Missing Witches - Samhain 2022： Grief Is A Dancer, A Teacher. Grief Is Spiralling, It Is The Depth Of Me

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00:00:49.340 it's just a fact of this terrain of interrogating what is missing we promise to hold those moments 0.99

00:00:56.800 with care you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch

00:01:01.220 you must be a witch happy Samhain Risa happy Samhain Amy happy Halloween listeners or maybe

00:01:14.440 just that halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice that's how

00:01:21.640 you prefer to think about it happy all those things yeah happy is it happy i don't know

00:01:26.920 welcome to the thinning of the veil if you feel like it's thin i do i feel like there's a lot of

00:01:33.980 death around me right now so i feel i don't know if happy is the right word for me but i do feel

00:01:40.020 like uh i'm in this time i'm in this time where my ancestor alters offer the most comfort and

00:01:49.860 are the most important and i'm in this time where i need to talk to death doulas

00:01:54.800 so i'm sure glad we got to talk to them yeah and then lose that interview that interview is a ghost

00:02:02.680 that interview is a dead ancestor yeah i'm missing ancestor i'm missing referent i'm so glad that um

00:02:10.000 some members of our coven got to be there live and experienced that as it happened but

00:02:15.720 unthwarted luckily um all the people who are on the panel are very dear to us and we're willing

00:02:24.420 to come back and sit down and sort of rehash those conversations so what we've done today

00:02:29.320 listeners is we've created an anthology so instead of hearing everyone talk all at once on the panel

00:02:36.020 you're going to hear us in conversation with them one at a time yeah it's so strange it's like the

00:02:42.240 first time that's ever happened in 165 episodes that we had this incredibly powerful conversation

00:02:47.520 and then all said goodbye and the recording just never appeared so we took it as a sign yes and I

00:02:56.160 mean this is like we're contending with loss that's what the conversation was about it was

00:03:01.600 about grief and loss so you know in our witchy way we have to sort of smile and nod at the at

00:03:08.180 the ghosting of this recording yeah yeah we mourned it for a hot sec but we're we're pretty

00:03:14.720 good at being like well this is a nudge to do this next thing and amy had a good idea about

00:03:20.740 sitting down one by one so you'll get to hear those incredibly powerful conversations yeah

00:03:26.460 And lucky for us, you know, we like to experiment and you listeners are generous in allowing us to, you know, play with the format and that kind of thing.

00:03:40.640 So we knew that you would be cool with it.

00:03:43.900 So let's welcome our four death workers, Crystal Wobbin-Toop of Blackbird Medicines, Loretta Ledesma of The Death Witch, Carla Davis-Torres of A Venerated Death, and Angela Alberto of Heartwise Woman.

00:04:01.700 Thank you so much, Crystal Toop, for sitting down with me right now.

00:04:06.860 for our listeners who missed our Beltane episode, the fundraiser that you were a part of,

00:04:13.660 can you tell us a bit about who you are? Absolutely, yes. Thanks for having me back.

00:04:20.840 So my name is Crystal Wabantup and I'm an Indigenous doula and I consider myself a life

00:04:28.680 spectrum doula. And I do this work through my small business and community practice called

00:04:33.720 Blackbird Medicine. And I'm also the founder of Collectives. I'm a Algonquin member of the

00:04:42.760 Piquaknagon First Nation in my community here on my ancestral territory, the unceded Algonquins.

00:04:49.800 Can you expand on this idea of life spectrum?

00:04:55.040 room absolutely um so a lot of people are probably more familiar with birth doulas kind of the new

00:05:03.760 yoga teacher um it's uh it's you know my kids made fun of me and they had all these clips from

00:05:10.940 family guy that they teased me with and it was this thing where there's like a clip when they

00:05:15.560 say you know oh it's a divorcee who cheers you on during labor which is very oddly accurate um but

00:05:22.860 So the idea of the life spectrum is that I support people from birth to death on their entire spectrum of life.

00:05:32.620 And after working for a few years as a birth doula, I found myself really called to learn more about traditional plant medicines, traditional food practices.

00:05:44.380 um for myself it really tied in with sovereignty and autonomy and uh finding empowerment with my

00:05:51.480 kids as uh someone who was trying to get through university was dying um and then that kind of just

00:05:58.180 evolved and uh I became very interested in working in in death care and what that meant and I'm

00:06:07.180 someone who has had a background as a street kid I've struggled with chronic homelessness in my

00:06:12.800 lifetime. And of course, I carry the residential school legacy in my DNA. So those are things that

00:06:21.580 kind of came up in my path and going towards being this life spectrum doula, it was really

00:06:29.440 a way for me to reclaim a traditional role that I didn't know I occupied. And for Indigenous folks,

00:06:36.200 what I try to impart in a lot of these opportunities is death work is actually harm

00:06:40.980 reduction from untimely death, from a lot of things that society is trying to do with our

00:06:49.380 First Nations and Métis families. So I'm just trying to keep us alive. In particular, you have

00:06:56.720 started like an Indigenous death doula collective. I want to know about that and like the practicalities 0.98

00:07:04.760 of how that came together, but also you kind of already answered this. You very much already

00:07:08.460 answered it but please expand how about that I want to know about like how you're not in general

00:07:14.860 but your specific indigeneity either impacts or or how it informs your concept of death

00:07:24.100 in general and further to that your concept of grief I'm really interested in grief right now

00:07:30.320 right I mean it's it's so common uh that we're I mean one on one hand it's like an amazing time

00:07:41.700 where we talk about mental health in a way that's totally unprecedented in history um so that's

00:07:47.840 really cool but uh we're also with that we're starting to recognize the challenges to our

00:07:53.920 mental well-being and that certainly is grief and whether you're feeling grief over a climate

00:07:59.840 crisis whether you're feeling grief over you know the last couple of years of reality in the

00:08:06.740 pandemic maybe you've lost loved ones or you've missed out on connection grief really arises from

00:08:13.160 any it can arise from any transition we experience whether it's starting a new school or moving or

00:08:20.040 a loved one going so those are really um it's just so common and I'm trying to think of all of your

00:08:28.940 glorious questions um i'm so bad for that i ask 50 questions and then i put a single

00:08:36.700 question mark at the end and just hope my guests can grab onto something

00:08:40.840 i love it um yeah so you asked about grief yeah and and i i want to know specifically about like

00:08:52.020 indigeneity and how and why it was important to you to have this indigenous death collective

00:08:58.400 death doula collective excuse me um as opposed to um you know just having whomever wherever

00:09:06.240 whenever why was it important to you that it be that it have this indigeneity like in in ground

00:09:13.280 into it and how does that and how does that impact the practice of of what your group does 0.54

00:09:19.240 I'm sorry I can't ever ask a single question all good um I think for myself my own indigeneity

00:09:27.460 kind of came into play. I didn't really know a lot about my own family's history.

00:09:36.360 You know, I'm a white-coated Anishinaabeque, and with that comes a lot of privilege. But there

00:09:43.420 also is a price where there's a separation and displacement from culture. And in my family,

00:09:50.060 there just wasn't a lot of culture that was carried through. My grandfather's parents were

00:09:56.800 the ones who went to residential school so they in that generation lost the connection to lands

00:10:02.480 and then my grandfather spoke Anishinaabemowin or Algonquin until he was about 12 or 13 but he so

00:10:10.820 in that generation they lost the language so by the time my mom's generation came what we had was

00:10:16.120 actually a lot of mental illness and you know to me I saw that as a very direct link my mother

00:10:22.940 started to reclaim her culture when she was in her 20s. And so did, you know, her siblings and

00:10:28.260 things like that. Their parents never really picked it up. My grandmother did a little bit.

00:10:33.180 But for myself, I just never felt like it was some that it was part of me, I felt like I didn't

00:10:41.760 belong. And that's a really common sentiment for, for folks who have those residential school

00:10:49.020 histories those displacement stories so many of our community members were spooked out of

00:10:54.920 any connections they had so with all those elements in place for myself like I said I

00:11:01.960 had that background as a street kid and you know I traveled back and forth I was ping-pong between

00:11:09.200 divorced parents for a bit and I kind of got sick of that and decided you know what you guys are 0.93

00:11:14.000 crazy. I can do better on my own. And I did pretty good. But I didn't recognize until much later,

00:11:22.220 how much danger I managed to kind of circumvent. And it wasn't necessarily the case for my peers.

00:11:30.300 When I was 20, and I've written about this before, there was a young woman in our kind of

00:11:36.200 circle group or social group and she was killed very tragically and horrifically and it was a

00:11:44.520 very violent story that came out in the news and she hadn't done anything wrong you know it was 1.00

00:11:52.240 my first little case but being Indigenous and being a woman really just set you up to fail 1.00

00:12:01.580 in our society. And again, certain amount of awareness, lots of it came later. But I started 1.00

00:12:10.060 to see that more and more. And it wasn't until I started working at an Indigenous Women's Support

00:12:15.440 Centre in Ottawa that I started to really learn the actual history of Canada and how it impacted

00:12:22.080 my family so I was almost 30 then so 30 whole years and no one in our family knew that anyone

00:12:31.940 had gone to residential school it was a family secret so that only came out in the last decade

00:12:38.400 and it's all of a sudden filling this whole gap of things we didn't know but I would meet these

00:12:43.980 other First Nations people from my community and some are even distant cousins but they haven't

00:12:50.320 been through some of the things that I had lived through with, you know, cycles of violence,

00:12:55.600 poverty, neglect. They hadn't been through, you know, homelessness or domestic violence and

00:13:01.920 romantic relationships. They had really good lives. And I'm, I'm in this workplace, and I'm

00:13:07.080 reading these reports of statistics, I'm getting hella triggered, and not understanding why I'm

00:13:13.260 having a panic attack. But also not understanding why I'm not relating to some of these folks.

00:13:19.180 because they've had really great lives and i'm thinking well the paperwork says you should have

00:13:24.380 had a life like me and i'm sitting here thinking like i'm not native enough and and like i said

00:13:31.400 it's a shadism it's a whole other bag of cats uh but all of those things coupled with having my own

00:13:38.240 kids uh their uh birth father was a a person who was adopted out as an infant and so we were these

00:13:46.740 two street kids who kind of were the only native kids in our circle and we kind of connected

00:13:51.800 and it was trying to plan a better life for my kids that I really started to understand how much

00:13:59.200 danger I had been in and how many times I was lucky to get out with my life but I was lucky

00:14:05.400 that I was safe and got out of there kind of thing so and then I have all these friends who

00:14:12.020 from that life and others you know from high school and things like that we went our separate

00:14:16.740 ways i went to high school in thunder bay for a while and you know lucky to have survived that as

00:14:22.500 well um lucky that my friend survived uh you know the things that went on in thunder bay that

00:14:29.620 continue to go on and putting teens at risk that are on their own living away from their families

00:14:34.540 trying to go to high school and these are straight a students you know that reality that they could

00:14:40.620 be killed in the river has been one for 50 years it's not anything new so all of these kind of

00:14:48.240 things were starting to click for me and I went and took an undergrad in sociology so that just

00:14:53.620 blew my head right off my body um so it was yeah really starting to understand all the intersections

00:14:59.820 and uh the different ways that our community members were struggling um like I mentioned the

00:15:06.780 bio dad of my kids he you know continues to struggle with incarceration and addiction

00:15:13.220 and so many friends have those stories where or where they overdosed or where my favorite story

00:15:21.060 is the one girl that I she's still alive she's still kicking she's got a good life now but I

00:15:26.120 ran into her when she was very addicted and in a very rough spot and I found out after years later

00:15:32.400 she's like you know you saved my life by taking me and you know grabbing a coffee and chatting

00:15:36.760 and she's like I was going to go and use and because I had been abstinent I would have overdosed

00:15:42.640 and died so and I was oblivious so she told me years later but again then I get to my 30s and

00:15:52.920 I'm this doula and people are talking about end-of-life care and things like that and it's

00:15:57.980 always about like seniors and I'm thinking what about the people who don't make it to be seniors

00:16:04.640 what about the people who are fighting to live as a birth doula I found myself more than once

00:16:13.620 in the middle of child protection services and a mother with a newborn you know coaching her

00:16:19.580 through labor and then there's a birth alert boom there's someone to take your baby and it was

00:16:25.760 really heartbreaking for me as a mom because despite everything I fought for I had my custody

00:16:32.680 of my children threatened many times they never were taken because I was very dedicated in that

00:16:39.700 fight but it was always a threat and until they were 16 it was something I was scared of but to

00:16:45.280 go through the actual apprehension process with these moms some of them fought and it was hard

00:16:53.660 and there was a lot of barricades to overcome,

00:16:55.960 but some of them were so destroyed by that separation.

00:17:02.300 All of a sudden you have the baby and the mom both fighting for their survival.

00:17:07.700 And will they ever get back together? I don't know,

00:17:10.080 but let's just keep them alive for now.

