00:06:04.040I guess for me in regards to why death um it's something I've always been very aware of um
00:06:15.460my mom lost both her parents when she was really young when she was 10 and 12
00:06:21.300and I myself was a premature baby so I was always being told like you were so close to death we had
00:06:30.960to be prepared for your death when you were first born um and then as I aged and like asking my mom
00:06:37.640like I mean I never asked like where are our grandparents but I just knew that her parents
00:06:42.300had died and the more questions I asked um I never
00:06:47.200I want to say I never got answers from her I think but looking back now I think it was too
00:06:56.540hard for her to talk about being so young um and she wasn't able to answer the questions that I had
00:07:04.380as a kid about even even just like general questions like you know I mean obviously she
00:07:10.340knows when their birthdays are and everything but general questions of like well what was their1.00
00:07:15.460favorite food you know like my mom had no um ability to answer those and maybe because she
00:07:22.580just kind of blocked it out um understandably so as I aged um I found myself always being the one
00:07:33.300to like be with family like you know when my uncle Tommy was passing when he was dying in
00:07:39.120the hospital like I was the one with my dad going like often like just being that support and that
00:07:44.920that that rock for people and um there wasn't any one clear moment for me where it was like
00:07:52.480I'm going to go into like the death, you know, I don't want to call it an industry, but it is that
00:07:57.500in a sense. You know, it was more, I felt comfortable with death, comfortable sitting
00:08:06.160in that uncomfortable feeling of the unknown. Loretta, you know, to kind of mirror back what
00:08:13.820you were saying, it is about finding a light in the dark. And I think there's people who are that
00:08:20.240light for others in that time. Um, so, um, yeah, I think that's, that's about it. That sums it up
00:08:33.520for me. It's just something I've always been aware of and felt comfortable with. Um, and it's
00:08:40.320interesting because over the past, like, you know, so the past year I did my training for becoming
00:08:45.600like an official death doula um I put quotes because there's really no uh official like
00:08:52.580certification for it like there's no guidelines like this makes you a death doula like you're
00:08:57.180just kind of it's such a new field that it's kind of like well here you go you're in it um
00:09:04.200I it's funny I I a lot of like dead like animals that are dying have been coming to me recently
00:09:11.540like the past like few months so I feel grateful for the past what I experienced because now like
00:09:22.040these little animals you know like a squirrel a possum or whatever are coming into my yard and
00:09:26.380I'm like okay I will sit with you I will be here for your passing and I will bury you in the
00:09:30.880backyard with Lewis my dog and the other possum that died like a month ago you know um it's funny
00:09:36.940how it shows up and it it is not something to in my opinion it's not something to fear
00:09:41.480no it's almost as if these animals can sense that you've created this like safe vibe around
00:09:47.980yourself where they can come and because I was just thinking about like um my my grandfather
00:09:54.160died when I was pretty young and my grandmother like she was alive after my grandfather died again
00:09:59.100I'm using square quotes but like she she basically just was not a person anymore but I remember his
00:10:05.080funeral and I was sitting with her and I was holding her hand and everyone was coming up and
00:10:09.700doing they're sort of like oh I'm so sorry and then running away and I'm so sorry and running
00:10:14.380away and she kind of squeezed my hand and she was like you know I'm glad you're sitting with me
00:10:19.340because everyone else just runs away and you know that really stuck with me so you know I've I've
00:10:24.700had friends whose parents have died way too young and and I always wanted to make sure to be the
00:10:31.160person at the funeral or on the phone or whatever that's not afraid to talk to the person who's
00:10:36.160grieving I think a lot of times you hear like well I just didn't call him because I didn't know what
00:10:41.360to say and so that's like part of what I want to talk about here is like we don't talk about it
00:10:47.300even though it's inevitable for literally like every living thing you know death but we don't
00:10:52.640have the tools and we don't talk about it and we're scared to talk about it and my mother when
00:10:57.320I'm trying to like be proactive about you know making plays she said well I'm never gonna die
00:11:02.080and it's like okay fine but like can we please talk about this for real you know so like let's
00:11:09.620start with Loretta like what are some of the best tools that you have found for dealing or helping
00:11:15.360other people deal you know when it's a common thing that comes into um the shop you know
00:11:25.120questions around um death and how to venerate ancestors or venerate um the newly dead and um
00:11:35.200i find that a lot of people that come in seeking are people that um are experiencing a large
00:11:45.080trauma around um someone who has passed so an unnatural death um so to speak you know a suicide
00:11:54.640or an accident you know not someone who's dying of old age as very simple as it sounds
00:12:06.540I think the the most common advice that I give people is to just talk to the person
00:12:14.520which it sounds so funny but it's like they're still there yeah exactly they're still there
00:12:24.560You know, there's, there's no, there's no way you can be more close to somebody than through the vibration of communication.
00:12:36.680So if we can outwardly speak to the dead, if we can outwardly speak to our loved ones, to our friends and family and our pets, and they hear us.
