Non-clergy professionals who are committed to preparing and delivering funeral ceremonies that are not closely linked to any religion or to belief in an after-life.
"Looking mortality straight in the eye is no easy feat. To avoid the exercise, we choose to stay blindfolded, in the dark as to the realities of death and dying. But ignorance is not bliss, only a deeper kind of terror."
— Caitlyn Doughty from "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," p. Ix
