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Ep. 4 - Walking the Labyrinth with Rebekah Dawn
321 Plays1 year ago
Once upon a time, a scientist and an artist came together to open magical, wondrous portals into the underworld, and now they want you to come explore the labyrinth along with them!
In this episode of "Midnight Water: Dialogues in the Labyrinth", Katherine MacLean and Eileen Hall are joined by Rebekah Dawn, a mother, mental health professional, death medicine weaver, artist, and steward of a magical, mystical garden labyrinth in southern Illinois. Rebekah was initiated into the death space as she cared for her dying child years ago, and has since walked with many individuals and families as they navigate the shadow spaces of death and grief. In this conversation, we explore the necessity of safe, communal spaces for expressing grief, the creation of beauty in the midst of tragedy, and the function of movement and dance during grief. Make sure to listen all the way to the end to find out what Rebekah reveals about the key to walking the labyrinth.
The Scientist: Katherine MacLean ~ www.katherinemaclean.org
The Artist: Eileen Hall ~ www.eileen-hall.com
The Music: Kate Fleur-Young ~ www.katefleuryoung.com
Podcast Editor: Josh Leonard
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Transcript
Introduction to Midnight Water
00:00:31
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Dialogues in the Labyrinth, a series of mind expanding conversations inspired by my book, Midnight Water, a Psychedelic Memoir. My name is Catherine McLean. I'm a former research scientist. I did some of the early studies with psilocybin, a psychedelic compound that is now mainstream and in every popular magazine.
00:00:58
Speaker
You see retreat centers popping up all over the place, clinics. But back when I was doing the research, it was a very taboo and underground topic. And Midnight Water is inspired by that space of the underground. So the parts of our life that are secret, taboo, hidden, unspoken, but fuel so much of what we see in our outer life.
00:01:21
Speaker
And my good friend Eileen Hall is the inspiration and the artist that created the cover for Midnight Water. It was very important to us that the cover itself be medicine and that even if someone just saw the cover and didn't flip through any of the writing that their life would be changed.
00:01:42
Speaker
And so Aileen is swimming in the space of this ocean of consciousness with her art. And she is an adventure seeker herself. She's been all over the world.
Exploring Themes and Connections
00:01:55
Speaker
And so Aileen and I had an idea of inviting people that we didn't know very well to talk to us about the themes of the book and see where those conversations went. And so today I am so honored to have
00:02:10
Speaker
a woman who appeared in my life at a time of very deep grief that I would say grief and relief. My father had just died. This was the fall of 2019. And I thought, perfect. I finally rid myself of the most difficult relationship in my life. He died peacefully. Everything's good now. And then I met Rebecca.
00:02:40
Speaker
And she hosted a grief circle at the end of a conference on mushrooms. And it was a women's conference. And I sat down in this circle thinking, I've done circles like this so many times before. I've facilitated circles. I've had people talk about their deep, innermost experiences with psychedelics and spiritual experiences.
00:03:05
Speaker
And the talking stick passed to me and something just came through me that really needed to come out and be witnessed. And I was amazed, just shocked.
00:03:21
Speaker
It felt like a magical thing, like something not of this world that had transpired for me in that circle. And afterwards, I just wanted to know more about what is this process of grief, of releasing
00:03:38
Speaker
the things that even we are hiding from ourselves. So Rebecca Dawn is an artist.
Grief and Healing Practices
00:03:46
Speaker
She's a mental health professional. She has been in the thick of the space of death and grief and really just walking
00:04:00
Speaker
on this mostly dark path with people and also creating beauty out of these kind of dark places. So Rebecca is also a mother. That's a big theme in Midnight Water is the space of motherhood, the hard spaces of motherhood and also the joy. And so there's a lot to cover in our conversation and we'll just see where it goes. But for me, our relationship was
00:04:27
Speaker
first created out of this space of grief and this witnessing of the pain that I needed to express, but was very carefully hiding from the world. I think that's one of the
00:04:43
Speaker
contributions of Midnight Water is encouraging all of us to express and really feel the things that we're trying really hard not to share with other people for whatever reason. So Rebecca, welcome. And Eileen is here with us too. And yeah, it's we're just turning the corner into greater and greater light from a space of darkness after the winter solstice. So it's a timely conversation.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, we're halfway to Equinox today. So Rebecca, tell me, what is the magic of these grief circles? What have you learned from the simplicity of creating space for people to talk about death and what they've lost? I mean, really simply, just that I think we go deeper or faster when we're in a group.
00:05:39
Speaker
Um, we just drop down into unexpected places, like, like what you experienced and what you're, um, expressing that things come through us where we entrain and then we evoke things out of each other so that, um, that space can be, it draws things out of us that
00:06:09
Speaker
that aren't necessarily available to us when we're by ourselves. And as we start to speak things, we process them differently than we do in our own minds if we're not expressing them. When we're sharing them, we have to line the thoughts up. And sometimes they come out in ways that are really surprising. And we say things that we didn't even know we know.
00:06:38
Speaker
Um, and so I think that that's the magic of a, of a circle. Can you talk also a little bit about some of the elements that you used in the circle that, um, like how you learned them or like some of the, cause you could, you could have a bunch of people sit in a circle and it not be a safe place or it not be a space of vulnerability. So for me, I had learned a certain way of doing it that was more psychotherapeutic.
00:07:08
Speaker
the Western psychology method, but your space seemed more, I don't know, shamanic or kind of from the natural world, that kind of lineage.