00:12:51.500and people will often be a little like, you know, is that weird? I mean, no, it's not weird unless,
00:13:01.860you know, you feel weird about it, but then think about why you feel weird about it.
00:13:09.260You know, if someone is truly uncomfortable, then, you know, there's a whole list of
00:13:16.060different plants that we can work with to be conduits for comfort in communication with the
00:13:23.240dead um you know there's all sorts of different rituals that we can do around communication with
00:13:30.460the dead but i find that um if we strip the complication around communication and just get
00:13:38.580right to the point it's the most helpful and it's probably when you get the most direct answers as
00:13:44.020well how about you angela what's your like number one tool that you've learned in the past year while
00:13:52.740you've been training in regards to grief or whatever you think is important yeah i think
00:14:02.280what's brought me the most peace and what's brought me the most i guess peace of mind in a
00:14:06.860sense is thinking of my own death and like the mundane aspects right what do I want do I get
00:14:18.220grossed out if I picture my body getting cremated like oh I don't want to get burned right um so
00:14:24.120maybe I want to opt for like you know a green burial is something let's say um like for me
00:14:32.700partly one of the first things we started in my training um and i trained with a lua arthur who
00:14:38.400runs uh going with grace doula services um and also training um one of the first things we
00:14:46.860looked at was like what would we want for ourselves and i think that kind of opened like
00:14:55.060this door of this library that has all these books that you know you could like kind of start
00:15:00.420peeking in um so for me I feel like I feel like I could die tomorrow and be happy knowing that
00:15:15.220like I've done mundane things like I have a will I have an advanced directive I have you know all
00:15:20.920the paperwork that is expected um I mean maybe I'd like to say in a week because I still haven't
00:15:27.840found the burial you know there's a couple things you wouldn't mind doing first right right
00:15:35.220you know having that relationship with death and your own death because you are going to die and0.97
00:15:41.220the thing is we don't know when it's gonna happen we have no fucking clue right and
00:15:46.920so for me having the mundane aspects and then the other part that i so solidly feel like in my heart0.70
00:15:55.920in my fucking bones is that we will like our ancestors are with us they will greet us they0.85
00:16:02.640will be there they will extend their hand and be like you know come it's time um0.99
00:16:11.120you know one of my great fears i'm i'm i'm gonna be vulnerable for a moment is dying a violent death0.89
00:16:18.480i that is i fucking check our doors all the time like at night to make sure they're locked you know0.90
00:16:24.000i if the cat's outside the window i'm like what you know wake up and is it not it's not a person0.96
00:16:30.080okay good um and after looking at my own death and thinking it could happen in any amount of
00:16:39.760ways it could happen at any time that thought of my ancestors being there to receive me or my guides
00:16:47.360or my my angels whoever even if it was violent that still brought me peace that peace of mind
00:16:54.720that like i am going to be taken care of and received with love no matter what um
00:17:05.680that's that's a ritual too right like finding that piece of belief
00:17:11.760that you can hold on to and give it to yourself it kind of almost doesn't I mean on our plane
00:17:21.960in our reality it doesn't really matter whether you're right or not you know that giving ourselves
00:17:26.020that piece of the story is kind of what we do all the time to get ourselves through I think you're
00:17:31.740so right I was thinking about sort of highlighting that difference too between you know the the kind
00:17:38.680of larger fear of death and old age and then this pressing in fear of violence and we live in a time
00:17:47.400now of pandemic we're in a global plague like death is pressing in in ways it never has before
00:17:54.280in our lifetime is that something that you feel you carry more heavily because of your ancestor work
00:18:02.440it's it's interesting how it's come up um more recently um this last maybe six or so months
00:18:13.940really um i was in a lesson with one of my elders professor porterfield and my screen was like
00:18:22.540glitching out and doing a bunch of weird stuff and he asked me if um things like that had been
00:18:30.700happening a lot lately and I said yeah you know it's things have been very thick lately and
00:18:36.680he said yeah I mean that's because there are several thousand new people transitioning
00:18:45.680some are the unsettled dead some are you know the dead who were ready to transition and then0.64
00:18:53.640you know with this huge onflux of death um it also unsettles the already settled dead
00:19:03.220um but not only you know the the physical deaths that have been occurring over the last six or so
00:19:13.200months there's you know this this greater death that I think that we're all kind of in the middle
00:19:28.140of right now and you know death of systems death of hiding there is I think death is more
00:19:41.580violence, real violence, and real death is more accessible for people to witness
00:19:52.340now. And every time we witness a death, especially a violent death,
00:20:00.900it creates another spirit. And then every time we watch that, it feeds into that spirit. And
00:20:08.380there's all these spirits around all of these things that are happening in the world right now
00:20:12.860and in this country that we're bearing witness to and we're feeding the spirit of and in that
00:20:20.060feeding there are systems that are in their their death rattle there are
00:20:26.720hidden beliefs that are being unearthed
00:20:31.020Um, so I think all of those things happening at the same time, along with the global pandemic,
00:20:39.240along with people that, you know, pass every day, um, it's all very heightened, um, especially,
