February 4, 2025 • 57 mins
Embracing Death and Grief: A Celtic Priestess' Perspective
In this episode of Practically Magick, host Courtney Pearl, the owner of Prism Healing, explores the profound topics of death and grieving from a spiritual and cultural standpoint. Courtney, also a Celtic Priestess, opens the discussion with a card reading from the Storyteller's Tarot, symbolizing new beginnings. She delves deep into the role of death in different cultures, personal anecdotes on grieving, and the spiritual aspects of death, including reincarnation and the energy of the soul.
Courtney advocates for open discussions on mortality, the sacredness of grief, and the importance of accepting uncertainty surrounding death. The episode also touches on the concept of death doulas and their role in facilitating end-of-life processes, encouraging listeners to cultivate a healthy relationship with death and loss.
00:00 Welcome to Practically Magic
00:44 Tarot Card Reading for the Episode
01:39 Winter and the Symbolism of Death
06:41 Exploring the Topic of Death
12:08 The Role of a Death Doula
28:07 Cultural Perspectives on Death
34:47 Personal Experiences with Grief
47:18 Embracing Death and Acceptance
53:36 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome to Practically Magic.
I am your host Courtney Pearl.
I am owner of Prism Healing andtoday I'm your Celtic Priestess.
We are going to dive into an episodetoday about death and grieving and it's
going to be a really important one.
One that I have spent the last fewweeks months even researching and
(00:30):
preparing for because I wanted toapproach this subject with all of the
wonder and respect that it deserves.
And so before we beginon our main topic today.
I would like to pull a card for ourepisode and for you, our audience.
(00:50):
I am going to pull a card fromthe Storyteller's Tarot today.
For those of you who can seeme on YouTube, you can look and
see what the deck looks like.
Um, I picked this up recently.
It's a fairly new deck, so I amexcited to play with it some more.
And as you know, um, as part of workthat I do, I am a lore keeper, and I
(01:12):
love folklore, and I love mythology.
And so when I saw this deck, I just hadto have it as you know how that goes.
And so I'm going to pulla card for us today.
Perhaps it has something to dowith our episode topic, or perhaps
it has something to do with you.
This is our first episode back in 2025.
(01:33):
Welcome.
Welcome to 2025.
We have made it through the thresholds.
At the time I am recordingthis, it is winter.
And, uh, that is a perfect opportunityfor us to talk about death.
Winter being a, a symbol of death
(01:55):
and rebirth in the spring.
So today's episode, today'scard for today's episode is
going to be the Ace of Scepters.
In this deck, I believe Ace of Sceptersis corresponding with the Ace of Wands
(02:16):
in the traditional tarot, but the imageon the card, if you can see, for those
of you who are watching on YouTube, um,it is the Ursa Major, the symbol of the
constellation of stars and the bear.
Um, The first thing I thought of whenI saw this, though, if I remember
(02:37):
correctly, the guidebook doesn'tnecessarily mention this, but I associate
this card quite a bit with King Arthur.
And it's interesting becauseI just finished a book.
Um, fiction, but very, uh,
saturated with good old folklore,um, read a book about King Arthur
(03:01):
and the Knights of the Round Table,a legend I particularly love having
come from, uh, Welsh mythology.
And, uh, the, the word Arthur, uh, alot of people associate Arth as the
Welsh word for bear and believe thathas a connection there to the Ursa
(03:24):
Major, uh, the bear, and the sky, andthe North Star, and the Big Dipper.
And what this is saying for us,particularly in pulling this card today,
this is a card of new beginnings, ofum, I would associate it more with a
rebirth than I would with death, soit's interesting that this card is
(03:45):
coming up for us today on our subject.
Um, but it does give us the impressionof new beginnings, of something
starting, and of creativity brewing.
I want us all to be very careful.
Uh, a lot of the mythical and mystictype people like myself would be giving
(04:06):
you the same message, which is, I wantyou all to be very careful in new years.
We just had New Year's and a lot of peopleget caught up in the excitement of a new
year and New Year's resolutions are allthe rage, you know, it's the thing to do.
To come up with all these newthings you're going to do and you're
(04:27):
going to start the January 1st orJanuary, you know, you're going to
start doing all of these new things.
You're going to start puttingand implementing all of these
new things into your life.
This is an opportunity to say,slow down, because wintertime and
even in new beginnings, we don'twant to run at something gung
(04:50):
ho, uh, Straight at the attack.
Um, wintertime is an invitationto rest and remember winter just
started so we have essentially thenext six weeks or longer depending
on what calendar you're using tohunker down, to hibernate, to rest.
(05:14):
Um, I often joke with my neighbors andfriends who live around me locally.
Um, You will know it's spring when thewitch comes out of her cottage, um,
the witch meaning me, because I do alot of staying indoors in the winter.
I have tried to get out more and just,um, take Walks in the cold and still
(05:35):
engage with the outdoors so that Idon't lose myself too much in that.
But for the most part, I givemyself permission to do a lot
less than what I would normallydo in the schedule of summer.
Um, there's a reason Why our ancestorslived by the light of the sun and
(05:57):
was more productive and active duringthe time when they would be planting
and harvesting during the spring,summer, fall months of the year.
But winter was a time to harvest.
Rest.
To go indoors, to do indoor activities,and to, um, to do only what you
(06:19):
can do during the daylight hours,which are far less hours than the
other times of the year, obviously.
Now we have invented, uh, electricityand lights, and we can stay up late if
we want to, and we can get up early.
But I think that that goes againstthe natural rhythms of our body.
(06:41):
And I want to bring this up because we'removing into, um, the, the discussion
topic of the day, which is death.
And I know that this can be anuncomfortable topic, especially if you
are of Northern European culture or NorthAmerican culture, we have a tendency to be
(07:05):
very closed mouthed and taboo about death.
We don't really want to look at it.
We don't really want to faceour own mortality too much.
And when you look at the influence of, uh,religion and the spread of Christianity
throughout the world, you see that alot of, you know, covering up the idea
(07:26):
of death with, um, well, if we believein an afterlife and we believe that we
can live forever, then we really don'tneed to even broach the topic of death
or grief or loss when someone has died.
And I'm going to talk a little bit aboutthis topic in a couple of different, um, a
(07:48):
couple of different topics, uh, subtopics.
I don't know what you want tocall it, but, uh, An outline.
Um, I want to talk about it in a spiritualcontext of what and how we approach death,
but I also want to talk about grief.
I want to talk about culture andI want to talk about acceptance.