00:07:20
Speaker
Well, for sure. And that's where I draw my strength and my healing from, you know, like Mary Oliver said, I was saved by the beauty of the world. And so for me, and it's
Artemisia and Women's Spaces
00:07:34
Speaker
funny to hear you reflect that back at me, because I'm not even sure I know that that's just how
00:07:46
Speaker
it comes through, or that's how it makes sense to me to do it. So we had a plant ally that was there with us and I just want to
00:08:03
Speaker
give credit to the very special space that we were in and that the mushrooms had been sort of honored and evoked and sang to and we had been building this relationship
00:08:19
Speaker
between ourselves and our gratitude for the natural world and the cycles of birth and death. And all of those things were sort of embedded into the tapestry of that weekend. So that was all kind of background and we were all tied together by that in a really special way that maybe if you just walked into an office building and sat in a circle with a group of people,
00:08:48
Speaker
it feels very different. So that's why I love, we have a labyrinth space in our gardens and oftentimes we'll have circles in the center of the labyrinth because the process of getting there, the process of moving through the turns and our thoughts and our hearts being woven together even before we start to speak, I think is really powerful. So the whole experience of the gathering,
00:09:19
Speaker
not even necessarily what I was doing or what I was bringing to it, I think is important. But having like a talking stick or I think we used a stone. No, we had a bundle. We had a bundle of artemisia. And then as we passed it, as we were done with what we were saying, we passed it to the next person while keeping a piece of it.
00:09:43
Speaker
And then and then that piece of it was for you to do with what what felt best for you, whether it was bury it or burn it or keep it as a reminder or whatever. Oh, I'm so glad you remember this because, you know, for me, it was such a
00:10:05
Speaker
I wouldn't say dissociated, but I was definitely in a different space, not encoding normal memories. And so as you're describing these elements, it's actually helping me integrate and situate that emotional expression. You know, but it was so nice that you were taking care of that the space was taking care of that I could just I didn't have to take care of anything like what a relief I could just feel. Yeah, and that is true for the facilitator to that, that there's
00:10:34
Speaker
a little bit of separation, right? Well, and that's the same with in death doula work, I'm going to operate differently in a space where I'm a doula or a support person than I am going to operate in a space where it's my person dying. Those are, they're different roles. It's a different relationality to the space.
00:11:00
Speaker
So Artemisia, remind me why that was our plant ally, especially for folks who this is all new language, like the language of the plants. I'm trying to remember they kind of, you know, time moves in all directions. And I'm trying to remember if that was the conference that Artemisia was the plant ally for the whole thing. It might have been.
00:11:24
Speaker
But if that's the case, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it was like, this teacher from Colorado brought huge bundles of Artemisia that was native to her.
00:11:42
Speaker
geographical area. And I had brought a whole bunch of Artemisia and the coordinator had brought like we all just showed up with Artemisia. And it was totally like this, this is her conference. So but yeah, Artemisia is a really interesting plant. It's a bitter it's used in
00:12:08
Speaker
herbalism and biologically for digestion and assimilation. And it's also has a very strong history as a dream, a visionary plant. So either smoking or drinking tea or even as a dream pillow.
00:12:30
Speaker
people use it in proximity to their sleep to evoke powerful dreams. And it's also, of course, named for Artemisia, who is the protector of women and children. And so that was, I think we were all kind of, we were thinking about our women's gathering and we were all bringing our bundles of Artemisia, which is sort of beautiful.
00:12:55
Speaker
I mean, it's so powerful. That was the first time I had ever been with only women in my life. I grew up in a household that was my mom and my sister and me most of the time, but men came and went in my life. That was the first extended space where
00:13:18
Speaker
At no point would I run into a male presence. And I was really unprepared for how much I needed that sense of safety as a woman in a patriarchy. You know, maybe in some cultures you don't need... Well, I don't know. I can't guess. I've only grown up in the life I've grown up in. I don't really know beyond that, but it was a level of safety that I didn't realize I needed to feel certain things.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yes, in fact, I didn't even know if I was going to be a part of it or go the first year because I was frustrated that it was an all women's conference. Interesting. I'm a mother of three sons.
Gender Roles and Historical Context
00:14:02
Speaker
My sweetheart is my best friend and he couldn't come. Some of my most respected herbal teachers from the Midwest
00:14:15
Speaker
live very close to that area, and they wouldn't be there because they were men. And I felt like it was really exclusionary. And I ended up going. And I think it was Friday night, we had music and dancing. And all of a sudden, I realized how much armor I wear all the time.
00:14:42
Speaker
And I didn't have to I could dance away from the male gaze and there was like this just safety. It was just safe and it was free and I was amazed. Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
I feel like, and Eileen, maybe you too, like we kind of walk in men's worlds a lot. Like I think I do for sure. I mean, again, many of my best friends have been men. I have a son, Eileen, I think, I mean, maybe you prefer both worlds, but I think you very easily move within male spaces, like through your profession and through your friendships and colleagues.
00:15:26
Speaker
But that's an interesting idea of that we are going into a space where we have to protect ourselves in a certain way, but that protection is not physical. It's all this mental stuff and how we change, how we speak, and how we carry ourselves, and that in that space that what you're describing as armor could just drop. It's like, oh, who am I without that?
00:15:50
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, I feel that, you know, in general, I suppose we do associate women with more softness and cooperation between one another instead of, like you say, this more mental space. And historically, men have been the ones that had to go to very violent battles. So I do still think we're in the kind of
00:16:11
Speaker
aftermath of all the warfare that humanity has had to kind of endure for thousands of years. And yeah, I just think it's in that sense ingrained. And so for females to have a space where they realize that actually, our defenses don't have to be up, it's really, really healing in order to then move through that defense, automatic defense mechanism to then reenter that kind of
00:16:41
Speaker
the male world with more ease and I think it's a really important part of just female evolution is to be able to feel safe in themselves, safe in an environment to then re-enter the world and I think that's the beauty of the feminine energy in that sense because we are nurturers, we grow
00:17:02
Speaker
you know, the softness and patience that's required to grow a child, to give birth to a child, to nurture a child is what we have to be built of. And we're not being built to go into battle with shields and swords. And so that's kind of a
00:17:18
Speaker
just a historical thing that we've had to land into. And now we're waking up to these dynamics and using different tools and methods to release all of that and come to a better balance.