00:20:48.840I mean, I think it's heightened for everybody. I think that not everybody really understands what
00:20:53.940they're feeling but for people that walk with the dead regularly in a an aware place I think it's
00:21:02.840been a little extra yeah yes definitely you um you said um among the deaths that we're experiencing
00:21:16.760now there's the death of hiding yeah can you talk can you talk more about that about the
00:21:22.900the ways that we're kind of dying while we're alive the shedding so i think for um
00:21:30.700so everything that we're experiencing right now is nothing new right we've we've done this before
00:21:41.780um as humans but i think that you know starting
00:21:47.540sometime in the the not so distant past we were able to be to have our beliefs a bit more hidden
00:21:58.860um I think that um you know there were certain things that we would like uncomfortably
00:22:07.180laugh about around you know the dinner table at holidays um if an uncle or a cousin or somebody
00:22:15.520said something off. I think that there were things that were at one time considered to be
00:22:22.960acceptable again, even though we are, you know, we see this narrative of, oh, well, now, you know,
00:22:32.500our current administration has made all of these things acceptable. Well, they've always been
00:22:38.820acceptable. We've just hid them. We've brushed them under the rug. So I think that those
00:22:44.480those systems that we ourselves have created of hiding are dying. I think that
00:22:51.820it's also exposes parts of us that we have been able to hide, either because we know that it
00:23:02.180doesn't feel comfortable, or we know that it's not even a belief that is actually ours, a belief
00:23:08.260that we've inherited um but all of those things are being unearthed and you know we will either
00:23:15.340face them and we will um do the work to change them and we will do the work to heal ourselves
00:23:25.660and heal any damage we may have caused accidentally not accidentally i shouldn't say accidentally
00:23:31.960any harm that we've caused while we were being willfully ignorant
00:23:38.960none of that can be hidden anymore so we'll either accept that this this
00:23:51.020shedding is happening and we will either do the work around it or we will die with it
00:23:56.420i've heard a lot of people say you know it seems like it's getting worse and then the the sort of
00:24:03.820counter argument to that is that things need to be exposed before they they die or you know like
00:24:09.340like a bugs crawling out of the woodwork before they perish it's that same kind of thing and i
00:24:14.940think that there i mean there are pros and cons everywhere we as witches we sort of see a light
00:24:19.240and dark in in every single you know thing um and i think that that's the same with this this
00:24:25.580heightened awareness that we have obviously it's good because we're educating ourselves about the
00:24:30.320reality and you know um if there weren't videotapes maybe we wouldn't get the modicum of justice that
00:24:36.760maybe we will get but at the same time are we being desensitized like you're saying it's almost
00:24:41.800like we're we're at this crossroad where it's like either we'll take this uncovering and we'll go
00:24:47.780or will just shrug yeah it's an interesting thing being a woman of color who like I've
00:24:57.440I've experienced these things my whole life you know it's I have never ever ever ever been
00:25:05.760comfortable in certain situations you know I've never been the person that is like felt completely
00:25:14.320confident when i'm getting pulled over like that's never been my experience so it's interesting to
00:25:22.540hear people who are so shocked about these things i'm like really like really y'all like i wish i
00:25:29.920knew what that was like because that's just a gift i've never experienced yeah that's the the
00:25:37.180ignorance is bliss that's where that comes from right the blissful ignorance of not being afraid
00:25:42.480yeah so hopefully you know hopefully i do think that there is um a place where we cross the line
00:25:55.120of bearing witness to when we you know step into the realm of like for lack of a more tasteful
00:26:04.620term like a murder porn you know that we don't really need to expose ourselves to
00:26:10.340um but my hope is is that before crossing that line we can realize that we all have
00:26:19.280something in common with the person that we're watching
00:26:21.880yeah those images like you say they're so so powerful like it's so accurate that i have that
00:26:34.280feeling so accurately that you described that when you watch a death there is that person's
00:26:40.100spirit and then there's this spirit of what you just experienced there is this there is this
00:26:47.140darkness and it's getting passed around and accelerated and I'm numb or like deadened like
00:26:56.040trauma trauma deadened from seeing it over and over again like describes I think what
00:27:00.840most people I know of color are feeling to a greater degree than myself but there's this
00:27:07.240there is this sort of nasty steaming spirit and we have to be better and stronger than it you know0.65
00:27:14.900we have to because i mean normalization is fucking real and that's i mean we you know we see like0.88
00:27:22.660things that would have been totally out of the question you know or or you know the american0.95
00:27:28.660president is a great example like he says so many crazy things and has been doing for so long
00:27:34.240that at this point you know he says something crazy and we're like well there's crazy again
00:27:39.180being crazy and we just kind of again like I say we just kind of shrug because we're used to it
00:27:43.920this is normal now so how do we like de-normalize like
00:27:50.160and I guess or how do we how do we like death doula that whole culture Angela how do we do it
00:28:01.960I don't know. I mean, honestly, in the death doula community right now, there's a conversation, right? So like, something that doulas, death doulas say often is like, everyone deserves a good death, which is true, right? What is a good death to you? And that is a personal question for anyone to answer.
