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"Conscious Dying" (with Selena Jong) #68
11 Plays1 year ago
Betsy and Halcyon are joined by certified death doula, Selena Jong who runs a company called Movingthrough.org
Selena shares her wisdom from her personal experiences with death, how she became a death doula and all that goes into preparing people, with consciousness around dying.
Gain sparks of inspiration on how to talk to your loved ones about death in a healthy and even fun way, eco-alternatives for post death tending and learning about Death Cafe.
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE
Death Deck. https://thedeathdeck.com/
EOL deck. https://thedeathdeck.com/pages/eol-deck
GUEST
Selena Jong, is a certified Death Doula who works with those who want to take ownership of their life journey. She assists with practical end-of-life arrangements, provides emotional and spiritual support, assists with creating legacies, living funerals and ritual guidance. Selena works alongside The Death Network, a team of Death Doulas and Funeral Directors, to create and facilitate events, discussions and experiences for the community. Selena volunteers with hospice and sits beside actively dying patients at Sharp Grossmont - the 11th Hour program, also called No One Dies Alone. Selena also hosts a free monthly Death Cafe discussion group in Encinitas at Seaside Center for Spiritual Living.
Selena's Links:
Moving Through www.movingthrough.org , IG @movingthroughdeath
The Death Network www.thedeathnetwork.com, IG @thedeathnetwork
HOSTS
BETSY FINKLEHOO is a healer of massage therapy, CranioSacral and Dharma Coaching. She is an 8 year burner and has spent the last several years seeped in the personal development world, cultivating her passion for transformation and growth. Her recent project, The Power Affirmation Journal and virtual group empowers women to cultivate self awareness and healthy habits so they can live in greater freedom, mind body and spirit.
http://poweraffirmation.com/
Click here to get a FREE affirmation for Stay Sparked Listeners!
HALCYON is full-time Love Ambassador. He is the founder of Hug Nation YouTube channel and daily zoom gratitude circles. He is co-founder of the Pink Heart Burning Man camp and the 1st Saturdays project for people experiencing homelessness. In his free time he coaches individuals on how to live joyfully and authentically. His other podcast is "Hard on the 80's."
http://LifeStudent.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to stay sparked.
00:00:02
Speaker
On today's episode, we talk about conscious dying.
00:00:05
Speaker
We have a very special guest, Selena Young, a death doula who shares sparks of inspiration around so many different things related to the preparations of death, releasing taboo around conversations on death and even eco conscious options for what we can do with our bodies after we die.
00:00:25
Speaker
Enjoy the episode.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Stay Sparked.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm Betsy Finkelhoo, the creator of the Power Affirmation Project and Somatic Bodyworker.
00:00:36
Speaker
I am John Halcyon, the author of Love More, Fearless, Float More, Steer Less, and live morning broadcasts for love ambassadors like you.
00:00:46
Speaker
And today we have a very special guest, Selena Young, a death doula and friend who is going to share some inspiration with us today on a conversation around consciousness and death.
00:00:59
Speaker
So we're super excited to dive into this conversation with you.
00:01:03
Speaker
Selena, welcome.
00:01:05
Speaker
And we always start with gratitude.
Expressions of Gratitude
00:01:07
Speaker
So would you like to start us off with what you're grateful for today?
00:01:12
Speaker
Yes, I'm grateful for my family, for being on this podcast on Halloween, a very auspicious day, so close to Dia de los Muertos, being able to remember those that have passed, our ancestors, and just really feeling into family and having that really loving connection with everybody around me.
00:01:39
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:01:39
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:01:41
Speaker
How about you, Halcyon?
00:01:42
Speaker
What are you grateful for today?
00:01:44
Speaker
Well, that just sparked gratitude for me.
00:01:47
Speaker
I'm so grateful for the presence of my grandfather in my life.
00:01:52
Speaker
My Facebook memories today popped up some wonderful Halloween videos of him and I together.
00:01:57
Speaker
He passed in 2007, but I'm grateful that he's still such a presence in my life and such an inspiration on a daily basis.
00:02:05
Speaker
Love that.
00:02:07
Speaker
Well, I'm going to stay in that same theme.
00:02:10
Speaker
I am really grateful for life.
00:02:12
Speaker
You know, being in reflection of death with here we are, you know, Dia de los Muertos, and we're kind of in this time where the veil is thin to the other side, reflecting on death and really how auspicious that we have this conversation with you today.
00:02:28
Speaker
So to be in this body and to be alive is what I'm really grateful for.
00:02:32
Speaker
It's a miracle to be here.
00:02:35
Speaker
So really being grateful for life.
00:02:39
Speaker
Be the alternative.
00:02:40
Speaker
That's
About Selena Young
00:02:43
Speaker
right.
00:02:43
Speaker
So I'd love to give our listeners a little insight into who you are and then love to hear your personal journey of how you got here.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I'm just going to go ahead and read a little bit of your bio so people can kind of get an insight.
00:02:59
Speaker
So as a certified death doula, Selena works with those who want to take ownership of their life journey.
00:03:05
Speaker
She assists with practical end-of-life arrangements, providing emotional and spiritual support, assists with creating legacies, living funerals, and ritual guidance.
00:03:15
Speaker
Selena works alongside the Death Network, a team of death doulas and funeral directors, to create and facilitate events, discussions, and experiences for the community.
00:03:26
Speaker
You also volunteer with hospice and sit beside actively dying patients at Sharp Grossmont and the 11th hour program, also called No One Dies Alone.
00:03:37
Speaker
Wow, I have chills reading this.
00:03:39
Speaker
And Selena also hosts a free monthly death cafe discussing discussion group in Encinitas at the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living.
00:03:48
Speaker
And she's also in Cardiff, for those of you in SoCal.
00:03:52
Speaker
So, wow, sister, amazing.
00:03:55
Speaker
So powerful what you're doing.
00:03:57
Speaker
And after all these years of getting to know you, it's really cool to learn more about what you've really been putting your energy into and how you've been
Selena's Personal Journey with Death
00:04:06
Speaker
serving.
00:04:06
Speaker
And so we would love to get to know a little bit more of how you have arrived to be a death doula and what led you to this place.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for that intro.
00:04:19
Speaker
I have been with death since I was little.
00:04:23
Speaker
My first really big experience with death was the death of my mom when I was 12.
00:04:30
Speaker
She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1988.
00:04:36
Speaker
And about a year after her diagnosis, she went from becoming this, you know, beautiful, plump musician.
00:04:44
Speaker
She was a piano teacher, artist, and she kind of withered away to an 80 pound, you know, skeleton.
00:04:52
Speaker
She was skin and bones.
00:04:54
Speaker
And so after a fatal seizure one night, she died.
00:05:01
Speaker
And it was just shy.
00:05:03
Speaker
Well, I had just turned 13, actually.
00:05:05
Speaker
So she died two days after my birthday.
00:05:08
Speaker
And that was the very first experience of death that I had.
00:05:12
Speaker
It was a very traumatic time for me.
00:05:17
Speaker
And since that death, since her death, there have been several people since then that have died.
00:05:23
Speaker
My father comes from a family of 11.
00:05:28
Speaker
And he's the second to youngest.
00:05:31
Speaker
So his eldest sibling was already having kids when my dad was maybe becoming, you know, a teenager.
00:05:41
Speaker
So the age difference was vast.
00:05:44
Speaker
So my dad.
00:05:46
Speaker
aunts and uncles were dying as I was growing up.
00:05:52
Speaker
My grandparents also died.
00:05:53
Speaker
I, in my thirties had my best friend died of breast cancer.
00:05:58
Speaker
You know, she, that was, that was really hard for me.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then since, you know, my adult years, just, it seemed that year after year, somebody was getting diagnosed and dying and it kind of became a
00:06:11
Speaker
Not a joke, but kind of a joke with my friends like Selena, you've experienced a lot of death.
00:06:16
Speaker
You need to get into death work.