00:17:40
Speaker
Eileen, what was the thing you were telling me once about that you believe there was an ancient, ancient history that wasn't marked by war and violence? And I didn't know if that was just a dream you'd had or if that was a sense you had that humans had existed in a certain way in a time where we don't have records. I don't know. Could you talk about that a little bit? Because I think that maybe also men aren't designed for violence. I just wonder how much our
00:18:07
Speaker
that overarching system has told men they have to be violent. But maybe they aren't, you know? I don't know. So this I got from my dad and his work. So because my dad was into, let's say, fringe alternative history and science in a way, there's a lot of tales of a golden age, which is pre-flood.
00:18:30
Speaker
So we've got the great flood that everyone's now talking about at the last ice age. But before that, even again, the dates around this are a bit ambiguous. But like I said, before the flood, apparently there was a golden civilization that didn't have these kinds of issues. And it was a kind of paradise on Earth. But
00:18:50
Speaker
When you're getting into ancient history, there's a lot of muddy evidence. So I don't think it's a fact. I think it has endured through our imagination. And if it ignites and resonates for us, I think it serves a purpose. OK, maybe there was at some point a felt sense of harmony and balance and nonviolence.
00:19:13
Speaker
But again, if we look at the history of humanity and just how much has been kind of grown under control, power, religion, warfare, we've not really had a long period of settling into what it means to be just humans relating to the planet without some kind of threat just coming around the corner. Now we've got AI threatening us. Like it's just never stopped. Something's coming along to unsettle us kind of space.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's why I find that these practices, anything spiritual, relational, you know, artistic can just help us navigate that unsettling feeling that life just comes with. I wish I was better at holding names. There's a female archaeologist who studies these stories of like before there was war or something like that. And
00:20:12
Speaker
The stories are based on these goddess artifacts that were found in the ground and her message to artists was create the world you want to see in your art and bury it. To be the seed for the culture that comes after. Wow. And that stuck with me. Yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker
Right. So whether or not it ever existed in the past, we find these remnants, these like breadcrumbs, these treasures, and then we can recreate it. I love that. And, you know, Alan, the bottom will talk about kind of art being a place where you get to be an idealist, where you get to create the beauty that might not exist in the world. And it's a place where you can be your best self or your higher self, whatever that means. And because we
00:21:11
Speaker
We come from our imagination so everything that becomes material in this reality comes from the dream world either we think it we imagine it or we feel it so in that sense ancient history because it is such an ancient memory space.
Psychedelic Insights and Human History
00:21:26
Speaker
has it now become the dream world again? Has ancient history just melded with the dream world in order to ignite our imaginations in this present moment to help us not only understand us, but also bring through these seeds of new thought, these places where we can continually
00:21:50
Speaker
nourish ourselves into, again, more harmony in the midst of all the chaos and disruption that we live in.
00:22:23
Speaker
Well, so this is, of course, inspiring me to take this into a bit of a psychedelic space. I had an experience once with a particular psychedelic that was a natural compound. It comes from a toad. It's now very controversial and political that lots of celebrities and
00:22:45
Speaker
flashy people want to have this experience, so now the toad is endangered. But when I had this experience, there were very few people and the toads apparently didn't mind so much because the folks who knew how to get the medicine were friends with the toads. But anyway, the point is this toad medicine, which is extremely ancient on earth, like toads are like dinosaurs. They're reptiles. They've been around forever.
00:23:10
Speaker
What they showed me was that history, human history was just like a fabrication. Like it hadn't ever actually existed, that it was just like...
00:23:22
Speaker
How quickly the history of the entire planet, according to humans, dissolved. And what was left was this huge, eternal space outside of human machinations. Our human need to record what happened. It was one of the first things to go. And then what was left was this immensity.
00:23:44
Speaker
And so again, I was like, Whoa, like, how do I take this back? Because when you come back into the human space, the only thing that matters is what happened, like science and history and like, you know, so interesting that like, it was a non human intelligence that showed me like, Hey, you could figure out how to fix humanity, or you could understand that there's this immense reality beyond
00:24:09
Speaker
your story. So I don't know if that inspires either of you, but that's where my mind started to go as you're talking about this. Well, that's exactly my mind was doing exactly the same thing, that our history is the story that we tell over and over again. And just like our memory, when we zoom out or zoom in, and we pick out different aspects and tell those stories, the whole thing changes.
00:24:36
Speaker
And it's a story. So we could tell it however we could imagine to tell it. Right. We're just bad storytellers now. Like we're so regimented in like retelling the same crappy story that it's like we're stuck.
00:24:59
Speaker
Well, I mean, you know, one of the reasons that I felt compelled to write this book, this was the book that I, so Midnight Water was the book I needed to write in my lifetime. And if I wrote it, then I could die a happy person. And I know that sounds quite like grandiose, but it was like, if I just create this one story and let other people know about this story, then I can feel like my fleeting moment of human life on this planet changed something.
00:25:28
Speaker
And so it's a bit of an interesting idea, like what is the power of a single story retelling a certain myth? Because in a way, it's like, yes, it's what happened to me, but I chose to live my life in this very mythical way. So it's like, what is the impact of these singular moments that can shift everything? So like a birth, a death.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, and something that your story does so beautifully is illustrate that the quality of time
00:26:04
Speaker
circling around itself. So every moment that we've ever experienced, we can revisit. Once you're there, you're always kind of there, or part of you is always kind of there. And to continually come back to it and revisit it and see the parts of it, oh, that were outside of your
00:26:26
Speaker
perception and oh wait there's more oh wait there's more and you know you you illustrate the ability of the human to retell their own story to encompass that forgiveness to encompass the possibility of healing and and that and that affects us all because we're all connected
00:26:54
Speaker
I mean, Eileen and I have been blown away by how many people have been connected up with this story. It was like the story needed to be told. I was the person to tell it, but it's reached these people, like strangers, people we've never even thought about before saying like, you told my story. It's like, well, how did I tell your story? I don't even know you. We have nothing in common. So it's just, it's fascinating when art
00:27:23
Speaker
has a mind of its own. And once it's in the world, it just does its thing. And suddenly, humans are realizing like, oh, like, there is this shared experience. This lady, this random lady told my story, like, how is that possible?