And when we talk about the spiritualaspect of it, which is, more or less
(08:14):
where I like to discuss the most asa priestess, as a spiritual person.
Um, I do want to be careful because peoplewho often, uh, associate themselves or,
uh, stick their faith to a particulardogma or religion, that tends to
(08:37):
override the natural feelings of grief.
And sometimes thosefeelings can get ignored.
Um, and I will talk personally aboutsome situations that I have observed
and noticed in my own culture andin my own family, um, and the family
that I married into, that will showthat there are And that there needs
(08:59):
to be some attention brought to that.
But as far as most cultures that youwill see, a spiritual aspect of death
is that it is like a portal, that weare going from one life to the next.
That, um, Um, even if you were, let'ssay, um, atheists or agnostic or
(09:23):
didn't necessarily have a spiritualbelief about a soul that goes into
another, another realm or that there'sa heaven or another place after we die.
Um, I like that Neil Tyson Degrassi,he's a scientist who thinks in
terms of science, but he explainedthat the energy that is our
collective, That is our consciousnessthat allows our body to work.
(09:46):
Um, it has to go somewhere afterwe die and our body ceases to live.
We have done scientific experimentsto, uh, know and understand that
the body loses a certain amount ofweight when the soul passes from it.
So whether you want to call it asoul or a spirit doesn't matter.
really matter, but to know that thereis an energy about our aliveness that
(10:10):
leaves the body when the body passesaway and where it goes, whether it goes,
you know, to another realm or anotherdimension possibly, or another timeline,
or could it possibly be reallocated asenergy does into the universe as allowing
(10:32):
new plants to grow and allow, you know,it's the energy that is going to provide
something else to live once we've died.
And I think that even when you lookat it from a scientific aspect,
that's still pretty magical.
I mean, I don't think you have to bein necessarily spiritual person or
a mystic to understand that the bodydoes have energy that leaves and gets
(10:53):
allocated, reallocated to differentplaces in the universe when we die.
And that allows other thingslive and grow and be born.
And isn't that amazing?
I mean, you don't need religion orspirituality to just understand that
the world is a pretty amazing placeand it's pretty magical already.
(11:15):
So we understand and we knowthat that, that's what happens.
Um, what I've gotten interestedin the last few years is
the sacredness around death.
Um, especially if you knowdeath is a is coming soon.
If someone is terminal or if they havegotten a diagnosis or something that
allows you to have time to prepare inthat way, um, I would argue that we're
(11:40):
all in that state, uh, but we'll talkabout that a little bit more later.
I, I'm just really, really interestedand really fascinated by the absolute
vulnerability and sacrednessaround death when it comes to a
person dying and their family.
(12:01):
Um, I have come in contactwith it a couple of times.
I would like to interview them forthe podcast in a future episode.
So stay tuned for that.
If you're interested, I'm going toget, uh, Get that arranged, but I
have talked to a death doula and thatidea is really fascinating to me.
I don't know if that's ever on the horizonfor myself, but as a priestess, that
sounds really fascinating to be somebodywho can help facilitate death in that
(12:27):
way, or even just be kind of that personwho helps people through that situation.
And a death doula is a fantastic idea.
I had a doula at the birth ofmy sons when I was pregnant.
And I, I remember when my grandmother waspassing away and she had an opportunity
(12:47):
to know that she was on her way out andthat she was probably going to be gone in
a matter of days and felt well enough toinvite the family to come and say goodbye.
And, um, that experience was fascinatingand Difficult and beautiful all at the
(13:08):
same time, but it reminded me a lotof a birth because nobody knew exactly
when it was happening and we were allkind of measuring the signs of her body
and her, um, you know, when she, shebegan to get really sleepy and was only
awake for, for small moments at a time.
And, You know, just different thingsthat, um, the hospice nurse and, um,
(13:33):
my aunt who is a nurse practitioner,she, she was very comfortable
and aware of the signs of death.
So she was helping us understand like,okay, her body is going through this.
We're going to see thesesigns as it gets closer.
So just like a woman in laborabout to give birth to a new
baby, you're watching the signs.
in a similar way and people aregathering and people are discussing it
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and people are, you know, there's justthis closeness that's created with that
and I found it to be really beautifuland a really beautiful opportunity to
bond and connect with our family, um,much in the way a new baby can do that.
Uh, I had a doula at the birth of mysons and it was, Highly recommended,
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um, I really loved, uh, they were calledBud to Blossom, uh, Bud to Blossom?
Yeah, um, doulas and their whole team isamazing and they came before the birth
and prepped me and helped me and went tomy house and helped preps my house and
you know, they did all these things tohelp prepare me and my husband and my
(14:43):
family for you're going to be bringingtwin babies home from the hospital.
That's going to be Prettyamazing and life altering.
So let's prepare.
And a death doula would do the same thing.
They would allow the family to converseabout their feelings and express
what they would want to see happen orwhat they don't want to see happen.
(15:05):
The person who's going through thedeath that's dying gets to express
how they would like that to go.
And the death doula is like a facilitatorguiding them through that, um, in a lot
of the ways a spiritual leader would do.
except they're very muchwell trained in doing it.
Whereas I think sometimes churchleaders don't have the training,
(15:26):
they just have, I guess, Godappointed them to that position, so
they just Do something like that.
Um, I highly recommend a deaf doula, so.
Uh, I think that would be a fantasticidea to have someone there to
facilitate those conversations.
And to make as many things possible happenfor the person who's dying to have the
(15:50):
experience that they would want to have inpassing through that portal to their next.
great beyond, whateverthat might look like.
But there is sort of a, um, anunderstanding and spiritual context
of passing through the veil.
And, um, I know a lot of people in themystical world or mediums or people
(16:11):
who can feel energies like that.
They can really feel when the veil is thinand when the spiritual world is closely
connected with the living or when thereare certain messages coming through.
Um, I am particularlyfascinated with mediums.
I have met and seen and watchedon TV mediums that I felt like
(16:38):
This feels like we're exploitingpeople and this feels like we're
taking advantage of people thatare in a very emotional state.
And I have felt and seen thingsthat I know, um, and this is just
According to me, we're very authenticand we're very much, um, in the
effort of helping people heal.
(17:00):
And so I do want people to use their bestdiscretion, their intuition on whether or
not a person they're engaging with is justtaking advantage of their emotional state
or whether they are helping them healby connecting them to whatever messages
need to happen in the, in the afterlife.
Um, my experience with people passingon is that Yes, I have had what I felt
(17:25):
were very, very direct conversationsand experiences with people who've
passed on to the other world.