00:17:13.020 So those kinds of supports to offer people,

00:17:16.720 it's not typical to what people think of when they think of death work.

00:17:20.860 so that's where i think that indigeneity piece uh comes in because society has been trying to 0.68

00:17:29.620 kill us off for generations um and it's not something we're going to escape soon unfortunately

00:17:35.500 so just to have some support around that and someone to talk about what those realities are

00:17:40.660 uh i think that that harm reduction piece is where i like to think it's been indigenized

00:17:46.380 Yeah, yeah. And we talk so much about like the good death. But again, it's exactly like you say, you know, we think of death care is like palliative old people and so on. But when we go into social justice, we are aiming for everyone to have that good death.

00:18:07.880 And that includes, you know, safety and food security and personal security and a utopian absence of racism and colonialism and sexism and fear.

00:18:21.540 In the meantime, you do this work because we don't live in that utopia yet with these absences.

00:18:28.160 and you

00:18:29.520 your own

00:18:32.540 personal grief

00:18:34.280 must inform

00:18:36.660 so much you're dealing with

00:18:38.600 other people

00:18:39.360 so how

00:18:42.000 do you

00:18:44.280 find the strength to go

00:18:46.640 on?

00:18:48.240 I mean for our listeners

00:18:50.500 where do you

00:18:52.740 conjure, how do you conjure

00:18:54.600 that strength to persevere?

00:18:58.160 I think some of it is that survivorship, you know, sometimes we hear about there's like guilt

00:19:06.580 in being a survivor. And I don't know if that's what I would call it today. I think at a time

00:19:13.340 that was more, more directly linked for my, for myself. But as I've gotten older and more stable

00:19:22.380 And, you know, I enjoy security now that I've been unprecedented even in my going back to my parents' life.

00:19:30.580 And I worked really hard for that.

00:19:32.320 And when you spend so much of your life fighting to survive, you know, luckily your listeners are a certain kind of caliber and they understand the social justice piece.

00:19:45.580 But when I talk to so many people, even in my community, you know, they have some really strong thoughts around low income and, you know, what exactly social supports are and things like that and who has a right to them and who doesn't.

00:20:02.540 And, you know, I spent a lot of years surviving in poverty, trying to give my children the best that I could and often recognizing that I was falling short as far as, you know, the Smith next door or the Smith in class that the kids are going to be in school next to that kind of thing.

00:20:21.560 And then always the ever-present reality that it takes one phone call from someone's, you know, school secretary to say that there's a concern and they're at my door and I'm trying to, you know, handle things as calmly as possible.

00:20:39.240 Myself, a social worker, it was, it's, like I said, it's been a lot of years of survivorship.

00:20:45.800 And then at some point you're like, I'm not struggling.

00:20:49.060 what do i do with all this energy

00:20:52.340 that is beautiful i i don't know if you wanted to finish that thought but 0.53

00:21:04.020 you know like because struggling is so fucking exhausting and you have gotten to a place where

00:21:15.620 you're not so exhausted and instead of thinking it of it as like now I'm you know at baseline and

00:21:21.300 I can kick back you're like I have all this struggle energy to put into someone else's

00:21:27.800 it is exactly it that's fucking beautiful listeners like please like just I don't know 0.91

00:21:37.660 hear that as I have heard it 0.88

00:21:40.280 in this moment

00:21:41.060 and it does

00:21:44.420 like there's a struggle energy

00:21:46.420 but there's okay I have

00:21:47.720 healthy support as well

00:21:50.220 for the first time

00:21:51.900 and you know also

00:21:54.200 my kids are teens

00:21:55.740 one has grown up and moved out of the house

00:21:57.840 he's going to be 21 this year

00:21:59.820 doing better than I ever did on my own

00:22:02.120 at his age

00:22:02.880 the concerns and the challenges

00:22:06.420 shift

00:22:07.660 And, you know, my youngest is going to be 17, and it's just totally different.

00:22:15.660 The struggle now is to make sure that, you know, we spend time together, and I'm not

00:22:20.800 annoying the hell out of her, things like that, you know.

00:22:26.040 It's just a different kind of existence, and to know that just the way I see things

00:22:34.780 around like that harm reduction piece. It's something that I was taught in my birth doula

00:22:40.960 training to support moms who use drugs, to support moms who are in domestic violence situations.

00:22:48.760 Learning how to apply harm reduction in everything in life has really just given me so many tools and

00:22:57.340 it continues to blow people's minds when they adapt to the harm reduction idea around death

00:23:03.240 care and in our Indigenous communities so I mean I didn't think it was that exciting but

00:23:08.920 positive responses so I'm gonna go with the flow on that one but yeah

00:23:17.620 can you imagine something for me

00:23:21.660 we know that and you mentioned it earlier that we all sort of went through this like global trauma

00:23:29.800 And much of it was, you know, related to death proper. I'll say I'm using scare quotes here, listeners, like actual mortality. But a lot of it was the grief surrounding, you know, missed opportunities or just missing the people in our lives, the things that we couldn't do, the world seeming to spiral completely out of control.

00:23:53.660 Not that it was ever in our control, but, you know, it was more visible how out of control we were.

00:23:59.880 So if we had this sort of global event of trauma these couple of years, can you imagine for me what a global event of healing would look like?

00:24:14.980 What a global event of grief would look like?

00:24:20.000 oh an event a healing event like what what would we have to do to to heal on a on a global scale

00:24:34.840 i mean i think just housing and food for all was just so foundational

00:24:42.080 um i know a lot of the grief that was witnessed was around you know evictions and you know

00:24:52.220 an eviction freeze and it was unfrozen and run evictions and you know incentivizing uh

00:25:00.340 certain aspects of society like construction and things like that but it ended up harming

00:25:06.520 our most vulnerable um i think that you know we're such a rich country where we have many

00:25:16.960 rich nations we can't we have the capacity to house and feed everyone if we could do that i

00:25:23.620 think there would be a shift if people just could play you know those policy folks and the people

00:25:31.720 who sign off on checks could really just say, no, we're not messing around anymore. We're going to

00:25:36.700 just, yep, we're going to buy those hotels and house these people or, you know, what have you.

00:25:44.300 That would really kick off a lot of healing. There would be so much generosity, I think,

00:25:48.940 rippling out from folks knowing that they had a place to sleep that wouldn't be taken away from

00:25:54.080 them or knowing that their kids would be safe, knowing that maybe their parents would be safe.

00:26:01.720 You know, it's all over the headline. We're all reading about inflation. We're all feeling the rising costs of things. And we're not feeling the kindness and the kind of space to balance that.

00:26:20.040 And when will we balance it? It's kind of like with the death work piece where people are trying to recognize that, you know, the grief is huge and there needs to be some equity and not social justice piece.

00:26:35.500 But I mean, we've capitalized ourselves into a corner. Just like the death industry, you know, we think we have to buy a coffin, we think we have to pay for these big productions, all these processes, but really, you know, they used to build houses with parlors, because that's where you showed off your dead people. The end.

00:26:59.940 it wasn't complex simple you know the women or the the family members would look after the body

00:27:08.200 and it was done with and we can still do that like i i don't know that's what really comes for

00:27:12.820 me and coming from that place of survivorship and so many different kind of intersections

00:27:18.740 housing and food let's figure out the rest after yeah yeah i mean it's like just it sounds simple

00:27:28.580 but it's not simple but I think it comes back to yeah but what you're saying about harm reduction

00:27:34.580 you know like and and struggle energy and maybe the that's the best thing that we can do with our

00:27:41.360 grief is to channel it into harm reduction for other people it'd be nice it would be nice

00:27:49.300 it would be nice I mean listeners let's think about how we can we can enact this you know if

00:27:55.280 If you're missing something, maybe give it to someone else.

00:28:00.200 You know, if you look back and you have regrets or resentments, probably more likely about, you know, what your folks didn't give you or, you know, what your friends that weren't there for you, then you can go and be there for someone.

00:28:14.540 You know, instead of just being like paralyzed by grief and guilt, we need to channel that energy into harm reduction.

00:28:23.780 absolutely and and that's that's one of our trauma responses as well one of our more common

00:28:30.300 trauma responses we hear about flight or fight but there's freeze and then there's uh tend and

00:28:37.800 befriend or fawning fawning yeah i that's me i'm big sister in the family and you know i can be

00:28:47.400 scared and crying but if i see someone else and this is since i was like four uh i if i see someone

00:28:53.120 else upset i will get to work you know seeing if that if i can get that person to a good place

00:28:59.420 is it always healthy no but is it helpful yes and uh you know the the boundaries come with

00:29:06.840 with time and practice and age but you know there's there's nothing wrong with

00:29:12.620 with offering kindness to others because it makes us feel um secure or calmed

00:29:20.060 can you finish a sentence for me um and this can you can finish it with a

00:29:32.560 an idea an adjective a verb a noun whatever you want grief is

00:29:38.240 temporary

00:29:44.240 changing

00:29:46.640 shifting

00:29:47.760 we have

00:29:50.400 I don't want to say it's something that

00:29:53.040 ends because we can grieve

00:29:54.860 like I still grieve my grandmother and she's been

00:29:56.980 gone longer than I have her now

00:29:59.020 but it shifts to

00:30:03.020 a place now of empowerment

00:30:04.880 and I feel that

00:30:06.860 she's someone that guides me when I ask for her to come in she's always waiting and it's the same

00:30:12.680 with my cousins and and and my uncle who are all very close with her she is always there for us

00:30:18.540 um but uh yeah it's always shifting it's always changing um it can hit you and you can struggle

00:30:27.080 with with things for a while um I know I was having dreams about my grandma for a while

00:30:33.360 and I would wake up just crying so like missing her and upset and so upset and uh you know she

00:30:41.380 was coming and visiting me in my dreams to help me work on a problem and I didn't even understand

00:30:46.100 that until I had figured out the problem and I wrote about it first and it was in rereading

00:30:53.840 what I had written and I was like holy cow she's just been trying to help me this whole time

00:30:58.220 so it's it's always shifting and changing definitely become your greatest strength

00:31:04.980 yeah I love that your first instinct was to say temporary and then to expand the notion

00:31:11.500 of temporary to include forever it's temporary but it's also everlasting and will shift and

00:31:19.380 change but doesn't go away but it doesn't necessarily have to be super painful you

00:31:24.640 You know, it seems to me like when you're grieving your grandmother, there's also a joy that comes out, you know, the love that is, it is necessary for grief, the love that is necessary.

00:31:36.040 Yeah.

00:31:38.240 Okay, one last question.

00:31:39.620 We've already gone over the time that I told you.

00:31:42.640 But this can be very, very brief.

00:31:46.000 It's like a special time of year when a lot of us are, you know, looking at death all the time, but in a more abstract way.

00:31:54.640 Do you have anything that you do at this time of year that's specific to this time of year?

00:32:03.060 Absolutely.

00:32:05.380 Two of the main things that I kind of focus on publicly as far as education with our death doulas and things like that that we're training.

00:32:14.760 One is gathering our winter medicines and preparing for the long, cold months ahead.

00:32:21.800 and once upon a time pre-contact that was a very specific gathering of winter medicines it would

00:32:29.980 be food it would be plants it would be you know making sure we had lots of warm blankets and

00:32:34.880 things that we needed to get through today I you know kind of offer this more contemporary version

00:32:41.060 where you know gathering your winter medicines can really be about just battening down the

00:32:48.360 hatches and getting ready for winter whether it means putting your snow tires on because you're

00:32:52.680 required by the provincial government or uh you know making a whole bunch of um essential oils

00:33:00.780 in your instant pot or you know foraging for the tree medicines before uh the winter and making

00:33:08.920 you know those good um you know antiviral kind of plant medicines and things like that to care

00:33:15.740 for ourselves whatever you know whatever it is that is medicine for you that soothes you that

00:33:22.200 you know my cousin stocks up on materials and makes stuff all winter everybody's different

00:33:27.340 what those things are but um sometimes getting one of those seasonal affect lamps

00:33:32.120 you know whatever it is it's it's your thing to define what your winter medicines are

00:33:39.060 um so for me that that's one thing that i i do a lot of and i'm definitely making essential

00:33:45.700 oils in my instant pop and and then the other one is um feasting we feast our spirits and it's

00:33:54.780 really not specific to this time of year it's something you can do any time of year but

00:34:00.220 I uh don't get out to the summer ceremonies as much as I like so because I'm really terrible

00:34:06.380 in heat um but as we you know for the fall like it is such an important transition time of

00:34:14.000 you know those cool months into the winter and it is you know spiritually it's a very powerful time

00:34:21.140 it's a very um what is it they say the veil is very thin so we have lots of messages coming

00:34:27.760 from our ancestors and lots of um love and traditions that people do um you know people

00:34:35.740 are doing their final baby walking out ceremonies where before the winter comes because they won't

00:34:41.700 be able to do them with the snow on the ground so that's where the babies take their first steps on

00:34:46.760 the earth with their family around them kind of thing so it's uh yeah just gathering those winter

00:34:54.640 medicines and honoring spirit plates which is you'd make a plate for someone uh just like they

00:35:00.560 were alive but you know more cornbread and mashed potatoes if those were their favorites or that

00:35:06.240 kind of thing and uh you might set a plate for them at your table at your feast or you might

00:35:12.980 just have that plate off to the side but you would honor them and uh keep them in your thoughts while

00:35:19.320 you're having your feast and uh and you know people might picture them share memories things

00:35:25.540 like that have some keepsakes of theirs handy and once that feast is over they would return

00:35:31.400 the spirit plate to one of the elements um so that would get to them in their in their sky world

00:35:39.060 so uh those are kind of pretty typical things i think a lot of people are doing um but yeah i'm

00:35:47.420 definitely doing mine thank you so much thank you for you know articulating once again that

00:35:57.040 death work is harm reduction. Let's keep that in mind, as always. For our listeners who I assume

00:36:04.620 are so excited to learn more about you, where can they find you? How can they get in touch with you?