00:27:41
Speaker
And also, unless people are in the active participation of writing their own story, that's again where artists and writers and poets come in because we are preoccupied with storytelling in different media. And so it helps others who haven't been able to have that space or don't have the words or don't have a way to express how they feel. That's where we come in. We give them this kind of palette
00:28:11
Speaker
of stories to connect to in different ways. And it sends them off into their own realm of creating their story. And I think the more awareness that people have around how important storytelling is, as we say, like how much do we want to tell the story of the past versus like integrate it and then tell a new story. And then that then guides a lot of the choices that we make about how we want to continue to build society. And it's why again, the artistic space is such a
00:28:41
Speaker
beautiful vessel of potential to birth new worlds because it doesn't have the constraints of what's been because you can. Artists are there to be like the feelers at the edge, you know, have these tentacles at the edge of the known in order to bring in what wants to be felt through the zeitgeist or through the paradigm that's shifting, which I find endlessly fascinating.
00:29:07
Speaker
And so your story, let's say, Catherine, you as this artist storyteller of a particular thing that happened or things that happened to you was designed in a way that was able to affect that so many people because there is kind of this, this kind of collective story that's being told through individual
00:29:28
Speaker
people. And it's always a collective, ecological thing. It's never one person. And again, artists, we get given extra sensitive hearts, extra sensitive bodies, you know, that it's a double edged sword, because I know knowing you, Catherine, you feel everything so deeply.
00:29:48
Speaker
but you're built that way so that you don't just pass the story. You don't feel things and then just let them go. You feel them and you find them significant and you tie them together. And luckily you've been gifted as a writer so you can actually find the words that are accessible for people to understand versus it just continually floating in a dream space. I suppose that's the work that Rebecca is doing as well in terms of kind of becoming the antenna through which these signals can be heard communally.
00:30:22
Speaker
Wow. I feel like there's something also that I think great stories and art do, which is
00:30:34
Speaker
like tell the parts that are supposed to be untold.
Expressing Hidden Feelings
00:30:39
Speaker
Like the parts that are, there's this collective agreement that like we'll tell certain stories and then we're gonna stop at this edge and never speak about the thing that happens beyond that. Or like we'll speak in euphemisms or we'll like point to it and know that it's there but like you can't say it out loud, you can't write it down. Or this idea of like having a diary where you write things down that no one is, are supposed to see.
00:31:04
Speaker
I'm curious about that space. It's the taboo space, the hidden space. So I see Rebecca's nodding a lot. So yeah, please. Yeah. So because I work a lot with crisis, people in crisis, the weight of shame and secrecy is often the majority
00:31:33
Speaker
of the obstacle to healing, right? That is the obstacle. So oftentimes, if I can get someone to speak what it is that is causing all of this dysregulation and collapse, the regulation comes very quickly.
00:31:58
Speaker
And to say, you know, there isn't anything that you can say that is novel. Like for some people, that's a shocking realization. Like, no, I'm the only person who is carrying this horrible, ugly, dark secret. I'm like, okay, well, that's a shadow. And it's the faster you run, the bigger it gets and the faster it chases you.
00:32:29
Speaker
So let's stop, let's turn and move toward it and see what happens. And it diminishes.
00:32:37
Speaker
And it becomes this thing that is with you. It's always gonna be part of you. You're not gonna heal your grief away. You're not gonna heal your trauma away. This is a room or a part of the house that is your psyche. It's a layer of the sediments of you. And it's beautiful. And it's important. And it is the door to compassion.
00:33:07
Speaker
when you realize that there are other human beings who are feeling that same pain. It heals us and other people simultaneously. It all happens together.
00:33:25
Speaker
Wow. It's like the mycelium of grief is what connects us as humans as much as the joy, as much as the happiness that we all crave for. It's kind of realizing that the grief is also this valuable space that makes us all a community of sentient beings going through this life.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yes, totally necessary. Like the soil of being is the collection of all the death that has preceded us. Without it, we aren't. I love it. Without it, we aren't. I'm laughing just because it's so perfect. It's like we've tried to cut off everything below the surface. It's like we created civilizations up.
00:34:18
Speaker
And like we put our God up and like we put everything up and we forgot that there's a whole earth below us. And we're not even putting bodies back into the earth. It's like, no, no, no, we're gonna keep everything up here. It's like, that's not working clearly. It's so silly. Yeah. Oh, I have so many, so many things that sort of happen simultaneously in my brain, but
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, just the connection that we have through that, like every human being has experienced, is experiencing or will experience losing the things that they love most. Like for me, that's the door to unconditional positive regard. No, that's the door for compassion.
00:35:13
Speaker
Well, so, you know, I name so the land that it's been a long journey to get to this place where I'm physically situated.
Being Ground and Land Connection
00:35:22
Speaker
But this land that I'm on, I call the being ground and the being ground as a
00:35:32
Speaker
as a possibility emerged very shortly after my sister died. So midnight water was one thing that came into my consciousness as like, this is the story you're going to tell. And the being ground was the place that would emerge out of the story. And so, you know, again, some people would have these two ideas come into their imagination in the space of grief and just be like, oh,
00:35:58
Speaker
That's not possible. I could never do that. For me, it was like, here's your mission. These two things, you're going to do both. And we're not going to tell you how long it's going to take. And so the being ground, the space of aliveness under the ground, the ground itself being the space where things go and come out of. And I think Aileen was there at the birth of both of these things. I remember sharing both with you.
00:36:25
Speaker
Do you remember when we first talked about the being grounded? And so it's amazing now, midnight waters here, and also the land is like starting to speak to me and be like, hey, like,
00:36:40
Speaker
we're going to start building this relationship. And eventually, silly human who's been inculturated wrongly, you're going to learn what it is to be a steward of a particular place. And so I'm just at the beginning of that. But Rebecca, you've been a steward of a place and connected to the ground, the land for a while now. So I wonder if you could talk about
00:37:06
Speaker
that, like your connection to the land that you're on. Yeah, so I'm on actually ancestral for my sweetheart land. So he grew up here, spent the summers here, it was his grandparents land. And
00:37:30
Speaker
He says, these trees know me. I can feel the roots under us holding me and delighting in seeing our children grow up and being in relationship. There's something that I have come to understand being a steward of land is that the longing we feel is a mirror.