Um, I wouldn't go around tellingpeople that I am a medium.
I just have had experiences thatI do believe that anyone who's
willing to practice that skillor to engage with that, get in
touch with their own clair skills.
(17:46):
So whether they're clairvoyantor clairsentient or clairaudient,
or, um, there's many differentways that you can Access.
Excuse me.
Access.
Knowledge from that other side.
Um, but I do believe that there aredifferent dimensions or realms, or
they kind of exist as different, uh,in Reiki they kind of talk about it
(18:10):
as the different heavens, um, butsort of different levels or realms
of, from the plane of existencethat is Earth, and that, that that
exists in a higher, lighter sense.
So I do think that when a soul dies orleaves their body, they go into a level
(18:33):
of their white light selves that nolonger associates with the ego and the
body and their existence here on earth.
So when they want to connect orengage with someone on earth.
I think it's actually verydifficult for them when they've
passed through the light.
Uh, and that's just using terminologythat most people understand.
(18:55):
Um, I'm not saying for sure thatthis is what it's like, but they
pass through that realm intothe next level of consciousness.
And I think that they are so much intothe Being of light that they become
that coming back to earth and engagingas their ego self, looking like they
looked on earth, or, um, you know, evenengaging with the people that they left
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behind can be very difficult for them.
I think that it can feel,
for lack of a betterterm, it just feels icky.
I imagine it to be more like if a personwas, um, going to, had moved on from a
(19:44):
very embarrassing situation, but they hadto go back and relive that embarrassing
situation, then that's what it would feellike to come back to Earth and to be in
their, in, in their, um, In that realm.
So I don't think that they'vereached out to connect very
often unless it's necessary.
And I do think that they do retainsome essence of familiarity with
(20:05):
their family members and loved ones.
I think they do watch out for us.
I think they do come to our events.
I think they're very much involved.
I just don't think that theyslip into what, what would be
considered, you know, a ghost.
Like we see them walking aroundin the clothes that they used
to in the way that they looked.
Um, and I don't think that they visit.
(20:26):
Uh, to give a message through amedium unless they really feel
the need to, because I don't thinkthat that's comfortable for them.
Um, and again, this is justaccording to my, uh, what I have
researched and what I have felt.
And so I do think, and I say thesethings because I want the larger
(20:46):
audience to know that there issomething mystical and magical about
the afterlife and about leaving ourearthly realm and into the netherworld.
Next, whatever we go and do.
Uh, I personally do believein reincarnation too.
I believe that our soulcan be like a diamond.
That it has many, many, many facets to it.
(21:07):
And that each lifetime we live,we experience things and we have
challenges that allow us to, shallwe say, polish or add pressure to
the unpolished and maybe, uh, dull,
Uh, craggly, foggy sides of our diamond.
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So the soul is not complete and readyto ascend to the highest kingdom
of heaven or whatever you want tobelieve happens to us after we die.
I don't believe that it's ready to dothat unless we have experienced and
gone through the things that we aremeant to do to polish each and every
facet of the diamond that is our soul.
(21:54):
Um, I'm using metaphors, uh, to help.
explain how I understand it to work.
Um, and that doesn't mean that thisis based on any dogma or religion.
It's just how I've experienced,uh, coming to this kind of
knowledge with my own experiencesand readings, things like that.
(22:14):
But the reason I tell you all ofthis is to help you understand that
whether it's in one lifetime here onearth or whether it's after we We are
reincarnated or whatever we have to do.
I think that we are given many chances.
I don't think it's like, you live onelife here on earth and that's all you get.
And if your life is miserable, or ifyou happen to be born with like a I
(22:38):
don't know, uh, you're a sociopathicpsychopath that doesn't know anything
other than, um, harming people.
Um, I know that there are people who wouldsay, well, those people don't have a soul.
They're just here to doharm to other humans.
And that can be really harsh.
Um, and you can be a sociopath and notdo harm to others, just so you know.
(23:01):
I'm not saying that either.
Ugh, it feels like so many differentthings that I could get totally blasted
for, but all I'm saying is that there arepeople who believe that those people don't
have a soul at all, and I'm saying, whatif they do, but their experience of having
that difficulty here on this planet, andmaybe spending their entire life in prison
(23:23):
here, and then dying It might feel tothe rest of us like a waste of being a
human when maybe that was just one sideof the diamond of their soul that they
needed to polish this time and they neededto experience something else next time.
And there's karmic debt thatthey need to, um, that they need
to, uh, experience something.
(23:47):
And it's a larger picture that no onehuman could ever have all the answers for.
And that we get to another idea thatI want to touch on, which is when it
comes to death and the afterlife, um,I really, really appreciate the ideas
brought by, uh, secular Buddhism, whichis to be comfortable with uncertainty.
(24:07):
A lot of people seek out religiousdogma or religious ideas about what
happens to us after we die, becausethey want the certainty of like, I know.
For certain that if I do these thingson this earth and if I'm a good person
and I do the right and I make theright choices and I'm worthy, I get
to go and be in a heaven afterlife.
I get to be in something that isreward at the end of it all and
(24:30):
makes all the sacrifices thatI had in this life worth it.
The fact of the matter is, isthat none of us really know.
Even I'm sitting here telling you whatI think I know or what I have felt
and what, um, how I've experiencedit, but I can be totally wrong.
Nothing that I'm sayingcould be right either.
It could be just as simple as thescientific explanation of our soul
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dissipates, dissipates into, into,um, into the rest of the world.
And it becomes part of theenergy that operates the world.
And either way, that's okay.
I'm not a person who at this pointin my life, at least, is walking
around needing to know those answers.
(25:14):
And I think that there is a great comfortand relief when you get to a place where
you can say, I actually don't know.
I don't know what happensto us after we die.
I don't know if there's a soul.
I don't know any of that, but isit going to change how I interact
(25:35):
with other human beings or how Ifollow rules or don't follow rules?
Because all that really matters in thislifetime is that I live to be my most
authentic self and that I resonate ata frequency that is most authentic.
So, If I wait till the afterlife fora reward, am I really making good
use and time of my life here now?
(25:57):
And those are questions that Ithink are worth asking yourself.
So maybe taking a book out ofsecular Buddhism, being more
comfortable with uncertainty.
Is a great path forward.
I want to, um, reference a, inmy research about death and, uh,
(26:24):
there is a fantastic documentary.
Um, we mentioned it in the episodeI did with Tiffany Lesik, where
we talked about, um, alchemy.