00:06:18
Speaker
And that initial plant, seed plant, just was in my brain, spinning and spinning.
00:06:27
Speaker
And the whole time I was thinking, no, there's no way I could do that.
00:06:31
Speaker
It's a lot of work.
00:06:32
Speaker
It's a lot of responsibility.
00:06:33
Speaker
And at the time, I was a civil engineer.
00:06:36
Speaker
I was in the engineering world for about 20 years.
00:06:43
Speaker
And it wasn't until 2021 that I decided to retire and stop working as an engineer because it just wasn't fulfilling.
00:06:53
Speaker
I knew that there was something more for me to do.
00:06:56
Speaker
And so I took a good two years to really just give myself permission to do nothing and explore myself and explore what else was out there that I realized was
00:07:10
Speaker
because my dad actually had just died at the same time, that it was the death of my dad that actually sparked me to birth, becoming a death doula.
00:07:24
Speaker
So short of getting... With all of the... With all of the deaths that are happening, were you aware... You mentioned death work.
00:07:35
Speaker
At what point were you even aware that there was a thing such as death work?
00:07:39
Speaker
I knew there was...
00:07:42
Speaker
I knew there was a death doula work.
00:07:44
Speaker
I knew there was death work.
00:07:45
Speaker
I wasn't quite sure how I knew that.
00:07:48
Speaker
I just innately knew that there was this role that was available to people that needed guidance at the end of life.
00:08:00
Speaker
Probably just in the same token that there's birth doulas for people who are giving birth for women that are birthing.
00:08:08
Speaker
There's assistance and support in that way.
00:08:10
Speaker
I knew that there was something on the other side in death work in dying.
00:08:16
Speaker
I don't know how I knew that.
00:08:17
Speaker
I just knew maybe I had read an article or something and it was kind of a new, you know, it's still kind of a new emerging concept.
Understanding the Role of a Death Doula
00:08:24
Speaker
So it's not something that's known.
00:08:29
Speaker
But it was the seed was planted somehow and it started taking root.
00:08:34
Speaker
But you didn't have access to that or the people that were dying around you didn't have access to it or did they?
00:08:40
Speaker
No, there was never.
00:08:42
Speaker
No, I didn't encounter anybody in my life that had a death doula.
00:08:48
Speaker
Wow.
00:08:49
Speaker
I would imagine most people don't.
00:08:51
Speaker
I mean, I've never even heard of that until the last few years.
00:08:56
Speaker
And it seems like I don't know if it's just because it's my own little world here.
00:09:01
Speaker
I haven't really seen a whole lot of it.
00:09:03
Speaker
And now there's a lot more of it.
00:09:06
Speaker
more and more people in our age group and in our culture seem to be focusing a lot on that.
00:09:13
Speaker
Like, I know where I live right now in Asheville, there's a whole center for conscious living and dying.
00:09:18
Speaker
And there's a whole death doula training and people are into it, you know.
00:09:22
Speaker
And there's these death cafes and it's becoming much more normalized instead of like, oh, you know, it's time for someone to die, then they have to go in isolation or go into hospice or...
00:09:35
Speaker
You know, it's kind of like hidden.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
I feel like I interrupted you.
00:09:41
Speaker
So in your in your after your your period of of.
00:09:49
Speaker
Break, then how did you get into the actual role?
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm the type of person that I look for signs.
00:10:01
Speaker
It's kind of my like woo-woo thing that I have.
00:10:04
Speaker
Like, okay, is this really what I'm meant to do?
00:10:07
Speaker
So if it is...
00:10:09
Speaker
Send me a sign.
00:10:10
Speaker
Like, I really want to know if this is what is supposed to happen.
00:10:15
Speaker
I had recently had three people die within a month right before I asked that question.
00:10:22
Speaker
And after I asked that question every night at clockwork around 3 a.m., I would wake up.
00:10:27
Speaker
And those three people would be talking to me.
00:10:31
Speaker
And I just couldn't get it out of my head.
00:10:33
Speaker
And they wouldn't really be saying anything specific.
00:10:36
Speaker
I would just hear their name.
00:10:38
Speaker
I would just think of them.
00:10:39
Speaker
Maybe it was part of my grieving process.
00:10:41
Speaker
But I just, and it didn't happen to me any other time in my life.
00:10:45
Speaker
It just these
Exploring Conscious Dying and Eco Options
00:10:46
Speaker
specific, three specific people were kind of chatting to me in the middle of the night.
00:10:51
Speaker
And it happened for a week straight.
00:10:55
Speaker
It wasn't until I said it was after that little chattering of these people who had died that I finally decided to say, okay, yes, I'm going to look into it.
00:11:03
Speaker
I'm going to try.
00:11:04
Speaker
I'm going to investigate and do some research.
00:11:07
Speaker
The chat, the chattering stopped.
00:11:11
Speaker
And then I said, okay, this is too coincidental.
00:11:14
Speaker
Give me another sign.
00:11:16
Speaker
So I, as I was
00:11:19
Speaker
reading something on the internet one day about death work, I scrolled to the bottom of the screen and there was a little article about an Anubis.
00:11:30
Speaker
An Anubis is a, you know, the jackal, the death dog that you see in Egyptian mythology or like in Egypt, the kings were buried with the jackal.
00:11:43
Speaker
You know what I'm talking about?
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
Anubis.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
My dog is a black dog with a long snout and long ears.
00:11:54
Speaker
Betsy, you've seen my dog before.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:57
Speaker
And as I was reading that article, my dog's sitting next to me and I'm thinking, I have the death dog.
00:12:03
Speaker
And that was enough for me.
00:12:04
Speaker
And maybe it's all, you know, bullshit, but it was enough for me to just say, okay, I'm
00:12:12
Speaker
I'm taking these subtle hints and I'm going to move forward.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so I decided to then take some certification classes.
00:12:19
Speaker
And the first class I took was very heart opening and it just welcomed me in.
00:12:25
Speaker
And I felt a flood of energy come through me as I was diving into death deal classes.
00:12:31
Speaker
And it was just so, it just felt so right.
00:12:34
Speaker
And it felt very, um,
00:12:38
Speaker
I felt like I was at home with what I was doing.
00:12:41
Speaker
More so than when I was working as an engineer, I felt I had imposter syndrome.
00:12:46
Speaker
As the engineer, you know, that was a profession that I made money in, but it wasn't fulfilling.
00:12:51
Speaker
And so stepping into death work and saying yes to becoming a death doula was very, it felt like a birth.
00:13:05
Speaker
I love that.
00:13:06
Speaker
I love that.
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, if you're only listening, you might not know that she's wearing a skeleton outfit right now, which I can only assume is your daily uniform, and it's not just because of Halloween.
00:13:20
Speaker
So I love that you mentioned that coming home.
00:13:23
Speaker
I mean, as you were talking about your...
00:13:26
Speaker
your kind of calling to or your awareness of this.
00:13:30
Speaker
We've talked about Burning Man a lot on this show, and I had this strong kind of parallel to the way I view Burning Man and kind of the gifting mentality of viewing the world as what are the cracks that I can fill?
00:13:44
Speaker
What are the things that are missing in the world?
00:13:46
Speaker
And it sounds like your whole life story is
00:13:48
Speaker
seeing this role that needs to be filled.
00:13:51
Speaker
And it's a kind of beautiful, poetic, pingly in my skin as you go.
00:13:56
Speaker
And the universe is like, yes, yes.
00:13:59
Speaker
Thank you for saying yes, because this is the crack that we need you to fill.
00:14:03
Speaker
It's really beautiful.
00:14:05
Speaker
I have a question for you.
00:14:08
Speaker
So since you have gone through the training and now you are a certified death doula, what does that actually entail?
00:14:16
Speaker
I mean, I know that we read in your bio that you sit with people on hospice and you're there for them and you provide all kinds of different services for people.
00:14:25
Speaker
So could you just kind of give us a little insight?