00:28:19.300but there are communities um you know um BIPOC indigenous communities who0.68
00:28:27.340the idea of a good death is like it's not it's not known um and that feels like0.76
00:28:36.580this conversation is going around the communities and like how do we as doulas who who believe
00:28:46.400deeply in a good death for everyone how how do we help or how I don't know if helps the word
00:28:52.200I don't it's hard for me to talk about it because I'm still like unraveling it in my own mind of
00:28:59.620how can I be part of this world and make sure that everyone does have a good death I mean I can do it
00:29:06.840from the animals that come to my backyard I can do it from the clients I work with
00:29:11.140i can do it by reminding anyone who's hearing this like everyone deserves a good death on their
00:29:17.240own terms yeah i don't know it's it's open-ended right now and you know part of the work that i
00:29:27.520would you know i use the word death normalization in the sense that to think about your own death
00:29:34.560and to normalize thinking about it talking about it with family members talking about it with your
00:29:39.540children even like um but it's so interesting amy to hear you just say now death normalization
00:29:45.680and compare it to you know the um traumatic videos that are being passed around that makes
00:29:54.480you know that was kind of shocking i was like oh wait no this term death normalization is
00:29:59.220in my mind it's been one way but you're right it can be flipped something entirely0.96
00:30:05.840you know um fuck terrible yeah like we we have to refuse to be desensitized i think is the thing0.97
00:30:15.940like no matter how many videos show up on your feed like you have to be sensitive to each and0.99
00:30:22.880every fucking one and people out who are posting them and be like why the fuck are you posting0.98
00:30:29.400this this is traumatic yes do this this hurts people yeah not you know not only the family0.99
00:30:36.120who's involved in the person who's dying in a fucking video like call them out yeah i think0.96
00:30:45.920so a couple about a month ago we went to my fiance and i went to new mexico um to visit a0.99
00:30:54.980family down there and the hotel casino that we stayed in had just reopened. And I had thought
00:31:03.640that it was just reopening, um, from just being shut down for COVID. So we went to go visit my
00:31:10.780cousin and, um, he was like, Oh, you're staying at, you're staying there. Well, that was like,
00:31:17.120um, it just reopened because it was like, um, they turned it into kind of like a makeshift
00:31:22.680hospital for all of the indigenous people and it just hit me you know like
00:31:28.740not everyone not only are people in in this country
00:45:35.500so my dad told me a couple of weeks after he died.
00:45:38.620Are you working on a book? Because I need the book version of this.
00:45:42.920Like I feel like I asked this like philosophical question and got like a
00:45:47.820very like, like, yeah, like the answer, not like, Oh, you know,
00:45:52.160but like no here's what like i genuinely feel like like i i 100 believe you so i mean i would
00:45:58.600ask you angela but like loretta kind of already answered i mean i don't know you know i have no
00:46:06.640idea but i want to know which one do you choose do you think loretta like for you or do you have
00:46:15.500it do you have your plan do you know what you'll choose you're gonna write it in your will
00:46:19.120I do. It depends on what age I am at the time of my death. If I were to die tonight, I would choose to come back and guide my family through different times until they no longer needed me.