00:36:10.780 Oh, well, I'm on the Instagram and the Facebook. Blackbird Medicines is where you can find me. I

00:36:16.060 also have a personal Instagram account that's open because I tend to author things and share

00:36:22.000 it there and that's crystal underscore laban crystal with an h just to be complicated

00:36:27.320 and um blackbirdmedicines.ca you'll find links to everything uh if you're a first nations inuit

00:36:34.780 metis person you're very welcome to send an email at blackbirdmedicines at gmail.com

00:36:40.140 and read your free spot in our training for a limited time only limited time only people

00:36:46.620 that's amazing thank you so so so very much all of those links will be in our show notes and

00:36:53.520 crystal again i appreciate you taking this time with me so much i wish you a good death many many

00:37:00.240 many many many many many many many many many years in the future thanks so much it was great

00:37:06.820 thank you so much Loretta Ledesma aka the death witch for sitting down with me again again to talk

00:37:20.160 about grief and death for saw win and of course it happens all year round so taking that spirit

00:37:28.520 with us all year round for our listeners who missed you on the podcast last time which was

00:37:34.100 a couple saw winds ago in 2020. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you

00:37:39.780 are and what you do? Sure. My name is Loretta. I am a conjurer. I am a devotee of Santa Muerte.

00:37:51.920 I am a maker, I make oils and other spiritual goods, and I am a dedicated practitioner and venerator of ancestors and communicator with the dead.

00:38:13.320 That's a perfect summation.

00:38:15.040 so um your dedication to death where where does that come from what led you there

00:38:25.340 um I had started to experience death at a really young age um starting first with my sister

00:38:33.340 and then um with my father and countless people in between um

00:38:40.100 I felt like death has always walked with me um and not in a scary way or in an ominous way or

00:38:51.260 anything like that it's just been a a dance that I've been um engaged in my whole life

00:38:58.360 so naturally the spiritual realms would open up and reveal some of those mysteries to me

00:39:07.780 in time. I do want to pick out, um, cause I've heard you say this before that this

00:39:15.220 navigating death, that this grieving process is a dance. Can you elaborate on the dance of that?

00:39:23.040 So to me, um, dancing is a give and take and it's a balance, um, especially when we're dancing with

00:39:32.680 a partner um so you know grief in my life anyways has um has been there for as long as i can

00:39:46.320 remember um but it hasn't there are definitely times where it feels thick and um heavy and

00:39:58.080 sad and and that's part of of that the step and the turn right and then there's other times where

00:40:09.220 it feels like a forward motion um and it feels very productive um grief has always being in

00:40:21.560 with grief has always helped me move through um and I feel like knowing death so well has also

00:40:30.580 it's been such a catalyst you know had I not experienced um the the death of my sister so

00:40:41.560 young I it I wouldn't be here you know but there's it's this graceful movement and a momentum

00:40:51.460 that carries us through and if we i have found personally just like with dancing that if we

00:40:59.040 lean into it and we um trust our partner um and if we don't try to go against the grain and resist

00:41:09.360 too much um it is it's a relationship that makes a lot of sense and it can be very constructive

00:41:18.880 yes and you're someone who helps other people through their grief but also have a very

00:41:27.580 personal connection to your own grief so like i imagine that there are many ways of dancing

00:41:33.740 dancing with the spirit of your loved one dancing with someone who's also grieving the push and pull

00:41:39.640 of our emotions so when you

00:41:45.200 I'm just gonna stare for one second I can cut out the silence of me staring at your freaky

00:42:01.280 awesome cat they're so funny aren't they yeah I'm not sure if I've seen one with such a like 0.99

00:42:08.000 a black face and pause though yeah she um so she is a a refugee she came from Ukraine right when

00:42:19.640 the war started and she escaped with her reader to Romania and then we and then she went from there

00:42:29.360 to San Diego so we picked her up from there and as soon as I saw her just how deep her face and

00:42:37.520 her paws are and how striking her eyes are I was like oh we were meant for each other honey

00:42:44.220 absolutely you've both seen some look at those eyes oh my goodness

00:42:50.140 this is like a creature from another realm I had a friend who contended that cats were

00:42:56.600 from another dimension like dogs are earthly but cats are like interdimensional

00:43:02.300 Absolutely.

00:43:05.480 So when you're making things, your wares, how does your practice influence what you make and how you make it?

00:43:20.440 So to quote my dear elder and teacher, one of them who is just an absolutely brilliant human being, Professor Charles Porterfield.

00:43:31.540 Everything has a spirit. And if we are good conjurers, we recognize that we must conjure everything and honor the spirits and we can follow good recipes and that's great.

00:43:51.740 but if you're a conjurer then your work will be that much more effective so truly

00:43:59.520 everything is conjured and there's a communication with spirit throughout the whole process

00:44:06.300 everything is fed and every element of an oil or an incense or a powder or a water is

00:44:15.580 um condoned it it's there is a consent that's given um and you know when you're dealing with

00:44:25.320 with plant necromancy which is what we all do right we're all harvesting and right

00:44:31.820 you know taking life resurrecting life it's all necromancy we're all resurrecting

00:44:39.720 um it's so important to recognize that consent is needed just like with any other spirit work

00:44:47.740 if you were any other are occasions where you know in some really deeper workings

00:44:55.460 um that it's a it looks differently for sure but when we're um working with the spirits of

00:45:05.200 the plants and we're resurrecting those, those beings, um, knowing how to conjure and receive

00:45:13.680 consent is, is really, really important. So everything from the vessel is fed with tobacco

00:45:23.860 smoke. Um, every plant is woken up. Every resin is woken up. Um, and then everything is worked

00:45:34.600 and prayed over and then the mothers for the oils are buried in very specific locations for

00:45:41.380 a full cycle and then I go up there and and dig them all back up which can get tricky in the winter

00:45:48.040 months but it is um the work is very traditional and that you know that's also to me you know that's

00:45:59.020 you know working with a spirit in itself if you're following a traditional path

00:46:03.540 um you're working with the spirit of those ancestors and you're working with the spirit of

00:46:10.640 the teachers and um I just I think it's it's one of the most important things is

00:46:17.820 for me and for my work and you know because what I do is for me very evidence-based um

00:46:25.280 I have seen the evidence that working with spirits works and it creates success

00:46:32.620 I love that you say that that you know this this notion anything in the spiritual realm when you go

00:46:40.740 outside the bubble of this podcast and the listeners who are who are not feeling skeptical

00:46:46.680 about what you're saying but when you go outside of that bubble people don't expect to hear that

00:46:51.960 that belief system I'm using quote belief because when it's evidence-based is it a belief or is it

00:46:57.780 fact, right? But that you say, like, what I do is evidence-based. Can you give an example

00:47:03.540 of some of your evidence for those who might still be on the skeptic fence?

00:47:09.540 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that one of the biggest pieces that we can all and we have

00:47:20.040 all experienced, you know, some people call it intuition, some people call it a vibe,

00:47:25.720 some people call it a download but no matter who we are and whatever walk of life we we are in

00:47:34.600 we've all felt those things you know whether it's i have a really good instinct about this business

00:47:41.420 deal um or i i've i've caught a vibe that i really should avoid this street at this time

00:47:49.860 so that's evidence right we we can we all feel that we're all very familiar with that feeling

00:47:57.420 we all just call it different things um then for me I part of what I do because I'm very

00:48:07.080 methodical in my work and this is something that I teach my students to do as well is

00:48:11.920 to write down everything. You know, when you're doing a working, what time is it?

00:48:20.400 What is the goal? What are the ingredients? What are the, how did you conjure those spirits?

00:48:29.280 What did you use to divine on it? Date, time, setting, et cetera. And then I, for me personally,

00:48:40.900 I'm very, very, very specific in my work. So I can always go back in those books. And,

00:48:49.100 you know, I did this working on this date at this time. And this is what the result was.

00:48:58.100 And because I am very specific in my work, I don't leave a lot open for chance.

00:49:03.780 If I'm doing an abundance working, I get real down to the specifics.

00:49:10.900 And I can trace that evidence.

00:49:14.960 Another thing, because I personally, for me, I divine on everything before I do it, before I do any work.

00:49:22.640 So I take note of that divination.

00:49:25.900 And that is also a really good tool, because if divination is telling you, hey, this isn't the time, or this isn't going to go the way you want it to, or this isn't a spiritual task.

00:49:38.000 this is something that you need to actually get up and do in the physical realm um then I can

00:49:45.380 always go back and um look over that divination you know I think we're all um in our own ways

00:49:56.060 you know we're all writing recording grimoires right and if we take ourselves as

00:50:08.060 and see ourselves as important as we see you know Agrippa or any of these other big figures

00:50:14.840 um we'll realize that we are just as um connected to spirit and you can absolutely trace that

00:50:24.840 evidence with through your recordings I think there's oh here comes another friend

00:50:32.180 oh my god they they just keep getting cuter and cuter it's like

00:50:36.040 um I wanted to say I think that you know you you have said that we are never alone

00:50:47.380 when when we have some connection to the spiritual world we are never alone and I think

00:50:52.560 a practical side of that is that you know in our 21st century it seems like loneliness has become

00:50:59.980 an epidemic yeah so can you sort of talk our listeners through relinquishing loneliness and

00:51:10.320 accepting that we are not alone and how to even access that that knowledge or that feeling yeah

00:51:17.860 so i i started to realize that we weren't alone pretty young um i would see hear smell

00:51:28.300 things people that shouldn't be there um and i started to think about how

00:51:40.820 interesting that was you know that we or I personally had felt like I owned a room

00:51:50.000 you know I walked into a space and I was of course the only person there well it's kind of silly

00:51:58.180 right but it's what we've been programmed to believe so after my sister was killed I

00:52:10.300 I started to ask her very specifically for messages for show me you know show me that

00:52:20.540 you're still here so she everywhere I would go for about a year after my sister was killed

00:52:27.120 there would be a yellow rose somewhere whether it be something that was literally just like

00:52:33.600 lying on the ground and it shouldn't be um I would walk into a building and there'd be a

00:52:40.300 giant bouquet of yellow roses um you know for or people would send us flowers you know bereavement

00:52:48.680 flowers and there would be yellow roses in those bouquets um so that really got me interested in

00:52:57.620 what an actual practice around that looks like and that's one of the reasons that I'm so

00:53:03.460 dedicated to ancestor veneration now um now when my dad was when we found out that my dad was dying

00:53:12.960 um he and i made a deal that whoever died first we would uh come back and we would

00:53:22.480 um reveal some things about what the other realms look like and

00:53:29.540 I have seen and I have heard things that are could not be contributed to mental illness if I

00:53:41.700 wanted them to be you know it's it's you know

00:53:47.200 knowing and seeing and feeling my ancestors with me whenever I need to feel safer um calling them

00:54:01.000 in and you know I think people get so caught up in like oh how do you do this like what is this

00:54:07.340 big process like and it's like these people if we're talking about ancestors they were human

00:54:14.220 how would you talk to another human it doesn't have to be this crazy thing it doesn't have to be

00:54:20.860 you know a hundred white candles at you know 3 a.m on Samhain you know it's I have conversations

00:54:31.080 with my people all the time every day and I get answers you know it's one of my friends Lauren

00:54:40.680 sweetest sweetest Lauren I adore her so much she has um this way that is I think is really

00:54:48.400 accessible to people um if this is I'm calling in my grandmother um I could really use some support

00:55:00.120 on i'm fine i'm filling out an application to buy a house you know my grandmother was a property

00:55:07.040 owner she owned multiple properties if this house is it give me a tinge on the left side

00:55:15.620 you know very accessible um for me it is

00:55:23.560 you know you walk into a room and you feel a sickness

00:55:28.360 you know when I walk up to my ancestor altar at the front door of my house it feels thick

