00:07:19.360To hold space, which means to bring compassionate presence to what is.
00:07:24.960And what is in the moment of birth is deep work.
00:07:28.680It's a deep, powerful exploration of self that happens and unfolds when we enter into labor or enter into an operating room for a cesarean delivery.
00:07:39.100My sense is that the Institute is one place, and it's one of many good places, where people who are drawn to those transformative moments and who want to serve can come and recharge and learn and dive in.
00:07:52.780And I, for instance, just last night, I finished teaching a course called Understanding Trauma
00:08:00.740And I brought in two mental health professionals whom I admire and respect.
00:08:04.880We used a core text by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey called What Happened to You?
00:08:10.740And we divided that book into sections and did group study and discussion, all for the
00:08:16.300purpose of strengthening the work of doulas.
00:08:19.000doulas and that involves also self-care because a great deal of that book has to do with our own
00:08:24.780trauma or our own story and how we self-care for our own nervous system, keep it regulated,
00:08:30.700stay regulated. So, you know, your question about the role of doulas and the institute that
00:08:36.460is created to help support people like doulas, I think it's a great one. And I would really love
00:08:42.280to see more organizations develop where people slow down and digest and consider and reflect
00:08:48.680and learn together in a multifaceted way, not just intellectually, because we can study the book,
00:08:54.900but we also pause to meditate. We also pause to move. We pause to breathe. We took the time to
00:09:02.120deeply listen. And those are the skills that really help information sink in. It's not just
00:09:08.540in the intellectual realm. It goes into the emotional realm and into the body as well.
00:09:14.400Mm-hmm. Yes, totally agree with you there. And I'm really fascinated in the nature of your work
00:09:23.180that touches on the thresholds between life and death. And I'm wondering, how do you recognize
00:09:30.300the salience of these, quote, threshold times while also handling the uncertainty that comes
00:09:35.840with them? Yeah, well, that's what the saliency is. It's the uncertainty. That's why it's a
00:09:40.900threshold, it's unknown, it's mysterious, it's hard. It's a place where the normal rules don't
00:09:46.460apply. You're in a liminal space, you know, beyond the regular up, down, sideways, backward, you know,
00:09:53.840the general rules we use to navigate, it's a place without a map in many ways. And so threshold
00:10:01.160moments, I think, can happen throughout a day. Walking through the woods and pausing and noticing,
00:10:06.820deeply noticing can feel like a threshold you see into something that's mysterious there's a pause
00:10:13.300of the regular mind and a recognition of some kind of mystery at work or some kind of liminal
00:10:20.000space where birth and death meet because a walk through the forest is a walk through birth and
00:10:24.700death there's trees being born trees dying animals our own self every moment every breath in and out
00:10:32.400is a mini birth and death. So my hope is that we can think more clearly about thresholds,
00:10:40.220be less afraid of them, be more willing to notice when we're in one and have support.
00:10:47.180And that's what a doula does. A doula says, I will companion you through your wilderness.
00:10:54.040I will walk side by side. I can't walk for you and I won't tell you how to do it. I can
00:10:58.980maybe point out a few boulders that I stumbled on. But really, it's about companioning someone
00:11:04.540else through their meaning making, through their grief, through their birth, through their breath,
00:11:08.900through their death. And that's what we do. We companion each other. As Ram Dass used to say,
00:11:14.840we really are just walking each other home. That's beautiful. That's so comforting to hear,
00:11:24.040Especially in an individualistic culture that isolates us and separates us to have somebody with us. And I'm also thinking about how the medical system also really isolates us from connection and care.
00:11:42.900And it seems that so many of these moments, these threshold moments have been so medicalized. And I'm just thinking about how both birth and death are often in isolated hospital rooms away from family or community support.
00:11:57.540And I want to recognize that, yes, medical involvement is sometimes totally needed in
00:12:02.520these situations, but there is a vital human existential need during these moments that
00:12:10.160So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we navigate these medicalized systems with
00:12:17.160ourselves, with our loved ones, while we know that we are in deep need of connection as
00:12:23.620to not become more traumatized or to not miss out on these moments that are so vital to our
00:12:29.260humanity? Well, I really like that question because it makes me think of a dialectic.