Uh, she knows personally, as she is aDruid in the, um, Anglesea Druid order.
She, uh, works with.
Christopher Hughes, who lives in Walesand is a druid and also he was a mortician
(26:51):
for many years there in Wales and for,uh, working for the, the Queen, I believe.
I'm not exactly sure how all that fitsin, but the point is he made a documentary
that's available to watch on, um, uh,through the Welsh television program
(27:12):
CS4C, I think is how it goes.
You can watch it for free,you just have to log in.
So I will put all of this, um, in mynotes in my blog on my website for those
who want to go back and reference it.
But he has four episodes of thisfantastic documentary he did called Marw
Gwda Chris, which is Death with Chris.
(27:32):
Um, it has English subtitles,he speaks in Welsh quite a bit.
The, uh, I mean, he speaks tothe camera and everything in
Welsh, so that's why I love it.
Learning Welsh, right?
But he does a fantastic jobtalking about different cultures
and how they deal with death.
You will see in this documentary, that'swhy you have to check the box if you're
(27:54):
older than 16, because you will see death.
You will see dead.
And it's fascinating to me howdifferent cultures have different
ways of associating with death.
And one thing I noticed, and I wantto bring up before we talk about
culture specifically, is time.
(28:14):
That in one episode where he goes toIndonesia, he notices that in the city,
When they're very close quarters, uh,lots, high density population, not a
lot of space, they have to bury bodiesin the cemetery on top of each other,
stack them, because there's so many.
They are, um, of a Muslim faith andthey need to bury their bodies very
(28:38):
quickly after death so that, um, firstof all, it's very hot, very humid,
very muggy and hot in Indonesia,but also because of their faith.
So they, um, They have a family thatthey are following that they are showing
the father of the family had died justhours ago, and they are already at the
(28:58):
grave site, they've already gone tothe mosque, and then they go to the
grave site and they bury their fatherand husband within hours after his
death, and the grave is covered up.
The, the plate that the woodenplate that says their name
is, marked, marking the grave.
(29:20):
The family sits on and around thegrave and they cry and I find that
really fascinating and I wonderhow much time is left to grieve.
If that gives them a lot of closurereally early in the grieving process
so that they can move on and grieve,After he's already buried and it's,
(29:43):
you know, it's time to just grieve.
Or in another place, the same countryin Indonesia, there's another place in
the mountains where instead of buryingquickly, they Wait years, um, sometimes
before they bury the body and the bodiesare kept in sort of like coffins, but
(30:04):
in kind of the home where their familyis living and the family actually
can sleep in a bedroom next to them.
Um, in their language, theyrefer to them as ill or sleeping.
They don't say they're dead yetbecause death for them does not
officially occur until they are dead.
buried until they have the funeral.
(30:25):
And sometimes it takes two or threeyears to put together the whole funeral.
And I think that's, um, like two extremeexamples of how time can be in play
there because grief, specifically,when someone has gone through a loss,
(30:46):
uh, of a family member, this in thehealing world and the work that I do is
not something that we clear like we dowith a lot of other heavier emotions.
At least I don't, um, can't stay forany other healers that are That do the
work that I do, but for me specifically,I never go into a session with someone
(31:07):
who is grieving to release that grief.
Grief is something that although it doesstill feel very heavy on our bodies, it's
a different kind of emotional experience.
It's not a pain that we want toclear ourselves of, because it is.
(31:28):
along the same lines and, uh, otherside of the same coin as love.
We wouldn't be grieving a person even ifwe didn't particularly like that person.
And I have, I experienced that withsome clients where they're grieving
someone they didn't like or respectin their lifetime, but they're really,
really struggling with their death.
(31:51):
I, I make it very clear, at leastin the work that I do with We're
not here to fix or clear your grief.
That's not something that you'reever going to be able to be released
from because it is an importantpart of your living experience.
And we don't heal it in the way that weare clearing it or getting rid of it.
(32:13):
Healing in this case just meanswitnessing it, understanding it.
and respecting it for what it is.
And I think there is somethingreally, really sacred and special
about grief of a death, particularly.
Um, there's so manydifferent types of grief.
We talked about grief.
You know, when I talked about infertility,that's grieving a loss as well.
(32:34):
But this particular griefI'm talking about is death.
The grief you have after a death.
It's not a pain that I oranyone or yourself can cure.
And it is something that, um, um,That we never, never want to move
on from and probably wouldn'tbe able to if we wanted to.
(32:58):
Um, I think I've heard it said tocertain individuals who were grieving
the loss of their loved ones.
You know, that they can getthemselves ready to move on,
that they can move on from it.
There is a way to live your lifeto the fullest and most authentic
(33:19):
and most aligned with the path youdeserve to be on after a death.
And that should be the goal.
But it isn't about moving onfrom the death, because I think
that there's no such thing.
I think that someone's life impactingyou enough for you to grieve them when
they have passed the portal, passedthrough the veil, gone to the next level.
(33:42):
World.
That is a beautiful thing.
So, um, I do particularly experiencedeath myself when someone has
passed on, is it feels to me likethey're just in the next room.
I may not be able to sit here in thisroom and connect with them and converse
with them like when they were alive, butI don't feel like they're gone either.
(34:07):
Um, and that has helped menot feel like I have to.
Grieve and get into a state of depressionover their loss that would be debilitating
to me and being able to live my life.
Um, and so I hope that for people who aregoing through the experience of grief is
(34:28):
that you can be comforted to know that
that you're very valid ingrieving and will probably
grieve for them your entire life.
And that's like having that.
It's the same as having theirlove with you your entire life.
So getting into that, I'm goingto talk a little bit about my
(34:49):
experience with death and grief.
And that is that, um, I haven'tparticularly had to suffer the loss
of someone really, really close to me.
But I have been witness and observationinto a family that I married into
that has a very close personalrelationship with grief and death.
And that has given me some sortof a unique experience with it.
(35:10):
And that, um, my husband's familyhave had a lot of loss and a lot of
that loss is people who were younger.
Um, not, you know, just elderly.
(35:31):
So it's a different experience.
I,
I have seen it a lot of different ways.
And one thing I've noticed about beingConnected in a family that has had to
go through that many times even beforeI entered the family, but then I have,
(35:51):
you know, been their witness and partof grieving with them when we've lost
people since I joined the family.
And one thing I noticed is that, um,as a family and as part of all of
the same religion, they, Do all livein proximity, very close together.
(36:11):
They used to joke that it waslike a compound or a commune of
their family because they allused to live in the same block.