00:14:28
Speaker
What does that entail?
00:14:30
Speaker
Especially for someone out there that's listening that has never even heard of that.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, good question.
00:14:35
Speaker
So a death doula is basically an advocate for somebody that's dying in their care circle.
00:14:43
Speaker
So from the beginning, we would plan.
00:14:48
Speaker
So you're
00:14:49
Speaker
Plan your, you're planning your death, basically.
00:14:51
Speaker
So from the time that you are, let's say you're diagnosed, you want to have a plan for what's going to happen when you are transitioning through to death.
00:15:03
Speaker
And then what happens after you die.
00:15:07
Speaker
And so that could be anywhere from, okay, so then let's start at the beginning with the logistical things.
00:15:13
Speaker
So there's a lot of logistical things that you have to plan
00:15:17
Speaker
make sure that you have a place before you die.
00:15:20
Speaker
So let's say getting all your bank accounts in order, a will or a trust, you know, do you have all your paperwork in one place so that whoever is attending to those affairs will have it all in one place and not searching for them when you die.
00:15:41
Speaker
mortgage, lien, car insurance, social media passwords.
00:15:45
Speaker
There's a whole list of things to do.
00:15:50
Speaker
Once you get that in order, we come in and we can also talk about what kind of a legacy do you want to leave?
00:15:56
Speaker
Do you have any stories?
00:15:57
Speaker
Do you want to leave for people?
00:16:00
Speaker
Do you have any?
00:16:01
Speaker
There's also an ethical will.
00:16:02
Speaker
You know, if you maybe you haven't expressed certain things that you want to tell your children or your grandchildren, you know, maybe you want to.
00:16:13
Speaker
Tell your, you know, your kids and your grandkids any tidbits of information about your relationship with your spouse that you haven't shared yet.
00:16:25
Speaker
There's a whole lifetime of stories and things that you can pass down that you might not necessarily have had the ability to or not.
00:16:36
Speaker
the outlet to do that, there is then we can talk about what happens at actual time of death.
00:16:45
Speaker
Do you want to be medicated?
00:16:47
Speaker
Do you not want to be medicated?
00:16:50
Speaker
Do you want to be resuscitated?
00:16:52
Speaker
Do you not want to be resuscitated?
00:16:53
Speaker
Do you, you know, like, do you want to be on life-sustaining support or do you not?
00:16:58
Speaker
So we can get more into the
00:17:01
Speaker
to those types of things also.
00:17:03
Speaker
And then, and some people also want to get really detailed about what they want to listen to when they're dying.
00:17:09
Speaker
You know, what do they want to be wearing?
00:17:12
Speaker
There could be certain people you want with you.
00:17:16
Speaker
There could be certain people that you don't want there.
00:17:18
Speaker
And that's important too.
00:17:21
Speaker
We could talk about also, let's say you have a terminal diagnosis.
00:17:27
Speaker
Maybe you want to have a living funeral.
00:17:29
Speaker
Let's celebrate you while you're still here.
00:17:32
Speaker
Let's not wait till after you die to have all these great things said about you and people coming from the woodworks to come visit you and see you.
00:17:42
Speaker
But let's do that while you're still here so we can plan for that too.
00:17:48
Speaker
Wow, that's amazing.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot.
00:17:51
Speaker
And then the very last piece is then what do you want to do with your body after you die?
00:17:56
Speaker
And so there are lots of options now that are more available than before, not just conventional burial and cremation.
00:18:06
Speaker
Like Halcyon said, there's composting.
00:18:09
Speaker
So we can talk about that too.
00:18:12
Speaker
So basically, once you've had all this planned,
00:18:18
Speaker
The death doula is the one that advocates for that to make sure that that gets carried through and that's carried out.
00:18:23
Speaker
Because, you know, sometimes what you want and what your family wants or your loved ones want don't align.
00:18:31
Speaker
So you want to be able to have someone advocate for those wishes.
00:18:37
Speaker
Wow.
00:18:38
Speaker
So amazing.
00:18:40
Speaker
It kind of reminds me of birth doula.
00:18:43
Speaker
You know, it's very similar in the way I recently just was a doula for one of my best friend's birth.
00:18:51
Speaker
And so many of these things were a part of the conversation, the preparations, how do you want it to go?
00:18:56
Speaker
What's it going to look like?
00:18:57
Speaker
What are you going to be listening to?
00:18:58
Speaker
How do you want your space set up?
00:19:00
Speaker
What do you want to do after the baby comes?
00:19:02
Speaker
all of these things.
00:19:03
Speaker
It is so powerful to be able to have those kinds of things prepared for you.
00:19:09
Speaker
And how beautiful that you can do that for these people to provide that space that could potentially be really uncomfortable for a family member to do or for anyone else to do, right?
00:19:21
Speaker
I mean, who thinks of doing those things because it's such a sensitive time already of having to say goodbye, that talking about passwords or talking about like
00:19:31
Speaker
living legacies might be really difficult.
00:19:34
Speaker
So what a beautiful, beautiful offering this is.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think it does.
00:19:39
Speaker
There's a massive benefit in just the shifting of focus into the death experience as being something that has options and that has some
00:19:56
Speaker
You know, you have autonomy and control and choices and the ways to make things more beautiful or more that so many people I know, death is not something that is there's a conversation about it or even acknowledged.
00:20:12
Speaker
And and so, of course, there's there's there's fear around it when it does happen.
Changing Death Perspectives
00:20:17
Speaker
Then there's decisions made by those who are still around that are done out of guilt, you know, or like with what's OK, now I need to show them how much I love them by buying a really expensive urn.
00:20:28
Speaker
It's like, well, I don't know if they would want that, you know, but it's like something that's so cool to to have this.
00:20:35
Speaker
to involve, to make your death a part of your decisions as a human being.
00:20:42
Speaker
You know, just that shift from just like, let's pretend it's not going to happen until it does.
00:20:47
Speaker
That makes it so much scarier, I think.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, and you touched on something that is also a part of what death doulas do, and that's education, right?
00:20:56
Speaker
So,
00:20:58
Speaker
Typically, when somebody dies, the default is go to a funeral home.
00:21:02
Speaker
Well, the funeral home is going to, like you said, try to sell you the most expensive urn or coffin because, oh, your love is equally is proportionate to the amount of money that you spend on them at death.
00:21:14
Speaker
But.
00:21:16
Speaker
You know, funeral homes are a billion dollar corporate industry.
00:21:21
Speaker
And it's been that way since the 60s.
00:21:24
Speaker
And so their best interest is just for you to spend more money.
00:21:27
Speaker
The doula's interest is to assist those people that are dying and their loved ones to do things in a more holistic way.
00:21:37
Speaker
How can we save money?
00:21:38
Speaker
What do you need?
00:21:38
Speaker
What do you don't?
00:21:39
Speaker
What do you not need?
00:21:41
Speaker
So going with options like green burial,
00:21:46
Speaker
home funerals are now becoming more, are done more because with hospice, when you're at home, typically people are dying at home.
00:21:55
Speaker
So how can we now have a funeral at home like they did in the colonial times before the funeral parlor, funeral industry came into existence, people were having funerals at home.
00:22:07
Speaker
So that our connection to death back then was more intimate.
00:22:13
Speaker
And when the funeral industry came in, it made us become more separated to death.
00:22:19
Speaker
So, oh, we'll take the body and we'll prepare it.
00:22:22
Speaker
We'll wash it.
00:22:23
Speaker
We'll embalm it.
00:22:24
Speaker
We'll do all these things.
00:22:25
Speaker
And you don't have to worry about it.
00:22:27
Speaker
So then now our shift, our cultural shift in death has become very distanced.
00:22:34
Speaker
And so what we do, we want to bring that back home.
00:22:37
Speaker
We want to bring home funerals back and
00:22:41
Speaker
be able to educate and empower families to then tend to our dead, right?