00:12:35.240You know, dialectics are when you have two ideas, they seem like they're in opposition,
00:12:39.920but when they overlap, you see the wisdom, the wise mind space. So this comes from the work of
00:12:45.480Marsha Linehan, who is the psychologist who developed dialectical behavioral therapy,
00:12:49.980dbt and in her work she said you know acceptance seems like it's opposite to the will to change
00:12:57.280and on one hand they are opposite right they're in dialectic but when they overlap when you have
00:13:02.840acceptance and change and and you stand in the middle in that wise mind place you can see how
00:13:08.540they both have the elements of truth so medical models are created by people and people are
00:13:14.380multidimensional. And even if medicine needs to focus on certain elements, like how much protein
00:13:20.140is in your urine or what's happening with your heart right now, or what's going on with liver
00:13:25.380cancer, it focuses on specifics. The person who's focusing is still a person and the person receiving
00:13:32.060that focus is still a person. So we have on one hand, like a medical model that could separate,
00:13:37.840isolate, but we also have community models that connect and reinforce multidimensional realities.
00:13:43.320So when they overlap, I think we can be even in a wiser place, a wise mind place, when we have the best of medicine and the best of human heart connected.
00:13:54.080You know, my uncle just died in Utah in a hospital, surrounded in a palliative care unit by deeply compassionate nurses and a deeply loving family.
00:14:04.360And now it's not a perfect system, but it's not as if because he didn't die at home, it was somehow isolating.
00:14:10.800There was a lot of love in that hospital room with him. So there's ways we can reframe and
00:14:17.680there's ways we can, I think, begin to stand in dialectic with more curiosity rather than
00:14:25.540try to make it an either or situation. So yeah, maybe let's talk about or dissect that either
00:14:35.060or situation. And we could potentially talk about what it could look like out of the medicalized
00:14:41.360system, within the medicalized system, both of those scenarios. And then if we were to be in
00:14:47.100either of them, how could we be a part of setting them up for healing and connection?
00:14:54.500Yeah, that's the big question. And I'm just beginning to really settle it with some ideas
00:15:00.940in myself. I mean, I think this takes the best minds in every field. It's a lot of what Dr.
00:15:07.020Bruce Perry writes about in his work, that we need trauma-informed care at all levels of society,
00:15:14.000where we really think about the human self as like our history, what happened to us,
00:15:20.300how our brain works the way it does, you know, just each unique personal history and how it
00:15:24.820connects to our family lineage and our community presence. So what would that look like? I mean,
00:15:30.640one memory comes to mind right away when I was a hospital chaplain at a hospital in New Jersey
00:15:36.240and a woman who was just a few years older than me, maybe in her 50s, 40s, 50s, was with her dad
00:15:44.820who was dying. And he was a big man with a big barrel chest, a wide face, big hands, just this
00:15:52.420big father, just this loving big father. She loved him so much. At one point she just crawled into
00:15:58.400the hospital bed with him and held him and cried and held him through his dying hours and so we
00:16:04.640think of hospitals as pretty limited in their capacity to hold space maybe for a family but
00:16:11.520that type of action you know crawling into bed next to someone who's dying that you love and
00:16:15.840holding them close that's the type of thing that often people associate with dying at home
00:16:20.420and yet here it was happening there and so how do we create models where we we aren't either or
00:16:27.920where we can say, you know, when people die in our hospital, we do our best to welcome family,
00:16:33.120community, touch. We welcome you to be close as you feel comfortable. And as long as the dying
00:16:39.500person feels comfortable exhibiting signs of comfort, that there's a welcoming of that kind
00:16:44.700of touch. So that's one example that comes to mind. But I do think bringing in the best thinkers
00:16:51.100of these different systems that we have that all interrelate and really think, well, how do we take
00:16:58.660the best of these various models and have a both-and or dialectical approach? I mean, that's
00:17:04.060what I'm trying to do at the Institute with certain classes, really trying to take some real
00:17:08.140key thinkers and have them speak to doulas about their work so that we have a trauma-informed,
00:17:14.420you know, anti-racism approach to our work that also includes self-care. So I hope that answers
00:17:20.680your questions sound? You know, those are the thoughts that came to mind as I was listening to
00:17:25.060your thoughts. Yeah. I mean, I am interested just to hear any of your thoughts on these questions
00:17:31.540and try to visualize. Because I think sometimes when we've been raised and conditioned and don't
00:17:38.820have examples of what it could look like to cross these portals with our loved ones in a good way,
00:17:47.240Sometimes maybe for some of us, we can't even imagine what that would look like.
