August 19, 2025 • 46 mins
What if death isn’t an ending—but a sacred transition? In this deeply moving episode of Alive Again, we sit down with Dr. Sarah Kerr, a death doula, ritual healing practitioner, and founder of The Centre for Sacred Deathcare. With a PhD in Transformative Learning and decades immersed in cross-cultural and Indigenous traditions, Sarah helps individuals and families navigate dying and grieving as spiritual rites of passage.
She guides us through the concept of liminality—the space between worlds, where the old self dissolves and something new begins. Drawing parallels to the Hero’s Journey, Sarah reframes illness, trauma, and loss as initiatory paths, calling us to grow into the version of ourselves these afflictions ask us to become.
Her insights challenge the limits of the "Western box"—a worldview that often dismisses the unseen and the intuitive. Instead, Sarah invites us to listen deeply to our "spiritual DNA" and honor the inner guidance that emerges in life’s most tender transitions. As she puts it, "the purpose of death is the release of love."
This conversation resonates with many of our guests—from Eric Larsen to Anne Bayford—who recognize that their greatest trials became the soil for transformation. Dr. Kerr reminds us that healing is not about erasing pain, but integrating it, cooperating with the unavoidable, and finding grace in the mystery.
Produced by Dan Bush
For more about Dr. Kerr and her work, visit https://sacreddeathcare.com/
* If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story. Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts. Welcome back to Alive Again. I'm your
host Dan Bush. Today we are honored to be joined
by a truly remarkable guest whose work invites us to
see death not as an end, but as a sacred transition,
a threshold to something greater. Doctor Sarah Kerr is a
(00:29):
death Dulah ritual healing practitioner and the founder of the
Center for Sacred Death Care. With a PhD and transformative
learning and decades of studying cross cultural energy healing, Sarah
helps individuals and families navigate dying and grieving with intention, grace,
and a deep sense of meaning. Her work draws on
ancient wisdom as well as contemporary practices to help people
(00:50):
connect with the sacredness of what is perhaps life's most
profound transition. In a world that often fears death, Doctor
Kerr invites us to lean in to honour and ultimately
to be transformed by it. Today we'll hear the wisdom
that doctor Kerr has gathered from indigenous traditions, and we'll
hear about her own powerful experiences guiding others through those
(01:11):
most precious moments at the end of life. This interview
is especially important to me as a filmmaker and a storyteller.
I've always been fascinated by archetypes, mythic structures, and the
narrative shape of human experience. The way we tell stories
of loss, change and rebirth mirrors the deepest process of
transformation in our own lives. And so yeah, I'm completely
(01:34):
captivated by her unique viewpoint. One of the most fascinating
parts of our discussion how the process of dying, grieving,
and trauma recovery. It follows the same structure as great
mythic stories. Doctor Kerr speaks about death and transformation in
the language of liminality. That's the space between worlds, the
threshold of transition, the dissolution of the old self before
(01:57):
the emergence of something new. In fact, she discribed as
one of the final stages of dying as the dark
knight of the soul, which is a term that we
use often in writing that describes that sacred and necessary
passage for the main character, that critical part of a
story's plot structure, one that mirrors the rights found in
ancient cultures and mythologies. So yeah, I was fascinated to
(02:17):
hear how her experience in bringing ritual to those facing
death speaks to these same universal phrases that I use
in my writing all the time, about the journey, the departure,
the ordeal, the transformation, and the return. If you've ever
struggled with lost, transition or the fear of the unknown,
this conversation will resonate deeply. Doctor Kerr's perspective invites us
(02:41):
to see death not as an ending, but as an
initiation to something greater. So take a deep breath, settle in,
and join us as we explore the sacred space between life, death,
and rebirth with doctor Sarah Kerr. Here, I'm alive again,
(03:02):
Doctor Sarah Kerr, Welcome to alive again.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Thanks Dan, it's wonderful to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'd like to start just asking you about your work
as a death dula, guiding people through life's most profound transition,
and I guess I just want to know sort of
what inspired you to pursue this path. Can you tell
us a little bit about your beginnings?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, I come to this from many different places. A
huge one was that when I was about thirty five,
my dad had a stroke. He'd been very healthy and hearty,
and he had a very debilitating stroke and he didn't die,
but it was a kind of social death. He never
left an institution after that, and that was my first
real experience with mortality. I'm sorry, lucky that until that
(03:41):
point in my life, I'd never really had anyone really
close to me other than grandparents die or struggle with this.
So that was an incredible epiphany. And I really had
this experience of a feeling let down and betrayed by
my culture that I had never No one had ever
told me that I should know how to deal with
this because it was a normal and natural part of life.
(04:01):
So once I've recovered from my own grief, I look
to how I could meet this in the future because
it was coming. So part of it was personal. My
academic training is in ritual work and exploring rituals of transformation,
so that really fits in. And I've also been really
(04:22):
deeply attuned to energy all my life. The energetic dynamic
is as real to me as rocks, so I'm really
perceptive and attuned to those, and this all seems to
loop all those together. I think those are probably the
three main threads of that origin.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And how would you describe what you do now. A
lot of our listeners aren't familiar with the idea of
a death dulla.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Death dulas have been in this iteration probably maybe ten
or twelve years we've been active in the world, but
of course there's a whole history of people before that.
Death dulas care for dying and grieving people. They're lay people,
not medical practitioners, not clergy, not funeral service. Those are
the kind of core aspects that work with death and dying.
(05:03):
And the real key criteria of death dulas is that
we start working with someone before the death, and we
continue after the death and often up to the funeral.
So what usually happens is medical care carry someone to
the death and then there's kind of a gap and
people in this moment of incredibly ripe with transformation and energy,
(05:27):
they're dropped, and then a couple of days later a
funeral service kicks in. Then that's I mean, funeral services
can be amazing, but that's also a commercial venture, and
so where's the soul care in between? And so death
Duela's bridge that gap, and death Doula's common all shapes
and forms and approaches. My work, I really call myself
a sacred death care guide. So I'm working with the
(05:49):
soul's journey through that other death duelas work with different
aspects of the process.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So fascinating. It's interesting that I'm sure indigenous culture and
primal cultures throughout time in human history have had that position,
if you will, or it had that functionality within their culture.
And we can get into this more later in the conversation,
but it seems to me that gap that you speak of.
(06:16):
I mean, I wonder if one hundred years ago or
one hundred and fifty years ago, it would have been
myself as a child who would have to clean and
dress the body of my grandparent who had died bury
them ourselves. And in modern culture, we're so far removed
from that and every instance of death and every instinct
(06:37):
about death, and it seems to be so sterilized and
people often die alone. I know, I'm hitting it with
a lot of stuff, but it just seems I wonder,
what about our culture led us to this point? Big question,
But you know, let us to this point where we
have this sort of fear of death to the point
of I mean, sure, fear of death that might be
a human innate thing, but to the point of of us,
(06:58):
you know, being fascinated with you and not necessarily having
a reverence for our elders. And can you talk a
little bit about where you think some of this fear
comes from.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, say that it's not only a fascination with youth
that reflects our fear of death. I think it's our
fixation on death on screen that doesn't touch us. So
the amount of death we see in populic culture is enormous,
but I think that's in some way a way to
try and process it. But we don't have the tools
(07:28):
to process it in ourselves, so I think that's part
of it. But back to your question many questions in there.
You talked about caring for the body at home. Of
course that would have been all our ancestors, no matter
who we are, through time, have done that, and recently
that's really been sanitized out in the auspices of support
and service, but it doesn't really often serve us. So
(07:51):
we've separated from the physical process of dying. But I
think to the question of fear, I think it's almost
more that we've separated from the spiritual process of dying.
And I really differentiate spiritual and religious. We have in
us all a soul, a spirit, and essence of consciousness
and whatever word works for you. But there's some aspect
of that is not our body. And in the modern
(08:14):
approach to life and the modern approach to death, we
don't validate that. We don't have a space for it,
we don't have tools and practices for working with it,
we don't have language about it. So in the modern
Western logic, you die, you take your last breath, and
that's it. You cease to exist. End of story period.