00:22:48
Speaker
So we can now shroud the body in some biodegradable linen or cotton.
00:22:54
Speaker
We can wash the body.
00:22:55
Speaker
We can do a ceremony at home.
00:22:57
Speaker
You can keep the body at home for not as long as you want, but for several days done right.
00:23:03
Speaker
You can have a ceremony.
00:23:04
Speaker
You can wait for your people to come and have this beautiful ceremony and then transport them to
00:23:12
Speaker
Water cremation, composting, natural burial, things that, you know, are more eco-friendly.
00:23:19
Speaker
And you don't have to spend $10,000, $20,000.
00:23:23
Speaker
I love that so much.
00:23:24
Speaker
I feel like that there is such a care, you know, that comes in that because...
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah, I remember when my grandmother died, these strangers just came and picked her up.
00:23:37
Speaker
And they don't have really any gentleness or care about this woman who is very special in our lives.
00:23:45
Speaker
And they just take her away, and I don't know how they handle her.
00:23:48
Speaker
And to consider what it would have been like for all of us as a family...
00:23:55
Speaker
To have tended to her, to like, you know, lifted her and placed her gently on a pillow and to wrap her and to do that is so meaningful, so powerful.
00:24:05
Speaker
And it really does.
00:24:06
Speaker
It sounds like I mean, I haven't experienced it, obviously, but it sounds like it would create a deeper integration and support of the grief process, you know, because when someone close to you passes, you
00:24:19
Speaker
It is a process to really go through that grieving and to let go and to be witness to somebody's body without the soul.
00:24:27
Speaker
And it, I would imagine, can bring so much to the family to really help them get to be with it.
00:24:35
Speaker
And rather than...
00:24:36
Speaker
What they ended up doing, too, is then a couple days later, we got to see her, and she was, like, so done up, and she had all this stuff pumped into her, and it didn't even look like her.
00:24:45
Speaker
You know, there was all this makeup and formaldehyde, and it was very unnatural in this very thick, thick coffin, which I can imagine coffins probably take a really long time to decompose.
00:24:56
Speaker
So I love what you're talking about with these eco-alternatives for the body to go back to the earth.
00:25:07
Speaker
I've got such a, like the idea of taking space that is limited on our planet and reserving it.
00:25:18
Speaker
Once you're dead, let's reserve a space on our planet where this real estate is for you from now on, even though you're gone, like, you know, in a cemetery.
00:25:28
Speaker
It just feels like such a strange thing.
00:25:30
Speaker
I had to say there's different beliefs and needs to visit a tombstone, but it feels like a – I certainly – if I had the option of soil and greening myself and having my calories reused in the food supply, that would be my first choice.
00:25:50
Speaker
But my second choice would be to be recycled into the ecosystem for sure.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:58
Speaker
Do you guys want to hear about what all our options are?
00:26:00
Speaker
Yes, please.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, I really do.
00:26:03
Speaker
You said one that I was like, I've never even heard of water composting or water cremation.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, we can start there.
00:26:11
Speaker
Water cremation.
00:26:12
Speaker
So our default is conventional burial and cremation.
00:26:18
Speaker
What our other options are now is water cremation.
00:26:22
Speaker
So water cremation is...
00:26:25
Speaker
Cremation with water with alkaline salts.
00:26:29
Speaker
Basically, you get put.
00:26:30
Speaker
So what happens is you get put in this vessel.
00:26:32
Speaker
So let me just back up.
00:26:35
Speaker
Water cremation has been around since for a long time.
00:26:38
Speaker
I think I feel like the first water cremation vessel was invented in 1888.
00:26:45
Speaker
Water cremation has been mainly used with animals, with pets.
00:26:51
Speaker
So dogs, that's cats and dogs.
00:26:54
Speaker
That's how I first heard about it.
00:26:55
Speaker
When my dog died, the person that we used to come euthanize our dog at home, when they took her away, she asked if we wanted water cremation and we were
00:27:07
Speaker
like, wow, yes, we want that because she told us it was more eco-friendly.
00:27:11
Speaker
So when I became a death doula looking into water cremation, it's this vessel.
00:27:18
Speaker
It's a big metallic chamber, cylindrical chamber, and you put your body into this casket and it goes into this chamber.
00:27:25
Speaker
The water that gets pumped in is 5% alkalized salts.
00:27:30
Speaker
And it's high heat, high pressure.
00:27:32
Speaker
And it's kind of like a spa treatment.
00:27:35
Speaker
So think of this water just brushing over your skin.
00:27:38
Speaker
And what this process does, it breaks down all your soft tissue.
00:27:43
Speaker
So what you're left with is just the bone.
00:27:47
Speaker
And it gets pulverized and crushed down the same way flame cremation would.
00:27:53
Speaker
But you get about 20% more
00:27:57
Speaker
ashes, you still get ashes, than you would flame cremation.
00:28:02
Speaker
And the water that is left is very nutrient rich, very, very high quality water that gets put back into the water system.
00:28:12
Speaker
And you get, you know, you could get an urn of ashes and you could do with that the same way you would with flame cremation.
00:28:20
Speaker
It costs just a little bit more than flame cremation, but there's no carbon emissions at all
00:28:27
Speaker
Flame cremation emit about 500 to 550 pounds of carbon emissions.
00:28:34
Speaker
So think of driving your car about 600 miles is what one body does when you cremate.
00:28:41
Speaker
So when you water cremate, there is basically no carbon
Challenges and Dynamics in Death Work
00:28:45
Speaker
emissions.
00:28:45
Speaker
You're just using enough electricity to power the facility.
00:28:50
Speaker
And it takes about eight hours for this process to happen.
00:28:53
Speaker
Wow.
00:28:55
Speaker
Somebody save me.
00:28:58
Speaker
Well, that's awesome.
00:28:59
Speaker
That's really cool.
00:29:00
Speaker
Thank you for that.
00:29:02
Speaker
What are some other options?
00:29:05
Speaker
So there's composting.
00:29:06
Speaker
It's called natural organic reduction.
00:29:10
Speaker
And this is my favorite because you turn into this really rich nutrient dense soil.
00:29:17
Speaker
So your body is
00:29:18
Speaker
is put in a vessel of straw alfalfa, and it gets put into a pod that gets composted, just the same process as you would compost your food.
00:29:33
Speaker
Your body is turned, it gets heated to a certain temperature to ensure that there's, you know, pathogens get...
00:29:43
Speaker
And in about 40 days, your body, after this composting process, becomes this really nutrient-rich soil.
00:29:53
Speaker
It's very dark, and you get about one cubic yard of soil.
00:29:59
Speaker
If there are any parts, you know, like if you have like a hip, any medical devices that you have will get recycled out.
00:30:07
Speaker
Same with water cremation.
00:30:09
Speaker
You know, any parts will be left to get recycled.
00:30:13
Speaker
With flame cremation, whatever you put in that coffin, even the coffin, even if you're embalmed, everything is burned into the atmosphere.
00:30:22
Speaker
The reason why that composting is my favorite is because composting will sequester about a thousand pounds of carbon emissions.
00:30:32
Speaker
So one composted body is equivalent to two flame cremations in ragoutism.
00:30:42
Speaker
Wow.
00:30:43
Speaker
So you're actually contributing.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, you're contributing 1000.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yes, you're contributing.
00:30:49
Speaker
Wow.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
Well, this is just taking something that I've been thinking about to a whole new level, because I had this idea a while back around when I die what I want.
00:31:00
Speaker
And I thought that I wanted to.
00:31:02
Speaker
to be cremated and have about 100 little baggies of my ashes getting spread out to different people that I love.
00:31:10
Speaker
And then they can have their own little special ritual with it or go take me somewhere and spread it.
00:31:15
Speaker
But even more amazing, just spread out little flower pots with the Betsy soil.
00:31:23
Speaker
And they can plant little seeds.
00:31:25
Speaker
They can plant their little intention seeds to grow the finkelhoo.