00:17:52.320I remember the first time I had been with a past body, I was so afraid to touch the body.
00:17:58.940And my mom went up and touched the body of this being who had passed.
00:18:04.080And just seeing her touch this being was an opening for me.
00:18:11.140And then I went up and I touched this being.
00:18:13.260And I ended up being with this body for two or three days before they went into the ground. And just her opening that, it was like opening an availability that I hadn't even known was possible because I had never been in that experience.
00:18:28.020So I think for so many of us, whether it's through the birth or death process, we don't have the teachings or we haven't been taught or learned through experience or otherwise what to do with ourselves, our emotions, our bodies, how to be with the other person.
00:18:44.720Like what you said, even about feeling comfortable being touched or touching, showing emotion, whether that's joy or laughter or grief. I mean, there's just so much that comes up in these moments. They're probably the most powerful moments of our lives. And so I just like hearing stories from you. I think it's really helpful to be able to see ourselves potentially in these situations and visualize a bit.
00:19:10.220I really resonate with that. I think the modeling of storytelling is the ancient way we used to
00:19:16.820and still teach each other. When we go back before written language, you know, written language
00:19:22.560developed about 6,000 years ago. We have evidence human beings as we know ourselves to be, have been
00:19:28.120on this planet about 40,000 years, if I'm getting that right. And before then, of course, we have
00:19:34.120all the different forms of hominids and Neanderthal. And this is from one perspective, right? What we0.85
00:19:39.140you know, of looking at anthropology and archaeology. So if it's true that most of our
00:19:45.120history, 34,000 years preceded written language or the evidence of that we can find, that means
00:19:52.040people told stories long ago too, long, long ago around fires and homes as they walked,
00:20:00.000as they hunted, as they breastfed, as they cared, as they birthed, as they died. And so it's through
00:20:05.900the storytelling in a multi-generational context where you don't have all the kids in one building
00:20:11.880and all the old people in another building. I mean, I think that divide is so sad for our
00:20:17.040culture where we have separated ourselves from the elders and the young. So that multi-dimensional
00:20:23.160community, multi-age generational community is full of story. And some of them are very sad
00:20:29.980and some of them are very beautiful. And those stories do open possibility, whether they're
00:20:35.140mythic stories around religion or mystery or their family history stories. So I really agree
00:20:41.500it's through this telling of stories that possibilities do open. And I mean, I think
00:20:46.680about the type of rituals I've seen done around pregnancy loss, the different tattoos, the
00:20:52.500different rituals around blood, the different burial rituals, the different altars in people's
00:20:58.640homes to honor babies that have died. And if we could just have those stories, it would seem like,
00:21:05.560oh, we're not just alone in this vacuum of grief. You know, thousands, millions of people have made
00:21:12.020stories and told stories and made ritual to honor babies who have died. And so these stories should
00:21:19.120be known, right? I think it helps us process. It helps us feel like we're part of the human story,
00:21:24.900that this isn't only an experience that I am suffering. I mean, a big part of the Institute
00:21:30.720work is looking at these portals, these threshold points through the lens of companioning. How do
00:21:37.460we companion the support network? Who's with us? Who's companioning us, right? So how do we
00:21:44.020companion ourselves? How do we receive companioning, which is an approach to bereavement
00:21:49.640care or transition care that normalizes the emotions instead of makes grief a pathology.