(08:35):
But I'm sure many of your listeners will know, and
many people I talked to all the time. Of course,
this is just part of the human experience. We experience
things either there are near death experiences or after death
communication or that whole field of trans personal experiences. There
is something else we don't probably can't say exactly what
(08:56):
it is, but there's something else. And so because we
approach death as a finality, I cease to exist. It
is terrifying because existing in community is what it means
to be a human person, and we essentially get exiled,
excommunicated from death. So we don't know what it is
(09:17):
in its soul version. And when we don't know what
things are, we don't know how to approach them, and
we can't learn about them, and they become scary, so
we push them away.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And your practice integrates contemporary ritual healing with like insights
from indigenous cultures. Right, can you talk a little bit
about what you've been able to bring a vert to
our culture from things you've studied and learned, you know,
cross culturally.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I've studied with a number of indigenous healers and shamanic teachers,
but I've also done a lot of research into the
deep archetypal principles of ritual healing, and particularly this arc
type of death and loss, which is a death of
(09:59):
an old way of being, a transitional, liminal in between zone,
and a birth of a new way of being. That's
what initiation is, death of the old, transformation and birth
of the new. And so that archetypal structure underlies all
the traditions, traditional indigenous practices, contemporary religious practices, if they're
(10:20):
attuned in that way, are all about supporting people through
that journey. So my interest is really in kind of
reaching back not two existing or historic practices, but through
them into the archetypal universal. It's almost the spiritual DNA
(10:41):
and developing new rituals that don't use other communities language
or images or songs or rituals, but apply some of
the same ritual principles, and then develop rituals that work
for people who live in cities and have cars and
cell pop And we do them around living room tables
with a candle and it's all in English, and my
(11:03):
grandmother would not be surprised by it. But it touches
the same deep human spiritual dynamics and maybe even more
than human spiritual dynamics.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Could you share a few stories of, you know, just
experiences that you've had while working with folks who are
you know, terminal patients, or what that transition looks like,
what that liminal state looks like as you're approaching the
threshold of death and even after.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So I work with I mean now I mostly train people,
but I do sometimes work with people still. But in
my practice time, my work is with people leading up
to death, at death, after death, and in grief, and
so there are different ritual practices for each of those.
The dying person is going through one transformation where they're
(11:50):
leaving their body, crossing a liminal zone and entering what
I call the village of the ancestors. The living are
going through another transition where they're a part of them dying.
When someone you love dies, part of you dies, and
you need to go through transition time so a new
you can be born to see you without those So
there are all sorts of different rituals that we use
(12:12):
in different aspects of that. I guess one that I'll
just share. You can go anywhere along that spectrum, sure,
but one that's really beautiful and powerful is a ritual
I do at deathbeds. I'm not very often holding vigil
at deathbeds with people. I don't sit for those hours
and hours. I'm on the phone. I'm tracking it, but
I'm not there. But they call me when the person dies.
(12:33):
And that's really that moment when people get dropped by
one system. I mean, nurses and doctors and the palliat
of care system are fantastic. They say take the time
you need and then we'll call a funeral home. But people,
even if you're expecting the death, people are kind of
blown open and they don't know what they need. So
that's what a ritual is. I call myself clergy for
the unchurched well, because people need guidance, they want spiritual teachings,
(12:59):
they want spiritual community, they want spiritual insights what's happening
as I die, but without a particular sort of liturgy
or prayer system or religious practice. So I'll come often.
I'll walk into the room, might be three in the morning,
and people are kind of just in all stages of
(13:20):
grief and disbelief and disorientation often and so clearing and calming.
I walk in through and you can just see people's
shoulders drop. Someone is going to drive this bus. And
so we'll do a ritual that probably takes depending on
what the family is, it might take between two and
five hours. And it's helping people adjust to the fact
(13:42):
that the person is dead. You knew they were dying,
You've seen them die. There's a dead body in front
of you, but our brains do not absorb that information
as fast as it happens. So we slow things down.
We slow things down, We move all the trita set
of the room. We go around the circle, and each
(14:03):
person has an opportunity to touch the person, sometimes even
that they've never touched a dead body. There's something in
your body that you learn about the truth of death
when you touch a dead body. So just coming in
and being comfortable and touching the person and encouraging them
to touch the person. Sometimes it takes a while and
people slowly get to that point and maybe they can
(14:25):
touch their hand. We'll anoint them. Sometimes we'll give them
a blessing of goodbye, and sometimes it's putting lotion on
their hands. Sometimes it's full body washing and tending. We
call the ancestors. We imagine they're crossing a river, they're
leaving the village of the living, and they're on their
way to the village of the ancestors. Who do we
want to be there to meet them? So we go
(14:47):
around the circle around the bed and people say, well,
I want Grandma and uncle Joe and his friend Pete
and the dog Fido. And as we call those names in,
it starts to deepen that field. And there's a way
that people, without consciously realizing it, start to remember that
other people died and they were okay, there have been
(15:07):
other deaths, and they're okay, this is a death and
they'll be okay. So we call the ancestors and then
I do a number of ritual practices about unwinding the chakras.
And then at some point when it's really clear that
the person is ready to leave, then I have the
family start at the bottom and with their hands altogether
(15:28):
they comb their energy out of the body. And it's
incredible and profound to watch because as you do that,
it's not an intellectual thing, but the family is with
their bodies acknowledging that this person is leaving. They comb
them all out and we send them on their way,
(15:48):
and then they anoint the top of their head with
essential oil and say they're gone. And so we do
a number of rituals like that that lead up to
the point of being able to pull a sheet over
their head. That's a huge ritual gesture. And when that's
done by the family, it's very different than having a
(16:09):
funeral home come in and load a body in a
body bag and take them away, or going home while
the body's still in the bed. It helps the person
that the soul of the living catch up, and it
also serves the soul of the person who's died.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I lost a dear friend of mine and my lover,
Patrice burnside back. It was twenty almost thirty years ago now,
but we were living together for many years, and when
she passed it was sudden. It was a car accident,
and I remember, being a student of anthropology. I remember thinking, God,
I wish I had some rituals. I wish I had
some things to do with the community to sort of,
(16:46):
you know, to as you say, say goodbye. And it
was really lacking. It was very pronounced how lacking it was.
I read a quote of yours ritual is energy medicine
for the collective body. I love that. I think that
that's and I guess my question here is really just
(17:06):
to have you expand on that more. But do you
see this becoming? Are people waking up in Western society
to some of these practices or some of these means
by which to better understand death, or do you think
that people are still just sort of dealing with their
own trauma of the loss and the grieving without any direction,
(17:28):
like is this going to take hold?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I love that you pulled out that quote. That was
a direct quote and a dream and a dream and
that was a direct teaching at the tray. So that's
the appropriate citation. Is the dream givers gave me that
quote came through my mouth, but it came from them.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
There is an enormous growth of interest in this. Partially
it's baby boomers who had their children with midwives and
have all the way through their life cycle said I
don't want to do this the same way. Partly it's
that we are just culturally so flooded by in a
(18:05):
way meaninglessness that people are starting to look for meaning
and it's becoming more and more precious. I think the
psychedelic revolution is having an enormous impact on this. People
suddenly are able to say in public company, while I
went on this journey and I saw these things, and
I learned these things from these teachers, that other world
is getting more validity and more reality. And I think
(18:27):
what's exciting about this work is that it's led not
by clients and families. People don't say, oh, I want
a death tool. What happens is there's this whole body
of people. I call them people who embody the archtype
of the death walker. You said early on there are
people in cultures all over the world who have always
(18:48):
occupied this cultural space. We don't have a socially sanctioned
space for someone to stand in if those are their
gifts and those people feel I know death can be
done differently. I know there's something on the other side.
I know there's a spiritual aspect to this. It doesn't
have to be as hard as it is. So that's
who's leading it. That's who's leading it. And families and
(19:10):
dying people who are in a different space of a
little more confusion, they're joining on, but it's really being
led by the practitioners.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
You also wrote, I love this one. Healing is about
integrating what is happening to you so that you can
grow into the person that the affliction is asking you
to become. That is our show in a nutshell, every
single story that we not everyone, some of them there's
still a lot of trauma, but most of the folks
(19:39):
that we talk to who have gone through this threshold
and even crossed over and then come back or even lost,
they have all gone through a liminal state, even if
it's not an actual crossing of the threshold into death
and back. But if they've lost the ability to walk
or to talk, they've lost an old identity of a
previous version of themselves is dead and they have to
rebuild into a new one. And every single one of
(20:01):
them say, I would not trade this, I would not
go back, because what I have become as a result
of having to deal with this adversity has made me
into something amazing. And I guess my question is I'll
just read this, but it's so yeah. This is a
reoccurring theme from the point of view of so many
that have shared their stories with us, and I'm wondering
(20:21):
if you can elaborate on how this process of integration
and growth occurs, especially in the face of profound loss.
How can embracing this perspective transform suffering into a journey
of self discovery and healing.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I want to speak to your experience that everyone you've
talked to has said this has been a profound transformative moment.
I wouldn't trade it. And I also want to name
that our homeless shelters and ad dictionary rehab centers are
full of people who had terrible, incredible, awful things happened
to them and they didn't have the support to have
that transformative experience. So it doesn't happen unless you have
(20:53):
both the internal resources which come from the support you've
had through your life, and the external resources when it happens.
So one of the other things I really believe and
say often is that trauma met well is initiation. Initiation
met poorly is trauma. And I want to qualify that
(21:14):
well and poorly doesn't mean the person's doing a good
job or not. It's not about their behavior or their response.