00:31:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:34
Speaker
Wow.
00:31:35
Speaker
That's really incredible.
00:31:36
Speaker
Composting is an option.
00:31:38
Speaker
That's beautiful.
00:31:39
Speaker
One of the companies that I was just having a conversation with my parents about this and that you can request as money like up to a certain amount of quarts of the soil to put in your pots and have finkelhoo flowers, you know, but there's all what you don't want delivered to you.
00:31:58
Speaker
They have these nature reserves that they've partnered with.
00:32:01
Speaker
So you can know that you are a part of a nature reserve and they have different locations.
00:32:05
Speaker
That was just such a cool idea that you know that you are a part of some beautiful place someplace.
00:32:14
Speaker
Well, not only that, but you're going to visit your loved one in a nature reserve versus a cemetery.
00:32:21
Speaker
You know, cemeteries are very sad and they kind of, I don't know, they're kind of creepy and they don't really have as such a reverent feeling as maybe they used to.
00:32:32
Speaker
I don't know many people that go visit cemeteries very often anymore, but to go visit your loved one in a nature reserve?
00:32:42
Speaker
I only know of visiting funerals from movies.
00:32:46
Speaker
Right.
00:32:47
Speaker
I don't know about it.
00:32:49
Speaker
So before I knew about all these cool options, my grandfather was cremated, and I took some of his ashes and I mixed in the paint job of a pink motorhome so it's got wings painted on the side, this big murals, and so his ashes are in it.
00:33:04
Speaker
So I still, to this day, I was there yesterday, I've got this motorhome that's got his...
00:33:11
Speaker
his ashes as a part of it but i i really uh i love the um the more uh recycling into the world concept of having soil and that just feels so much more natural than um i mean i liked my artistic way to to to keep him with me but it would be it seems uh
00:33:37
Speaker
More in line with his spirituality of being connected to the earth more so than his body to have him in a flower pot or a tree or a nature reserve.
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:33:53
Speaker
And I feel like the earth, they want their bodies back.
00:33:56
Speaker
you know, we are all part of this system, this ecosystem.
00:34:01
Speaker
And why wouldn't the earth want us back, just like it gets everything else back?
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:06
Speaker
And so natural burial is the last one I'll talk about.
00:34:10
Speaker
It is some, it is the way that we used to bury our dead before cremation, you know, it was, we would dig a hole in our yard and
00:34:21
Speaker
bury our dead back there but we can't do that anymore but you still can opt for natural burial if you can find a natural cemetery and like halcyon said most of these composting businesses are partnered with conservation forests so they donate part of
00:34:43
Speaker
You know, the soil to these forests to help replenish.
00:34:46
Speaker
Same with natural burial.
00:34:48
Speaker
Most of these natural burial sites are also part of a conservation forest that you can naturally bury three feet deep, not six feet.
00:34:57
Speaker
So the reason why you bury somebody six feet deep in a conventional forest.
00:35:01
Speaker
Cemetery is purely for aesthetics so that the ground doesn't settle and then you get a bumpy surface, right?
00:35:08
Speaker
So it's all for maintenance.
00:35:09
Speaker
It's all for the pristine look.
00:35:11
Speaker
Natural burial is three feet because that's where all the microbes live.
00:35:15
Speaker
That's where all the nutrients live.
00:35:17
Speaker
So when you bury...
00:35:19
Speaker
Someone at three feet, you are guaranteeing decomposition.
00:35:22
Speaker
If you bury someone at five to six feet, there's nothing down there.
00:35:25
Speaker
It's just cold and dark.
00:35:27
Speaker
And it's a concrete vault, you know, in the conventional cemetery.
00:35:30
Speaker
Unfortunately, you're putting a box around the body and it doesn't decompose.
00:35:36
Speaker
So that's why you see in movies, you dig somebody up 10 years later, 50 years later, and they're still there.
00:35:44
Speaker
Natural burial is the other option.
00:35:46
Speaker
It's not, you know, again, it's real estate, right?
00:35:50
Speaker
So there is limited space, but your body does break down and does decompose in natural burial.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:58
Speaker
All animals, all animals go back to the earth.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, so it only makes sense.
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, I love this conversation.
00:36:08
Speaker
And I'd love to kind of shift gears a little bit, kind of going a little back on the timeline, because something that you shared around the process of preparing people, I think that's really inspiring.
00:36:20
Speaker
And something I've been really contemplating a lot and having conversations with my mom and
00:36:26
Speaker
She's healthy, but we know that she will die one day.
00:36:29
Speaker
And how do we have these conversations about these specific things?
00:36:35
Speaker
And it is sometimes a little uncomfortable, a little sensitive, because, of course, we want her to stay here forever.
00:36:44
Speaker
And so I'm curious about some of the things that you mentioned around five wishes and wills and
00:36:51
Speaker
You know, how to have these kinds of conversations with our loved ones as they are healthy and well before it gets to a place of feeling like that they're sick or that, you know, they can't actually make these decisions for themselves.
00:37:06
Speaker
So any sparks or insights that you might be able to share with us and our listeners about that?
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:14
Speaker
So a lot of times people don't want to talk about death.
00:37:18
Speaker
Oh, it's not going to happen.
00:37:19
Speaker
It's not going to happen soon.
00:37:20
Speaker
It's not going to happen to me.
00:37:21
Speaker
But, you know, we don't know.
00:37:23
Speaker
We could die tomorrow.
00:37:24
Speaker
We can die in five years, 10 years.
00:37:28
Speaker
The reality is we need to talk about it.
00:37:30
Speaker
Right.
00:37:30
Speaker
And so how do we talk about it with somebody that does not want to talk about it or is in denial?
00:37:34
Speaker
And I have found the best way is to talk about what I want.
00:37:39
Speaker
So start talking about what do I want and make it known to those around you.
00:37:46
Speaker
These are what my wishes are.
00:37:47
Speaker
You know, I want to be composted.
00:37:49
Speaker
I want to have this music playing at my, you know, at my death.
00:37:54
Speaker
And just really start the conversation by saying,
00:38:00
Speaker
Being honest with what you want.
00:38:02
Speaker
And if that doesn't work, I have something called the death deck that I have.
00:38:09
Speaker
And it's right here.
00:38:12
Speaker
Cute.
00:38:12
Speaker
And it's a game, really.
00:38:14
Speaker
And so it can be you're sitting around at dinner and you break out this death deck.
00:38:20
Speaker
And I actually did this with my father in law.
00:38:24
Speaker
and mother-in-law and they couldn't get enough of it because it sparked questions for them that they didn't realize that they could answer or wanted to answer.
00:38:35
Speaker
And I'm just going to pull one just at random.
00:38:39
Speaker
Let's see.
00:38:42
Speaker
Hopefully you get a good one.
00:38:44
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:38:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:45
Speaker
This one says, your spouse dies.
00:38:47
Speaker
What do you do about money?
00:38:50
Speaker
Not worry.
00:38:51
Speaker
I make plenty to maintain my current household.
00:38:54
Speaker
B. Pat myself on the back for taking out life insurance policies.
00:38:58
Speaker
C. Freak out.
00:38:59
Speaker
Move in with family and start playing the lottery.
00:39:04
Speaker
So then you kind of go around and you answer.
00:39:06
Speaker
And just from one card, this would spark conversation, you know, and it'll start getting people to think about, okay, what do I do with my money?
00:39:17
Speaker
You know, even when they're at home, you left the party, this question will pop up somewhere in their subconscious later on.
00:39:25
Speaker
Okay, I got to make sure I get all my affairs in order.
00:39:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:30
Speaker
I love that.
00:39:31
Speaker
The death deck.
00:39:32
Speaker
How many cards are in it?
00:39:35
Speaker
Well, it's a pretty stacked deck, if you could say that.
00:39:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
You made this?
00:39:41
Speaker
I did not make this.
00:39:42
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:39:43
Speaker
There's 112 cards.