Um, even when children have grown upand gotten married, they've lived,
they've only moved in the same town.
They, they have remained very close.
My husband and I are probably the onlyones that have moved farther away.
Uh, even now we live.
just an hour away, anhour and 20 minutes away.
(36:33):
And we're, we live the furthestaway of anyone in the whole family.
So they live in proximity, very close toeach other, but I haven't particularly
seen a lot of experiences where they areclose in relationship with each other.
Because when we get together, a lotof conversations are typically about,
you know, what happened at church.
Sure.
The neighbors or, uh, you know, Oh, Isaw so and so at the store the other
(36:57):
day, or, um, how is your garden growing?
And things like that.
Um, what I would call more surface levelchitty chat than deep level conversations.
My family and I are of thedeep, emotional, and really
Get down into the nitty gritty of lifekind of, kind of conversations, but
(37:20):
my husband's family is not like that.
Uh, just different ways of doing things.
I'm not saying anything is right orwrong or giving any judgment about that.
Just they're close in proximity,not necessarily close as in
vulnerable with each other.
But I do notice that when Tragedystrikes and it has many times to this
unfortunate family, but they, theyhave someone who passes away and they,
(37:45):
they get real close in those moments.
I see them talk more openly andmore vulnerably with each other.
As they talk about the loved onethat's passed, they talk about
memories they have of that person.
Um, and they only really do thatin the days and weeks after the
(38:10):
death and in preparation of thefuneral and things like that.
Um, the people who have passed on inthe family don't often get mentioned.
Um, you know, rightly so, becauseit's painful to talk about them and
remember them when they've passed on.
But, um, but I have seen that sometimestheir religious beliefs, Uh, are, are
(38:36):
made to sort of, uh, be the answerto all the questions about death,
and we should leave it at that.
So, unfortunately, you know, for myhusband growing up, when he, when he
had to go through experiences wherehis brothers passed away, and his
sister passed away, he, he has lostall of his siblings in this world.
(39:01):
And, you know, out of fourchildren, he's the only surviving.
for listening.
Which is pretty incredible when youthink about the statistics of that.
So when something like that wouldoccur, it would often be, um, all
of the emotions and the grief aroundthat event and the tragedy of it would
(39:24):
be overridden by religious beliefs.
So it would be like, We knowwhat happens to us after we die.
We go to church.
Church has told us that we live forever.
If we do XYZ and we stay faithful tothe church and the gospel, then we
will see our family members again.
And that belief was held so strongthat oftentimes the actual healing that
(39:45):
needed to happen, even like going tocounseling or therapy together as a family
to, to express emotions and grief in ahealthy way, wasn't done in the past.
I'm happy to say that hopefully that has,that pattern has been broken and that
more and more as the, as the generations,the younger generations grow, we move
(40:07):
into a space where that's not the case.
And I use that example to hopefullyshare with people that even if you
do have a very strong religiousunderstanding of death, that being
able to energetically and logicallyexpress those things should happen.
outside of the realm of the religiousbeliefs, because that would be the
(40:30):
most healthy way to bond over that.
But as, uh, in Maruguru, Chris, thedocumentary, he explains that the Welsh
culture, it's very much not talked about.
Um, when a person has died, theyare, you know, the corpse or the
body is not shown afterwards.
(40:52):
Um, it's very unlikely that peoplewould, you know, let that be seen
or public or anything like that.
And that it's, you know, There isa very, um, structured process as
far as going through the, the stepsto the funeral and those, and the
ceremonies and rituals that need totake place, and then the person is gone.
(41:16):
And even grief and emotional expressionis happening, mostly behind closed doors.
Um, and that is a lot of what I seein the American culture too, which
may be just, uh, Just a residual,the aftermath of the people who've
immigrated from Northern Europe intoAmerica, that we brought that with us.
(41:38):
The idea that like, oh, you know, deathhappens, but we don't just bury that down
under a blanket and We're not going totalk about it too much, but there are a
lot of cultures that give expression todeath as more of a, um, a full out there
open and honest expression of whateverfeelings or whatever needs to happen.
(42:02):
And I am thinking, and I'm goingto mention because of my Celtic
background, the Keening women.
Um, when we talk about in Celticculture who were actually hired to
go and express mourning out loudin public for a person who's died.
(42:23):
Sometimes it was a strangerto the women because they were
hired to be there to do this.
But in being able to express that ina loud, actually like mournful crying,
they were They kind of give permissionfor everybody to do it, even people
who maybe wouldn't have normallybeen that public with their emotions.
So, I have such amazing respect
(42:47):
for the, the cultures that allow that,the cultures that encourage that,
and Keening Women, in my opinion, isa really kind of amazing way to, um,
to bring death out into the open.
And, uh, in Indonesia, the, uh, theone that, um, the culture, uh, where
(43:07):
the people waited years to, to do theirfuneral rites and things like that,
um, it's interesting because you noticehow there's one, uh, When the funeral
starts, they bring the bodies from thehome that they've been in for a couple
of years and they bring them out.
And everybody in the village,including the women, especially
the women, come and publicly mournand cry like the keening women.
(43:33):
They cry in, you know, fullon public displays of of
emotion, crying and all that.
So they do that, and then thenext day Chris comes back to the
same funeral, festiv festivities.
And this time they are.
laughing and celebrating and havingdrums and all kinds of things.
(43:55):
I mean, death is not hidden away atall in some of the cultures that Chris
engages with in this documentary series.
Instead, death is openly expressed invery, very, a regular part of the of life.
Obviously in the episodethat he goes to Mexico.
(44:16):
We have Dia de los Muertos,which is the day of the dead that
where they it's a celebration.
They have the flower petals that lead thedead from the cemetery to the homes or
the Or a procession where they take theofrenda and they take it to the gravesite
and they wait all night at the gravesitewith food and drink and wine and whatever.
(44:37):
And they wait for their relativesto cross the veil on that one night
and, um, and have a meal with them.
And I think that's really beautifuljust to honor your ancestors in such
a way that makes it very personal.
I for one have adopted some, someof those traditions in my own family
and household, where we do make anancestor altar during Thanksgiving.
(45:00):
It's meant for Samhain, or what wouldbe Dia de los Muertos in Mexico.
It's, uh, meant for Samhain, but, um, Ilike to kind of combine different things.
So, rather than celebrate Thanksgivingin the traditional American sense
of Thanksgiving, which I just don'treally agree with celebrating, uh,
we have our feast, but we have ourfeast and we have our ancestor altar.