It's about how does the community hold them sure.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
That that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Traumatic experiences death, loss, torture, breast cancer was my own
experience of this. Have the opportunity to be incredibly transformative,
but if we don't have the support, they also can
break us. And so it's I'm what I'm really curious
about are what are the ritual practices, what are the
cultural contexts that support people to move through them and find,
(21:51):
you know, to go be the caterpillar who goes into
the cocoon, comes undone to their old self and emerges
as a butterfly. Tensional, well held, focused, structured ritual is
energy medicine for the collective body. It changes the structure
of the space, It changes the state of our consciousness.
(22:12):
It creates that that cocoon, that al chemical vessel where
we can come undone and be rebuilt. So my practice
has been about using ritual for that, and I do
the ritual work with families, but I also do a
series of in person workshops which are for anybody in
(22:32):
any stage of dying or not dying, or serving dying people,
which are related to systemic family constellations and touch the
most incredible space. And I really feel like it has
potential to be a parallel to psychedelic medicine in terms
of supporting people to meet death, particularly because psychedelics are
done individually, go on your journey. This work that I'm doing,
(22:55):
you can do as a community, and people kind of
have a shared experience of entering the liminal together, which
is our ancestry, a ritual practice is together to prepare
for that. So I'm so excited about what psychedelics are
doing to the culture to make space for this kind
of work. And there are other ways to approach it
that don't need to be psychedelics, that can get us
(23:15):
incredible places.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
One hundred percent agree. I am you know, as a
director and a filmmaker, I work with actors a lot,
and they, you know, they have to take on different roles,
and it seems like the work always comes back to
this idea that came from an anthropological study or came
from an anthropological thought about belonging. We are you know,
we are not individuals. We are part of a body.
(23:39):
And there's this idea that I like to talk to
my actors about, which is the idea that the need
to belong is perhaps more powerful than the need to
preserve life or the need to survive. And so I'm
so glad to hear you talking about that, because you know,
(24:00):
you get the picture of like, oh, this is a
person who's dying, and there again they're isolated in their
experience of whatever liminal state they're hitting or whatever transformation
they're going through as they're approaching this next crossing over.
But it's really about the community. It's really about everybody involved.
And that is like the light bulb in my mind
(24:21):
of like what is missing perhaps with a lot of
these sterile environments where someone dies in their sleep without
their family nearby.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And yes, there's the physical presence of someone around the
dying person, but I don't think that is as significant
as the cultural picture we have, which is that when
you are dead, you are gone, You no longer belong,
There is no place for you. You don't have a
place in this culture because we don't have an ancestral
(24:49):
connection practice. We don't have and I say we in
the broad sense certainly my experience, but in most of
dominant culture, we don't have ways of saying you are
still here. We don't have a role for ancestors. The
death is just one more stage on the developmental journey.
You're born, you become a child, you become an adult,
(25:11):
you get married to all these things, all these developmental stages.
Death is another one, no matter where in life it happens,
and it's the transition, the initiation where someone becomes an ancestor,
ancestors of responsibilities, ancestors of roles, ancestors of a place
in the culture. So I so strongly believe that the reason,
or one of the main reasons we are so terrified
(25:33):
of death personally as we face it for ourselves is
it is complete annihilation. It is excommunication, it is you
know what you say, it is. It is more significant
than life. That's why it's more of an In traditional cultures,
it was a worse punishment to exile someone that to
kill them, because to be separated. They say, you know,
(25:54):
are no longer banishment banishment, all right, And that's what
we do with our dead, We banish them.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It's the worst punishment, solitary confinement, excommunication.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Can you share some I guess some stories, like things
that you've observed specifically about the human capacity for resilien
it's the human capacity to have an AHA moment as
they're approaching the inevitable.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
The human capacity for resilience and AHA is directly related
to our nervous system because we live in bodies, and
nervous systems have windows of tolerance. And when when a
death happens, whether it's as in your experience, a sudden death,
or whether it's a death that is completely expected through
(26:41):
illness and aging, there is still a way that very
often it kind of blows our circuitry. It's more than
we can handle. We get thrown out of our capacity
to regulate, and we can't have epiphanies if we're unregulated.
So the work I do is about narrowing down what's happening,
(27:03):
slowing it down, spending five hours at the bedside, just
getting people caught up to the fact that they're going
to pull a sheet over the head. Then we have
eight more rituals after that. But so we titrate the
integration of the experience instead of saying someone, here's this
(27:24):
massive emotional, energetic dynamic that we're asking you to integrate.
We can't. Our systems can't handle it. But if you say, okay,
right now, we're just gonna sit around and call the
ancestors and put lotion on their hands, just really name
that they are not here and learn somatically that they're
(27:45):
not here, and then we're going to do something else,
and then we're going to do something else. And then
if I've done my job right, by the time we
get to the funeral, which is a week later, people
have had so much structured space to integrate that they
can receive what the funeral offers. It's that that little
window between death and the funeral is a really intense
(28:07):
version of that alchemical vessel, the cocoon. That is when
people need incredible support and mostly people get nothing. So
our capacity to have these enlightened experiences is based on
our ability to regulate, based on the support we have
all of that because we cannot hold our own container
while we're going through those transformative experiences. We need a
(28:27):
container help for us. That's the cocoon.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
The cocoon makes complete sense again. I wish, I hope
I can foster those for myself in the future with
what's coming. You know, I'm curious one of the most
transformative lessons that you've learned in your personal experiences. I'm
curious about aha moments that you've had along the way
that have shaped your practice and have shaped your philosophy.
(28:52):
Have there been any just real lightning bolts for you
in your own journey?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You know, there have in so many experiences. I don't
think of them like capaw, here's the moment. It's a
much different transformation now, it doesn't. I think that's a
little bit of a Western Here you go, here's magical apologies.
(29:19):
It's fine. I mean, that's what it'd be fun sometimes
and sometimes people have those.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
But the storyteller and me is drawn to.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And and in these experiences, all the rituals are on
the arc of a story. We every ritual leads to
that moment and comes down from that moment, and you
need to point and a point and a point. But
the big thing is more a way that I just
so deeply know and trust this process. And that's what
I teach my students that when you can come into
(29:48):
a really profound, embodied relationship with these energetic dynamics this
architecture of death and loss. When we walk into the
room with clients, we we serve as a kind of
tuning fork. You bring that knowing with you and it
changes the shape of the space. So I've i mean,
the some of the things about this too, And this
(30:10):
is the way why it's also not the big Kapa moments. Sometimes,
really mystical moments look quite small on the outside, but
they feel enormous on the inside, so they don't translate
very well to film because they're very internal. So you know,
we're carrying the body of a man who's ranched in
(30:31):
this land his whole life, to the rock at the
center of the land where his parents are buried. And
there are four red tailed hawks who fly with us
the whole way, circling and circling, and and a hundred
stories like that, which just building me this trust and
this this knowing that there is something else guiding this
(30:57):
process and to the extent which which with which I
can recognize it, lean into it and collaborate with it.
The possibility for beauty and grace is incredible. It's right
below the surface and we can touch into it, and
it's just slowing down and you know, having the ritual
and all the practices we did before they picked up
(31:20):
the handmade litter, and all his sons and grandsons and
nephews carried him, and the women drummed like those that
get goosebumps. They're the kind of experience where I just
I just walked through the world in a different way
because I have complete knowing that it's okay. Can you
talk about like.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Sort of some phases like I'm looking towards like the
moment of surrender, you know, being the big, big moment
of letting go, because you know, letting go of control
and going okay and having a moment of surrender seems
like it would be part of a huge part of
the process towards healing or towards the transition. Does that
make sense what I'm asking on you.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, there's a beautiful phrase about surrender, and I read
as some I don't know whose it is that they
said surrender's not giving up, it's giving over. And I
love that. I think that's what you're speaking about, letting
go of control, letting go, that there's something bigger that's
a big part of it, that this is we're not.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
In charge of this have you seen those points of
surrender with people you've worked with?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yes, and again they grow. They're not a moment aha moment. Right,
let's just say we're starting at the deathbed with that
ritual I talked about. It's another another wonderful phrase. And
these phrases from you are a little bit like medicine,
you know. And one of the beautiful phrases that I
teach you one shared with me is unconditional cooperation with
the unavoidable. Don't fight with reality. And so that's all
(32:42):
the way through. That's my work with people, unconditional cooperation
because it doesn't matter if you have conditions, they're not
going to do any good. The unavoidable is the unavoidable.