00:38:00
Speaker
of something that's longing for us to be in relationship. And yeah, it's so, it's such a magical ever fractaling ongoing edge of growth. I mean, there's just no end to what you could know about soil and mushrooms and regenerative practices and
00:38:29
Speaker
ecological systems and plants and the interconnection between plants and people because plants are infinitely complex and people are infinitely complex and then you put them together and it's just this wonderful swirl of magic that happens and and then bringing those things together so bringing people who are seeking health and healing
00:38:58
Speaker
and introducing them to the land that wants to provide health and healing and that it doesn't have to be expensive and it doesn't have to be even that difficult. Like the dandelions are abundant and ready, at the ready. And yeah, just feel very blessed and very lucky to,
00:39:26
Speaker
to be able to experience that. So how do you, how do you decide or what's the, um, what is, is there a gate that people from the outer world pass through to be on your land? Like, is it open? Is it, I don't know. That's the question that just came to me because actually like I had a dream early on living on this land that the, an elder came into my dream and said, be careful who comes up your driveway.
00:39:54
Speaker
And I was like, that's a weird, and it was just an interesting thing. And I couldn't, I'm still working with what that means. Cause I don't want it to be like, this is my, my space. Cause it's not, but I just, I, that idea of like the positive side of gatekeeping, like, what does it mean to be a steward and like decide who can be in the space?
00:40:15
Speaker
It's such a good question and it's a dynamic dance that I struggle with a lot because we have a community space on Sundays where anyone can come and walk the labyrinth and experience silence together. I do host plant studies and medicine making and I don't do gatekeeping.
00:40:45
Speaker
So right now I'm working on a by appointment only sort of a schedule and trusting the wisdom of the group, trusting the wisdom of the land and that people who aren't safe for this space aren't going to be attracted to it or want it.
00:41:15
Speaker
So far, that has worked for me. But there is, I mean, I think that there's a tendency to want to protect space and wanting to, well, I don't know, just that the fear element of inviting people you don't know into your space.
00:41:44
Speaker
But that's something that I have that I've really just put on the altar of the land wanting people here.
00:41:57
Speaker
So rather than it being about you making the right decision or not, which is a very human-centered way to interpret that, it's asking the collective, the community, the land. And I love how you just said putting it on the altar of the land. So when there's a question like that that is unknown, and maybe you would make a wrong decision. But if there's no right or wrong decision, just maybe people come and people go.
00:42:25
Speaker
is there a way to hold the space of the land that it isn't affected by either maliciousness or just the wrong kind of attitude? Yeah, and again, I think we're circling around this thing of unconditional positive regard. And can we hold that? If someone comes in who feels threatening to me, is that a true
00:42:57
Speaker
seeing or is that my own projection and I'm gonna walk toward it and I'm gonna be curious about it. Just like the shadow. Yes, yeah and usually always I will say I've never had a situation where I've had to kick someone out or call someone for help or anything like that knock on you know wood that um
00:43:28
Speaker
When we approach people with that same curiosity, there's beauty there, even if we're not seeing it at the first glance.
00:43:45
Speaker
Interesting. Eileen, you know what I'm thinking of right now is Jamaica. And when we brought all those women to this place that had a lot of shadow energy going on and there was this interplay of like what the women were going through with their own fear and shame and pain. And then the outer world being a mirror of that.
00:44:07
Speaker
even to the extent that we had that preacher man screaming across the valley, this terrible patriarchal shit, this evil shit in the middle of our mushroom ceremony. And it's like, look at the world reflecting back to us what we are really trying to deal with within our bodies. It's showing us how hard this is. It's literally a loudspeaker of crap.
00:44:32
Speaker
And that's what our bodies are trying to... I think that's how the mushrooms work. The mushrooms materialize into the external space, like what we're trying to process internally.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's always, again, really interesting about the contextual meanderings that happen around these spaces of medicine. There's always something external to the ceremony that appears from other places to say, hey, and over here there's more.
00:45:07
Speaker
Well, and I think a lot of the women too, and maybe this also ties back to where we first met, Rebecca, is that the women were seeking a women-only space, but that was impossible to create.
Creating Safe Spaces
00:45:20
Speaker
And so there were men present.
00:45:23
Speaker
A lot of the women said, well, if that one man wasn't present, I would have had a perfect experience. And yet, that presence probably allowed them to process and feel things that maybe they were avoiding feeling.
00:45:39
Speaker
And, you know, it's happened to me in ceremony where the presence of a person finally allowed the right thing to click and come out and be released. And if you try really hard to gatekeep all of the dangerous stuff out, it's like you don't get to tangle with it. You don't get to approach that shadow. And it's such a balance, right? Because you don't actually want to endanger someone.
00:46:05
Speaker
but it's like, how do we hold this perceived threat versus like safety? And like, how do we, in these ceremonial spaces, on these places of the land where it's sacred, how do we say like, it's safe and also like, you're gonna be uncomfortable. You might have to face some stuff that you don't think is safe, but we're gonna help you do that dance.
00:46:30
Speaker
And recognizing that it's deep medicine, like this is not this is a this is deep medicine, it is not going to be sugar coated. It's not going to be easy. But if you, you know, but it can be very beautiful and profound.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think about all these people signing up for like, I think that there was a Forbes article about like psychedelic retreats or the next leadership training for business people, like CEOs. And I'm like, God help you all. Like, do you really understand what's going to happen when the capitalist machine like interfaces with this intelligence?
00:47:16
Speaker
Like, get ready. Like, I don't know what else to say. Like, good luck. Like, I hope it goes okay. But it's really not going to be like everything else you've done where you just check a box and say, like, I completed that. I got what I asked for. Like, now I go back to my life. So again, I think the mushrooms will eventually show us what they want to show us. And they're even infiltrating these spaces where they would never be welcome. So, man, you know, like, this is going to be pretty dramatic.