(45:24):
We create these little luminarieswith our ancestors pictures on
them, and I let the childrenintroduce which ancestor they have.
Each person gets to bring an ancestorto the table and we say this is my great
aunt so and so or whatever whoever itis that we brought and we might tell
a little story about them or anythingthat we've we've learned about them.
(45:46):
And then we light a little candle,or we click the little battery,
uh, on the little tea lightcandles that our battery operated.
And we say, welcome so andso, and we put the candle in.
And everyone says, welcome so and so.
Um, and we started this eversince the, um, We started doing
it at Nursing Kin at the Samhain.
(46:10):
And I think it's a great way for my kidsto personally know and understand their
ancestors that have passed on before them,before they were, came into this world.
And, um, and some of those relatives arevery personal, personally connected with
them, because as I said, my husband'sfamily has had a lot of very tragic.
(46:31):
Young deaths in one family.
So my kids would neverhave gotten to meet.
Unless they met them in the preexistence,which is a whole other spiritual
concept we'll save for another day,but they get to meet their uncles.
They get to meet their aunt.
They get to, um, give a little helloand shout out to their grandma.
(46:55):
My husband's mother who's passed on andanyone else that has passed on before that
they were aware of them and, um, and theyget a close personal connection with them.
And I think that that is abeautiful way to let death not be
something scary and taboo, but tobe something that is, uh, familiar.
(47:18):
And that is where we are going to getthe last subtopic we're going to talk
about, which is fear versus acceptance.
I have had conversations with peoplewho, um, they themselves or family
members of theirs will not talkabout death, will not talk about it.
They haven't, if they have preparedfor, for it with a will of some kind
(47:41):
or a trust, they, they don't discussit with their family members, which
I think is sad and probably not asmart or wise decision, but, uh,
it makes it very difficult for theirfamily members to prepare or want to.
Give them what it is that they wouldwant, not just after death, like as in
(48:02):
what they would want as a funeral orwhat they would want to celebrate their
life, but even as preparing for death.
And I remember in the, in thesecular Buddhist podcast, he
mentioned a story where he had afriend that was preparing for death.
Diagnosed with a terminalillness cancer, I think.
And he lunched with them one on one andhe said, what's it like to be dying?
(48:25):
And his friend said, I don't know.
You tell me, what do you think?
What is it like to be dying?
He says, just because I was diagnosedwith terminal cancer, doesn't mean
that I'm dying before you, youcould be hit by a bus tomorrow.
We're all dying.
We just don't know when that will be.
And we have no certainties about that.
(48:48):
And if the tragic deathsthat I have been in.
seen and experienced in my husband'sfamily have taught me anything.
It's that, it's that I could, Icould have an aneurysm or something
in my brain and drop dead tomorrow.
What is it that I wouldwant to leave behind?
And what, what is it that I wouldwant my children and my husband and
(49:09):
my family and everyone I know to, whatwould I want them to know before I go?
I would want to know, I wouldwant them to know that they're
loved, that I loved them.
Um, which if I've had trouble expressingthat, then I want to work on that.
And I would want themto know that it's okay.
That if I die, I'm okay.
(49:33):
No matter what, even if there'snothing after this, you know,
let's say the atheists are right.
There's absolutely nothing, butthat's okay too, because I won't know.
And I won't be sadbecause I'll be nothing.
I'll be okay.
Don't worry about it.
And don't be afraid because I amgoing to be alright, and you're
(49:57):
going to be alright, and it'sall going to work out just fine.
And, if I die, that means I didall the things I was meant to do.
Whatever that was.
I did it.
I'm done.
So I'm good.
And I just think that in talking aboutand discussing death openly with my
children, it will help them have a comfortof, uh, a comfort with uncertainty that
(50:22):
I myself have and would like to have.
And that no regrets, right?
I remember when I was going to England,before I left, I thought to myself, well,
I'm going on a plane for a very long time.
Lots of things can happengoing to a foreign country.
Lots of things can happen.
I'm just going to sit down and write outa letter as if I don't make it back and
(50:47):
write a letter to my family and say allthe things that I want to say to them
so that they can just find the letter.
And I will, you know,have my last word in.
So I did.
I sat down and I wrote a big oldletter for my husband and my kids.
It was very emotional.
Of course I cried during it, butnot because I was sad or afraid,
but because it was emotional.
And what I recognized in writingthat letter as if I was going to die
(51:11):
was I don't have a whole lot to say.
Other than I love you and everythingthat you do is okay with me and I
accept you and you can forgive me,hopefully, for anything that I did to
offend you in my lifetime and Um, anddon't be sad for me because if I die
(51:33):
on this trip to England, I died doingsomething that I am absolutely thrilled
to be doing that I, that I would love.
So it was worth it.
It's worth risking my life to goand do and live my life to do things
that I really, really want to do.
And so when I got done, I felt great.
I didn't feel afraid.
I didn't feel nervous.
I could just go on withmy life and I didn't die.
(51:56):
I made it back andeverything is okay for now.
I remember my grandmother, the one Iwas talking about earlier, who was dying
and everyone got to gather around andeveryone got to say their goodbyes.
Um, I remember many, many yearsbefore that when I was just a kid, she
said something that I never forgot.
(52:16):
And she said, I'm not afraid to diebecause I'll get all my answers.
that I've ever wanted to knowabout anything about the world
and how it works and the universeand you know, God and everything.
She just said, I wouldget all that answered.
And that's pretty great.
I'm excited for that.
(52:37):
I'll be excited to have that finally.
And so I can go anytime and I'll be okay.
And she was still fairlyyoung at that point.
I remember she was probably only 65 whenshe said that I was just a little kid.
But it stuck with me because Ithought to myself, my grandma is
older and she will die someday.
(53:00):
And I, when I thought about that, Iwas devastated because I love her.
I loved her so much and I didnot want her to go anywhere.
I wanted to see her.
I wanted to visit her.
But when she said that, it made mefeel like even when she does go.
I'll be okay.
(53:21):
I'll know she's okay because shetold me she was okay with it.
And that's a sort of peace andcomfort I would like to give my kids.
And that's how I would like tohave a relationship with death.
All right.
And wrapping up this topic.
And I know we've been at it for a while.
Don't even know how long thishas gone, but we've Covered all
(53:43):
of the things I wanted to cover.
And in wrapping up, I just want to saythat life itself is full of deaths.
Every winter is a death.
Every time we go through somethingincredibly hard that makes
us question everything we'veever known, that's a death.
We are experiencing deathin many different ways.
of ourselves and of ourego throughout our lives.