00:46:39.080um I also have a student that I um have dedicated to um and I would you know return
00:46:50.120and just as spirit to help her through um my transition and then at the point when
00:46:58.220no one needed me anymore um I would choose to come back and re-experience this realm as a human again
00:47:06.040because I know that we still have a lot of work to do yeah yeah I think me too I I have had this
00:47:17.620as like a thought experiment my whole life of exactly this question if if when I die I was
00:47:24.140given the choice to move on or come back I think I read Jonathan Livingston Siegel or something
00:47:28.760and I always pictured that moment you know but until I had a kid I was always very convinced
00:47:35.720that I would just be happy and done and I felt very just happy and enjoying this realm while I
00:47:42.920was here and then I was on to the next one and now I've just one I'm terrified of death never0.64
00:47:48.600was before fucking terrified not of my own death only of hers yeah she's I think you're talking
00:47:55.840about your daughter just just for our our listeners who don't know who her is yeah I think0.97
00:48:01.420becoming a becoming a parent is becoming a parent is definitely like a different
00:48:06.580whole different notion of death and what that means
00:48:10.100yeah i mean i think there's a lot of things like you've already described that are going to push
00:48:15.760awareness of death on you but that was that was it for me one of my so i was a preschool teacher
00:48:22.120for seven years and currently i'm a nanny um and one of my kiddos they knew all the stories about
00:48:29.800my dog right because i would talk frequently about my dog and then my dog died last year and i
00:48:35.660had to go to school and tell them hey guys you're probably not going to hear too many more stories
00:48:41.240about him of you know current happening happenings of what he's doing because he died um i didn't say
00:48:48.200it like that it was much more it was much more that's up no more no more dog stories dog died
00:53:22.320to kind of i mean i'm always going to bring politics into everything because that's just
00:53:29.840how my witch mind works good but i but i i mean i i firmly believe that if your witchcraft doesn't0.98
00:53:41.400involve some sort of political activism your witchcraft is bullshit but that nodding again0.98
00:53:50.160furious nodding for those of you listening the pack of furious nodders yes go ahead loretta0.98
00:53:56.700as we in the states head into this um this upcoming election and especially around
00:54:06.980these sacred days and ten nights of Samhain and Day of the Dead and all of these ceremonies that
00:54:16.880we are going to be doing to honor the ancestors you know whether it's our blood ancestors
00:54:21.960ancestors of the traditions that we work in or extended family that are now ancestors
00:54:30.200I think that it's important to keep in mind that if we want to continue to love the mighty dead the way that we can now, and if we want to continue to be able to actually think about what a good death looks like,
00:54:50.720And if we want to be able to ensure that our queer friends and family and our Indigenous friends and family and our Black friends and family are able to have a good death and are able to continue to participate in ancestral veneration.
00:55:18.660it's important to remember that we have some choices to make coming up that will without
00:55:26.880question affect whether or not we can continue to experience or to hopefully push the concept
00:55:38.920of a good death and hopefully continue to practice our sacred traditions around the
00:55:48.660mighty dead the way that we do now we have some real work to do and we have some real choices to
00:55:55.720make that as we participate in these really really sacred days and nights that's at stake
00:56:05.820yeah and i think it comes back to that that balance between the mundane work and the spirit
00:56:16.300work when you talk about that activism is a requirement for witchcraft you know you that's0.74
00:56:22.620that's fucking doing the mundane work you have to do that work for the other ritual to work so0.92
00:56:29.860if you're doing rituals for for bounty and prosperity and peace um you have to be doing0.99
00:56:37.600the activist work too because that's the mundane work that we put in to earn that that great wave
00:56:43.800that comes back so american witches who are listeners of missing witches are voters but
00:56:50.820yes we have to do all the stages work and amplify what loretta said the the same way that we talk
00:56:58.620about death we also have to talk about politics um which is like we cannot be desensitized we have
00:57:05.140to keep ourselves aware and sensitive and active we can't be lulled into a false sense of security
00:57:12.000or an even falser sense of ignorance or an even falser still sense of powerlessness i mean we're0.96
00:57:19.980we're witches we fucking vote because we know how to grab power out of a piece of paper or a stick0.96
00:57:27.020of wood right that's what we do right yeah yes that is during so you know i've it's no secret0.99
00:57:38.300for anyone who knows me that i've had boots on the ground you know in the streets for months now0.80
00:57:45.120and that is a fucking ritual you know we are out there breathing life into these words right we are0.93
00:57:56.540out there with our feet to the earth you know we are out there shedding blood and tears and that1.00
00:58:04.780is a ritual you when you for those of us who still have the privilege to vote who haven't
00:58:12.140had that privilege stripped from us writing your petition and praying over it working it whatever0.97
00:58:21.700you call it that is a fucking ritual you know we those of us who still have the privilege0.95
00:58:29.120to vote those of us who still have the privilege to be active in our communities whether it is0.98
00:58:37.040and I acknowledge that being on the street isn't for everyone and that's okay but and I acknowledge
00:59:14.660and so important and so it's it's really it has to be done right now and there is there's work to
00:59:28.460do that feels small you know and there's work to do that I mean nothing is small anymore
00:59:36.080so true I feel I I am not a person who will be out in the streets for me that gives me great
00:59:45.100anxiety and I at first you know I felt I was putting like a guilt trip I was like I should
00:59:51.160I should be out there I should should should and I was like no no fuck that like what can I do
00:59:57.180from my home so I've been writing postcards um as a way to um to you know I've been writing to0.88
01:00:08.340a bunch of people I forget at the moment everybody but anyway that felt like one thing that I can do
01:00:14.420from my house that is a spell right spelling spell writing all that stuff it's it's something
01:00:19.940that I can consistently do and the other thing that's popping up in my mind right now is so you
01:00:26.880know for example in death doula training they're like talk to your family about what they want for
01:00:31.680their deaths too and like i come from like a south philadelphian italian family and like no0.89
01:00:37.180fucking way like is my dad gonna open up to me about like what he wants for his death right0.90
01:00:41.580and that sucks but it is what it is he told me i took care of it and i said okay like that means0.99
01:00:49.920everything's in order for him and you know take that the death doula lens or the death lens0.96
01:00:56.800off of it and put a political lens and like as scary as it might be to be talking to some family
01:01:02.460members about their beliefs like that is another way to exercise your voice and your power and
01:01:09.460your you know your beliefs to them so for example the uncle that doesn't claim to be a racist but
01:01:16.380says some really shitty things or says some things that are like clearly red flags or you know not
01:01:22.440even racism like racist comments like having to step up and have that uncomfortable conversation
01:01:29.680is of the utmost importance right now and doing it from a place of like love like I love this
01:01:36.800person I love you you are my family you have known me since I was a baby why are you making
01:01:43.600these choices you are legit harming people you know like and i think sometimes i don't want to
01:01:52.980generalize and say our whole country but like people are afraid to talk to speak their truths
01:01:57.880at times when they know it's gonna cause a riff whether it's talking about you know dad you're
01:02:06.660older than me and you're gonna you know essentially maybe die before me um let's talk about your death0.52
01:02:11.680Like, what do you want? Or if it's, you know, politics or if it's, you know, anyway.0.94
01:02:20.300Well, a girlfriend of mine was kind of like laughing at me because, you know, again, my father lived with me for many years, but he was an old Eastern European man.