So how do we come to terms with this part
and come to terms with this part and then come
to terms with this slow, slow grow And because initiation
(33:04):
is not an in and out, it's a leaving the old,
going down to the dark knight of the soul into
that transformative journey, going down, down, down, down down and
hitting the bottom. And you think that just it can't
get any worse, and it does stop getting worse if
you write it all the way down. Yes, you shed
and you shed, and you say goodbye, and you get
ritual support to say goodbye and shed and chad and
(33:25):
shed and that. If you can write it all the
way down, if you have the support to write it
all the way down, you get to a bottom point
where it does turn, and then there's a whole other
journey of coming back up again. Who am I? This
is shedding, there's a building. Who am I now? Oh
he's dead. Maybe I'll sell a family house and move
(33:45):
into a condo. What when do I take off my
wedding ring? All of these things? So we go up, up, up,
up up, and at some point I really do see
it like dropping below in a circle and coming back up.
We come back up the other side, and we almost
grab onto the ledge and poke our head up and
say I'm back, I'm back. And from that place of
(34:08):
being back with the rest of the ordinary normals quote
unquotes whatever those things are, but not in that deep, initiatory,
transformative journey, then people look back and they can say, Wow,
I am an entirely different person. The world is not
what I thought it was, limitations are not what they
thought they were. What I'm capable of, and it's a
(34:29):
kind of retrospective. But when you're in the journey, you
are being tossed and turned and buffeted and broken hearted,
and it's hard to believe this is actually something that's
going to serve you. So the awareness often comes later.
And maybe there are other experiences and other versions of
these things where it's a moment. But in the death
(34:51):
and loss process, I find it's such an extended reorganization
of people that it's just one moment after another after another.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
That makes perfect sense because the aha moment, while you
know romantic and you know the fuel of films and
so forth, there has to be this stripping away, I guess,
and these sort of obstacles to overcome almost necessarily for
you to begin to form the new connections or see
(35:24):
a new way, you have to go through the ordeal
or the hardship or face the adversity. Sort of coming
to the end of a lot of the questions that
I had. But I'm curious about what advice you have.
So if there's a lot of people out there who
are currently facing death or the death of a loved
one or their own mortality, anything that you might say
(35:45):
to offer to them, and it could be called this number.
You know, come talk to us, or it could be
you know, any any bit of advice you could say
to these to these folks, you know, to navigate them
towards a transition or towards the acceptance of what's coming.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
We don't come into the world knowing how to deal
with death. We come in knowing how to breathe and
how to digest and all these other things. But there
are other practices which are supposed to be cultural transmissions.
We're taught how to communicate well, how to parent, how
to feed ourselves, how to care for our bodies. All
these life skills and death and loss and dealing with
death and loss your own are someone you care about
(36:21):
is a learned skill and we are not taught it.
So it is a kind of call this number because
that's what I teach. So you can find it for me.
I have lots of videos and resources on my site,
but find it somewhere. Prepare for it before it comes,
because you can't do your end of life work at
the end of your life. Right. Another great phrase in
(36:42):
this work, The more you're you're thinking about it as
people in your life are ill and dying, the more
you're able to face it when it's your turn, so
be prepared and start early. People often put off calling
doulas and take your death care guides till the very
last minute because they think I'm not dying yet. I'm
just gonna wait till I'm dying, and that time never
(37:03):
really comes, and then suddenly you've missed the opportunity. There's
so much that can be done to make this a beautiful,
meaningful process. Laurie Anderson musician, as her husband Lou Reed
was dying, she nursed him. They both had a deep
spiritual practice in that process, and she has a great
line that was in an article she wrote Rolling Stone Magazine,
and she said, I've come to believe that the purpose
(37:26):
of death is the release of love. But that doesn't
happen unless you meet it that way. So we can't
choose how death happens, when it happens, how it happens,
but we can choose how we meet it. And if
we meet it in a way that allows more love
to flow, more love between the living and the person
who's dying, more love between the survivors, if the death
(37:47):
has been sudden, more love and healing. Then even the
most awful death can have beauty in it. Right, it's
back to the worst. Things can be beautiful if we
meet them in in a way that matches that. So
I guess the advice would be think about it, prepare
for it, and know that it's hard and it's sad,
(38:10):
but it doesn't have to be scary and confusing, and
it can be beautiful if you meet it with intention.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Okay, I'm going to expand that out a little bit
and it might be the same answer. But if you
could inspire one change in how our society approaches death
and mortality, what would it be and why it's a
big one.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
We meet death and mortality the same way we meet life,
and we meet it through the Western worldview, which has
a lot of blinders. It looks at the world as
a little box. It says it's material, it's dualistic, it's
either on off. Yes, no, there's a thousand that it's
happening internally, right, it's we can't have trans personal experiences.
(38:57):
So the Western world has this little box, and everything
that doesn't fit in this box, we say, well, that's unreal,
that's extraordinary, extrasensory, supernatural, parent normal. We have all these
ways of just diminishing them, saying they're not real, but
they're happening. Now, how you make meeting those is another question,
(39:18):
but that they are happening. So that's why I think
psychedelics are so exciting. That's why I think this death
positivity revolution is so exciting, because people are starting to
get their box expanded, and the box of them I'm me,
and you are you, and we are individuals. Well, we
live in a world of ecosystems where we're all intertwined
(39:40):
in webs of co related, reciprocal systems. If we can
start to just stretch that box to make space for
some more experiences, it not only will change how we
meet death, because it won't be that excommunication light switch out,
you know, finito end, It'll be the beginning of the
next journey. It'll also change how we live in the
(40:02):
world because a relationship with the land, with the ancestors,
with the future beings, that's a healthier way to be.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Thank you. I wanted to ask if there's anything else
that you wanted to discuss or that you were hoping
to talk about while we were in this conversation. I mean,
we've hit some big topics and your masterful and your explanations.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I am like one of those things with a string.
You could ask me questions all day a thousand different places.
So is there anything else?
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Was there any final thoughts that you had that maybe
you know you were hoping to share. If not, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And one other part that's really important and that I
really encourage people to pay attention to, and you can
do this quietly just in your own life, is to
honor and validate your own experiences, the nudges and the
intuitions and the quiet impulses that come that aren't necessarily fireworks,
(41:03):
but they just feel. It's a nudge, it's a knowing,
it's a vision, it's a sense that capacity to open
our consciousness to something more than just what's in that
western box. Because that other world, the dream world, the
psychedelic world, the liminal zone, that speaks to us in
(41:27):
these internal kind of soul communications. But so often we're
told that those aren't real, they don't matter, they should
be ignored. You're just making it up, you're imagining things
you're not. That's my biggest.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Plead to people is to value those because that is
our soul's talking to us and if we lose touch
with our souls, we've lost everything. And people fool me
all the time and they say, you know, I did
these sessions. They say, well, the partner died and I
just so he said you'd communicate with me, and he hasn't.
And so we talked a while and I said nothing.
So well, I had this dream, and they diminished, diminished, diminished,
(42:06):
diminish the dream. Then we unpack the dream and by
the end of it they can see what the dream is.
So we we automatically diminish these things. If there's a
way that people can really tune into value, that felt sense, experience,
that's and that's how we meet death in a better way.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I've been I've been being bombarded a lot lately with
signs on the on the road, signposts myself that are
you know, this idea of like okay, the messages coming
are like let go, like stop the struggle, let go,
And you do that because you can't simultaneously have anxiety
and be focused on something at the same time. So
(42:45):
let go. Focus on the now, focus on the immediate,
the present, because there is no future, there is no path.
Just focus on the present and follow the prompts.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Follow the prompts. Yes, yeah, exactly like synchronicity, and yes,
coincidents and perfectly timed signs that are too good to
be true, but they're really true.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
It's like a knock, like, hey, hello over here. Don't
ignore them, right, he said, knock.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
I don't know if you heard, but my dogs just
knocked over there. You go, a huge crash in my background.
You said, knock.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
How serendipitous.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Let me just let in the dog who's now scratched.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Okay, thank you so much. I so respect your work,
and I'm I'm fascinated by this stuff, and I'm fascinated
by the cultural anthropology side of it, and I love
that you're bringing it to us and opening our eyes
and here in the Western world with tools on how
to how to navigate these waters. And it's just such
(43:49):
meaningful work. And I can't tell you how much I
appreciate you joining us on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Thanks so much, Dan, It's been a real little light.
I've enjoyed a conversation a lot.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Awesome. Okay, Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
To learn more about doctor Kerr and her work, you
can visit her website, The Center for Sacred Deathcare www
dot Sacredeathcare.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Dot com, and you can always follow her on social
media for insights on death, grief, and transformational healing. Look
for links in our show notes. Next time on Alive Again,
we meet Cliff Bowman, a veteran who was stationed near
(44:36):
the Pentagon on nine to eleven and played a critical
role in the rescue mission that day. The trauma of
that experience followed him for years, leading him to a
deep depression that eventually led to a suicide attempt.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
I do say that I am a suicide survivor because
I think it's important. I will no longer be a
shame to that because that event has shaked my life
to what I am now. For people who have survived suicide,
I think they look at things differently. Right, you want
to go and enjoy life, You really want to live again.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Cliff's story is one of resilience. He shares how facing
his darkness ultimately helped him find a way back to life.
Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,
Nicholas Dakoski, and Lauren Vogelbaum. Music by Ben Lovett, Additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our Executive producers are Matthew Frederick
(45:23):
and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional
production support. Our studio engineers are Rima L. Kali and
Noames Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartzlovitchka, Brent Die
and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez.
I'm your host, Dan Bush. Alive Again is a production
(45:58):
of IRT Radio and go Via Pictures. If you have
a transformative near death experience to share, we'd love to
hear your story. Please email us at a Live Again
project at gmail dot com. That's a l I v
e A g A I N p R O j
E c T at gmail dot com.
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts. Welcome back to Alive Again. I'm your
host Dan Bush. Today we are honored to be joined
by a truly remarkable guest whose work invites us to
see death not as an end, but as a sacred transition,
a threshold to something greater. Doctor Sarah Kerr is a
(00:29):
death Dulah ritual healing practitioner and the founder of the
Center for Sacred Death Care. With a PhD and transformative
learning and decades of studying cross cultural energy healing, Sarah
helps individuals and families navigate dying and grieving with intention, grace,
and a deep sense of meaning. Her work draws on
ancient wisdom as well as contemporary practices to help people
(00:50):
connect with the sacredness of what is perhaps life's most
profound transition. In a world that often fears death, Doctor
Kerr invites us to lean in to honour and ultimately
to be transformed by it. Today we'll hear the wisdom
that doctor Kerr has gathered from indigenous traditions, and we'll
hear about her own powerful experiences guiding others through those
(01:11):
most precious moments at the end of life. This interview
is especially important to me as a filmmaker and a storyteller.
I've always been fascinated by archetypes, mythic structures, and the
narrative shape of human experience. The way we tell stories
of loss, change and rebirth mirrors the deepest process of
transformation in our own lives. And so yeah, I'm completely
(01:34):
captivated by her unique viewpoint. One of the most fascinating
parts of our discussion how the process of dying, grieving,
and trauma recovery. It follows the same structure as great
mythic stories. Doctor Kerr speaks about death and transformation in
the language of liminality. That's the space between worlds, the
threshold of transition, the dissolution of the old self before
(01:57):
the emergence of something new. In fact, she discribed as
one of the final stages of dying as the dark
knight of the soul, which is a term that we
use often in writing that describes that sacred and necessary
passage for the main character, that critical part of a
story's plot structure, one that mirrors the rights found in
ancient cultures and mythologies. So yeah, I was fascinated to
(02:17):
hear how her experience in bringing ritual to those facing
death speaks to these same universal phrases that I use
in my writing all the time, about the journey, the departure,
the ordeal, the transformation, and the return. If you've ever
struggled with lost, transition or the fear of the unknown,
this conversation will resonate deeply. Doctor Kerr's perspective invites us
(02:41):
to see death not as an ending, but as an
initiation to something greater. So take a deep breath, settle in,
and join us as we explore the sacred space between life, death,
and rebirth with doctor Sarah Kerr. Here, I'm alive again,
(03:02):
Doctor Sarah Kerr, Welcome to alive again.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Thanks Dan, it's wonderful to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'd like to start just asking you about your work
as a death dula, guiding people through life's most profound transition,
and I guess I just want to know sort of
what inspired you to pursue this path. Can you tell
us a little bit about your beginnings?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, I come to this from many different places. A
huge one was that when I was about thirty five,
my dad had a stroke. He'd been very healthy and hearty,
and he had a very debilitating stroke and he didn't die,
but it was a kind of social death. He never
left an institution after that, and that was my first
real experience with mortality. I'm sorry, lucky that until that
(03:41):
point in my life, I'd never really had anyone really
close to me other than grandparents die or struggle with this.
So that was an incredible epiphany. And I really had
this experience of a feeling let down and betrayed by
my culture that I had never No one had ever
told me that I should know how to deal with
this because it was a normal and natural part of life.
(04:01):
So once I've recovered from my own grief, I look
to how I could meet this in the future because
it was coming. So part of it was personal. My
academic training is in ritual work and exploring rituals of transformation,
so that really fits in. And I've also been really
(04:22):
deeply attuned to energy all my life. The energetic dynamic
is as real to me as rocks, so I'm really
perceptive and attuned to those, and this all seems to
loop all those together. I think those are probably the
three main threads of that origin.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And how would you describe what you do now. A
lot of our listeners aren't familiar with the idea of
a death dulla.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Death dulas have been in this iteration probably maybe ten
or twelve years we've been active in the world, but
of course there's a whole history of people before that.
Death dulas care for dying and grieving people. They're lay people,
not medical practitioners, not clergy, not funeral service. Those are
the kind of core aspects that work with death and dying.
(05:03):
And the real key criteria of death dulas is that
we start working with someone before the death, and we
continue after the death and often up to the funeral.
So what usually happens is medical care carry someone to
the death and then there's kind of a gap and
people in this moment of incredibly ripe with transformation and energy,
(05:27):
they're dropped, and then a couple of days later a
funeral service kicks in. Then that's I mean, funeral services
can be amazing, but that's also a commercial venture, and
so where's the soul care in between? And so death
Duela's bridge that gap, and death Doula's common all shapes
and forms and approaches. My work, I really call myself
a sacred death care guide. So I'm working with the
(05:49):
soul's journey through that other death duelas work with different
aspects of the process.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So fascinating. It's interesting that I'm sure indigenous culture and
primal cultures throughout time in human history have had that position,
if you will, or it had that functionality within their culture.
And we can get into this more later in the conversation,
but it seems to me that gap that you speak of.
(06:16):
I mean, I wonder if one hundred years ago or
one hundred and fifty years ago, it would have been
myself as a child who would have to clean and
dress the body of my grandparent who had died bury
them ourselves. And in modern culture, we're so far removed
from that and every instance of death and every instinct
(06:37):
about death, and it seems to be so sterilized and
people often die alone. I know, I'm hitting it with
a lot of stuff, but it just seems I wonder,
what about our culture led us to this point? Big question,
But you know, let us to this point where we
have this sort of fear of death to the point
of I mean, sure, fear of death that might be
a human innate thing, but to the point of of us,
(06:58):
you know, being fascinated with you and not necessarily having
a reverence for our elders. And can you talk a
little bit about where you think some of this fear
comes from.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, say that it's not only a fascination with youth
that reflects our fear of death. I think it's our
fixation on death on screen that doesn't touch us. So
the amount of death we see in populic culture is enormous,
but I think that's in some way a way to
try and process it. But we don't have the tools
(07:28):
to process it in ourselves, so I think that's part
of it. But back to your question many questions in there.
You talked about caring for the body at home. Of
course that would have been all our ancestors, no matter
who we are, through time, have done that, and recently
that's really been sanitized out in the auspices of support
and service, but it doesn't really often serve us. So
(07:51):
we've separated from the physical process of dying. But I
think to the question of fear, I think it's almost
more that we've separated from the spiritual process of dying.
And I really differentiate spiritual and religious. We have in
us all a soul, a spirit, and essence of consciousness
and whatever word works for you. But there's some aspect
of that is not our body. And in the modern
(08:14):
approach to life and the modern approach to death, we
don't validate that. We don't have a space for it,
we don't have tools and practices for working with it,
we don't have language about it. So in the modern
Western logic, you die, you take your last breath, and
that's it. You cease to exist. End of story period.
(08:35):
But I'm sure many of your listeners will know, and
many people I talked to all the time. Of course,
this is just part of the human experience. We experience
things either there are near death experiences or after death
communication or that whole field of trans personal experiences. There
is something else we don't probably can't say exactly what
(08:56):
it is, but there's something else. And so because we
approach death as a finality, I cease to exist. It
is terrifying because existing in community is what it means
to be a human person, and we essentially get exiled,
excommunicated from death. So we don't know what it is
(09:17):
in its soul version. And when we don't know what
things are, we don't know how to approach them, and
we can't learn about them, and they become scary, so
we push them away.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And your practice integrates contemporary ritual healing with like insights
from indigenous cultures. Right, can you talk a little bit
about what you've been able to bring a vert to
our culture from things you've studied and learned, you know,
cross culturally.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I've studied with a number of indigenous healers and shamanic teachers,
but I've also done a lot of research into the
deep archetypal principles of ritual healing, and particularly this arc
type of death and loss, which is a death of
(09:59):
an old way of being, a transitional, liminal in between zone,
and a birth of a new way of being. That's
what initiation is, death of the old, transformation and birth
of the new. And so that archetypal structure underlies all
the traditions, traditional indigenous practices, contemporary religious practices, if they're
(10:20):
attuned in that way, are all about supporting people through
that journey. So my interest is really in kind of
reaching back not two existing or historic practices, but through
them into the archetypal universal. It's almost the spiritual DNA
(10:41):
and developing new rituals that don't use other communities language
or images or songs or rituals, but apply some of
the same ritual principles, and then develop rituals that work
for people who live in cities and have cars and
cell pop And we do them around living room tables
with a candle and it's all in English, and my
(11:03):
grandmother would not be surprised by it. But it touches
the same deep human spiritual dynamics and maybe even more
than human spiritual dynamics.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Could you share a few stories of, you know, just
experiences that you've had while working with folks who are
you know, terminal patients, or what that transition looks like,
what that liminal state looks like as you're approaching the
threshold of death and even after.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So I work with I mean now I mostly train people,
but I do sometimes work with people still. But in
my practice time, my work is with people leading up
to death, at death, after death, and in grief, and
so there are different ritual practices for each of those.
