Image: Sandra at Newgrange of Brú na Bóinne - a prehistoric sacred site and tomb in County Meath, Ireland built in 3200 BC. (Photo by B. Ollsin)
Sandra Ollsin is an intercultural communication and death specialist with 20 years experience as an End-of-Life Guide and Funeral Celebrant offering advanced emotional and spiritual care. She is a lifelong researcher who is fascinated with the mysteries of life and death. Sandra has co-created, written and facilitated over 200 personalized, end-of-life services, and helped pioneer the role of funeral celebrant in the Pacific Northwest. Along with five years serving clients of Victoria Hospice, both on the unit and in the community, she continues her specialized work delving into the depths of the in-between realms. Sandra assists others in navigating grief-induced, liminal states of consciousness, while advancing intercultural and interfaith communication and understanding.
With a BA in Professional Communication and MA in Intercultural & International Communication (specializing in interfaith communication around death and dying), Sandra is an accomplished writer, researcher, speaker, educator, workshop leader, and pioneer in the death positive movement. Sandra helps others improve their intrapersonal and intercultural communication understanding when it comes to death, dying and bereavement, which in turn translates into learning how to more fully live one's everyday life within a more pluralistic worldview.
Sandra is an experienced healer, ceremonial leader and educator who uses process-oriented tools and skills. In her work she incorporates the shamanic training and teachings of elder, Dr. Ellen White, O.C., O.B.C., whom she was privileged to study with for several decades. Sandra is also a longtime herbalist, counselor and teacher who draws from the intercultural arts and spirits of her Druid, Celtic and Estonian ancestors.
Sandra is happily married and lives on an island in the Salish Sea on unceded Coast Salish territory in British Columbia, Canada.
