years as a full-time deathworker, she has served hundreds of beloveds and their families. She is also a co-owner of the herbalist & artisan collective Chthonic Apothecary and a co-author (with Erik Montoya) of the Herbal Deathcare zine series.
Summer’s work is rooted in reclaiming and reimagining ways of living that honor the land, our ancestors and Beloved Dead, and the kinship ecosystems that sustain community. A sibling loss survivor, Summer brings lived experience, deep listening, and creative devotion to all they do. Her lineage of teachers includes Francis Weller (Grief Rituals), Adrian Mintzmyer (Mountain Herbalism), Alua Arthur (Going with Grace), Sam Coffman (Herbal Medic), and Shauna Janz (Sacred Grief). She is a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant and has a MA in International Development.
They are also a performance artist, folk herbalist, and avid reader, with a lifelong love of thunderstorms and juniper trees.