01:02:29.200He was not like woke or anything like so, like some of his vocabulary was not just questionable, you know, but he was also an old man with dementia.
01:02:38.920so one of my girlfriends was like why do you bother you know he said something
01:02:43.380offensive you know called somebody on tv a bad word whatever and i was like because this is my
01:02:49.680house and i can't control what goes on out there but i make the rules here and i don't care if0.67
01:02:56.260you're an old man i don't care if i'm ruining christmas dinner i'm happy to ruin christmas0.97
01:03:01.100dinner because this is the one place in the entire fucking world where i make the rules1.00
01:03:07.040so I don't care if he's going to forget this conversation in 10 minutes or five seconds or0.96
01:03:12.020whatever like I'm going to say it because I need to establish like what is acceptable in my home
01:03:17.660and what is not and I think that you can you can have that same idea for your like I'm using my
01:03:24.080arms to like create a circle around myself yeah but like your own environment it's like what is
01:03:29.000acceptable in my environment and what is not and you have every right to speak up when something
01:03:34.180is not acceptable to your environment and it's scary right like for me like you know going up
01:03:40.520against like my uncle who's like this big man you know whatever it's it's not easy because i was
01:03:46.180taught to not speak up you know ever um and it feels so good to finally know that i can
01:03:53.660but um do it anyway i mean you know it's important obviously and like there is a death that's
01:04:03.680happening yes in our world in so many ways and like all of it like this there is no new normal
01:04:09.300like it's just going to be reborn in some way that we don't know what it looks like yet i mean
01:04:13.620but we're all you know four of us are doing the good work and there's more of us doing good work
01:04:19.300so keep keep doing the good work i have one more question that i really want to get to before we
01:04:25.340wrap this up and i know it's getting it's getting late and it's getting dark out and it's getting
01:04:29.900darker earlier um but i i'm just gonna say the word and then maybe you can tell me your thoughts
01:04:37.340because like i'm a witch and i feel myself to be like connected to nature and to something
01:04:44.280else that i don't know what it is and i'm totally cool with the unknown and all that and my husband
01:04:50.360i would not describe him this way he's like probably he would say he's an atheist he's you
01:04:56.720know he's a very progressive person but he wouldn't consider himself spiritual in like any way
01:05:01.340but he has had like paranormal experiences he has encountered ghosts he we were in a place where i
01:05:10.400guess like embalmings had happened at some time in the past and he felt like blankets being pulled
01:05:16.700down from him he's like he could tell me ghost stories i've never experienced anything like this
01:05:23.040in my life and I think it's funny because he's like the regular dude and I'm the witch but he
01:05:28.580sees the ghosts and I never seen no ghost and I ain't afraid of no ghost like the ghost but like
01:05:36.820what do you guys think like ghosts I'm just gonna say the word ghosts and you tell me what comes up
01:05:42.300in your mind ghosts yes yes Angela votes yes can I see a show of hands for ghosts and again like
01:05:52.020i've never been to italy but i i don't disagree that italy exists i'm not saying that just because
01:05:58.540i've never seen a ghost doesn't mean that it doesn't exist you know and i trust my husband
01:06:03.560and he's not like some liar you know it's like make up a story for no reason and he's not that
01:06:10.280good of an actor either so yeah so like you vote yes have any of you ever seen a ghost or like
01:06:18.540can I share a story yeah ghost stories it's October 31st I have a ghost story two ghost
01:06:24.860stories okay well there's a few but here's one that comes to mind I remember being a little kid
01:06:29.880and I remember sleeping in my bed and I don't know if this was just me hallucinating as a child
01:06:39.460or something but I remember waking up and looking across my room and uh a man dressed in colonial
01:06:47.000clothing was like shaking his butt at me sorry no it's hilarious he kind of looked like ben
01:06:54.900franklin like in my in my little like kid brain i was like
01:06:58.000i was like seven or eight anyway so yes i believe in ghost the second ghost story actually has to
01:07:09.900do with the podcast uh episode with uh white feather white feather hunter yeah yes