00:55:35.580 you know it feels active and you know there may be a few days so I don't make my dad his coffee

00:55:43.500 and it feels a little bit more active because it's like wait a minute we haven't chatted in

00:55:51.940 a couple of days what's going on um but once you open those that conversation with your ancestors

00:56:03.120 with the people that walk with you with spirits that walk with you it's really undeniable

00:56:12.380 it's a matter of just being okay with receiving messages it's a matter of

00:56:26.400 knowing that you're held and

00:56:33.480 it just start you know just start saying hi to people you will be surprised

00:56:41.880 at who reaches back through this communication is so important and starting conversations both

00:56:53.080 in the spiritual realm and in the material realm also uh especially around this topic of death and

00:57:00.060 this topic of grieving can be very difficult and we've talked about this before difficult to the

00:57:05.220 point where people shut down they will you you told me that after your sister died people didn't

00:57:11.840 want to look you in the eye people are almost afraid of you so from that perspective of trying

00:57:19.040 to work against our impulse to shut down when someone else is grieving outside of our own

00:57:26.440 grief but when someone else is grieving can you give us some advice about getting over that fear

00:57:33.360 you know I've been thinking about this a lot and I think so when I was 12 and my sister was killed

00:57:42.480 and I it really just knowing just someone saying I don't know what to say but I do care about you

00:57:51.400 it goes so far you know or someone saying i feel really fragile around

00:58:01.420 what's happening in your life right now i don't want to say the wrong thing

00:58:08.320 but i care about how you're feeling

00:58:11.540 it goes it really does it goes so far and just 0.97

00:58:19.840 knowing that someone even just gives a shit about what's going on in your heart 0.93

00:58:26.360 you know I think there's there's this idea that we have to know what to say 0.98

00:58:35.140 we have to have some like life-changing quote right but you don't have to say anything

00:58:43.940 and I I think it is like this expectation that we put on ourselves maybe it's you know

00:58:53.540 it's a societal expectation but

00:58:58.860 silence in knowing that other people just care about you my my niece actually my niece Nina is

00:59:10.360 so good at this she is the most soft-spoken sweet person but she'll come up to anybody 0.98

00:59:20.560 it doesn't matter who it is if she can sense that someone is hurting

00:59:24.940 she will go up to them and she'll say is it okay if I massage your hand

00:59:31.100 and she'll just massage your hand and she will

00:59:39.500 like these simple gestures this like the way that she's just not afraid to touch

00:59:48.300 you know she'll all she comes up to me and I'm she's my niece I'm her aunt right she comes up

00:59:57.260 to me and she just she touches my back in a most gentle way she won't say anything to me

01:00:05.200 but it's just such a loving gesture and she feels no pressure to fill a room with sound

01:00:14.400 so I think if people are okay with with touch or touching that's a good thing and there's other

01:00:25.500 ways to do that right without physically touching you know it's I've learned how to push out my

01:00:35.000 emotional body um and my spiritual body so that and there's there's duality in that right it's

01:00:42.060 like I can make myself if I'm walking to my car at night I can make myself appear much larger than

01:00:48.840 i actually am but if i also if i know that someone is hurting in a room i can push out

01:00:58.320 that like safety and comfort and open that invitation to come to me if you need anything

01:01:05.980 uh crystal too um told me that um death work is harm reduction

01:01:16.840 do you have a reaction to that other than the nod

01:01:22.440 listeners nodding vigorously

01:01:25.640 yeah oh man

01:01:28.620 I mean maybe I can bring someone into the circle

01:01:35.260 that could be a jumping off point for you to talk about

01:01:38.040 I would like to call in Masa Amini

01:01:40.440 this was not a good death

01:01:44.860 and the the rippling was massive yeah exponential um do you want to talk about a good death from

01:01:57.940 that perspective or or death work as harm reduction from that perspective yeah thank you

01:02:05.100 you know i

01:02:08.520 it's a big one for me i am um mostly iranian um i'm also very proudly chicana

01:02:22.760 um so what's happening in the world right now is is huge for for me and i hope for a lot of

01:02:33.340 people. I hope everybody sees what's happening. But the denial of a cared for, a loving,

01:02:46.960 a time, an appropriate time in death is, is violence in itself.

01:02:53.100 and I think that you know those folks who are more tapped in to and I think too you know with

01:03:05.600 with COVID and so many people dying who weren't necessarily supposed to all at the same time

01:03:10.880 I think that people who are tapped in can feel that

01:03:14.280 So I think that when people are given the right to live well and then to die well, it creates the spirit around that is gentle.

01:03:41.820 and it's it's still it's always painful right the loss of someone is always painful

01:03:46.560 but the spirit around that is gentle and it is

01:03:50.700 it creates a beautiful legacy that we all deserve when someone is not honored

01:04:02.200 as a sovereign being um when someone is treated with such disregard

01:04:12.000 and is just is truly stolen as she was it creates a spirit

01:04:22.540 that can be very very harmful and i'm not saying her spirit but i'm saying the spirit of the act

01:04:33.700 and in this case the spirit of the act has turned into the spirit of rebellion

01:04:41.340 and i really hope that

01:04:45.880 whatever

01:04:52.800 I hope that people are allowed

01:04:57.680 someday who are living in the 1.00

01:04:59.380 to go home 1.00

01:05:01.140 and I hope that

01:05:05.160 her name is never forgotten

01:05:07.140 I hope that she's never

01:05:09.400 forgotten and I hope that

01:05:10.860 all of the people that are

01:05:13.340 dying

01:05:15.660 and are being robbed of a good death there right now

01:05:19.720 are never forgotten.

01:05:23.040 I hope that the spirit of rebellion

01:05:25.220 can turn into the spirit of support

01:05:31.140 and the spirit of rebuilding and reimagining.

01:05:36.880 So part of the world is so, you know,

01:05:39.320 the West has such an idea

01:05:40.660 about what that part of the world looks like.

01:05:43.780 and it's not totally accurate.

01:05:47.960 So I also hope that that spirit helps to create some awareness

01:05:55.060 of what people who don't necessarily look like us live like

01:06:00.940 and how beautiful that really can be also.

01:06:05.760 how does Santa Muerta bring you comfort

01:06:13.120 so my experiences with her are also evidence-based I have some really interesting photos

01:06:21.960 um but she is always I can call on her and she is there she

01:06:35.760 oh thanks baby that was perfect she is always you left off it she is always there me out

01:06:47.760 yeah she is always there and she often shows up um

01:06:56.020 like a large figure

01:07:01.040 and I feel her walking with me at all times she also shows up as a very protective figure

01:07:12.060 she shows up you know for my husband before he was a tattoo artist he worked in a warehouse

01:07:25.020 she literally I have a photo of her 1.00

01:07:28.120 literally there

01:07:29.960 with him in the warehouse

01:07:32.000 she has

01:07:36.400 my son has said

01:07:38.300 to me mom I was

01:07:40.200 going to do this but then 1.00

01:07:42.120 I heard a woman's voice

01:07:44.300 and I didn't

01:07:45.600 and

01:07:47.880 I know it's her

01:07:49.760 and for

01:07:52.180 me too

01:07:53.240 the knowing that she is she she carries the scales of justice

01:08:00.520 so i know that in the end

01:08:05.020 she's there to make sure that we're all received you know we are all um cared for

01:08:19.220 we're all guided and she truly does guide everyone because she is deaf and she is both a fierce and

01:08:30.200 gentle spirit i'm going to keep that with me to be a fierce and gentle spirit to myself

01:08:42.960 um i i want to give you a quote from your instagram so this is your own quote if you

01:08:51.260 could read it and then kind of expand a little bit and then we'll spiral out into the night

01:08:57.540 i am not of the cosmos i am the i am of the primordial mud my bones are not filled with

01:09:07.860 sparkling dust from the stars but with algae blooms and flora and decay. So part of that is

01:09:19.540 is there's this idea that decay and mud and muck is ugly, is we should avoid it.

01:09:43.640 It's dangerous. It's diseased. We should stay away from it.

01:09:49.540 But without all of that, none of this life and abundance can exist.

01:09:58.240 And I think that, you know, in that, there's also been this unfortunate,

01:10:10.460 everything is stardust.

01:10:13.600 Everything is, and it's like, okay, sure.

01:10:17.460 however let's really let's really dismantle where that comes from

01:10:24.100 you know let's really pick apart the the need to be not

01:10:39.100 like to be more than human

01:10:41.740 you know there's I could go on for hours about this but there is

01:10:50.620 being human is such yes there is suffering there is pain there is loss there is grief

01:11:00.800 but it's such a damn gift to be alive and I'm so grateful to be human and I am

01:11:11.640 so grateful that when my body is done doing its work here I will then decay with the flora 0.95

01:11:26.000 you know I will go back and you know what else the spirit and memory and all of that will live on

01:11:36.100 but I don't want to be outside of this beautiful planet you know I want my body to just

01:11:48.520 go back and I'm okay with not being you know this celestial body I don't want that

01:11:59.500 And I also, you know, I really, I hope that we can think about things in ways to where

01:12:11.460 we can start to think about where did this idea come from?

01:12:15.340 What is the root of this?

01:12:18.180 You know, in the, I think for people who are,

01:12:29.500 For people of color, I think there is sometimes this idea that we have to be big and extra and, you know, we have to go above and beyond or else we won't be seen equally or we won't be seen as heavenly.

01:12:56.320 and really where we come from and what our customs are and what our lineages is so connected

01:13:09.980 and for all of us you know not just people of color but we're also what our lineages is so

01:13:16.180 connected with the earth and with this place that we often and myself included take for granted

01:13:24.440 but I'm glad to be here yeah and that's um I mean there are so many things that I love so deeply

01:13:36.220 about you but one of one of the biggest is that there's this sort of like misconception that

01:13:45.740 to be preoccupied with death to be a death witch is somehow nihilistic

01:13:51.580 and you're always demonstrating the opposite of that like you are the death witch and so

01:13:58.320 full of life and the gratitude for life and the extension of life past what we understand as life

01:14:06.680 you are also a life witch thank you I love you so much thank you so much for being here again

01:14:17.360 with me tonight um for our listeners who inevitably want to get to know you better

01:14:22.920 what's the best way to follow you or learn about you or in fact to purchase the goods

01:14:28.440 that you make yeah pictures so i am on instagram um at the death witch i have a little online shop

01:14:39.980 um the death witch dot black not dot com I didn't know dot black was a thing until I saw your

01:14:49.300 website and I was like perfect I know I really lucked out I had no idea either um you can find

01:14:58.220 me there um you can find me you can find me if if there's anything that i have anything i can say

01:15:11.900 anything i can do i'm pretty accessible on there um i teach on occasion at ritual craft school

01:15:19.520 um in denver colorado in denver yeah in denver colorado um we're wrapping up a year of study

01:15:28.440 um got 20 20 students wrapping up a year of study um and then i don't know we'll see we'll see what

01:15:38.200 happens after that we'll see what the future holds yeah before i let you go i i want to ask

01:15:44.980 you to give my deep deep love to anita i know that you'll be talking to her very soon and um

01:15:51.520 i'm happy to exist in the universe with you thanks so much loretta

01:15:55.260 i love you so much i'm so happy to exist with you as well thank you

01:15:59.860 hi carla hello thank you so much for coming back and sitting back down with me again to grieve the

01:16:13.980 loss of the recording of our first conversation, but to have a new one, to have new life grow

01:16:21.260 from the soil that is our first conversation. So the only of our listeners who have met you before

01:16:29.640 were the ones who were lucky enough to be there live during the lost conversation.

01:16:34.180 So can you introduce ourselves? Can you introduce yourself to our listeners who haven't met you

01:16:41.660 before? Yes. So I'm Carla and I am an end of life coach and death doula or death midwife or

01:16:51.240 thana doula. There's so many different titles and I like them all. Honestly, I haven't decided on

01:16:56.260 exactly which one I want to go by, but they're all beautiful names for walking people through

01:17:01.620 their last days of life and that journey. So that's what I do. And I am in the middle of a

01:17:08.300 project slash business called A Venerated Death, where I'm going to be offering my services

01:17:12.980 and hopefully get a little bit more into the realm of like normalizing death in the community,

01:17:20.940 hosting conversations around death and mortality and yeah, bringing that to the community in any

01:17:28.060 way I can. So what does that, how does that materialize? What does that look like when you're

01:17:32.740 when you're coaching someone when you're being someone's doula yeah so best case scenario and I

01:17:39.060 say best case just because I feel like there's an importance about the intimacy of getting to know a

01:17:43.320 person a client and their family so I feel like best case scenario would be that I would for

01:17:49.080 example even though there's different ways this could be introduced someone is diagnosed with a

01:17:53.860 terminal illness and they know their prognosis and their family and them want to plan for that

01:18:00.340 So let's say three months out that they want to, you know, this is what the diagnosis is.