00:48:00
Speaker
So Eileen, I think that you were probably among us, the most recent participant in a ceremonial space. You had the privilege of going to a long standing center and with strangers, but you had a lot in common. So I haven't actually heard your reflections on that experience. I don't know if there's anything that ties into our conversation today, but it feels like maybe this is an opportunity to bring some of that into the world.
00:48:29
Speaker
Because it's been incubating now for what, three months? Yeah, right. Actually, it was such an interesting trip. So I ended up in Florianรณpolis in Brazil at a research center. It's been ran for decades, and I knew of it because so many academics I follow had gone there to do ayahuasca over the years.
00:48:55
Speaker
or being part of it and actually a lot of my ceremonies ended up being about death. Death and dance actually were the two main pieces and how like we come from this kind of primal soup of creation, we become these points of awareness for a while through which life expresses itself and then we melt back into the soup and
00:49:19
Speaker
One of the major ceremonies I have, the main one was I was being shown the violence of history.
Ceremonies and Global Conflicts
00:49:27
Speaker
And it was at the time that all the stuff in Israel was kicking off, kicked off while we were on retreat. And we were all kind of all quite sad. We were all grieving collectively for that situation at the retreat, but I got shown this historical violence that's still just running through us. And then I had to, and then the ayahuasca asked me to watch every part
00:49:49
Speaker
person in my family die in front of me. Yeah. And it wasn't a scare. The thing is, they didn't make it that scary. It just said, Hey, we are part of the soup of creation. And we become awareness for a while. And then we just melt back into it. And I just, and then when it got really intense, I just told me to dance. And so the dancing really helped.
00:50:12
Speaker
And it was an interest, I suppose, that's kind of bringing it back to grieving death and creating beauty. When I just found it too much, I wanted to dance. And the dancing brought about all this beautiful geometry, and it started blending my dream world with the ceremonial world, and so much so that one of the participants
00:50:32
Speaker
had a sense that she could feel me dancing and then she turned around and sure enough I was dancing but she could really feel that space and it's because I just came out of a death space into a dance space.
00:50:45
Speaker
Wow. And I still, you know, that's just what happened. I don't even know how to explain that, but it's just that was the one ceremony that stuck with me. And then I played the flute for the group for the first time I'd ever played this music that I created. And again, that was just
00:51:05
Speaker
just the visuals again was just beauty and thriving and nurturing. And the fact that I could nurture people's journeys through music was the first time I'd ever been able to play in ceremony. And that was really nourishing for me. And realizing that through all the inner work I've done, I can just be in that space of giving now, which I love. I don't need to, I'm not in a personal process so much anymore. I'm more in this kind of collective space of how do we,
00:51:34
Speaker
support each other through things. How do we give back? How do we use arts and music and beauty to weave all of these stories together? I mean, Eileen, I think it's amazing, first of all, that at the moment of this nightmare unfolding on the other side of the world, Ayahuasca is like, I'm going to show you what it's like to lose everything you love.
00:52:02
Speaker
You know, just like that this is what people were physically going through. And Ayahuasca is like, I'm going to show you this so that you don't have to be afraid of it anymore. And then what's beyond that fear? Because I remember when you first lost your dad, it was like the end of the world. You could never imagine being beyond it. And now I know how much you love your mom and your sister and her kids and like,
00:52:26
Speaker
to be able to, I just think that it can sound very superficial when people say like, oh, ayahuasca showed me this, but you're really experiencing it.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah. And I was, I'm super attached to my family, but now 15 years after losing my dad, I'm okay. I've made, I've actually made peace with it and it was a sudden really kind of really traumatizing death. I had nightmares for a long time, but it also ignited so much in my life that I now, I now associate death with birth at the same time. And what's amazing to watch in terms of
00:53:01
Speaker
You know, the way people are asking for the ceasefire, I find that one of the most moving things I've ever watched is how many people have taken to the streets to ask for that kind of inhumane treatment of people to stop.
00:53:18
Speaker
I get chills as I think about all the people that had to die in order for the world to stand up, but maybe something like that had to come to a head in some way, because the world needed something to shift big time in that sense. So the fact that countries can now take other countries to court,
00:53:42
Speaker
against genocide is humongous and you know in a small way in my life like my dad's very hard dead like he was one of the people I love the most just it lit a fire under me that I'm still grateful for and you just have to lean in you have to move through the book is perceived as darkness because you're being shown a different new way
00:54:06
Speaker
And again, so much of how many people have died in the name of peace and love and community over again, thousands of years, people have decided every now and again, to stand up against the inhumane treatment of other people in the planet. And it just, I just, you know, again, it's just life doing life. And I suppose that's what it taught me. It's kind of
00:54:31
Speaker
It's like you can't be an artist and only paint with light colors. Like the moment you can introduce dark colors, the light looks brighter in the dark. And again, it's beyond my understanding. I don't think we're supposed to fully understand these things apart from kind of how do we choose to dance with the mystery? I mean, I'm also thinking about the theme from
00:54:59
Speaker
my book about this idea of a vow of nonviolence. For me, it had to start at a very personal level.
00:55:11
Speaker
it can be easy to call for nonviolence at a global level and very hard to take a vow of nonviolence personally. And so I guess I hope that maybe this is a turning point for each individual to say like, how am I perpetuating violence in my own life? Because that's really what we can be responsible for. And so in my particular story, the insurmountable evil was my dad.
00:55:41
Speaker
But it wasn't him. It was like that was the that was the delusion I was under that like if this person out there stops doing their thing then somehow I will have peace. And ultimately it was actually me like I had to take the vow and engender what Rebecca is saying this.
00:55:59
Speaker
unconditional positive regard. What does it mean to love someone who's hurt me? Can I do that? And if I can do that, then that's the ticket. Fixing that other person is not going to fix anything. And so it's also fascinating, this idea of violence and war being
00:56:16
Speaker
both sides. And maybe that next step, if we're lucky, is that we will see beyond the like, blame, and like, you did this, or this was my reaction, and like, what does it mean to have love and forgiveness, even though what happened was wrong, even though what happened was clearly inhumane. Even when retaliation is justified.