The dying person is going through one transformation where they're
(11:50):
leaving their body, crossing a liminal zone and entering what
I call the village of the ancestors. The living are
going through another transition where they're a part of them dying.
When someone you love dies, part of you dies, and
you need to go through transition time so a new
you can be born to see you without those So
there are all sorts of different rituals that we use
(12:12):
in different aspects of that. I guess one that I'll
just share. You can go anywhere along that spectrum, sure,
but one that's really beautiful and powerful is a ritual
I do at deathbeds. I'm not very often holding vigil
at deathbeds with people. I don't sit for those hours
and hours. I'm on the phone. I'm tracking it, but
I'm not there. But they call me when the person dies.
(12:33):
And that's really that moment when people get dropped by
one system. I mean, nurses and doctors and the palliat
of care system are fantastic. They say take the time
you need and then we'll call a funeral home. But people,
even if you're expecting the death, people are kind of
blown open and they don't know what they need. So
that's what a ritual is. I call myself clergy for
the unchurched well, because people need guidance, they want spiritual teachings,
(12:59):
they want spiritual community, they want spiritual insights what's happening
as I die, but without a particular sort of liturgy
or prayer system or religious practice. So I'll come often.
I'll walk into the room, might be three in the morning,
and people are kind of just in all stages of
(13:20):
grief and disbelief and disorientation often and so clearing and calming.
I walk in through and you can just see people's
shoulders drop. Someone is going to drive this bus. And
so we'll do a ritual that probably takes depending on
what the family is, it might take between two and
five hours. And it's helping people adjust to the fact
(13:42):
that the person is dead. You knew they were dying,
You've seen them die. There's a dead body in front
of you, but our brains do not absorb that information
as fast as it happens. So we slow things down.
We slow things down, We move all the trita set
of the room. We go around the circle, and each
(14:03):
person has an opportunity to touch the person, sometimes even
that they've never touched a dead body. There's something in
your body that you learn about the truth of death
when you touch a dead body. So just coming in
and being comfortable and touching the person and encouraging them
to touch the person. Sometimes it takes a while and
people slowly get to that point and maybe they can
(14:25):
touch their hand. We'll anoint them. Sometimes we'll give them
a blessing of goodbye, and sometimes it's putting lotion on
their hands. Sometimes it's full body washing and tending. We
call the ancestors. We imagine they're crossing a river, they're
leaving the village of the living, and they're on their
way to the village of the ancestors. Who do we
want to be there to meet them? So we go
(14:47):
around the circle around the bed and people say, well,
I want Grandma and uncle Joe and his friend Pete
and the dog Fido. And as we call those names in,
it starts to deepen that field. And there's a way
that people, without consciously realizing it, start to remember that
other people died and they were okay, there have been
(15:07):
other deaths, and they're okay, this is a death and
they'll be okay. So we call the ancestors and then
I do a number of ritual practices about unwinding the chakras.
And then at some point when it's really clear that
the person is ready to leave, then I have the
family start at the bottom and with their hands altogether
(15:28):
they comb their energy out of the body. And it's
incredible and profound to watch because as you do that,
it's not an intellectual thing, but the family is with
their bodies acknowledging that this person is leaving. They comb
them all out and we send them on their way,
(15:48):
and then they anoint the top of their head with
essential oil and say they're gone. And so we do
a number of rituals like that that lead up to
the point of being able to pull a sheet over
their head. That's a huge ritual gesture. And when that's
done by the family, it's very different than having a
(16:09):
funeral home come in and load a body in a
body bag and take them away, or going home while
the body's still in the bed. It helps the person
that the soul of the living catch up, and it
also serves the soul of the person who's died.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I lost a dear friend of mine and my lover,
Patrice burnside back. It was twenty almost thirty years ago now,
but we were living together for many years, and when
she passed it was sudden. It was a car accident,
and I remember, being a student of anthropology. I remember thinking, God,
I wish I had some rituals. I wish I had
some things to do with the community to sort of,
(16:46):
you know, to as you say, say goodbye. And it
was really lacking. It was very pronounced how lacking it was.
I read a quote of yours ritual is energy medicine
for the collective body. I love that. I think that
that's and I guess my question here is really just
(17:06):
to have you expand on that more. But do you
see this becoming? Are people waking up in Western society
to some of these practices or some of these means
by which to better understand death, or do you think
that people are still just sort of dealing with their
own trauma of the loss and the grieving without any direction,
(17:28):
like is this going to take hold?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I love that you pulled out that quote. That was
a direct quote and a dream and a dream and
that was a direct teaching at the tray. So that's
the appropriate citation. Is the dream givers gave me that
quote came through my mouth, but it came from them.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
There is an enormous growth of interest in this. Partially
it's baby boomers who had their children with midwives and
have all the way through their life cycle said I
don't want to do this the same way. Partly it's
that we are just culturally so flooded by in a
(18:05):
way meaninglessness that people are starting to look for meaning
and it's becoming more and more precious. I think the
psychedelic revolution is having an enormous impact on this. People
suddenly are able to say in public company, while I
went on this journey and I saw these things, and
I learned these things from these teachers, that other world
is getting more validity and more reality. And I think
(18:27):
what's exciting about this work is that it's led not
by clients and families. People don't say, oh, I want
a death tool. What happens is there's this whole body
of people. I call them people who embody the archtype
of the death walker. You said early on there are
people in cultures all over the world who have always
(18:48):
occupied this cultural space. We don't have a socially sanctioned
space for someone to stand in if those are their
gifts and those people feel I know death can be
done differently. I know there's something on the other side.
I know there's a spiritual aspect to this. It doesn't
have to be as hard as it is. So that's
who's leading it. That's who's leading it. And families and
(19:10):
dying people who are in a different space of a
little more confusion, they're joining on, but it's really being
led by the practitioners.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
You also wrote, I love this one. Healing is about
integrating what is happening to you so that you can
grow into the person that the affliction is asking you
to become. That is our show in a nutshell, every
single story that we not everyone, some of them there's
still a lot of trauma, but most of the folks
(19:39):
that we talk to who have gone through this threshold
and even crossed over and then come back or even lost,
they have all gone through a liminal state, even if
it's not an actual crossing of the threshold into death
and back. But if they've lost the ability to walk
or to talk, they've lost an old identity of a
previous version of themselves is dead and they have to
rebuild into a new one. And every single one of
(20:01):
them say, I would not trade this, I would not
go back, because what I have become as a result
of having to deal with this adversity has made me
into something amazing. And I guess my question is I'll
just read this, but it's so yeah. This is a
reoccurring theme from the point of view of so many
that have shared their stories with us, and I'm wondering
(20:21):
if you can elaborate on how this process of integration
and growth occurs, especially in the face of profound loss.
How can embracing this perspective transform suffering into a journey
of self discovery and healing.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I want to speak to your experience that everyone you've
talked to has said this has been a profound transformative moment.
I wouldn't trade it. And I also want to name
that our homeless shelters and ad dictionary rehab centers are
full of people who had terrible, incredible, awful things happened
to them and they didn't have the support to have
that transformative experience. So it doesn't happen unless you have
(20:53):
both the internal resources which come from the support you've
had through your life, and the external resources when it happens.
So one of the other things I really believe and
say often is that trauma met well is initiation. Initiation
met poorly is trauma. And I want to qualify that
(21:14):
well and poorly doesn't mean the person's doing a good
job or not. It's not about their behavior or their response.
It's about how does the community hold them sure.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
That that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Traumatic experiences death, loss, torture, breast cancer was my own
experience of this. Have the opportunity to be incredibly transformative,
but if we don't have the support, they also can
break us. And so it's I'm what I'm really curious
about are what are the ritual practices, what are the
cultural contexts that support people to move through them and find,
(21:51):
you know, to go be the caterpillar who goes into
the cocoon, comes undone to their old self and emerges
as a butterfly. Tensional, well held, focused, structured ritual is
energy medicine for the collective body. It changes the structure
of the space, It changes the state of our consciousness.