00:21:56.840And then the third piece is ritual. What types of ritual, secular or religious, do we use
00:22:02.100to honor these threshold moments? So at the Institute, we have a class called rituals for
00:22:07.600menopause. And there's very few rituals for menopause in our world today. Yet it's a big
00:22:13.320transition. I'm going through it. Having a gathering of 50 women online, talking about
00:22:19.880menopause, reading stories, normalizing experiences, crying, laughing, sharing, and then creating a
00:22:25.820group ritual where we might move, we might breathe, we might paint, we might light a candle.
00:22:31.260And it's open to so many faiths because it's crafted by the group, drawing elements from the
00:22:36.640earth, from our history, pictures of our ancestors, honoring what it's like to enter into this stage
00:22:42.440of life where, you know, periods have stopped and yet there's so much ahead where we can nourish
00:22:48.560our community and family. Okay. So you got me onto that topic of ritual. And that I think is key
00:22:54.440to really reflecting on how we bring more intentionality to thresholds. So yeah, thank
00:23:01.460you for highlighting stories because it's hard to have a meaningful ritual without a story,
00:23:06.320right? Why are we lighting the candle? Whose picture is that on the altar? Why are we doing
00:23:10.920this long pilgrimage? What are the stories of those who've done this ritual before?
00:23:15.780I mean, just think of Passover or Pesach, if you're Jewish, that ritual of that meal,
00:23:20.360the Seder, and the thousands and thousands of Jews or millions of Jews who celebrate that
00:23:25.520every spring and the history of that meal. Every part of that meal, every portion of the plate
00:23:32.140has a significance to the story in Exodus. So it's an incredible ritual to study. And I think
00:23:38.000we need more of those honestly and we can make our own we can definitely make our own personal
00:23:42.400rituals that help us with our own life story you know so if you're listening to this and you've
00:23:47.720lived through something really hard it doesn't have to just sit in a dark corner of your mind
00:23:52.180it can become a powerful force for insight and change it can make a ritual to honor that you
00:23:59.960survived this that you move through that you've gained self-awareness you can mark your body with
00:24:06.140something with this or have a place in your home or a part of your journal where you honor
00:24:11.420those hard edges. And that's a lot of shadow work right there. And there's courses in the
00:24:16.600Institute on shadow work, because if doulas do their shadow work, they'll be more effective
00:24:21.340as doulas. We can hold more space because we've digested more of our own story.
00:24:28.220Yeah, I can absolutely see that. And I think that, of course, doulas doing their own shadow
00:24:34.700our work is important, as is all of us, and show up and be better companions to each other in these
00:24:41.760moments. And maybe that's the question right now for me is, how do we, us non-doulas,
00:24:50.420how do we show up better in these moments for the other, but also for ourselves? Because I think
00:24:55.660that these moments are so transformative for everybody involved. And I'd love to know how
00:25:01.180we can show up as better companions, those of us who are maybe leaders of the moments?
00:25:07.640Yeah, that's a great question. For me, the strengthening of those skills is a lifelong
00:25:12.760journey. I think of Thich Nhat Hanh, the late Buddhist teacher, who would say when you point
00:25:18.220your finger to the moon, you're pointing your finger to the moon, but you're not actually
00:25:22.440touching the moon, right? You're moving in the direction, but it's not like a perfect grasp.
00:25:27.960In the same way you look at a menu, you read the word pizza, you order pizza, the menu points to pizza, but it's not as if the menu is pizza. The moon isn't your finger. You're pointing to an ideal that you're pointing to companioning. And I think everyone does it imperfectly. I certainly do.
00:25:47.360And yet we can strengthen our power to honor our imperfection and show up with more intentionality, to show up with more compassion and presence.
00:25:57.480And in that sense, we become perfectly imperfect.
00:26:00.580But I don't know anyone who holds space perfectly.
00:26:03.520But I do know many people who strive to strengthen the power to hold space for imperfection.
00:26:09.520And in that, I think we can hold the messiness of our own lives with compassion.