00:56:42
Speaker
Right? To say this ends, this cycle ends here. So Rebecca, I'm curious if in your work, either in death care or mental health or with your own life, if there was a particular moment where
00:57:05
Speaker
And I'm making an assumption
Mystical Experiences and Compassion
00:57:07
Speaker
here. Maybe you were never like this, but was there a turning point where you wanted retribution or you were working with someone who wanted retribution or retaliation or they wanted to continue that cycle and chose the alternative, chose the effective ceasefire and nonviolence? Was there a moment for you where that
00:57:31
Speaker
Something comes to mind right away, one of the most mystical experiences I've had in my life happened in the produce section at Walmart. And I was there with my two year old son, and my eight month old son was in a sling. And he was very sick. He was dying. I knew he was dying, but I had to
00:58:00
Speaker
go on this grocery trip and so I was already kind of walking in a daze and was probably not at my peak uh communication fluency but I had this um woman approached me with this big bright smile on her face and she was like oh I want to see your baby and I was just in a
00:58:28
Speaker
I was in like this dream space and I remember kind of leaning out and my very sick baby turned and looked at her and gave her this huge smile.
00:58:42
Speaker
and her face fell. And she staggered away from me and started screaming about how I was starving my child. He should be taken away from me. I was a horrible mother. And I'm like in this psychedelic space, it was just like everything was swirling and reverberating. And then there was this voice
00:59:07
Speaker
It was like she wasn't ready. She wasn't ready to look into the face of death in the produce aisle. And then like all this like love and blessings and compassion for this person's reaction to confronting this dying child unexpectedly just like flooded the whole building.
00:59:38
Speaker
And I didn't feel any anger or self-defense or any of the things that like later I don't even think I remember driving home honestly like or how I got home but um
00:59:55
Speaker
Yeah, but it was grace. It wasn't because of a choice that I made. It wasn't because I was conscious about wanting to be compassionate to this person. It was just 100% the grace of the universe. No, you don't have to retaliate and you don't have to be defensive and you can just witness her shock and pain and that's okay. Oh my God. Yeah. Wow.
01:00:27
Speaker
And your son was one of the inspirations or the inspiration for the labyrinth, right? Yeah, it was the spring after his death that my sweetheart, Kyle, my husband, created the labyrinth. Wow. And it was sort of a manic grief expression.
01:00:55
Speaker
I remember waking up like in the middle of the night, you know, coming out in the living room and there were just papers scattered everywhere. And he's just drawing it over and over again, trying to figure out, you know, the size of the field and how far apart the paths could be for it to fit in the field and how big the center could be. And yeah, it's such it's the coolest piece of art.
01:01:20
Speaker
Ever. It's totally interactive and it's different every day. Every time you walk it, it's new. It's different. It's so wonderful.
01:01:31
Speaker
I really love how you've weaved so much meaning into an artistic expression, you know, connected to the land, connected to the soul, connected to your own personal story. I was saying to Catherine, I was deeply moved by how you've been able to do all that.
01:01:53
Speaker
And actually, you know, why, why don't we, yeah, create more of these, you know, why don't we express those, those threads and stories in our lives through some kind of like sculpture artistic manner garden and, and, you know, that's it doesn't have to be something that even
01:02:12
Speaker
looks great. It can just be an actual kind of weaving of your own story and what you've been through into a new expression that others can also come and join you in with. What you've done also allows for others to come and feel the power of that meaning that's come through for you. Yeah, well, thank you. And again, I don't feel like it's anything that
01:02:39
Speaker
I've done, it's just grown out of it, out of the experience. And interestingly, I've had multiple unrelated friends and acquaintances tell me that when their loved one died,
01:02:55
Speaker
they brought them energetically to the labyrinth. Like that's where they found themselves. And that has been such a beautiful, unexpected fruit of that space that it, and when you're in it, you've kind of feel like you're in a cosmic beacon, you know, it's this this big
01:03:21
Speaker
Like crop circle, it's this big pattern that's stamped on the earth and you stand in the middle of it and everything feels magnified. And we've had enough gatherings there and we've spent enough time there that there's a really interesting, safe, dynamic space that's built up.
01:03:46
Speaker
And there's something really special about moving and walking and just a point I wanted to come back to this dancing of how physical grief is.
Movement and Grief Processing
01:03:59
Speaker
I really thought that I was already a student of death.
01:04:13
Speaker
my whole interest of study, everything from the time. When I was little, I was picking up the baby birds that fell out of the nest and making little boxes and burial sites. I was just drawn to that space. And then experiencing grief, even when you think you're spiritually, intellectually,
01:04:44
Speaker
prepared and peaceful, like grief is physical. And I think that there's something really beautiful and I just wanna shine the light and magnify the power of dance as a way to move that energy and express that energy and help that pain move through the body.
01:05:12
Speaker
You know, as you're saying this, I'm also, there was a, it's a very vague memory, even though the experience was very powerful, but there was a woman, I don't know if you know her, but she was at that same mushroom conference, the gathering where we met. And then she did another, she assisted in a grief ceremony that was led by an elder Jewish man, but had learned it from an African tradition. And it was like this particular,
01:05:42
Speaker
drumming and singing and moving and then you would move through this circle and there were different stations and each time was an experience of grief, release, forgiveness. Grief, release, forgiveness, dance. Grief, release, forgiveness, dance. You just do it as many times as you need to.
01:06:03
Speaker
I was floored literally on the ground with feelings coming through me that were not my own. They were like some ancestors, some family member, who knows? But it's just the power of that movement, the circular movement and the dancing that allowed these ancient emotions to come through my body.
01:06:27
Speaker
And I got, I got really sick afterward, you know, cause we go back into this culture that doesn't have any container for that. But that moment of just experiencing something that I'm sure our ancestors did all the time, because what else are you going to do when death is happening all the time? It's like, you can't just stoically get through it. You know, you have to create, you have to grow, you have to move, but yeah, the power of that.