(22:12):
It creates that that cocoon, that al chemical vessel where
we can come undone and be rebuilt. So my practice
has been about using ritual for that, and I do
the ritual work with families, but I also do a
series of in person workshops which are for anybody in
(22:32):
any stage of dying or not dying, or serving dying people,
which are related to systemic family constellations and touch the
most incredible space. And I really feel like it has
potential to be a parallel to psychedelic medicine in terms
of supporting people to meet death, particularly because psychedelics are
done individually, go on your journey. This work that I'm doing,
(22:55):
you can do as a community, and people kind of
have a shared experience of entering the liminal together, which
is our ancestry, a ritual practice is together to prepare
for that. So I'm so excited about what psychedelics are
doing to the culture to make space for this kind
of work. And there are other ways to approach it
that don't need to be psychedelics, that can get us
(23:15):
incredible places.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
One hundred percent agree. I am you know, as a
director and a filmmaker, I work with actors a lot,
and they, you know, they have to take on different roles,
and it seems like the work always comes back to
this idea that came from an anthropological study or came
from an anthropological thought about belonging. We are you know,
we are not individuals. We are part of a body.
(23:39):
And there's this idea that I like to talk to
my actors about, which is the idea that the need
to belong is perhaps more powerful than the need to
preserve life or the need to survive. And so I'm
so glad to hear you talking about that, because you know,
(24:00):
you get the picture of like, oh, this is a
person who's dying, and there again they're isolated in their
experience of whatever liminal state they're hitting or whatever transformation
they're going through as they're approaching this next crossing over.
But it's really about the community. It's really about everybody involved.
And that is like the light bulb in my mind
(24:21):
of like what is missing perhaps with a lot of
these sterile environments where someone dies in their sleep without
their family nearby.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And yes, there's the physical presence of someone around the
dying person, but I don't think that is as significant
as the cultural picture we have, which is that when
you are dead, you are gone, You no longer belong,
There is no place for you. You don't have a
place in this culture because we don't have an ancestral
(24:49):
connection practice. We don't have and I say we in
the broad sense certainly my experience, but in most of
dominant culture, we don't have ways of saying you are
still here. We don't have a role for ancestors. The
death is just one more stage on the developmental journey.
You're born, you become a child, you become an adult,
(25:11):
you get married to all these things, all these developmental stages.
Death is another one, no matter where in life it happens,
and it's the transition, the initiation where someone becomes an ancestor,
ancestors of responsibilities, ancestors of roles, ancestors of a place
in the culture. So I so strongly believe that the reason,
or one of the main reasons we are so terrified
(25:33):
of death personally as we face it for ourselves is
it is complete annihilation. It is excommunication, it is you
know what you say, it is. It is more significant
than life. That's why it's more of an In traditional cultures,
it was a worse punishment to exile someone that to
kill them, because to be separated. They say, you know,
(25:54):
are no longer banishment banishment, all right, And that's what
we do with our dead, We banish them.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It's the worst punishment, solitary confinement, excommunication.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Can you share some I guess some stories, like things
that you've observed specifically about the human capacity for resilien
it's the human capacity to have an AHA moment as
they're approaching the inevitable.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
The human capacity for resilience and AHA is directly related
to our nervous system because we live in bodies, and
nervous systems have windows of tolerance. And when when a
death happens, whether it's as in your experience, a sudden death,
or whether it's a death that is completely expected through
(26:41):
illness and aging, there is still a way that very
often it kind of blows our circuitry. It's more than
we can handle. We get thrown out of our capacity
to regulate, and we can't have epiphanies if we're unregulated.
So the work I do is about narrowing down what's happening,
(27:03):
slowing it down, spending five hours at the bedside, just
getting people caught up to the fact that they're going
to pull a sheet over the head. Then we have
eight more rituals after that. But so we titrate the
integration of the experience instead of saying someone, here's this
(27:24):
massive emotional, energetic dynamic that we're asking you to integrate.
We can't. Our systems can't handle it. But if you say, okay,
right now, we're just gonna sit around and call the
ancestors and put lotion on their hands, just really name
that they are not here and learn somatically that they're
(27:45):
not here, and then we're going to do something else,
and then we're going to do something else. And then
if I've done my job right, by the time we
get to the funeral, which is a week later, people
have had so much structured space to integrate that they
can receive what the funeral offers. It's that that little
window between death and the funeral is a really intense
(28:07):
version of that alchemical vessel, the cocoon. That is when
people need incredible support and mostly people get nothing. So
our capacity to have these enlightened experiences is based on
our ability to regulate, based on the support we have
all of that because we cannot hold our own container
while we're going through those transformative experiences. We need a
(28:27):
container help for us. That's the cocoon.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
The cocoon makes complete sense again. I wish, I hope
I can foster those for myself in the future with
what's coming. You know, I'm curious one of the most
transformative lessons that you've learned in your personal experiences. I'm
curious about aha moments that you've had along the way
that have shaped your practice and have shaped your philosophy.
(28:52):
Have there been any just real lightning bolts for you
in your own journey?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You know, there have in so many experiences. I don't
think of them like capaw, here's the moment. It's a
much different transformation now, it doesn't. I think that's a
little bit of a Western Here you go, here's magical apologies.
(29:19):
It's fine. I mean, that's what it'd be fun sometimes
and sometimes people have those.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
But the storyteller and me is drawn to.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And and in these experiences, all the rituals are on
the arc of a story. We every ritual leads to
that moment and comes down from that moment, and you
need to point and a point and a point. But
the big thing is more a way that I just
so deeply know and trust this process. And that's what
I teach my students that when you can come into
(29:48):
a really profound, embodied relationship with these energetic dynamics this
architecture of death and loss. When we walk into the
room with clients, we we serve as a kind of
tuning fork. You bring that knowing with you and it
changes the shape of the space. So I've i mean,
the some of the things about this too, And this
(30:10):
is the way why it's also not the big Kapa moments. Sometimes,
really mystical moments look quite small on the outside, but
they feel enormous on the inside, so they don't translate
very well to film because they're very internal. So you know,
we're carrying the body of a man who's ranched in
(30:31):
this land his whole life, to the rock at the
center of the land where his parents are buried. And
there are four red tailed hawks who fly with us
the whole way, circling and circling, and and a hundred
stories like that, which just building me this trust and
this this knowing that there is something else guiding this
(30:57):
process and to the extent which which with which I
can recognize it, lean into it and collaborate with it.
The possibility for beauty and grace is incredible. It's right
below the surface and we can touch into it, and
it's just slowing down and you know, having the ritual
and all the practices we did before they picked up
(31:20):
the handmade litter, and all his sons and grandsons and
nephews carried him, and the women drummed like those that
get goosebumps. They're the kind of experience where I just
I just walked through the world in a different way
because I have complete knowing that it's okay. Can you
talk about like.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Sort of some phases like I'm looking towards like the
moment of surrender, you know, being the big, big moment
of letting go, because you know, letting go of control
and going okay and having a moment of surrender seems
like it would be part of a huge part of
the process towards healing or towards the transition. Does that
make sense what I'm asking on you.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, there's a beautiful phrase about surrender, and I read
as some I don't know whose it is that they
said surrender's not giving up, it's giving over. And I
love that. I think that's what you're speaking about, letting
go of control, letting go, that there's something bigger that's
a big part of it, that this is we're not.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
In charge of this have you seen those points of
surrender with people you've worked with?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yes, and again they grow. They're not a moment aha moment. Right,
let's just say we're starting at the deathbed with that
ritual I talked about. It's another another wonderful phrase. And
these phrases from you are a little bit like medicine,
you know. And one of the beautiful phrases that I
teach you one shared with me is unconditional cooperation with
the unavoidable. Don't fight with reality. And so that's all
(32:42):
the way through. That's my work with people, unconditional cooperation
because it doesn't matter if you have conditions, they're not
going to do any good. The unavoidable is the unavoidable.
So how do we come to terms with this part
and come to terms with this part and then come
to terms with this slow, slow grow And because initiation
(33:04):
is not an in and out, it's a leaving the old,
going down to the dark knight of the soul into
that transformative journey, going down, down, down, down down and
hitting the bottom. And you think that just it can't
get any worse, and it does stop getting worse if
you write it all the way down. Yes, you shed
and you shed, and you say goodbye, and you get
ritual support to say goodbye and shed and chad and
(33:25):
shed and that. If you can write it all the
way down, if you have the support to write it
all the way down, you get to a bottom point
where it does turn, and then there's a whole other
journey of coming back up again. Who am I? This
is shedding, there's a building. Who am I now? Oh
he's dead. Maybe I'll sell a family house and move
(33:45):
into a condo. What when do I take off my
wedding ring? All of these things? So we go up, up, up,
up up, and at some point I really do see
it like dropping below in a circle and coming back up.