01:18:06.220 This is what my medical team that I've spoken with my medical team about, but also there's

01:18:10.320 all these other non-medical important things like emotional, physical, spiritual, and practical

01:18:17.700 things that they want to plan for as a, just so they can know like how they want to live

01:18:22.840 their last three months of life and how that looks for them.

01:18:27.220 So we basically would sit down and discuss each sort of element of that one by one and come up with or see their vision and then try to find ways to actualize their vision so that they know and their family knows their wishes.

01:18:42.740 um and then when it would come to the time of their maybe i don't know last i don't know when

01:18:50.200 it seems like death is nearing a little bit closer then that would be me joining the family

01:18:55.220 and holding vigil for that for that transition so also advocating for the plan that they had

01:19:01.920 so making sure that the family is upholding their wishes and that's something that um i mean not to

01:19:09.440 say that families don't uphold, but you know, it can be a very emotional and even messy experience

01:19:14.280 when you're losing a loved one. So just making sure that everyone is still advocating for the

01:19:20.180 dying person, because that's really what we need to be supporting, or that's really what I do. So I

01:19:25.140 work in alignment with the patients or the client who is dying. So just making sure those things are

01:19:31.480 upheld. And then also, I don't know, doing whatever it is that their plan was, and just upholding

01:19:37.160 that through the last transitions of their life but it's really about like holding space so it's

01:19:41.500 hard to sometimes explain but it's really just holding this energetic sort of space for this

01:19:47.340 individual and um and hope that they would die with ease and and peace and i i imagine that that

01:19:55.240 sort of looks different for every client yeah and each experience i mean you can plan and i think

01:20:02.800 it's important to plan i think it's important to think about these things um because it's

01:20:06.880 inevitable and it's going to happen to all of us so I think just in general that's important to

01:20:11.300 think about but also it's not it's with the caveat that even though you plan and you can have a plan

01:20:16.820 that death is still a really mysterious thing right and it's there's a lot of unknowns and

01:20:21.720 everyone dies differently and so it's just like also having a creek a door open a little bit of

01:20:27.660 like inviting the unknown and being able to like you know embrace that too and the experience

01:20:33.380 because it's a sacred experience um the dying process and um you never know what that looks

01:20:38.960 like and like you say it's like emotional spiritual physical psychological like all of

01:20:45.120 these things are all happening at once so it's right yeah and like supporting people in that

01:20:51.760 the facts about the fact that yes we can like we don't need to die in a medical way and yes

01:20:58.640 and it's also not a judgment if you do you know it's not a judgment if you do die in a very

01:21:03.200 medical way or you die in a hospital or not all of your wishes were known or however that looks

01:21:08.200 like it's not a judgment on that but it's also like we're gonna there's facts about the way that

01:21:14.780 we die and how we review our lives in the end of our life and the things that come up emotionally

01:21:20.360 and mentally and spiritually that look very different at the end of life than maybe 10 years

01:21:27.760 before you die. Right. And so it's like making sure to, to know, to kind of have like, I don't

01:21:33.880 know, maybe like a step forward in that regard being like, what would that look like? And what

01:21:39.880 would be important at that time? And how could I be at more peace energetically and physically and

01:21:45.400 mentally at the end of my life? And these are questions that our listeners can start asking

01:21:51.460 themselves at any time, right? 100%. I mean, I do. I think it's like, it's really, I mean,

01:21:57.980 even though I was during my education about it, it was also a review of myself, you know,

01:22:02.840 and my own mortality and what the things that I want. And it was hard, honestly, like it was hard

01:22:08.340 to sit and be like, wow, like, what the way I'm living in a way and what I want at the end of my

01:22:15.000 life are not matching. And, you know, like aren't 100% together. And I don't know why I'm letting

01:22:20.840 all these other things matter so much when at the end of the day, I'm going to have my last days.

01:22:26.820 And what matters more is what I, how I am in those last days and how I represent that to my loved

01:22:32.760 ones. And, um, yeah, so I just found the whole experience to be very healing and, um, life

01:22:40.300 changing. Once you start actually like incorporating your own mortality and that one day you will die

01:22:45.280 into your everyday perspective is very, I know it's very, it's life-changing. I can't say it

01:22:52.240 in any way. How did you, what prompted you to take on this, this work? So I feel like it was

01:23:00.080 a journey of losing close people in my life. I feel like at a young age, I've always, I've

01:23:08.860 lot, we've either, I've witnessed people that I love lose people or that I, people that were

01:23:14.740 of dear to me that I've lost. And there was always something within those experiences that I felt

01:23:21.860 comfortability with. Like I was able to be like, to hold space for like my dad when he lost his

01:23:28.180 mom, even though I loved my grandma and I was very close to my grandma, it felt like I had this

01:23:33.160 ability to be able to already be holding space or being like, you know, this is scary. And this is

01:23:38.140 like, I can't believe what's happening. And there's a lot of unknowns, but for some reason,

01:23:41.800 And like, I know innately that something about this is normal and something about this is

01:23:46.960 okay.

01:23:48.980 But also the same way as that, I don't know if it's because then or now that I know so

01:23:55.300 much more about death, but I knew also I didn't like the way people were dying in my family

01:23:59.380 or like the lack of choices or the lack of communication and wishes heard or even wishes

01:24:07.020 intended, you know, which I think created a little bit more chaos in that process.

01:24:11.800 but long story short, I feel like it was my experience throughout my life that I've already

01:24:17.380 saw these little tidbits of like an inclination of like, there's something, there's, there's

01:24:21.860 something here that I'm able to facilitate that maybe I can't put my name on it or put a name on

01:24:26.520 it. And then when my dad died about six years ago in his last, like, I'd say day and a half of his

01:24:33.880 life, he kept asking me to just like, to not go and to not leave. And obviously we're close,

01:24:39.900 right? So that doesn't seem super beyond the realm of like what somebody would want at the

01:24:44.320 end of their life. But for me, it was almost as if it was that with what he was communicating with

01:24:49.800 me, which after not maybe during, but after I could see as he was telling me or giving me

01:24:57.380 insight as to what was him going through his transition at end of life. And for some reason,

01:25:02.360 he felt safe sharing that with me and holding that experience with me because what he was saying

01:25:08.900 was crazy to everyone else you know wasn't wasn't logical wasn't rational but to me it was very much

01:25:16.060 like wow he is I think he's spiritually transitioning and I think that he's letting

01:25:20.760 me know like he's he's losing grip with the physical and he's telling me about this because

01:25:25.100 he feels comfortable telling me that and then after that I I think also because of my grief

01:25:30.980 but also because of my curiosity I started researching and doing my own sort of like

01:25:35.840 reading books on end of life and listening to podcasts on end of life and just being like,

01:25:41.680 what was that? Like, what was that experience? And then I started finding that there's symptoms

01:25:46.260 in the dying process that had everything to do with what my dad was experiencing. And the fact

01:25:50.680 that I was able to share that with him really changed my perspective on, wow, maybe it's not

01:25:56.580 just this thing that I just randomly witnessed, right? But maybe it's actually something within

01:26:03.880 me that I can help. Maybe it's a way that I can help my community. Maybe it's my calling. Maybe

01:26:08.920 it's my, maybe it's where I need to be in some, like, even though I may not a hundred percent

01:26:14.300 know what that looked like, maybe I just kind of followed that and was like, I think I'm going to

01:26:18.600 try and get more educated in this way. And then I found the, uh, conscious dying Institute and

01:26:24.540 signed up. Sorry. That was really, I feel like that was a stream of consciousness.

01:26:29.720 that's what we love that's what we come here for is to record people's streams of consciousness

01:26:34.740 i we say so we'd rather you expand we want the long version you know never make a long story short

01:26:43.100 around here but i i do want to ask about i mean i think a lot of people

01:26:49.680 um were probably first exposed to the notion of like an an ancestor altar in that was it a Disney

01:27:00.460 movie um Coco Coco yes yeah is that yeah it's a really cute movie and and it was so interesting

01:27:09.480 to see these you know cultural concepts of death in children's movies especially but do you keep

01:27:17.540 an ofrenda do you have like an ancestral altar in your home i do and i actually am sitting right

01:27:23.760 next to one as well so um i have like i don't know along with like my death journey i always

01:27:30.900 like call in my ancestors so like even for something like this if i'm approaching something

01:27:34.960 where it's in that realm i'm always like cultivating that energy or calling my ancestors in and saying

01:27:40.860 you know let's talk about this let's how do we you know how do we engage or how can we connect in

01:27:45.460 this realm but I definitely I have set I have two I guess I have an altar for my dad and then I have

01:27:51.780 one upstairs in like my living room for all my family members who have passed so like my grandma

01:27:58.280 and my grandpa and um yeah I'm Hispanic my I mean all my relatives come from Mexico and Spain

01:28:04.840 so it's kind of like a mish of like Spaniard and Mexican so like my dad's side of the family is

01:28:11.640 very much like all of him all of my ancestors on that side were like are from new mexico but like

01:28:16.920 mexico new mexico when it was still part of mexico if that makes sense it does and then like um and

01:28:23.540 then obviously different parts of mexico and then my mom's side is definitely from like spain they're

01:28:28.040 all like light-skinned and blue-eyed but their last name is espinoza you know like so they're

01:28:35.460 you know we still i'm like hispanic but we have like that kind of diverse um i don't know culture

01:28:40.460 I guess so I I tend to I tend to my ancestor altar year around but definitely around this

01:28:47.200 time I'm finding myself really leaning into that and why do you think that like sugar skull

01:28:55.340 iconography became such a popular aesthetic outside of Mexico outside of Hispanic culture

01:29:03.060 huh that's interesting because that my first inclination is to be because of the Hispanic

01:29:08.320 culture and because of their honoring and their tradition you know although i i do also see it

01:29:14.200 twofold where we're not a lot of people aren't practicing that but still are like very much into

01:29:19.520 like having those sugar skulls or making sugar cells around this time i think i can only answer

01:29:24.860 it in the way that i think it's because there is a sense of that honoring and that beauty still

01:29:31.520 from cultivated from that tradition in that culture that somehow is still being represented

01:29:37.120 in our culture even though it might not be practiced the same way if that makes sense

01:29:42.240 yeah and yeah and it is beautiful like it's beautiful you know it's so colorful and it's

01:29:48.240 like fun so it's just like this wonderful crafty thing you can do but it also is like a beautiful

01:29:53.200 you know it's a piece of art that is just like I think people gravitate towards because it's like

01:29:57.980 wow look at that beautiful skull or like look at how beautiful you can make something that maybe

01:30:02.600 isn't beautiful in other aspects of life right yeah and why do you think there is like uh why

01:30:08.920 don't the northern western northern um american cultures have this similar day of the dead kind

01:30:18.720 of thing why is that missing from i feel like whitey yeah i feel like our culture and you know

01:30:29.020 it's something I think about all the time and I try to balance it without going like

01:30:33.200 super negative and to be like, Oh my God, we don't know what we're doing. And we're not,

01:30:36.980 you know, cause I, I'm not one to say, or cause I'm not, you know, I'm just not one to say

01:30:41.400 that how that all works. But in my opinion, I feel like our culture has lost the honoring and

01:30:49.180 the sacredness of, and our view and perspectives on death that we're not capable of honoring it 0.98

01:30:57.340 in that depth of beauty and of like rite of passage the way that other cultures are, because

01:31:03.800 the difference is, is we lack in acknowledgement and we lack in normal, normalizing

01:31:11.740 those, you know, those concepts and those perceptions. And, you know, it's something

01:31:18.580 that like, I, especially in this work, I struggle with because I, I feel isolated. And I know that

01:31:24.360 there's people out there. I know that people want to talk about this and I've met so many wonderful

01:31:27.800 in the death work world. So I'm not saying it's not there. I'm just saying that it is hard to

01:31:33.820 notice the lack of something that I feel is a necessity in our, you know, in our being and in

01:31:40.740 my humanness and my own human curiosities. And so I feel like that we lack that honoring because

01:31:48.460 we're scared to look at it in a lot of ways. When I spoke to Crystal she said death work is harm

01:31:56.540 reduction. Well I guess for me is that or in my perspective of death work is if we're not in a way

01:32:07.300 it's like we're doing more harm by not talking about it by not normalizing it by not making it

01:32:14.920 part of the thread of birth, life, and death. It just seems like death sort of falls off and

01:32:20.340 is kind of like washed over. So we're doing more harm by not encapsulating the three

01:32:25.440 to our, to our beings and to our culture. So I could understand, I agree a hundred percent with

01:32:33.940 that death work is the reduction of harm because I feel like it's harmful not to talk about these

01:32:40.060 things and it's harmful not to you know especially in death like experiencing death at the end of

01:32:45.580 life it's harmful for us to be operating in something that is so natural and so part of life

01:32:51.680 and to be navigating that with people who are as if they don't understand it yes it's it's so