00:26:13.660we certainly can more effectively hold the messiness of transition moments with more
00:26:18.880compassion. The threshold moments are messy. They're often challenging. Sometimes they're
00:26:23.920super insightful and clear, but usually threshold moments involve a transformation that can be
00:26:29.960mysterious, like a caterpillar goes into the chrysalis and then emerges a butterfly. That
00:26:34.700chrysalis stage is really interesting. It's like, it's not quite a caterpillar. It's not quite a
00:26:40.000butterfly. Everything is moving around. You need your privacy. You need the quiet. There's lots of
00:26:44.860change. And many of us go through those moments, those chrysalis moments in life and having a
00:26:51.180companion to just be present, to say, I see you. It may be messy now. I see your beauty
00:26:57.220and I know you will emerge transformed.
00:39:05.620Because there's no direct evidence unless there's some like really compelling identifying feature like skin color or like physical feature perhaps.
00:39:13.720So I think perhaps it has to do with patrilineal systems where power and money pass through the father and son.
00:39:21.140and you really want to make sure it's your son biologically.0.87
00:39:24.780So then it means you've got to control female reproduction1.00
00:40:18.660Well, I'd like to transition and talk a bit about the shadow side of caregiving.
00:40:46.540and you're teaching a course called Hungry Ghosts, examining the shadow side of caregiving and
00:40:52.680describing an aspect of the course, you write, quote, how can we bring compassionate presence
00:40:57.620to the parts of us that we have discarded, ignored, or tried to self-medicate through
00:41:02.260maladaptive soothing mechanisms? As we learn to hold space for our hungry ghosts, we also learn
00:41:08.140to hold space and respond appropriately to the hungry ghosts of those around us, end quote.
00:41:12.960how must caregivers be aware of what they bring to the table and interaction with those they care
00:41:19.520for? And maybe how can we create supportive spaces for caregivers to allow for better
00:41:26.540quality of care all around? Yeah, this is a really important topic for so many. I've seen
00:41:32.060a lot of people, you know, have compassion fatigue or find themselves exhausted from
00:41:39.020their caregiving. And it might not be doula work, formal birth or death work. It could be mothering.
00:41:44.640It could be in a relationship, a partnership where you do a lot of caregiving or tending to the needs
00:41:49.760of another at the expense of one's own. And so I've spent a lot of hours reflecting on this,
00:41:55.320talking with people, reading about dynamics where the shadow side of caregiving becomes
00:42:00.880really problematic. And part of that connects to codependency where we have patterns where we might
00:42:06.920want to control other people so we feel regulated right as long as he's happy or she's happy then
00:42:13.340i'm happy and so it's a lot about controlling someone else's nervous system instead of our own
00:42:18.260and so i think caregiving has to do with boundaries it has to do yes with service and yes with
00:42:24.800you know stretching the self and those of us who grew up christian i grew up christian
00:42:29.280i was such an emphasis on being christ-like you know always patient turn the other cheek give
00:42:34.380your coat to your neighbor, someone condemns you, you know, seven times, you know, just forgive
00:42:39.900seven times more. So there's this real sense of like, I'm expansive, I can hold a lot of space for
00:42:47.140someone's shadow, I forgive, I am patient. And then that can set us up for relationship dynamics
00:42:55.500where we become depleted, or used and abused, and they're unfulfilling relationship. And those
00:43:02.420relationships could be work or personal or even a doula relationship where a mom might be really0.93
00:43:08.800needy and the doula just keeps giving, giving, giving at the expense. So I think if I'm going to
00:43:14.300craft an institute where doulas and people who are drawn to thresholds come for personal and
00:43:20.200professional growth, it would be remiss to not have a course that deals with the shadow side
00:43:25.140of this work. And so even as a teacher, the shadow side of teaching involves, you know,
00:43:31.480overgiving, overextending, and not having our own boundaries, I think it's so important to have
00:43:37.220healthy boundaries. And so this course is to help strengthen all of us. And just like withholding
00:43:42.380space, I don't know anyone who does it perfectly. Just like with parenting, I don't know any perfect
00:43:46.880parent. In the same way, I don't know any perfect caregiver. I don't think there is such a thing.