We come back up the other side, and we almost
grab onto the ledge and poke our head up and
say I'm back, I'm back. And from that place of
(34:08):
being back with the rest of the ordinary normals quote
unquotes whatever those things are, but not in that deep, initiatory,
transformative journey, then people look back and they can say, Wow,
I am an entirely different person. The world is not
what I thought it was, limitations are not what they
thought they were. What I'm capable of, and it's a
(34:29):
kind of retrospective. But when you're in the journey, you
are being tossed and turned and buffeted and broken hearted,
and it's hard to believe this is actually something that's
going to serve you. So the awareness often comes later.
And maybe there are other experiences and other versions of
these things where it's a moment. But in the death
(34:51):
and loss process, I find it's such an extended reorganization
of people that it's just one moment after another after another.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
That makes perfect sense because the aha moment, while you
know romantic and you know the fuel of films and
so forth, there has to be this stripping away, I guess,
and these sort of obstacles to overcome almost necessarily for
you to begin to form the new connections or see
(35:24):
a new way, you have to go through the ordeal
or the hardship or face the adversity. Sort of coming
to the end of a lot of the questions that
I had. But I'm curious about what advice you have.
So if there's a lot of people out there who
are currently facing death or the death of a loved
one or their own mortality, anything that you might say
(35:45):
to offer to them, and it could be called this number.
You know, come talk to us, or it could be
you know, any any bit of advice you could say
to these to these folks, you know, to navigate them
towards a transition or towards the acceptance of what's coming.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
We don't come into the world knowing how to deal
with death. We come in knowing how to breathe and
how to digest and all these other things. But there
are other practices which are supposed to be cultural transmissions.
We're taught how to communicate well, how to parent, how
to feed ourselves, how to care for our bodies. All
these life skills and death and loss and dealing with
death and loss your own are someone you care about
(36:21):
is a learned skill and we are not taught it.
So it is a kind of call this number because
that's what I teach. So you can find it for me.
I have lots of videos and resources on my site,
but find it somewhere. Prepare for it before it comes,
because you can't do your end of life work at
the end of your life. Right. Another great phrase in
(36:42):
this work, The more you're you're thinking about it as
people in your life are ill and dying, the more
you're able to face it when it's your turn, so
be prepared and start early. People often put off calling
doulas and take your death care guides till the very
last minute because they think I'm not dying yet. I'm
just gonna wait till I'm dying, and that time never
(37:03):
really comes, and then suddenly you've missed the opportunity. There's
so much that can be done to make this a beautiful,
meaningful process. Laurie Anderson musician, as her husband Lou Reed
was dying, she nursed him. They both had a deep
spiritual practice in that process, and she has a great
line that was in an article she wrote Rolling Stone Magazine,
and she said, I've come to believe that the purpose
(37:26):
of death is the release of love. But that doesn't
happen unless you meet it that way. So we can't
choose how death happens, when it happens, how it happens,
but we can choose how we meet it. And if
we meet it in a way that allows more love
to flow, more love between the living and the person
who's dying, more love between the survivors, if the death
(37:47):
has been sudden, more love and healing. Then even the
most awful death can have beauty in it. Right, it's
back to the worst. Things can be beautiful if we
meet them in in a way that matches that. So
I guess the advice would be think about it, prepare
for it, and know that it's hard and it's sad,
(38:10):
but it doesn't have to be scary and confusing, and
it can be beautiful if you meet it with intention.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Okay, I'm going to expand that out a little bit
and it might be the same answer. But if you
could inspire one change in how our society approaches death
and mortality, what would it be and why it's a
big one.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
We meet death and mortality the same way we meet life,
and we meet it through the Western worldview, which has
a lot of blinders. It looks at the world as
a little box. It says it's material, it's dualistic, it's
either on off. Yes, no, there's a thousand that it's
happening internally, right, it's we can't have trans personal experiences.
(38:57):
So the Western world has this little box, and everything
that doesn't fit in this box, we say, well, that's unreal,
that's extraordinary, extrasensory, supernatural, parent normal. We have all these
ways of just diminishing them, saying they're not real, but
they're happening. Now, how you make meeting those is another question,
(39:18):
but that they are happening. So that's why I think
psychedelics are so exciting. That's why I think this death
positivity revolution is so exciting, because people are starting to
get their box expanded, and the box of them I'm me,
and you are you, and we are individuals. Well, we
live in a world of ecosystems where we're all intertwined
(39:40):
in webs of co related, reciprocal systems. If we can
start to just stretch that box to make space for
some more experiences, it not only will change how we
meet death, because it won't be that excommunication light switch out,
you know, finito end, It'll be the beginning of the
next journey. It'll also change how we live in the
(40:02):
world because a relationship with the land, with the ancestors,
with the future beings, that's a healthier way to be.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Thank you. I wanted to ask if there's anything else
that you wanted to discuss or that you were hoping
to talk about while we were in this conversation. I mean,
we've hit some big topics and your masterful and your explanations.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I am like one of those things with a string.
You could ask me questions all day a thousand different places.
So is there anything else?
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Was there any final thoughts that you had that maybe
you know you were hoping to share. If not, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And one other part that's really important and that I
really encourage people to pay attention to, and you can
do this quietly just in your own life, is to
honor and validate your own experiences, the nudges and the
intuitions and the quiet impulses that come that aren't necessarily fireworks,
(41:03):
but they just feel. It's a nudge, it's a knowing,
it's a vision, it's a sense that capacity to open
our consciousness to something more than just what's in that
western box. Because that other world, the dream world, the
psychedelic world, the liminal zone, that speaks to us in
(41:27):
these internal kind of soul communications. But so often we're
told that those aren't real, they don't matter, they should
be ignored. You're just making it up, you're imagining things
you're not. That's my biggest.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Plead to people is to value those because that is
our soul's talking to us and if we lose touch
with our souls, we've lost everything. And people fool me
all the time and they say, you know, I did
these sessions. They say, well, the partner died and I
just so he said you'd communicate with me, and he hasn't.
And so we talked a while and I said nothing.
So well, I had this dream, and they diminished, diminished, diminished,
(42:06):
diminish the dream. Then we unpack the dream and by
the end of it they can see what the dream is.
So we we automatically diminish these things. If there's a
way that people can really tune into value, that felt sense, experience,
that's and that's how we meet death in a better way.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I've been I've been being bombarded a lot lately with
signs on the on the road, signposts myself that are
you know, this idea of like okay, the messages coming
are like let go, like stop the struggle, let go,
And you do that because you can't simultaneously have anxiety
and be focused on something at the same time. So
(42:45):
let go. Focus on the now, focus on the immediate,
the present, because there is no future, there is no path.
Just focus on the present and follow the prompts.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Follow the prompts. Yes, yeah, exactly like synchronicity, and yes,
coincidents and perfectly timed signs that are too good to
be true, but they're really true.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
It's like a knock, like, hey, hello over here. Don't
ignore them, right, he said, knock.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
I don't know if you heard, but my dogs just
knocked over there. You go, a huge crash in my background.
You said, knock.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
How serendipitous.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Let me just let in the dog who's now scratched.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Okay, thank you so much. I so respect your work,
and I'm I'm fascinated by this stuff, and I'm fascinated
by the cultural anthropology side of it, and I love
that you're bringing it to us and opening our eyes
and here in the Western world with tools on how
to how to navigate these waters. And it's just such
(43:49):
meaningful work. And I can't tell you how much I
appreciate you joining us on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Thanks so much, Dan, It's been a real little light.
I've enjoyed a conversation a lot.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Awesome. Okay, Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
To learn more about doctor Kerr and her work, you
can visit her website, The Center for Sacred Deathcare www
dot Sacredeathcare.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Dot com, and you can always follow her on social
media for insights on death, grief, and transformational healing. Look
for links in our show notes. Next time on Alive Again,
we meet Cliff Bowman, a veteran who was stationed near
(44:36):
the Pentagon on nine to eleven and played a critical
role in the rescue mission that day. The trauma of
that experience followed him for years, leading him to a
deep depression that eventually led to a suicide attempt.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
I do say that I am a suicide survivor because
I think it's important. I will no longer be a
shame to that because that event has shaked my life
to what I am now. For people who have survived suicide,
I think they look at things differently. Right, you want
to go and enjoy life, You really want to live again.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Cliff's story is one of resilience. He shares how facing
his darkness ultimately helped him find a way back to life.
Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,
Nicholas Dakoski, and Lauren Vogelbaum. Music by Ben Lovett, Additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our Executive producers are Matthew Frederick
(45:23):
and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional
production support. Our studio engineers are Rima L. Kali and
Noames Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartzlovitchka, Brent Die
and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez.
I'm your host, Dan Bush. Alive Again is a production
(45:58):
of IRT Radio and go Via Pictures. If you have
a transformative near death experience to share, we'd love to
hear your story. Please email us at a Live Again
project at gmail dot com. That's a l I v
e A g A I N p R O j
E c T at gmail dot com.
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