01:33:00.840 I mean it's obviously it's like the most major thing that can happen to a person

01:33:05.780 i think i i don't usually like absolutist blanket statements but i think it's safe to say you know

01:33:12.200 but at the same time you know we don't we don't have in in this culture and other than people

01:33:19.140 like you and the people that we've been talking to in this episode you know we have lawyers who

01:33:24.360 help us navigate the legal system we have doctors who help us navigate you know our bodies and

01:33:29.780 medical system but the further we have wedding planners and you know and it's like these huge

01:33:36.620 industries but death work funerals I put aside funerals are like a capitalist

01:33:42.660 endeavor at this point in our culture I think maybe you can speak to that if you want to but

01:33:49.160 like let it be known that you know if you go into debt and bankrupt your family like the the dead

01:33:56.240 person doesn't want that your loved one does not want you to do that I don't care

01:34:00.000 yeah I mean I think yeah sorry you were on a thought um I mean I think the thought was just

01:34:12.100 going to like why why are we so afraid of this thing that is you so universal and so inevitable

01:34:19.600 is it just the finality is it our own egos I think it's yes to both and I think though again

01:34:30.220 speaking from a culture I think that we have hidden death from our from ourselves our death

01:34:36.480 is so hidden in our culture that it also it's like I don't know it it like adds more fire to

01:34:45.460 if you do whatever fears you have about death and if you do think it is the final act and there's

01:34:51.980 nothing outside of that and or that it's painful or that it's all of these things right and these

01:34:58.380 are all like assumptions I mean they're even assumptions for me because I mean obviously I'm

01:35:02.640 alive so I've never died so I can't give you advice I'm like what you know like what that is

01:35:07.740 but they're assumptions right so like we're living in these assumptions and then the fact that

01:35:12.820 death is not normalized in the way of when grandpa dies he's he died in the hospital

01:35:21.320 he went to the funeral home and then last time I saw him he was either embalmed in a casket

01:35:26.840 or he was in a in a beautiful urn right but we don't see what happens in between like we don't

01:35:34.620 see and some people don't even see what that last those last moments were like they didn't see him

01:35:40.080 take his last breath they didn't see him in his moments you know who they don't know they can only

01:35:45.080 assume right and people don't tend to want to go into those experiences even if it is a loved one

01:35:51.020 and even if they do actually I feel like if they do they are like pleasantly surprised on how normal

01:35:57.500 that is and like how normal it is to see a normal natural dead body or you know and be in that space

01:36:04.480 in your line of work you're you're there like you say to advocate for the dying but I imagine

01:36:09.520 you do a lot of work with the people who are surrounding this dying person as well and they

01:36:16.160 have fair especially when you're a family member connected and depending on how close that

01:36:21.080 relationship is their needs and their wants sometimes are very different than the person

01:36:25.800 that's dying and the person who's dying can't advocate them for themselves the way that they

01:36:31.600 would in a normal sense and then like the family dynamics come in and you know how and then their

01:36:37.400 own spiritual beliefs might come in and the expectations around that and the dying.

01:36:43.140 So it's, it's very, it's, it could be a messy situation just because it's so, we're all

01:36:51.380 so heightened in like, there's a loss, like we're losing them.

01:36:55.120 I can't, you know, and everyone's cycling their own ideas around that.

01:37:00.080 Right.

01:37:01.200 But then if we can all, I feel like in moments when it is heightened or it is a messy, I

01:37:07.020 feel like just acknowledging what's going on in the room for a moment. So like my job isn't to

01:37:13.160 tell them how to behave around each other or to change their family dynamics or to heal their

01:37:18.640 family. Like my job is not, I'm really not, I'm not a member of that. And so therefore my opinion

01:37:24.520 really is not, you know, I'm not advocating for my opinion on how that should be. But I feel like

01:37:30.260 what has been helpful in my role is pausing for a moment and saying out loud what's happening in

01:37:37.980 the room. Like maybe we should all just take a deep breath and I'm feeling like there's a lot

01:37:43.640 of anger in the room, or I'm feeling like there's a lot of unheard feelings or, you know, just like,

01:37:50.300 can we all just pause, you know? And it's interesting, even in the highest of intensity

01:37:55.820 of emotion, even if that is anger. It's amazing how receptive people are to that in that

01:38:02.320 circumstance, because it's also like, oh yeah, right. I need to pause. Like I'm getting, you

01:38:08.440 know, I need to get a hold of myself, not because I'm supposed to behave in a certain way, but

01:38:13.900 because like, you know, at the end of the day, we're all, we're all experiencing this. We're

01:38:20.260 all losing dad or we're all losing mom and at the end of the day we want them to be happy on their

01:38:26.140 last day and if I can't facilitate and have at like helping that then I need to step out or I

01:38:33.400 need to go and do something for myself and then return and you know so it's kind of like it's an

01:38:39.280 interesting it's an interesting thing to be in the room with those things at play maybe this is like

01:38:46.540 too philosophical of a question, but how do you perceive the grieving process is different

01:38:54.200 between the dying and the beloved of the dying? Oh, I feel like

01:39:02.180 it's similar in the way that they're both recognizing a loss. So the dying is recognizing

01:39:12.760 their loss of life and their participation in that. Right. But depending on what's going on

01:39:18.380 with them, that might not be that evident, depending on if they're suffering or if they're

01:39:21.960 very ill and they're like, you know, sometimes the dying is ready. They're ready to transition.

01:39:27.880 They're ready to go. But the family is also grieving over a loss, but depending on what's

01:39:37.080 been talked about and what's been planned and how everyone is feeling about whatever journey that is

01:39:42.300 for their family and how much that's been, I guess, negotiated and talked about even throughout

01:39:49.400 their lives or even in that moment. The grief is sometimes a lot of, this is my fault, you know,

01:39:57.280 carrying the burden of, this is my fault. I didn't do this good enough. Or if he would have just

01:40:03.460 stopped smoking at this time and I wouldn't have let, you know, I'm just giving examples, but,

01:40:07.560 you know, like taking on the process of their dying to themselves because it's so hard to feel

01:40:15.780 that rawness of my person is dying, this person that means so much to me. I'm not, you know,

01:40:21.540 I can't imagine what that is. I don't like this unknown. So I think their grief is tenfold in a

01:40:28.540 lot of ways, the people that are left behind, because the dying can't, is going to, is going

01:40:35.600 to transition and the body believe it or not knows how to die and if it's their time they're

01:40:40.960 gonna they're gonna do that regardless if somebody's holding them here as long you know as

01:40:47.000 long as if they're like no he's gonna get better he's gonna get better it's it's their time we will

01:40:50.800 our bodies know what to do and so I think that the difference is is that the grief of the living

01:40:59.880 is tenfold compared to the person that's dying when we last spoke you

01:41:06.940 I'm just conjuring the moment but it was such a beautiful moment because we were you know we

01:41:15.500 we were talking about the practicality of death and you know all these different subjects but it

01:41:20.660 was you who brought us back to this notion that uh grief is like proportionate to love

01:41:27.580 how much we loved a person will will be proportionate to how much we grieve so in a

01:41:35.020 sense like it is the other side of that coin and I think the words that you used were grief is the

01:41:42.560 depth of me so can you say those words and then carry on with several more sentences

01:41:50.560 yeah so grief is the absolute depth of me like I've not I have not sensed my full self and my

01:42:00.400 fullness in life until I found how deeply I can grieve and then I meet it on the other side of

01:42:10.220 coming out of my grief maybe at times and recognizing in a different aspect maybe in

01:42:16.120 relation to someone that I've lost or whatever that is that I'm grieving, the amount of love

01:42:22.340 and the capacity that that has filled my life. And it's almost like they're working together.

01:42:28.260 Like they're, they're very different things, but they're one in the same as far as I love this

01:42:35.640 thing and this thing, I loved it so much. And I was so open to that love that I encapsulated it.

01:42:40.840 I like, I, you know, I let it take me, I let it take over me because it was almost like it wasn't

01:42:47.080 a choice because you just, you know, you, because that's what love is. It's like, it's an ability

01:42:51.540 that we have that we connect with, that connects us with so many different things. And when

01:42:56.940 you're just not always cognizant of how open you are to it. Right. And then you lose something that

01:43:04.020 gave you that experience in life. And then all of a sudden you realize, wow, I loved that thing

01:43:09.620 with just so much fullness and now I don't have a connection to it that makes me profoundly sad

01:43:17.060 that makes me hurt physically that makes my heart hurt that makes my being hurt that makes me

01:43:22.460 function differently you know so it's intense and it's hard and I you know but I think also

01:43:32.580 it's part of us it's part of life it's part of our our ability to connect and I think that if I

01:43:39.060 would choose grief or connection you know I would choose connection I even if it comes with grief

01:43:45.220 if it comes with grief then I accept because I think that connecting is healing and wonderful

01:43:53.000 and also part of our I think it's part of our genetic makeup like at me living breathing human

01:44:01.140 being means that I want to connect with people. And so I, yeah. I love that you said love is an

01:44:09.420 ability. Yeah, I think so. And not one that you choose all the time. It's not like, oh, I'm going

01:44:17.320 to love, like, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to love this person. Or it's like, you only realize

01:44:23.780 how open you are to it when you recognize it, right? And you don't have to lose someone to

01:44:28.360 recognize it. And you shouldn't wait until you lose someone to recognize it, but you do

01:44:35.280 definitely recognize it at the time of loss. And that looks so different for everyone. And

01:44:41.520 it's a process and it's not, all right, you've, you've grieved for a year, get over it, you know,

01:44:48.100 like, or, you know, it's no longer, you need to move on. And it's like, no, like I lost my dad

01:44:52.740 six years ago. And there's times when I feel nothing and I want to feel something. And I'm

01:44:58.320 like, why am I feeling something? Do I not miss him? Am I not grieving? You know, it gets like

01:45:02.760 this weird thing, but then there'll be something super random and it'll send me to pieces. And I

01:45:09.680 will be like, I do miss you. I'm like, you know, there's something in me that I don't get to

01:45:16.520 explore anymore because you're no longer in my life because you're no longer a physical presence.

01:45:21.100 right? And then going back to ancestor altars, I feel like that's the importance of my ancestor

01:45:25.700 altar is that I can feed that relationship, that non-physical relationship. And now that

01:45:32.020 spiritual relationship that I have, because I believe that that exists. And I believe that

01:45:37.660 even though my loved ones are no longer physically with me, I can feel them so big and so much around

01:45:44.460 me at certain times of my life yeah like Loretta says we're never alone yeah I loved that I love

01:45:51.780 what she said yeah yeah it's always good to see Loretta she's like a force of nature

01:45:57.920 and it was she who introduced us to you yeah I know and I'm so grateful we're doubly grateful

01:46:05.080 to her and her wonders thank you so much Carla it's always a joy to see you I'm sure our listeners

01:46:13.640 will want to follow you learn more about you support you in whatever way they can so how

01:46:19.280 what's the best way for them to find you yeah so my instagram handle is carla underscore thanadula

01:46:26.260 and also i am available by email at carla at avenerateddeath.com and of course all of this

01:46:33.840 will be in the show notes thank you so much carla i wish you a good a good death many many

01:46:39.880 many many years of the future you as well thank you

01:46:44.120 i have the correct correct pronunciation of your last name now

01:46:49.740 what were you saying before oh alberto you're like i'm angela alberto

01:46:58.240 all right yeah that's just the pronunciation of southern new jersey so 0.89

01:47:03.240 who the fuck knows like what the real pronunciation is um actually fun story 0.59

01:47:10.380 this is a total sidebar my our last name is actually a common first name in italy 0.98

01:47:17.740 alberta yeah totally and we got that last name because my great-grandfather was dropped off

01:47:27.160 at an orphanage in a basket and they didn't know where he came from or who dropped him off

01:47:34.120 there's some like family murmurs of what potentially happened but since they didn't

01:47:39.940 have like a last name for him they gave him the last name like the governor at the time's first 0.88

01:47:45.280 name as a last name do you know why they chose the governor i don't fucking of all people i have 0.88

01:47:52.660 no idea no clue so much is lost about like that you know we know the American history so to speak 0.87

01:47:59.180 like from the time we arrived in the 20s but like not much beyond like when they came to Ellis

01:48:04.920 Island so this actually leads me really nicely into one of my questions but first um can you

01:48:11.880 tell our listeners oh who am I who you are and then I'm gonna ask the question yeah

01:48:19.420 um my name is Angela Alberto and I am originally from New Jersey the Lenape land

01:48:29.780 um Philadelphia area and I moved here to Portland Oregon

01:48:34.780 and I live on unceded land of Chinook and Tualatin peoples I still live here today

01:48:41.460 um what am I gonna say I always get caught up on the introduce yourself

01:48:48.120 yeah you can say heartwise woman yeah you can say death do a lot i am a death midwife i have

01:48:57.420 um a website called heartwisewoman.com where you can find out more of what i do

01:49:02.600 and i became a death midwife in 2020 i studied with a little arthur of going with grace

01:49:09.840 and narinder bazin bazin bazin forgive me narinder i never remember how to say your last name um

01:49:17.620 Alberto Alberto. Yeah, whatever. Of Nine Keys Death Midwifery. And my specialty is working with

01:49:26.800 and educating parents, teachers, educators, caregivers on how to talk with kids about death.