01:07:16.980um she mentioned on the podcast having um a there was a friend a friend of hers who had died
01:07:25.760at some point and she knew of their death before um knowing by a ghost called a fetch a spirit
01:07:36.380called a fetch came to her like blink of an eye she saw it you know at the end of a hallway or
01:07:41.980something she knew that a friend had passed i believe so yeah last uh the 30th of october
01:07:50.720i was sleeping in my bed and for the past few months previous to this i had been woken up a lot
01:07:58.240by like the feeling of something leaning over me which i don't know if anyone else has experienced
01:08:04.500that but it's very unnerving and it wakes me up with a start and i usually sometimes i'll throw
01:08:08.600things like my pillow or the lamp anyway I've gotten that under control because I now protect
01:08:15.140my space before I go to sleep but um I was sleeping and this woman with a skeleton face0.99
01:08:24.260and a beautiful cloak was at the foot of my bed and I woke up with a start and I see her
01:08:29.780and then you know in an instant she's gone and I took that to be a fetch because my aunt Teresa
01:08:38.360died two days later um so yes call them ghosts call them spirits call them what you will i think
01:08:48.040of course they exist how could they not you know how about you loretta i know you spoke to your
01:08:53.900father but like do you have any more like you know stereotypical paranormal experiences
01:09:00.400so admittedly most of the spirits i see i can very easily recognize a spirit
01:09:08.320um there was there's i'll tell you about two different situations um
01:09:15.920but probably about almost almost 20 years ago now um a friend of mine uh was murdered
01:09:26.900um and i the night that we were informed um his child and his girlfriend spent the night at my
01:09:38.900house um there's just a group of friends that you know everybody got together and they all just
01:09:44.860stayed at my house um that night um i had fallen asleep and i woke up feeling this like huge
01:09:56.620pressure on my back. Um, and I couldn't sit up, but I could turn my head. I could clearly,
01:10:08.180clear as day, see the outline of a man. Um, and audibly, not in my mind, but like audibly in my
01:10:21.700ear and you can tell the difference when you yeah oh yeah yeah very clear difference he told me0.97
01:10:30.580everything's fine y'all need to stop with this bullshit and i was like okay and then it was gone0.73
01:10:40.000and i could move again so that was a very clear um and obviously someone i knew um another0.91
01:10:51.320experience I had with someone I didn't know. My soon to be husband was at my house when we were
01:10:59.680just friends. And I was doing laundry and I was like, forcing him to help me carry baskets
01:11:06.200downstairs. And there was a room that I had in my old house that I always kept the door closed.
01:11:13.600It's in the basement. And my I had an old rocking chair. I've always loved antiques.
01:11:19.560i had an old rocking chair in that room and my fiance was being nosy he's like what's in this
01:11:28.480room and he opened the door and the it wasn't the kind of door that would just like open and close
01:11:35.100like he opened it and it stayed stuck that's how it was designed and he said oh my god and he ran
01:11:43.920up the stairs leaving me there and that antique rocking chair was rocking back and forth yeah i
01:11:54.000would have noped the fuck out too i'm on i'm on his side no i was pretty used to it i mean that
01:12:01.240house was very old and like i said that that chair is over 100 i still have that chair but um i just0.92
01:12:08.540i looked still rocking i was like man you you really scared him and i just closed the door and
01:12:14.620but he would not house for the rest of the time i opened oh he he noped out for real
01:12:24.700it's like i'm not staying here forever he does not do spooky stuff i took him to his first our
01:12:32.680first like haunted attraction for the first time this year oh wow it's so is this like an opposites
01:12:40.100attract kind of marriage that could not be more different we do work next to each other he works
01:12:47.340at all sacred and i work ritual craft but other than that we have we are complete and total
01:12:53.900opposites that's how my husband and i are in fact we i just started agreeing to watch scary movies
01:13:46.760We watched Friday the 13th, and there's this scene where someone is in a hammock,
01:13:50.520and you just see, like, the knife blade come up through their throat.
01:13:54.020And I was traumatized, completely traumatized, way too young,
01:13:57.780however young I was to have seen this.