00:43:51.260But there are people who are healthier than others in terms of their patterns. So this is a
00:43:57.460course to try to support all of us in becoming healthier with our patterns of caregiving for
00:44:03.220self and others and having boundaries and and the big part of this course too is recognizing red
00:44:08.640flags when people are toxic or malignant or like super self-centered and well probably best not to
00:44:16.960be in a deep relationship with patterns like that because it will deplete and to be able to
00:44:21.800recognize it and then not engage, you know, having respectful boundaries, protecting oneself from
00:44:28.080exploitation. I'm really grateful that you, that you offer these courses and this support because
00:44:37.240we need it. We really need it. I wanted to read a quote from an article you wrote called Holding
00:44:45.360Space for Pregnancy Loss, Three Components for Doulas to Consider, where you say, quote,
00:44:50.560anyone who has been touched by death knows there is no returning to a previous life.
00:44:55.060We are irrevocably changed due to the loss of loved ones, particularly the death of our children.
00:45:00.220The companioning approach to understanding and being with grief acknowledges this reality, end
00:45:04.920quote. And I often see there's this force to, quote, get back to normal after grieving as if
00:45:13.980it's a box to be checked or just something to escape from. How do you think holding space for
00:45:20.500grief also means holding space for grief and sadness to change us. I have tears in my eyes
00:45:28.020I listen to you. I mean, everything changes us. The water we drink every day, the way we sleep
00:45:33.600at night, what we eat changes us. The changes are so sometimes small that we assume we're the same
00:45:39.220every moment. But if we look deeply in each moment, the moment is different. Like right now,
00:45:44.460when I stopped this interview, I'm changed from you, your questions, your reflections,
00:45:50.220your wisdom, it changes me. So we're changing all the time. I believe there's a part of us
00:45:55.800that doesn't change. That's my spiritual belief. Not everyone shares that. That's fine. But my
00:46:01.400mind is always changing my heart, my body, every cell, every moment, every breath. And grief is
00:46:07.320an upheaval. It's an upheaval. Everything looks upside down. It brings us to our knees. We feel
00:46:14.020like life's an emergency, someone we love just died. There's moments of clarity and gratitude
00:46:18.860and grace. There's moments of confusion and anger and denial. It's an upheaval. How could it not
00:46:24.640change us if every text message we send and receive changes us? So does grief. So the normal
00:46:31.580is the sense that, well, there's equilibrium, that the change is imperceptible. I wake up every day,
00:46:37.180I'm a day older, but I don't look that different in the mirror. But if I look at myself at 49 now
00:46:42.340and look at pictures of myself at 19 about 30 years i'm like wow i see the change and in 30
00:46:48.020more years i'll look back at 49 and think oh i was so young so you know things change and when we
00:46:54.580have gaps the big change we see it and so grief is a big change it changes us and sometimes it's
00:47:02.080really really private people may not even talk about the abortion they had may not ever be known
00:47:07.800but it's a change and it's a type of birth and death and loss where they don't talk about they
00:47:14.500were sexually abused as a kid it's no one may ever know they may die and no one may never know
00:47:19.280but it changes us the grief that is unexpressed too so to return to normal i think when people
00:47:26.260in good faith say i'd like to return to normal or go back to what it was it's just a real hunger
00:47:33.540for equilibrium again. It's hard to be in the threshold for a long, long time. And I think that
00:47:39.420hunger can be honored. I can say, yeah, I get that. You want to return to this innocence or return to
00:47:45.960what was. I think that's part of grief is to long for the time before grief, because it's really
00:47:53.040an upheaval. All the people in Ukraine who are fleeing or moving around or having their
00:47:58.880neighborhoods bombed I bet they really do long I would long gosh you know before this war
00:48:04.240two years ago before this war before my neighbor died or my son died or my uncle died so grief
00:48:12.960does change but everything also changes it's just a big significant change it's like 30 years all at
00:48:18.660once it's like you see it so big and I think there's wisdom in grief I think there's wisdom
00:48:24.500to be found, a post-traumatic wisdom, we could say. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, one of my favorite
00:48:30.760writers of grief, and her mom of five, and one of her babies died really young, and she named this
00:48:38.760little one Cheyenne. And it's been like 20 years, she still writes about Cheyenne. And she's learned