00:39:43
Speaker
Oh, you'll hook it up next.
00:39:47
Speaker
I just looked it up.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:48
Speaker
Nice.
00:39:49
Speaker
So this one is more of a party, you know, kind of like a social party game.
00:39:53
Speaker
But there is one for more like end of life deck.
00:39:57
Speaker
So this one's more for like caregivers and health care providers to help facilitate conversations about end of life wishes.
00:40:03
Speaker
So it's more it gets more technical.
00:40:07
Speaker
And that one's called the EOL.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:10
Speaker
End of life deck.
00:40:11
Speaker
So these are great tools.
00:40:14
Speaker
That's great.
00:40:15
Speaker
That kind of gamifies it, makes it a little bit more playful, takes something that can potentially be heavy and serious into a more joyful, curious kind of conversation.
00:40:27
Speaker
I have a question.
00:40:31
Speaker
Is there like a checklist or something if someone wasn't up for playing a game but was like, okay, I'm ready to have a meeting.
00:40:39
Speaker
What do I need to answer?
00:40:40
Speaker
Is there a more serious way to introduce those things?
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
When I work with people, I have a checklist.
00:40:48
Speaker
I like to create what I call an end-of-life binder.
00:40:53
Speaker
And so this binder has all of that information.
00:40:56
Speaker
It has the checklist.
00:40:57
Speaker
You go through the checklist.
00:40:59
Speaker
I have people go and do their homework.
00:41:02
Speaker
And all the things are in this binder so that when the time comes and you die...
00:41:09
Speaker
Or it's nearing time.
00:41:11
Speaker
It's in a place where somebody can find it.
00:41:14
Speaker
And that all your stuff is there.
00:41:16
Speaker
It's kind of little I call it's like a gift, you know, this is my gift to you.
00:41:22
Speaker
The people that are going to be here.
00:41:25
Speaker
This has all the information that you need for my end of life.
00:41:29
Speaker
All right.
00:41:29
Speaker
I have another question about this whole process.
00:41:33
Speaker
So who are the people that are actually hiring you?
00:41:37
Speaker
Is it the people that are on, you know, that are on their deathbed or is it family members?
00:41:43
Speaker
You know, I'm like, I'm asking this question based on a friend of mine's experience right now where, you know,
00:41:49
Speaker
Both of his parents are going through a lot of health issues and they're declining rapidly and they both have a lot of resistance to talk about any of this.
00:42:00
Speaker
So would he be somebody that reaches out to you and hires you or does there need to be permission from the parents?
00:42:08
Speaker
How does that all work?
00:42:09
Speaker
Because I could imagine there are certain sticky places when there's people that may have had strokes or different situations.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, so I've had, it's mostly, yes, it's mostly people that are experiencing
Living Authentically with Mortality
00:42:24
Speaker
a loved one that is dying, that hires me.
00:42:27
Speaker
I've only had, I've had one person contact me who was
00:42:33
Speaker
looking into getting a death doula to gift to her friend who has terminal cancer.
00:42:39
Speaker
I have a client right now that hired me.
00:42:42
Speaker
She hired me herself.
00:42:44
Speaker
And she was, you know, she dialed.
00:42:47
Speaker
And so, you know, anybody can hire a death doula.
00:42:52
Speaker
But you're right.
00:42:53
Speaker
The person that is dying has to be on board with the doula coming in or the doula then just supports the family member.
00:43:01
Speaker
Right.
00:43:01
Speaker
Because you can't have you can't be supporting someone that doesn't want support.
00:43:05
Speaker
So when I do come in, knowing that the person that's dying is resistive, I just have to make sure and gauge that that's something that they would want.
00:43:16
Speaker
And if not, then.
00:43:17
Speaker
Sometimes then you can't work with them, and that's okay too.
00:43:21
Speaker
It's not the right fit.
00:43:26
Speaker
I would imagine that people who are doing assisted suicide, it would also be a situation where they would work with a doula.
00:43:34
Speaker
Correct.
00:43:35
Speaker
So the client that I have that contacted me is currently eligible for medical aid in dying.
00:43:41
Speaker
It's called Dying with Dignity.
00:43:43
Speaker
And you have to have a diagnosis of six months or less from a doctor to be able to be eligible for the medication to take.
00:43:53
Speaker
And it is legal in California to have this.
00:43:57
Speaker
It's not, I think it's only legal in about eight other states.
00:44:03
Speaker
But yeah, it's that medical aid and dying is very intriguing to me because your deal, I'm just dealing with
00:44:12
Speaker
Sometimes you're just dealing with just that moment, you know, just that window, short window.
00:44:19
Speaker
So, you know, luckily my client already has her affairs in order and she's just wanting support the day of.
00:44:29
Speaker
I mean, it's really an incredible thing to plan and schedule your exit.
00:44:38
Speaker
You know, I have a few people, a couple that I've known over the last year that have left that way.
00:44:45
Speaker
And to be making these choices of the music that you want playing, you know, the people that you want, the
00:44:52
Speaker
the people that you want to be meeting with on the days leading up.
00:44:56
Speaker
And there was a, there was a, a, a friend's father who got the six month diagnosis and, and said, well, then I'm, I want to go next week, you know, as soon as, and his family was kind of like, what are you talking about?
00:45:11
Speaker
Like, we want more time with you.
00:45:14
Speaker
But he ended up for the next week as people came to visit him, you know, on his last day, he said, this has been the greatest week of my life.
00:45:21
Speaker
Yeah, this is, this is, and he, and because of the short window, these conversations were had between him and his relatives and his children that had never been said, you know, and there was, it was just, it was so beautiful.
00:45:35
Speaker
Now, the one thing I was, I wanted to ask about is the,
00:45:40
Speaker
When the person who was going to be dying made the choice of the date, a lot of the children really had a hard time with, how could you decide to give us less time than we possibly could have with you?
00:45:55
Speaker
And I imagine his feeling is, I don't want my last days with you to be me weak, and I want you to go out as strong as I can.
00:46:04
Speaker
But is that...
00:46:07
Speaker
That seems like a really difficult navigating between family and that person.
00:46:11
Speaker
Is that part of the role?
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, it is part of the role.
00:46:17
Speaker
I haven't experienced that yet, but it is definitely part of the role navigating relationships between family and friends.
00:46:27
Speaker
My client, she's like, my friends are having a really hard time because they want to be with me the day of, and I don't want, I want it to be private.
00:46:34
Speaker
And, you know, they want more time, but, you know, this is what I'm going to choose.
00:46:39
Speaker
And, you know, most of the, it's a lot of it is most of it, I'd say 100% of it is quality of life.
00:46:45
Speaker
Like you said, your friend didn't want to be weak.
00:46:47
Speaker
So it's, I don't want to be, you know, weak and not be able to talk and not have my faculties about me.
00:46:54
Speaker
I want to, I want to be strong and go out with a bang.
00:46:56
Speaker
And so not, not having quality of life is typically the main reason why people want to go.
00:47:05
Speaker
when they say they want to go.
00:47:08
Speaker
I have a question for you guys.
00:47:11
Speaker
Knowing that you only have, let's say six months and people are coming, like Halcyon said, to be with you and having these really great conversations and saying the things that you don't typically say, like,
00:47:28
Speaker
I'm just curious, like if how could you see yourself like living your life like that?
00:47:34
Speaker
I am just wondering, and this is more, I don't know if this is actually a question for anyone.
00:47:38
Speaker
Is this more of like I'm just throwing out this pondering of.
00:47:42
Speaker
If we if we had our life in that lens, like how could we live more authentically like that every day, knowing that.
00:47:49
Speaker
We only have a week.
00:47:51
Speaker
I'm going to be gone in a week.
00:47:53
Speaker
Can we carry that out into our daily lives?
00:47:56
Speaker
And having those authentic relationships like that.
00:47:59
Speaker
And why do we have to wait until we only have a week to be able to be in that?
