By Michael Kahn

SEBASTOPOL, Calif. (Reuters) - Want to know how to keep a corpse fresh during a do-it-yourself funeral? Wondering how to build a coffin for a dearly departed loved one?

Jerri Lyons has answers to these and other questions for people looking to conduct home funerals. She dispenses to-die-for advice ranging from the legalities of getting a body home from the morgue to the basics of bathing a corpse.

In running seminars on how people can care for their own dead, Lyons, 55, and her nonprofit group Final Passages have become leaders in a small but burgeoning movement that seeks to provide a more compassionate and cheaper alternative to mainstream funeral practices.

"We prepare for other rites of passage like weddings and births," Lyons told a group of about a dozen people who gathered in her northern California home recently to learn more about home funerals. "Not a lot of people prepare for death."

On a recent sunny morning Lyons started the meeting of mostly women attendees by asking why they wanted to spend the day talking about death and dying. The courses cost $35 to $375 depending on length.

A self-described psychic said she talks with angels and simply wanted more information while another woman asked whether it is legal to build a funeral pyre on private property as she prepared for the eventual death of an older lover.

"I want to be buried in the land I've been taking care of," said another participant named Pam. "There is more spirituality when I do it myself."

Others said they wanted to make sure they don't burden surviving loved ones. A lawyer serving a rural community wanted to pick up information for an increasing number of clients who inquire about home funerals and burials.

A middle-aged woman named Cheryl said funeral homes are a big rip-off and that she wants to make sure people remember her life rather than her death. "I want to plan the way I go out," she said. "I just want my life to be celebrated."

ICE OFTEN CRUCIAL

The day-long seminar covers everything from wading through the complexities of taking a body from the morgue or hospital to properly placing ice on a corpse to keep it fresh.

For less than 24 hours, ice may not be needed but families usually need to cool a body if it is exposed longer, Lyons told the group. Ice is also crucial for longer vigils to ensure liquids do not come out through the mouth, although she adds it is always possible to improvise.

"I've had a number of people use frozen vegetables," Lyons said and warned the group about other pitfalls. For example, she said one family put too much padding in a coffin and were unable to close it when they loaded the body inside.

There are also slide shows and videos showing families painting caskets, preparing bodies for memorials and eventually loading them into a car for the final trip to the crematorium.

Lyons turned to her current career after the 1994 death of a close friend whose will instructed that her body not be taken to a mortuary and instead be cared for at home.

This first experience with a home funeral showed Lyons that carrying out intimate acts such as bathing and dressing her deceased friend actually made it easier to deal with the loss.

"It helped us with our mourning and grieving," Lyons said. "It made it more meaningful because we were the ones touching her body instead of turning her over to some strangers she didn't know."

DO-IT-YOURSELF FOR LESS

With a mortuary funeral costing an estimated $5,000 compared to a do-it-yourself home version that can run as low as a few hundred dollars, Lyons' supporters say it is easy to see why more people are looking at home funerals.

Joshua Slocum, a director of Funeral Consumers Alliance, said he has no figures for how many Americans conduct home funerals each year but predicts the numbers are growing.

"We are getting more calls all the time," said Slocum, who noted it is legal to bring a body home in 45 out of 50 U.S. states. "Some people are growing disenchanted with the cost of funerals and the anonymity and sterility of releasing a loved one to a sterile, commercial environment."

The home funeral movement, however, is not likely to drive a stake into the well-established death-care industry, according to analyst William Burns of Johnson Rice in New Orleans, who follows publicly traded funeral home companies.

Instead, the biggest problem facing the nation's 23,000 funeral homes is what he called a soft mortality rate due in part to a weak flu season the past few years.