01:14:00.140and so I sort of like logicked my way out of it as you know we feral children do we have to kind
01:14:06.380of figure it out for ourselves and I decided like okay that was a hammock I have a box spring I have
01:14:12.440a mattress like you know his blade like and so I told my theory of safety to my sister who responded
01:14:19.060do you know how strong Jason is he can easily shove that and I literally I took the the legs
01:14:26.820off my bed and i slept with a spring and a mattress on the floor for years after that but i still like
01:14:32.920being scared loretta how does santa muerte help you to not be scared well she um when anita when
01:14:43.260my sister first was killed i i was saying i learned how to call in a specific uh shadow to hide myself
01:14:50.760from um reporters and um just people staring when I finally went back to school everybody
01:14:58.700would just kind of stare at me it was always kind of a weird kid but after Anita was killed
01:15:03.120I was a really considered a really weird kid um so I that was my first experience with what I
01:15:10.800I figured out later on when I first saw an image of her that was her that I was able to call in
01:15:15.700Um, so she, as far as like her indigenous roots go, I think that there's nothing that's more
01:15:26.960powerful than her indigenous roots for me in my, in this lifetime.
01:15:34.320So knowing that she walks with me and seeing her literally, I've definitely seen her.
01:15:41.860I have pictures of her when she's appeared. I know that I don't walk alone, you know, not only with her on the left, but my ancestors on the right and my ancestors behind me.
01:15:57.200so it's she is a very um present presence um and she's i i in my experience and with lots
01:16:07.880of people i talk to who are also devotees she makes herself known
01:16:12.280that really ties into what you were saying angela too just about like recognizing that
01:16:21.440you're not alone, and that you are surrounded by, I mean, if we believe that something continues
01:16:27.820after death, and again, as like a science-minded person who believes in the laws of thermodynamics,
01:16:33.960I do believe that something continues after we die. So if you believe that, then just knowing
01:16:40.800that that presence exists around you, whether it's Santa Muerte, or your grandmother, or
01:16:46.460something else maybe that you've even invented as a presence if you don't have someone you know if
01:16:53.100you don't have a deity that really resonates with you or if you don't have a family member that you
01:16:57.000really felt connected to like we can just like sort of think of this like this great energy of
01:17:04.260like welcoming and and care and care i think it's important too like if you are a person who has
01:17:12.700high anxiety or depression and you have felt that like being being more permeable like
01:17:21.020letting your awareness of ancestors or spirit letting that come close to you would make you
01:17:28.020feel unsafe that that would increase your anxiety that if you started to let yourself see
01:17:34.220then you wouldn't be able to stop like if you are a person who's a sensitive or empathic person you
01:17:40.020have that fear maybe I'm speaking about myself it's it it was powerful to me to be told like
01:17:48.760you are always in this realm in your house able to say I'm only welcoming spirit here that has my
01:17:59.720my highest interest at heart yeah you this this room is your is ours we can say no I'm not nothing
01:18:07.140can come here right now you just can't be here right now um that was really like okay i can draw
01:18:12.400this line and if i never want to acknowledge it or let it close to me i don't have to i can have
01:18:18.780spirit around me i can have my ground know that my grandparents are with me my ancestors are with me
01:18:23.080but that can be a choice and i think anyway that was empowering for me to know so maybe for a
01:18:29.340listener that's something protective i think for people who have that anxiety or that fear
01:18:36.400the biggest thing to remember is that um you have both if you have the advantage of having both a
01:18:45.940physical body right now and a spiritual body where spirit has a spirit body so you walk in
01:18:54.800several worlds right now so you really do have the advantage a because you walk in several worlds
01:19:04.820but also you know it's like you don't allow people you wouldn't open your door and just
01:19:13.160leave it open and let any person walk in and out right so you have the ability to say
01:19:20.860in this space in my presence um in this vicinity there's no door open and the door will not be open
01:19:30.440until i put the key through the keyhole turn the key and open the door period and you can speak
01:19:39.020that whenever you need to because your words are so powerful i i feel compelled to add here that
01:19:45.720this works equally as well for your racist uncle as it does for ghosts and spirits like we were
01:19:52.600talking about before you can close that door and that is okay yeah this is not welcome this is not
01:19:59.380welcome around here so um angela how can people pay you for your services um they can contact me
01:20:08.840in two ways uh pdx death doula is my instagram handle for um most of my death doula work but i
01:20:17.680also have heartwise woman which is also um that's my more personal page but it's kind of morphing
01:20:24.340together right now so in the personal is political yeah right yeah um instagram's a great way to get
01:20:30.980a hold of me um and yeah i i do the virtual living funeral ceremonies um i want to start doing um
01:20:40.660we haven't even this is this is like totally random but i also am an intuitive eater and
01:20:46.360anti-dieter and i want to do like uh death work around that and like dieting is basically fear
01:20:53.500of death but anyway so I'm going to start offering more death doula work but specifically towards
01:20:59.680uh breaking up with diet culture I think we can do a whole series about food magic and that would
01:21:06.120be like one episode in that series and like it's fucking wild I mean I won't start because I will
01:21:11.640go on forever but um that that's me combining death doula work and then other work that's
01:21:19.780powerful and um I feel passionately about both so I want to combine them in some beautiful way
01:21:26.840anyway Instagram hit me up I love you so it's it's pdx the letters pdx and then doula is d-o-u-l-a
01:21:36.400yes great Loretta how can people pay you they can visit your shop tell us about like