(54:06):
And it's part of thecalcination of alchemy.
Like we discussed in the alchemy episode,it's part of the process of purification
that we need to go through to become ourabsolute philosopher stone authentic self.
The part of us that never changes thepart of us that's the pure and whole part.
(54:27):
And whether we get to be that afterwe die, or we get to experience it in
little moments of heaven throughoutour lives, living our lives.
I do believe that and I do knowI've experienced it and I can bet
that anybody listening to me rightnow has experienced that too.
So allow yourself to becomfortable with death.
(54:48):
Allow yourself to face it even whenit's uncomfortable to think about and
that aging and mortality and cemeteries.
won't scare you when you have areally good relationship with death.
Maybe seek out a death doula ifyou're still feeling uncomfortable.
(55:09):
I think that'd be a great idea.
All right, so to finish things up,I would like to thank Just Blane and
Ride the Wave Media for producingand putting out this podcast.
If you want to check out any ofthe other amazing podcasts that are
available, find Ride the Wave Media onYouTube or where you get your podcasts.
(55:29):
Many of my good friends are in my, uh,are in my social network, are in my
podcast network and have podcasts andum, have been guests here on my podcast.
And they have amazing contentthat you should seek out because
it's all a little bit magical.
I use magic every day.
(55:50):
I hope that you use this podcast,this experience to create magic in
everyday life, to strengthen yourrelationships, to heal, to prosper,
to thrive, and to have a great 2025.
You can find me and the workthat I do on Prism Healing.
(56:14):
My website is prism healing.com.
My Instagram is Prism underscore healing.
My Facebook is CourtneyPearls Prism Healing.
In any of those avenues, you can find me.
You can message me questions.
things that you have listened to.
And please make sure that when youare watching this YouTube video or
(56:37):
listening on Spotify or whereveryou're listening to this podcast, that
you like, subscribe, and even shareepisodes that are meaningful to you
with someone you think it will help.
That is why I create thiscontent is to help people.
And if any of the content orexperiences that I. Can put out there
in the world that might help you.
That is why I do this work.
(56:58):
And if you'd like to support thispodcast further, you can leave a review.
You can, um, Well, just liking andsubscribing is actually a great
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(57:19):
reach out to us and let And until nexttime, witches and wizards, go make magic.
Hello and welcome to Practically Magic.
I am your host Courtney Pearl.
I am owner of Prism Healing andtoday I'm your Celtic Priestess.
We are going to dive into an episodetoday about death and grieving and it's
going to be a really important one.
One that I have spent the last fewweeks months even researching and
(00:30):
preparing for because I wanted toapproach this subject with all of the
wonder and respect that it deserves.
And so before we beginon our main topic today.
I would like to pull a card for ourepisode and for you, our audience.
(00:50):
I am going to pull a card fromthe Storyteller's Tarot today.
For those of you who can seeme on YouTube, you can look and
see what the deck looks like.
Um, I picked this up recently.
It's a fairly new deck, so I amexcited to play with it some more.
And as you know, um, as part of workthat I do, I am a lore keeper, and I
(01:12):
love folklore, and I love mythology.
And so when I saw this deck, I just hadto have it as you know how that goes.
And so I'm going to pulla card for us today.
Perhaps it has something to dowith our episode topic, or perhaps
it has something to do with you.
This is our first episode back in 2025.
(01:33):
Welcome.
Welcome to 2025.
We have made it through the thresholds.
At the time I am recordingthis, it is winter.
And, uh, that is a perfect opportunityfor us to talk about death.
Winter being a, a symbol of death
(01:55):
and rebirth in the spring.
So today's episode, today'scard for today's episode is
going to be the Ace of Scepters.
In this deck, I believe Ace of Sceptersis corresponding with the Ace of Wands
(02:16):
in the traditional tarot, but the imageon the card, if you can see, for those
of you who are watching on YouTube, um,it is the Ursa Major, the symbol of the
constellation of stars and the bear.
Um, The first thing I thought of whenI saw this, though, if I remember
(02:37):
correctly, the guidebook doesn'tnecessarily mention this, but I associate
this card quite a bit with King Arthur.
And it's interesting becauseI just finished a book.
Um, fiction, but very, uh,
saturated with good old folklore,um, read a book about King Arthur
(03:01):
and the Knights of the Round Table,a legend I particularly love having
come from, uh, Welsh mythology.
And, uh, the, the word Arthur, uh, alot of people associate Arth as the
Welsh word for bear and believe thathas a connection there to the Ursa
(03:24):
Major, uh, the bear, and the sky, andthe North Star, and the Big Dipper.
And what this is saying for us,particularly in pulling this card today,
this is a card of new beginnings, ofum, I would associate it more with a
rebirth than I would with death, soit's interesting that this card is
(03:45):
coming up for us today on our subject.
Um, but it does give us the impressionof new beginnings, of something
starting, and of creativity brewing.
I want us all to be very careful.
Uh, a lot of the mythical and mystictype people like myself would be giving
(04:06):
you the same message, which is, I wantyou all to be very careful in new years.
We just had New Year's and a lot of peopleget caught up in the excitement of a new
year and New Year's resolutions are allthe rage, you know, it's the thing to do.
To come up with all these newthings you're going to do and you're
(04:27):
going to start the January 1st orJanuary, you know, you're going to
start doing all of these new things.
You're going to start puttingand implementing all of these
new things into your life.
This is an opportunity to say,slow down, because wintertime and
even in new beginnings, we don'twant to run at something gung
(04:50):
ho, uh, Straight at the attack.
Um, wintertime is an invitationto rest and remember winter just
started so we have essentially thenext six weeks or longer depending
on what calendar you're using tohunker down, to hibernate, to rest.
(05:14):
Um, I often joke with my neighbors andfriends who live around me locally.
Um, You will know it's spring when thewitch comes out of her cottage, um,
the witch meaning me, because I do alot of staying indoors in the winter.
I have tried to get out more and just,um, take Walks in the cold and still
(05:35):
engage with the outdoors so that Idon't lose myself too much in that.
But for the most part, I givemyself permission to do a lot
less than what I would normallydo in the schedule of summer.
Um, there's a reason Why our ancestorslived by the light of the sun and
(05:57):
was more productive and active duringthe time when they would be planting
and harvesting during the spring,summer, fall months of the year.
But winter was a time to harvest.
Rest.
To go indoors, to do indoor activities,and to, um, to do only what you
(06:19):
can do during the daylight hours,which are far less hours than the
other times of the year, obviously.