01:49:33.400 So my background is I was a school teacher for about eight years. And then I switched to death

01:49:40.680 midwifery, which is not really a job. It's a calling. And we are all death midwives in some

01:49:45.700 capacity, especially witches. And this is what brings me here today to talk with Amy and Missing

01:49:54.380 Witches about death and dying and anything else in between all that. You said before that grief

01:50:03.620 as a teacher please expand I think it's a it can be a hard thing to comprehend grief being a teacher

01:50:18.280 because grief can like utterly shatter your world in all the ways right like I think that's why it's

01:50:29.620 a teacher because it opens us up. You can't hide from it when you're in grief. You have to walk

01:50:39.700 with it. It's not something to ignore. It teaches you, or in my, you know, let's say in my case,

01:50:47.780 for example, it teaches me all the ways that I numb out or use substances or sleep when I'm in

01:50:57.320 grief. Side note, all those things are okay. As long as you know, you're doing it. Oh, I'm in

01:51:04.900 grief. I'm going to have some wine. Oh, I have a lot of grief right now. I'm going to eat Cheetos,

01:51:10.740 like whatever, you know, but have awareness of what you're doing. Be safe with your grief,

01:51:16.420 so to speak. I guess when I say be safe, like if you know you're an alcoholic, do your best to not

01:51:22.400 drink i don't know that's a hard thing to say anyway or you know put put some boundaries on it

01:51:28.380 you know i'm allowed to grieve but not all day yeah i'm allowed to drink wine for my grief but

01:51:34.220 not all day yes exactly exactly thank you yes um so i think grief is it teaches us and it it um

01:51:44.040 it makes you have to look at yourself all aspects of yourself um and i think more of us are in grief

01:51:51.480 and we realize we could have grief about the environment, grief about the state of our 0.98

01:51:57.960 fucking world. Yes, I think grief is a teacher and it often, here's, okay, it often gets compared 0.97

01:52:08.460 to like the seven stages of grief, right? I don't even know, five stages, whatever Elizabeth

01:52:14.500 Kubler Ross wrote about. Most people apply that to their grief, right? There's denial, there's

01:52:22.920 anger, there's acceptance. What you may not know is that those were written for people who were

01:52:29.160 dying. So those were written for people who were on hospice. Those were written for people who had

01:52:34.220 a terminal illness. And the rest of society thought, oh, those are for us who are grieving

01:52:39.360 the death of our loved one no it's a circle right grief is like something that is always going to be

01:52:46.960 as long as you're living you're going to carry grief in some way so make friends with it see

01:52:52.920 it as a teacher get to know it don't be afraid of it let's go back to ellis island

01:53:01.820 absolutely and the original albertos yes so italians are stereotypically let's use the

01:53:12.820 word stereotypically quite open about grief quite demonstrative about grief i read this one

01:53:20.200 story where um her grandfather when he was on his deathbed there were 30 people there

01:53:26.420 oh so I'm wondering like if in some like you know visible way or invisible way um like how

01:53:35.880 your Italian-American-ness has influenced your perception of death and grief I had my aunt

01:53:43.980 once tell me because there was a lot of like deaths that I went to like funerals that I

01:53:50.100 attended as a kid right and and on both sides of the family my mom's side is Polish Ukrainian

01:53:55.400 and Hungarian my dad's side is all Italian so there's like these two

01:53:59.620 uh you know not separate ways but different cultures all combining um 0.99

01:54:06.940 my aunt when I was young I remember her telling my sister and I like make sure you go home and

01:54:14.740 eat something and I thought that was really funny and we were like well why and she's like because

01:54:19.940 after a funeral you always have to eat something and I think that's really

01:54:25.860 a beautiful thing because there is this grounding that has to happen and food can

01:54:32.580 be such a grounding thing for ourselves. I think my parents tried to shield me from death a lot

01:54:44.420 as most parents do. And it's, okay, there are these women in Sardinia. I think I'm saying that 1.00

01:54:58.840 correctly. Sardinia. It's the southern part of Italy and they are hired whalers. They whale at

01:55:05.040 funerals. And I feel like my family did not have that and I wish they did. I want to bring back

01:55:14.120 wailing in all the forms, in all the ways, at all the funerals, at all the moments where you need to

01:55:21.360 wail. I think that may have happened for a lot of people that came here to the States, you know,

01:55:29.900 in ways where they were, they chose to forget their heritage because they wanted to fit in.

01:55:35.440 but I feel my ancestors behind me in my death work and I feel when I'm in a death space they

01:55:47.180 tell me what to do they tell me to hum or whistle or sway they tell me what to eat

01:55:55.520 I think there's a lot of knowledge that we hold within ourselves but if we get quiet and listen

01:56:03.900 they, they will point us in the direction that we need to go. You know, I wish I could say like,

01:56:09.860 yeah, my Italian American family, like, you know, held on to all their customs. They didn't know

01:56:14.280 them. My dad, he was the youngest of six. He didn't know. He knows his dad was a butcher and

01:56:20.480 a hard worker. And he remembers, um, working with my dad at a very young age or working with his,

01:56:28.560 my grandfather, his dad, um, you know, a lot of bootstrapping, pull yourself up by your bootstraps

01:56:37.160 in our family, for sure. I think that's a lot of us who had relatives, um, that moved here with not

01:56:44.900 much. Again, Amy, I always feel like I'm all over the fucking place when we do these, but you know 0.72

01:56:49.980 what? I'm just going to embrace that. And I hope what I'm saying, you know, sparks something in 0.97

01:56:56.000 somebody in our sweet coven we don't have to be on a train of thought here like trains have these

01:57:04.120 tracks and they're laid we're like helicopters of thought and that's how we like it like a dragonfly

01:57:10.760 yeah so you said like your your parents tried to shield you from death and maybe part of that is

01:57:21.420 like a self-imposed or society-imposed assimilation into this kind of puritanical

01:57:28.380 american stoicism yeah you say you know you say i'm sorry for your loss you hug or shake their

01:57:37.060 hands those who are standing at the casket and you you know you continue down the line you say 0.98

01:57:41.840 a prayer and that's it where's the whaling where's the fucking falling to the knees you gotta get 0.97

01:57:48.020 that grief out of your body so is this why you went into death work especially as it relates to 0.99

01:57:56.080 children no um I think that came about like just because of who I am like I'm you know I'm a dancer

01:58:04.440 I'm someone who's loud I I believe our bodies are wise um but one of the reasons it's actually from

01:58:12.520 my mom's side of the family um her parents died when she was 10 and 12 two years apart from one 0.96

01:58:19.680 another in the 19 uh I guess it was late 1950s early 1960s and nobody like there weren't fucking 0.86

01:58:31.820 therapists she remembers the nun at school handing her a prayer card that was like a piece of palm 0.73

01:58:41.180 that supposedly touched the cross where jesus died and just heard the nun saying i'm sorry for 0.93

01:58:46.880 your loss to a fucking 10 year old like what it's heartbreaking so yes i work with children and yes 0.96

01:58:59.460 like i have like my education and my papers you know my fucking certifications but this it's much 1.00

01:59:05.940 deeper than this it's like being a kid and like seeing how the death of my grandparents affected 0.95

01:59:11.800 my mom like at times bless my mother I adore her with all both of our faults and everything right

01:59:19.540 um but it was at times it was like being raised by a teenager because she was you know like she

01:59:27.620 didn't have certain skills that you learn from parents and yes she had her aunt and uncles raise

01:59:32.240 her and you know thank goodness um and she did the best she could but as I aged I saw like holy 0.93

01:59:42.300 fuck my mom needed way more support she's still carrying that grief and it has not been tended to 0.95

01:59:50.220 in my opinion now I'm not my mother she may say otherwise but um that's that's you know I thought 0.99

01:59:59.780 when I got into this work that I'd be, like, working with people who were, like, elderly.

02:00:04.120 No, my work is all focused on kids who lose loved ones, whether it's a pet,

02:00:11.520 whether it's a grandparent, a parent, like, they need support, they're growing.

02:00:18.500 Kids take on all these, if you don't talk about it with them, they'll make up their own reasons as

02:00:26.440 to why certain things happened or didn't happen right like they need to have a an outlet to talk

02:00:32.120 and to to share I think kids also tend to blame themselves and when it's something that huge you

02:00:40.040 really need to be specifically intentional about like stopping that but yep a lot of parents are

02:00:49.040 they think they're protecting their children as I'm sure your parents did sure by not talking to

02:00:53.840 them about scary things so let's break the cycle right here how do we talk to kids about death

02:01:01.200 what are what are some entry points for terrified parents or other people who have children in their

02:01:09.280 life that they love absolutely um well first all the kids in the world at this point have lived

02:01:16.840 through COVID, right? So they, whether you know or not, they have heard death is around them. They

02:01:24.920 have heard that people have died because of COVID, because of sickness. Some of them may not even

02:01:31.100 understand, you know, that COVID is something that typically kids are okay with, right? Like,

02:01:39.060 it affects everybody, but it can affect people with, you know, respiratory problems, et cetera,

02:01:47.540 et cetera, all that stuff. But let me back up to what your question is. How do parents,

02:01:57.120 how do caregivers talk to their kiddos in their life about death and dying?

02:02:01.360 um i take like of course my brain goes to like teacher angela and like beginning to use the

02:02:13.900 word death in very simple ways the leaves are dying right it's fall time the leaves are dying

02:02:22.360 and when they die on the ground and they decompose they're going to nourish the earth again

02:02:27.080 right that's a really simple way to use the word death and it does not mean like the death of like

02:02:33.760 a dog or like someone who's super loved in the family or whatever um so finding ways to work in

02:02:40.260 the word death and dying with your kiddos in simple simple ways start there if you are experiencing

02:02:48.980 an illness in your family or a loved one does die. Let me break this in the two parts.

02:02:59.040 If a loved one has already died, allow your child and like entertain their questions and let them

02:03:07.440 ask questions. Share your favorite stories about your loved one. Share them 20 times,

02:03:14.800 as many times as the kid asks, share these stories. Remember your loved ones by talking

02:03:20.260 about them. If someone is having, it does have an illness, let's say, and let's say it's cancer,

02:03:30.800 I don't know. But you know that they're on hospice. You can talk with your child about

02:03:38.260 what that looks like about what hospice is about what cancer is you can be honest with them and

02:03:45.120 you can come up with very age-appropriate ways to say cancer is an illness you cannot catch

02:03:53.380 it is something that uncle David's body produced and it's something that most likely will

02:04:01.920 make his death happen. And in the meantime, we get to hang out with Uncle David.