01:06:53
Speaker
So I'm actually kind of thankful for that memory coming back because it was hard when it was happening. I didn't understand the process, like what I was feeling. I guess there's a final kind of reflection I would love for us to think about with the labyrinth being, so the original myth of the labyrinth.
Labyrinths as Metaphors
01:07:18
Speaker
Well, they're kind of two paths. The Greek labyrinth is very much about an entrapment. It's about a prison, a maze that was inescapable and a monster of shame and hatred and anger and betrayal was hidden in the center. And it was basically, you know, a king who got really upset at something his wife had done. And because he was the king, he hid away everything he didn't want to
01:07:48
Speaker
talk about, the taboo, the thing that came out of his terrible feelings. He hid it away in this prison. And then he fed innocent people to this shame. That's how the shame was fed, was through these innocent people. And then it was the king's daughter who finally said, like, enough is enough.
01:08:09
Speaker
Now, when the patriarchy tells the story, it's the male hero who goes into the maze with the help of the woman and he slays the monster. But I hate that ending because it's like, no, we're not going to do the violence again. We're going to go in and actually spend time with that thing at the center that we've been told.
01:08:32
Speaker
is unspeakable, too much pain, dangerous, it's going to eat us alive. So how does that labyrinth story, like what does that have to do with this more cosmic spiral of a labyrinth that you created? And like, are they kind of the same story or is one, you know, it's just like, is it the same labyrinth?
01:08:58
Speaker
It's a big question, but sometimes when I get caught in my own spiral, I get caught in the patriarchy's labyrinth, the maze, the entrapment. And then I wonder, can we recreate a labyrinth where people realize it's safe to walk this path? You're not going to get stuck. You're not going to get eaten alive. I don't think it's the same labyrinth.
01:09:26
Speaker
But I haven't spent a lot of time with that story because I don't understand the slaying of the Minotaur. It doesn't resonate with me. I don't need it. It's not important to me. The story of my labyrinth, the labyrinth that I know, is that once you've taken a step on that path, you're already at the center.
01:09:59
Speaker
There's no choices. You're not in control of the path. When you're close to the center, when you feel like you're close, you still have a long way to go. And then when you feel like you're far away, you actually just have one turn left and you're there. And I don't know if I have
01:10:26
Speaker
more words for it than that. Beautiful. I love it. It removes because your words and your description of it remove the part that is the maze.
01:10:40
Speaker
because the maze requires space and distance and time and this idea of a thread going through. Well, a maze is different than a labyrinth because a maze is always changing and you come to crossroads where you have to make a choice. And in a labyrinth, as long as you keep going, the way you set out going,
01:11:05
Speaker
you will reach your destination. And if that's true, it's like quantum reality, like your destination dictates your path, not the other way around. Like if you're headed there, you're already there. I love it. I feel like this is one of the stories we're going to retell because as you're talking, I'm realizing that somebody decided to take this like cosmic
01:11:33
Speaker
beautiful spiral and turn it into a maze to tell another story. And they should have just said it was a maze. He created a maze-like prison. And instead they said he created a labyrinth, but it's not. Yeah, it's not. A maze is totally different than a labyrinth. A maze is created to confuse you. And a labyrinth is a contemplative tool that weaves you into the center.
01:11:59
Speaker
Oh my God, I love that so much. I also think in terms of those analogies, maybe grinding it into people's day-to-day experiences, asking oneself, is this a maze or a labyrinth I'm in? And really tapping into that so you know how to navigate the situation. Does it feel like it's going to be this confusing maze or am I in a lab? I love that. And also once you realize you're in a labyrinth, you can snap out of the confusion any second.
01:12:29
Speaker
Because you're not also supposed to ultimately, like, you can't just jump to the middle of the labyrinth, you have to walk the path. You know, and it's the same with any destination in life, there's no shortcuts. And you just like you say, just keep on going, you can't not reach the center if you keep on going. Hmm. I would say for most of my life, I felt like I was in the maze. And then midnight water was the way that I
01:12:59
Speaker
you know, got out. And then this, what you're describing feels to me like the next level, because I'm still also habitually and culturally like wedded to the maze. So my mind keeps looking for the next part of the maze, like, oh, what's the next choice? What's the next turn? What if I get it wrong? What if there's still that dangerous thing at the center that I've been told is, you know, unapproachable?
01:13:25
Speaker
And what does it take to like actually just completely discard that story? Like just, okay, we're done with it. So I'm taking this as a cue. It's like, all right, I'm going to remember what you said. They're not the same. They're not the same.
01:13:46
Speaker
Well, I think on that note, we might have finally, four episodes in, found what these dialogues in the labyrinth are really all about, Eileen. This is kind of exciting. It's like a momentous occasion.
01:14:00
Speaker
Rebecca, I feel like there's so much more. We're just barely tipping our toes into this deep ocean. And yeah, you're a repository of wisdom, this wisdom tradition that so few people have access to. And I'm just so grateful that you've created a space where regular people can come and dip their toes in.
01:14:26
Speaker
And hopefully we'll inspire maybe there are people listening who will create their labyrinth, their garden, their being ground. And more people can remember that this is an okay way to be human. Yeah. And it's so simple and it's so abundant and it's so available and it's longing for us. It's inviting us in always.
Conclusion and Encouragement
01:14:53
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for taking this beautiful Saturday morning with me and Eileen. And if anyone is interested in learning more, you can search for us on the internet. Some of us are more easily found than others, but we'll have ways to discover more about what Rebecca is offering through her labyrinth.
01:15:19
Speaker
and Eileen is continually making art and working on her project in Ecuador and maybe I have another book in me but for now Midnight Water is continually revealing the path and it's more than enough for me so
01:15:37
Speaker
We thank you for being with us this morning and please reach out. If anything that we've shared has sparked your imagination and your desire to create beauty out of this, what appears to be a human tragedy but is really a human celebration. Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful to speak with both of you. It's lovely to meet you, Rebecca. Thanks for coming.
01:16:07
Speaker
I am. I am. I am.