00:48:44.640so much because Cheyenne died. You know, she's learned so much. But in one point in her book,
00:48:51.120bearing the unbearable she writes i would give up all of that wisdom to have her back
00:48:56.340so i think that's what grief is is honoring the wisdom we gain but the longing still
00:49:03.900for what was before sometimes that i mean 20 years and she's this professor on
00:49:10.320you know grief studies which i'll give it all this up to have her back
00:49:13.940oh amy thank you for sharing that it feels so close to my heart and vulnerable and
00:49:25.020really felt connected in this conversation and i just think us talking about grief is so
00:49:32.500important and i think so many of us have been so destigmatized to grief and loss because
00:49:40.860well for so many reasons but you know i think about the media and we're just literally bombarded
00:49:46.940with violence and death and we become desensitized to it and so it makes sense too that that plays
00:49:53.520into our block from being able to hold the sacredness of death and hold space for grief
00:50:01.420because we're desensitized in the strangest ways to loss and grief and violence and death and it's
00:50:09.760just, yeah, it's like a rabbit hole of confusion in there. And the other reflection I was sitting
00:50:14.720with too is from a few moments ago when you spoke about leaning on ritual and tradition
00:50:21.020in the threshold times of uncertainty, because it is uncertain how we move forward. And it's
00:50:27.000uncertain even how we navigate the present moment with so much conditioning that has really taken
00:50:32.640us away from feeling secure as we move through life. So I just really appreciate you sitting
00:50:38.780in the complexity of these topics. And I would love to just hear whatever's on your mind as we
00:50:44.280close. Well, think about, I had a glass of water and I took a spoon and started spinning. The water
00:50:53.100moves, right? It's laws of physics. It spins, it spins, it spins. And then I pull the spoon out
00:50:57.620real quick. It's not as if the water gets still right away. It spins still until it slows. And
00:51:05.260And the slowing takes time, and it takes time until the motion settles.
00:51:08.440And even when a glass of water is, quote, still, there's a lot of movement that we may not see with our physical eyes, but the molecules are shifting.
00:51:20.960So I think part of what I reflect on when I heard you describe the uncertainty, the sense of desensitized human beings feeling unsafe, but then consuming so much imagery of violence is, you know, it's a lot to consider.
00:51:37.340It's like a spoon in the water, spin, spin, spin.
00:51:40.540Maybe there's some kind of joy in the spin, but, you know, we pull out the spoon and it's going to take a while for our nervous systems to settle again and find those quiet moments in the day.
00:51:50.160when the water stills and it feels soft. So my suggestion to all who are listening is
00:51:55.240you just nourish that softness. We live in a world with a lot of hard edges
00:51:59.300and sometimes things happen in life that you wouldn't expect. It's a big hard edge.
00:52:03.900You know, someone you love dies or there's some kind of harsh thing that happens in your story
00:52:09.000and you think, oh my God, I didn't see that coming. So even more important in those moments
00:52:14.420to make sure we nourish the softness and find our companions who can walk with us through the
00:52:19.940wilderness and and nourish the the love i think that really gives life meaning i mean grief is
00:52:27.580connected to love and they're always connected actually we if people died and we didn't care
00:52:33.620they'd just die they'd just be death wouldn't be grief and that may be explaining why we can watch
00:52:38.780movies we don't really care about those characters they're just we know they're going to die especially
00:52:42.980with horror movies they're all going to die so it's kind of like playing into our fear or that
00:52:47.540trying to digest our own sense of interest in seeing the shadow, it's not really a place for
00:52:54.140grief. It's a place for something else, like exploring human violence. But when we really
00:53:00.060love someone and death happens, there's grief. And so I would say we nourish love, we nourish
00:53:06.840softness, and we nourish our capacity to be in grief. We will become wiser. That's my sense.
00:53:13.600we will become wiser. So thank you for your time. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for
00:53:18.880sharing your wisdom with me. Thank you, Amy. Have a beautiful day.
00:53:35.440Thanks for listening to For the Wild. The music you heard today is by Charlie Warren,
00:53:40.000Amber Rhubarth, and Rosie Boyd. For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young,
00:53:45.260Erica Akram, Julia Jackson, Jackson Krupf, and Evan Denenbaum.