02:04:09.780 You might see some, you know, you could talk about, you might see some medical equipment

02:04:13.980 around him. You know, we can discuss what those look like. We can look them up on the internet

02:04:19.140 before we go to their house. He might be tired, but you can still talk to him. You can still love

02:04:25.480 him you can you know normalizing normalizing this through conversation there's a really great place

02:04:34.980 in Portland that I highly highly recommend called okay first off coven hear me say this I want to 0.76

02:04:41.400 fucking work here at this place and I've applied like four times and for some reason they just

02:04:46.320 haven't hired me yet but it's called the Dougie Center and they're the national center for grieving 0.99

02:04:52.380 children and families. And they have a ton of resources that are free. So like, let's say you

02:04:59.600 have a 13 year old and the 13 year old knows somebody who died by suicide. You could go to

02:05:04.920 the Dougie center and look up resources on how can you talk with your kids about this? And it's

02:05:10.020 not like long ass paragraphs. It's like bullet points to the point, a lot of like really good 0.59

02:05:15.940 information that you can kind of keep, you know, in your, in your mind or keep, you know, wherever

02:05:20.960 in your bathroom so you can like talk with your child about these things um i highly recommend

02:05:27.180 checking out the dougie center i love this place i'm actually going to start volunteering there

02:05:31.980 this winter but um they have a website yes it's dougie center or dougie d-o-u-g-y.org

02:05:40.700 we'll put that in the show notes everybody yes please do it's it's a beautiful

02:05:45.240 and all their offerings are free to the community so if you live in portland and

02:05:50.260 you're experiencing a loss you can just go to the doggie center and like your child gets to play with

02:05:55.920 other children who lost a parent from cancer like all age and they're like eight they're grouped in

02:06:01.140 age right so it's like six to nine nine to twelve you know so it's like your peers and that's the

02:06:07.600 most healing things for kids too especially teenagers is like being around their peers

02:06:11.620 so they don't feel so lost in all this anyway that was a little side note there

02:06:18.000 no that's that's excuse me like what an excellent resource yep we'll definitely try to put our

02:06:25.700 attention there the dougie center yes yeah and their website has all of this because it's specific

02:06:32.680 like you say it's like yep how do i contend with this specific situation and they have advice for

02:06:38.280 that yep absolutely absolutely do you have any um rituals around death that are specific to this

02:06:45.300 time of year uh it's so funny amy no like it's all i'm so immersed in death all the time like 0.78

02:06:56.920 all the fucking time like it's just what i think about and i forget that like 0.89

02:07:00.760 people could be unnerved by my you know what do you do i'm a deaf midwife and i'm like so cheery 0.98

02:07:08.060 about it they're like oh and I'm like I helped kids through death like you know they're like

02:07:14.580 Jesus Christ like um so I just I'm so I'm just in it all the time I think I know I make an effort

02:07:24.340 like around Halloween um Salon to make like a really nice big meal you know like I like to

02:07:34.120 cook I'm a kitchen witch so I like to make a big meal and I always feed my ancestors but I'll like

02:07:40.940 make an effort to like feed I mean I do this too I feed the land spirits like I literally like throw

02:07:46.560 food in my yard like different spots you're like your relatives like make sure you eat

02:07:55.620 exactly um but you're doing that all year round yeah I mean I do it all the time I guess it just

02:08:05.300 feels different during this time frame because it does feel like the veil is thinner and maybe

02:08:11.880 that's like some ancient knowledge that like winter's coming and there's a lot of death that

02:08:16.300 happens in the winter even now and like it of course it happened back when we were you know

02:08:21.960 growing our own food and hunting hunting food and whatnot um but the veil feels thinner so it feels

02:08:29.180 more um important to do the to feed the land spirits to feed the ancestors to cook a good meal

02:08:37.880 to start freezing like your kitchen stock for soups and stuff right so you have food for the

02:08:44.260 winter. Um, as Lou, the death, which says like nothing is mundane, you know, like everything's

02:08:53.960 a ritual and it's true. It's so very true. Yes. A lot of death midwives and maybe people who are

02:09:05.540 not death midwives who don't identify as that, um, I suggest playing around with creating a space

02:09:14.820 like a small death altar, right? What does that feel like for you? What does it feel like to

02:09:22.340 light a candle for death once a day? Is that scary? Is that nourishing? Is that acknowledgement?

02:09:30.480 you know um it's really can be a beautiful thing to have a daily ritual for death and I don't mean

02:09:40.360 death like the act of but I mean like the angels of death the whatever death is for you right for

02:09:47.500 me it's angels but that's my my take I went to an event that you hosted that I think you were

02:09:54.900 calling like a living funeral yeah yeah yeah and I was there but obviously our listeners weren't

02:10:02.900 so can you give like a very brief rundown of of what an event like that looks like

02:10:09.160 and what you hope people get out of it

02:10:13.100 so it was um you attended a virtual living funeral which is um well it was virtual

02:10:24.860 so it was on a computer on zoom it's i think this is in 2020 um and basically

02:10:32.720 it's about a two-hour ceremony ritual um whatever you want to call it and the first part is

02:10:44.360 you know grounding centering etc and then you write your last words on a piece of paper

02:10:51.620 and you're invited to read them out loud and you can choose to keep yourself muted and just read

02:10:59.360 them to yourself you can choose to read them to the people who are in the ceremony with you

02:11:05.700 um and then after that there is a death meditation

02:11:11.640 and in the in the buddhist tradition it's common for buddhist practitioners to meditate with a

02:11:21.180 corpse, right? That's a very common thing. So like as they're in their, uh, training, I guess

02:11:28.300 you'd call it, they're meditating with corpses. And this is kind of the same idea, but you in

02:11:32.660 this case are the person who is dying. You are the corpse. You're becoming the corpse in this

02:11:37.280 meditation. Um, and each, it's very beautiful. Each element leaves the body, which I do believe

02:11:45.480 happens. Kind of like this, this little dance that I'm doing. And this meditation just guides

02:11:55.780 you through what that could potentially feel like. And the whole time you're learning to let go

02:12:00.100 into each new sensation that's coming up, which is essentially what meditating is.

02:12:05.240 You let go. You don't stay attached to anything. And these virtual living funerals,

02:12:12.420 some of them can be done in person like I hosted one for a friend last summer where like we did the

02:12:18.040 whole thing but we also washed her body as if she was dead and we were you know tending to her as

02:12:25.460 we would um someone who has transitioned um into the death space but the idea of this is that

02:12:35.220 you're getting in touch with your mortality you're getting in touch with the fact that like you could

02:12:40.280 die and like also anyone who's listening to this this is a brave conversation to sit in on

02:12:46.240 thank you for being here this is a brave space it's not fun to think about our own death you

02:12:53.000 know it's not supposed to be fun but there's freedom in thinking about it and that's what the

02:12:57.680 in my mind the virtual the living funerals do is they give you that glimpse into like 0.94

02:13:03.440 this is my personal opinion like none of this fucking matters like you know none of it matters 0.78

02:13:10.260 like live with love let go you know like the world's gonna keep turning after we're gone 0.98

02:13:17.660 it's it's so beautiful that we have the moments that we do here in this in this presence in this

02:13:25.180 time and like love it love it hard yes I mean we're we're all contending with our own mortality

02:13:31.760 whether we choose to think about it or not and I I loved the exercise of sort of like writing out

02:13:39.660 your last words and i want i want to share that with our listeners that um you can take a minute

02:13:47.720 and consider like if i were able you know if i had a situation where i am able to choose and

02:13:54.520 articulate my last words like what would they be and i encourage you to actually write them down

02:14:01.860 and then actually read them out loud because for me in in this space with angela um and the rest

02:14:09.680 of the group it was like one emotion for me to write the words down and then a completely other

02:14:16.600 emotion to read them out loud it was a lot more emotional for me to read them out loud than it was

02:14:22.240 to even think of them yeah so i i would encourage all of you to try that if if you're thinking about

02:14:30.340 mortality if you want to maybe get a little more comfortable with even the notion of mortality and

02:14:37.960 death in general think about what your last words might be and then say them yeah because that I

02:14:47.340 mean you're you're setting yourself up for a good death that way I think yeah absolutely absolutely

02:14:54.200 I mean you know the idea of a good death is so interesting because I think when I first started

02:15:00.160 this I was like everyone deserves a good death and they do but like the fact of it is that that

02:15:06.520 may not always happen and like what can we do to like be okay with that what can we do to change

02:15:13.220 that in certain ways you know um I think it's so much more than just saying like everyone deserves

02:15:22.160 a good death like that's truth but there's like so much more to that you know like there's there's

02:15:27.740 so much wrapped up into it at times yeah crystal said death work is harm reduction

02:15:40.380 and i think she enacts it in a different way but for you in dealing with children

02:15:49.520 children's emotions we are creating a healthier you are excuse me you are creating a healthier

02:15:58.660 future no amy we all are because this is going to spark something in somebody and just like

02:16:04.000 crystal's conversation is going to spark something like it's it's we all are because 0.84

02:16:08.660 we're in this we're fucking in this together dude and like we have to you know we have to

02:16:15.700 face these really hard things and talk about them and i think that's like i think that's i don't know 0.86

02:16:22.200 in my family of origin i was always like why are we not talking about these things you know and 0.97

02:16:26.200 they're like oh angela you have so many emotions i'm like what but wait fuck um yes it's harm 0.83

02:16:36.040 reduction i love that that's so beautiful because people don't know right they're learning the dying 0.65

02:16:41.760 process as it happens and like at the Dougie Center like they they have uh references for like

02:16:49.600 oh a friend of mine she leads the group for for children who have experiences who have

02:16:57.900 experienced violent deaths and like I I can't wrap my mind around that like I don't know how

02:17:05.340 she does it um I guess I'll learn soon if I'm going to be working with her at some point but

02:17:10.680 um and I've been thinking a lot about so let me bounce this idea off of you this is like I haven't

02:17:19.980 shared this with anybody yet and I feel hesitant saying it but I'm going to because this is a safe

02:17:24.920 space um I don't think like okay so like there's this idea that death is scary right I don't think

02:17:35.940 it's death that's scary I think the humans are the ones that are like the scary things that can

02:17:44.040 cause a scary death do you know what I mean like humans are scarier than death yes yeah yes and

02:17:53.460 like because it's not death is nothing to be afraid of it's not I think for me you know

02:18:01.400 personally in my own world there's fear of how I die sure but that's not going to be caused by

02:18:06.680 death itself it's going to be caused like by a human error or like you know who knows I don't

02:18:11.900 know we'll find out one day hopefully a long time from now but knock on wood um but that thought's

02:18:19.260 been percolating in my mind it's not death itself that's scary it's it's the potentials around it

02:18:26.480 um and i think the potential is is the thing when when someone dies it's like

02:18:33.580 what they could have done the time we could have spent with them or you know i i got to a certain

02:18:42.740 age and i never played in a rock and roll band or i never fell in love or i never you know i think

02:18:50.600 it's it's the potential and yes for for our own lives and our own mortality and also the people

02:18:58.280 around us you know grandma died that means she's not going to be there for Christmas and that that

02:19:05.480 imagining of Christmas that I had is now lost yes yes there's and there's grief in that right

02:19:13.620 there's um there's the top five regrets of the dying there was a nurse a hospice nurse who put

02:19:22.460 together um she would interview her hospice clients and she would ask them like what are

02:19:32.820 their regrets and there was always like the top five out of like thousands of people that she

02:19:38.720 worked with um and i want to read them real quick may i yes of course okay the fifth one is i wish

02:19:49.240 i had let myself be happier the fourth is i wish i had stayed in touch with my friends

02:19:56.480 the third is i wish i had the courage to express my feelings wow

02:20:04.620 i wish i hadn't number two is i wish i hadn't worked so hard

02:20:10.220 and the first one is i wish i had the courage to live a true life to myself not the life others

02:20:20.700 expected of me there's so much overlap in there and it's you know we can't control death but we

02:20:28.740 can control that how we live yeah exactly exactly i think as adults that's what we need to look at 0.82

02:20:39.020 kids are present kids do what the fuck they want right most of the time like they're already in 0.92

02:20:45.900 that space of living their best lives for the most part um even when you tell them like no you 0.97

02:20:53.940 cannot climb the window like you know but I think for us that's it is like as adults when we get out

02:21:02.540 of our kid head kids kid brain you know we have to like think about these things and how do we get

02:21:08.620 back to presence and living our best lives and living true to ourselves what does that look like

02:21:14.500 let's ask ourselves what does that look like because this is like the number one regret that

02:21:22.580 people have on their deathbeds is that they weren't expressive enough of how they felt and

02:21:27.240 they weren't true enough to themselves let's think about that yeah let's think about our last words

02:21:33.480 and if people want to reach out to you how can they do so you can email me at angela

02:21:43.240 at heartwisewoman.com you can also go to my website at heartwisewoman.com

02:21:49.320 um i also invite you to go check out my instagram page i'm not currently on i'm not active but

02:21:56.320 there's a lot of good information on it just peruse around you'll see stuff about death

02:22:00.600 midwifery you'll see stuff about um fat liberation uh anti-diet work um you'll see some horses on

02:22:08.260 there and that's also at heartwise woman yep heart heart uh is it it's heartwise.woman

02:22:16.120 on instagram yeah and we'll again those links will be in the show notes if we mess them up

02:22:22.520 thank you so much for returning to sit down with me and be in this warm

02:22:33.360 this warm and safe and brave and accepting space yeah that is of attempted fearlessness

02:22:42.420 around yes yes yes beautiful amy thank you thank you so much angela yes you're so welcome

02:22:50.620 and we won't say happy saw win maybe but we'll say grateful saw win we'll say connected saw win

02:22:59.200 we'll say never alone saw win we'll say harm reduction saw win we will know that grief is

02:23:07.700 the depth of us and that you can't have grief without love loving sawwin i think we hit it 0.99

02:23:15.500 a loving halloween to you all love you guys bless the fucking me bless the fucking me 1.00

02:23:22.700 you must be a witch 1.00

02:23:26.920 the missing witches podcast is created by resa dickens and amy torok

02:23:32.760 with insight and support from The Coven

02:23:35.700 at patreon.com slash missingwitches.

02:23:39.360 Amy and Risa are the co-authors of Missing Witches,

02:23:42.400 Reclaiming True Histories of Feminist Magic,

02:23:45.280 which is available now

02:23:46.400 wherever you get your books or audio books.

02:23:49.380 And of New Moon Magic,

02:23:51.320 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-enchantment,

02:23:56.340 coming fall 2023.

Missing Witches - October 31, 2022

Samhain 2022： Grief Is A Dancer, A Teacher. Grief Is Spiralling, It Is The Depth Of Me

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