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're speaking to two love ambassadors who are here in service to bringing joy and love and authenticity and connection and community to the world as much as we can.
00:48:21
Speaker
And with that kind of time pressure, I think it would probably just grow and expand and become this like effervescent, just powerful pop of the quark.
00:48:35
Speaker
You know, I know that I would probably just...
00:48:38
Speaker
love even more and reach out even more and probably just go into a very deep ceremonial process and connection to the divine because that's essentially what's happening right if you like have a timeline to your death it's basically a timeline to the timelessness you know to releasing your physical form and going straight into the formless i mean that's pretty amazing to be able to have that obviously
00:49:06
Speaker
I've thought about it.
00:49:06
Speaker
There's been a couple of times where I'm like really sick and like, what if this is it?
00:49:12
Speaker
And you know, some of the thoughts that came up that I was very surprised by was, wow, I need to clean out my junk drawers.
00:49:22
Speaker
That's another gift for the people that are going to be left.
00:49:24
Speaker
Thank you.
00:49:26
Speaker
Like, wow, I'm going to like get rid of some shit.
00:49:29
Speaker
Some people don't have to go through all my
00:49:31
Speaker
art and crystals and junk you know that's that's swedish death cleaning right like just very detaching from all the stuff i think one of the one of the real gifts of this type of work you're doing is is this just bringing that awareness of death more into our because i i think that
00:49:55
Speaker
I think it's really healthy to periodically visit the idea of your own death.
00:50:00
Speaker
I think that we're often discouraged or it's considered morbid.
Understanding Death Cafés
00:50:03
Speaker
One of my favorite philosophers, Alan Watts, says, the most fundamental spiritual question is, is the game worth the candle?
00:50:11
Speaker
Is it worth it to keep going?
00:50:13
Speaker
And I think we have a suicide fear, like a taboo about that conversation.
00:50:17
Speaker
But thinking about...
00:50:20
Speaker
Not being the fact that you are being, that you exist, like keeping that in your awareness, as you said, it keeps you in this state of like, oh my gosh, I have precious time.
00:50:31
Speaker
What am I going to do with the time I have left?
00:50:33
Speaker
Whether it's six months or a week or...
00:50:36
Speaker
10 years, like I have been at a huge shift post 50, turning 50 of, of like, oh, it's, I have a limited amount of time left.
00:50:46
Speaker
And I definitely have a limited amount of time when I'm going to have capacity in my body to do, you know, physical activities.
00:50:52
Speaker
And so these vague ideas of,
00:50:55
Speaker
Someday it would be cool if I visited India.
00:50:58
Speaker
Now I'm kind of like, I'm going to scratch it off the list.
00:51:00
Speaker
I don't think that's going to happen in this lifetime.
00:51:02
Speaker
Okay, so I got limited things.
00:51:05
Speaker
So I think that your very existence and your gift to the world is helpful to get us in that mindset and not being so afraid of it.
00:51:19
Speaker
I had such a benefit.
00:51:21
Speaker
My grandfather that I already mentioned a couple times,
00:51:24
Speaker
I got to spend the last three years of his life a lot of time with him.
00:51:28
Speaker
He died at 94, but he was so at peace.
00:51:33
Speaker
He referred to his room he lived in as his cocoon, and he talked about, like, oh, well, if you could interview a fetus and ask it if it wanted to be born, it'd be afraid.
00:51:42
Speaker
I imagine that my experience in my next transition, it's equally as mysterious, but who knows?
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:50
Speaker
And so getting to spend time with someone who is so comfortable talking about death and so unafraid really was so healing and so beneficial to me.
00:52:00
Speaker
And I think that because there's so historically there has been so little trauma.
00:52:06
Speaker
death doula or death work that we experience um so many of us have been robbed of any sort of of comfort or with any experience of dying so i'm so encouraged by by this by your work and this trend and for what it does to our relationship with death and what it does to our relationship with life i think it's so awesome
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think that, you know, with the popularity and the emergence of death cafes now, people are coming around and talking about death.
00:52:42
Speaker
I see a lot of younger people coming into the cafes now, not just the baby boomers, you know, the 60 and above, the 30 and up.
00:52:56
Speaker
group is really embracing death and die.
00:52:59
Speaker
And I think they're holding on to that too, because they really are invested.
00:53:03
Speaker
I feel that they're really more educated and in tune to the environment.
00:53:09
Speaker
And so green burial is very important to them, at least the ones that are coming in.
00:53:13
Speaker
They're very curious about what that is and what their options are.
00:53:16
Speaker
And they're more aware of what they're spending and
00:53:20
Speaker
So they don't want to spend $20,000 on a death if they can spend, you know, a thousand or even freeze.
00:53:27
Speaker
You can even donate your body to science and it costs nothing.
00:53:30
Speaker
So, you know, the conversation is growing, I think, among people.
00:53:36
Speaker
And death cafes are definitely one way to get that out into the open.
Community and Remembrance
00:53:42
Speaker
I'm not familiar with that term.
00:53:44
Speaker
Can you tell me what that means?
00:53:45
Speaker
I was going to say the same thing.
00:53:46
Speaker
I feel it's not what they serve.
00:53:48
Speaker
Right.
00:53:48
Speaker
I know.
00:53:49
Speaker
Exactly.
00:53:49
Speaker
What are you drinking at these cafes?
00:53:51
Speaker
I know.
00:53:51
Speaker
I was wondering the same thing.
00:53:53
Speaker
Like, what kind of things are talked about at a death cafe?
00:53:56
Speaker
Because I have an assumption, but from what I'm hearing you say, it sounds like there's a lot of different things.
00:54:01
Speaker
So a death cafe was started in the 80s in London, and it has since grown.
00:54:07
Speaker
It was started by John Barsky.
00:54:11
Speaker
I might be butchering his name, but him and his mother started it in their home
00:54:16
Speaker
Because they wanted a place, they wanted to be able to talk about death and dying freely with people that wanted to also talk about it.
00:54:23
Speaker
And so they started holding these death cafes in their home.
00:54:28
Speaker
And it was free.
00:54:30
Speaker
They would serve tea and cake.
00:54:32
Speaker
And people would come monthly and talk about any topic related to death and dying.
00:54:38
Speaker
So you could talk about near-death experience.
00:54:40
Speaker
You could talk about...
00:54:42
Speaker
green burials.
00:54:43
Speaker
You can talk about your fear of death.
00:54:45
Speaker
Sometimes you don't even need to talk at all.
00:54:47
Speaker
You can just sit and listen.
00:54:49
Speaker
And so it became so popular that it moved out into an actual cafe.
00:54:56
Speaker
Then it became, it just blew up to where now there's an organization, a nonprofit organization called deathcafe.com.
00:55:06
Speaker
You can go on there.
00:55:07
Speaker
And the idea is you can find a group that
00:55:12
Speaker
to go talk about death with in any, in I think over 80 countries.
00:55:17
Speaker
And they're all the same.
00:55:19
Speaker
They're all run the same.
00:55:20
Speaker
They're all run by volunteers.
00:55:22
Speaker
They're all nonprofit.
00:55:24
Speaker
There are guidelines to be able to talk about, to go to a death cafe.
00:55:27
Speaker
And that is that you're not there to sell anything.
00:55:30
Speaker
There's no agenda.
00:55:31
Speaker
Everything is private.
00:55:33
Speaker
And so when you go to a death cafe, you're basically meeting with a group of people and you're talking about death and dying.
00:55:40
Speaker
Sometimes people have a diagnosis and their spouse doesn't want to talk about it.
00:55:43
Speaker
I get a lot of people that want to talk about their terminal diagnosis because their spouse doesn't.
00:55:51
Speaker
Or I've had someone come in and say, you know, I'm really afraid of death.
00:55:55
Speaker
Like...
00:55:57
Speaker
I just want to talk about it and have people listen and not be judged or have people give you advice because we come from a society, unfortunately, where you talk about something and you have a problem and you're constantly barraged with like, well, here's my advice.
00:56:10
Speaker
Here's the solution.
00:56:11
Speaker
But at Death Cafe, there's no solution.
00:56:14
Speaker
We're not trying to solve your problem.
00:56:16
Speaker
We're here 100% to listen.
00:56:18
Speaker
So powerful.
00:56:20
Speaker
That is so healing.
00:56:21
Speaker
Thank you.
00:56:22
Speaker
Wow.
00:56:23
Speaker
I love that.
00:56:23
Speaker
And you have one in Encinitas, right?
00:56:26
Speaker
At the Seaside Spiritual Center for... Seaside Center for Spiritual Living.
00:56:32
Speaker
It's every fourth Saturday of the month.
00:56:35
Speaker
Amazing.
00:56:36
Speaker
At 10 a.m.
00:56:38
Speaker
Wow.
00:56:39
Speaker
Well, this is a really inspiring conversation.
00:56:42
Speaker
So many sparks.
00:56:43
Speaker
And I feel like we could probably keep going.
00:56:46
Speaker
But in the sake of time, let's tune into some closing sparks.
00:56:52
Speaker
To wrap it up, I'd love to start with my closing spark because I'm feeling really moved by the conversation here around alternatives for burial and for what can happen to our bodies afterwards.
00:57:07
Speaker
Thank you so much for illuminating so many options and really educating us today about water cremation and like the carbon footprint that comes from regular cremation.
00:57:21
Speaker
And just it's really, really inspiring to learn more about that.
00:57:24
Speaker
So thank you for that.
00:57:27
Speaker
You're welcome.
00:57:28
Speaker
Yeah, as compelling as your information has been, Selena, I'm not convinced.
00:57:36
Speaker
I've decided that I am not going to die.
00:57:38
Speaker
So thank you for your information, but I am not interested in – wait, wait, that's not what I was going to say.
00:57:44
Speaker
No.
00:57:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:47
Speaker
I'm so encouraged by the light that your work brings to this part of life that's so much like birth but is often so taboo and it is so beautiful.
00:58:08
Speaker
I wanted to share my grandfather's dying words, his last words before he went home to hospice and then, you know, became, went, was, he said to my mom, isn't this exciting?
00:58:20
Speaker
I don't know what the next chapter is.
00:58:25
Speaker
I think that you can only have, you can only have those words if you're thinking about it and having conversations about it.
00:58:31
Speaker
And so I'm grateful.
00:58:33
Speaker
Thank you.
00:58:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:35
Speaker
So beautiful.
00:58:37
Speaker
Thank you guys for having me.
00:58:38
Speaker
You know, ultimately, death work is community work.
00:58:41
Speaker
You know, my goal is to really gather community around this conversation and really get the word out and get people talking about death and really create more.
Getting in Touch with Selena
00:58:52
Speaker
opportunities and events and things where people can gather around to be able to sit in contemplation and talk about it and not be afraid of it.
00:59:04
Speaker
I mean, not saying that you're not going to be afraid.
00:59:06
Speaker
It is scary.
00:59:07
Speaker
You know, one of my, I have fears.
00:59:09
Speaker
One of my fears is that I'm that, you know, remembrance, that's my fear is that I'll be forgotten.
00:59:15
Speaker
So the more I remember that,
00:59:18
Speaker
all the people that have died and my ancestors, I feel that I will also be remembered.
00:59:23
Speaker
So thank you for having me in this conversation.
00:59:26
Speaker
So beautiful.
00:59:26
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:59:28
Speaker
Yeah, I love that so much, Selena.
00:59:30
Speaker
And love to actually just check in with how can people find more of you, you in the world, your work in the world?
00:59:38
Speaker
Any plugs, shout outs for your work?
00:59:42
Speaker
People need to know more about what you do and who you are.
00:59:46
Speaker
Yeah, my website is www.movingthrough.org.
00:59:53
Speaker
The name of my business is Moving Through.
00:59:55
Speaker
So my idea is that we're not dying.
00:59:58
Speaker
I mean, we are dying, but we're moving through this process, just like we're kind of moving through.
01:00:03
Speaker
You know, it's like it's like water.
01:00:04
Speaker
It's like the water cremation.
01:00:06
Speaker
We're moving through this process.
01:00:08
Speaker
So moving through dot orgy.
01:00:10
Speaker
I'm on Instagram at moving through death.
01:00:14
Speaker
So there I have conversations with a death doula or, you know, things that kind of pop in my mind.
01:00:19
Speaker
I'll I'll convulse about.
01:00:22
Speaker
And then the Death Network.
01:00:24
Speaker
I work really closely with the Death Network down here in San Diego.
01:00:28
Speaker
They hold a lot of events down in South Park.
01:00:30
Speaker
And so we partner together to create death cafes and workshops and events.
01:00:37
Speaker
And my death cafe in Encinitas on every fourth Saturday from 10 to 1130 a.m.
01:00:44
Speaker
at the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living.
01:00:47
Speaker
There is another death cafe that's held by the Death Network at Bravo Family Mortuary in Mission Valley.
01:00:56
Speaker
That's every third Wednesday at 6 p.m.
01:01:00
Speaker
Amazing, right?
01:01:02
Speaker
I got it.
01:01:04
Speaker
So beautiful.
01:01:05
Speaker
Thank you for that.
01:01:06
Speaker
How about you, Halcyon?
01:01:07
Speaker
How can people find you?
01:01:08
Speaker
Easiest way to find me is lifestudent.com.
01:01:14
Speaker
It has links to my books and t-shirts and my daily events.
01:01:19
Speaker
So every day at 9 a.m., if you want a little jolt of a love ambassador connection, you can join me live on YouTube, the Hug Nation channel.
01:01:27
Speaker
Amazing.
Episode Conclusion
01:01:30
Speaker
And y'all can find me at my website also, poweraffirmation.com.
01:01:35
Speaker
That has all my tools that I've created to help with mindset empowerment and also the somatic body work that I do as well.
01:01:44
Speaker
So find me on there and then also connect with me on the socials as well, Betsy Who.
01:01:50
Speaker
um and just reach out i always love connecting so we also love love love for those of you who have made it this far please do take a moment to get on apple podcast and leave us a review five stars please by request this helps to spread the sparks far and wide if you enjoyed this episode please share it with somebody just save the link and then just text it to a friend who might be
01:02:17
Speaker
inspired by this kind of conversation it really helps us to get this podcast out into the world so thank you so much for your support and for spreading the sparks and in the spirit of our our flow we always love closing with an affirmation so you guys ready to do a little closing affirmation absolutely yeah
01:02:40
Speaker
Okay, so let's just take a moment, close the eyes if that feels good to you, and focus our mind on an affirmation of evolution.
01:02:49
Speaker
Because, right, death is evolution.
01:02:51
Speaker
So, I embrace my own personal evolution in this life and beyond.
01:02:59
Speaker
I embrace my path of evolution in this life and beyond.
01:03:04
Speaker
I embrace this path of evolution in this life and beyond.
01:03:09
Speaker
I embrace my own personal evolution.
01:03:12
Speaker
I embrace my personal evolution.
01:03:15
Speaker
It's safe to talk about death.
01:03:18
Speaker
It's safe to talk about death.
01:03:20
Speaker
It's safe to talk about death.
01:03:23
Speaker
I love my life.
01:03:25
Speaker
I love my life.
01:03:26
Speaker
I love my life.
01:03:27
Speaker
I love my life.
01:03:28
Speaker
And I love you guys.
01:03:30
Speaker
Thank you so much for this conversation.
01:03:31
Speaker
So grateful.
01:03:35
Speaker
Thank you.
01:03:35
Speaker
Thank you.
01:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, stay sparked, people.
01:03:42
Speaker
Find us on Instagram at stay sparked and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
01:03:47
Speaker
Thanks so much for helping us spread these sparks.