Now we have invented, uh, electricityand lights, and we can stay up late if
we want to, and we can get up early.
But I think that that goes againstthe natural rhythms of our body.
(06:41):
And I want to bring this up because we'removing into, um, the, the discussion
topic of the day, which is death.
And I know that this can be anuncomfortable topic, especially if you
are of Northern European culture or NorthAmerican culture, we have a tendency to be
(07:05):
very closed mouthed and taboo about death.
We don't really want to look at it.
We don't really want to faceour own mortality too much.
And when you look at the influence of, uh,religion and the spread of Christianity
throughout the world, you see that alot of, you know, covering up the idea
(07:26):
of death with, um, well, if we believein an afterlife and we believe that we
can live forever, then we really don'tneed to even broach the topic of death
or grief or loss when someone has died.
And I'm going to talk a little bit aboutthis topic in a couple of different, um, a
(07:48):
couple of different topics, uh, subtopics.
I don't know what you want tocall it, but, uh, An outline.
Um, I want to talk about it in a spiritualcontext of what and how we approach death,
but I also want to talk about grief.
I want to talk about culture andI want to talk about acceptance.
And when we talk about the spiritualaspect of it, which is, more or less
(08:14):
where I like to discuss the most asa priestess, as a spiritual person.
Um, I do want to be careful because peoplewho often, uh, associate themselves or,
uh, stick their faith to a particulardogma or religion, that tends to
(08:37):
override the natural feelings of grief.
And sometimes thosefeelings can get ignored.
Um, and I will talk personally aboutsome situations that I have observed
and noticed in my own culture andin my own family, um, and the family
that I married into, that will showthat there are And that there needs
(08:59):
to be some attention brought to that.
But as far as most cultures that youwill see, a spiritual aspect of death
is that it is like a portal, that weare going from one life to the next.
That, um, Um, even if you were, let'ssay, um, atheists or agnostic or
(09:23):
didn't necessarily have a spiritualbelief about a soul that goes into
another, another realm or that there'sa heaven or another place after we die.
Um, I like that Neil Tyson Degrassi,he's a scientist who thinks in
terms of science, but he explainedthat the energy that is our
collective, That is our consciousnessthat allows our body to work.
(09:46):
Um, it has to go somewhere afterwe die and our body ceases to live.
We have done scientific experimentsto, uh, know and understand that
the body loses a certain amount ofweight when the soul passes from it.
So whether you want to call it asoul or a spirit doesn't matter.
really matter, but to know that thereis an energy about our aliveness that
(10:10):
leaves the body when the body passesaway and where it goes, whether it goes,
you know, to another realm or anotherdimension possibly, or another timeline,
or could it possibly be reallocated asenergy does into the universe as allowing
(10:32):
new plants to grow and allow, you know,it's the energy that is going to provide
something else to live once we've died.
And I think that even when you lookat it from a scientific aspect,
that's still pretty magical.
I mean, I don't think you have to bein necessarily spiritual person or
a mystic to understand that the bodydoes have energy that leaves and gets
(10:53):
allocated, reallocated to differentplaces in the universe when we die.
And that allows other thingslive and grow and be born.
And isn't that amazing?
I mean, you don't need religion orspirituality to just understand that
the world is a pretty amazing placeand it's pretty magical already.
(11:15):
So we understand and we knowthat that, that's what happens.
Um, what I've gotten interestedin the last few years is
the sacredness around death.
Um, especially if you knowdeath is a is coming soon.
If someone is terminal or if they havegotten a diagnosis or something that
allows you to have time to prepare inthat way, um, I would argue that we're
(11:40):
all in that state, uh, but we'll talkabout that a little bit more later.
I, I'm just really, really interestedand really fascinated by the absolute
vulnerability and sacrednessaround death when it comes to a
person dying and their family.
(12:01):
Um, I have come in contactwith it a couple of times.
I would like to interview them forthe podcast in a future episode.
So stay tuned for that.
If you're interested, I'm going toget, uh, Get that arranged, but I
have talked to a death doula and thatidea is really fascinating to me.
I don't know if that's ever on the horizonfor myself, but as a priestess, that
sounds really fascinating to be somebodywho can help facilitate death in that
(12:27):
way, or even just be kind of that personwho helps people through that situation.
And a death doula is a fantastic idea.
I had a doula at the birth ofmy sons when I was pregnant.
And I, I remember when my grandmother waspassing away and she had an opportunity
(12:47):
to know that she was on her way out andthat she was probably going to be gone in
a matter of days and felt well enough toinvite the family to come and say goodbye.
And, um, that experience was fascinatingand Difficult and beautiful all at the
(13:08):
same time, but it reminded me a lotof a birth because nobody knew exactly
when it was happening and we were allkind of measuring the signs of her body
and her, um, you know, when she, shebegan to get really sleepy and was only
awake for, for small moments at a time.
And, You know, just different thingsthat, um, the hospice nurse and, um,
(13:33):
my aunt who is a nurse practitioner,she, she was very comfortable
and aware of the signs of death.
So she was helping us understand like,okay, her body is going through this.
We're going to see thesesigns as it gets closer.
So just like a woman in laborabout to give birth to a new
baby, you're watching the signs.
in a similar way and people aregathering and people are discussing it
(13:56):
and people are, you know, there's justthis closeness that's created with that
and I found it to be really beautifuland a really beautiful opportunity to
bond and connect with our family, um,much in the way a new baby can do that.
Uh, I had a doula at the birth of mysons and it was, Highly recommended,
(14:21):
um, I really loved, uh, they were calledBud to Blossom, uh, Bud to Blossom?
Yeah, um, doulas and their whole team isamazing and they came before the birth
and prepped me and helped me and went tomy house and helped preps my house and
you know, they did all these things tohelp prepare me and my husband and my
(14:43):
family for you're going to be bringingtwin babies home from the hospital.
That's going to be Prettyamazing and life altering.
So let's prepare.
And a death doula would do the same thing.
They would allow the family to converseabout their feelings and express
what they would want to see happen orwhat they don't want to see happen.
(15:05):
The person who's going through thedeath that's dying gets to express
how they would like that to go.
And the death doula is like a facilitatorguiding them through that, um, in a lot
of the ways a spiritual leader would do.
except they're very muchwell trained in doing it.
Whereas I think sometimes churchleaders don't have the training,
(15:26):
they just have, I guess, Godappointed them to that position, so
they just Do something like that.
Um, I highly recommend a deaf doula, so.
Uh, I think that would be a fantasticidea to have someone there to
facilitate those conversations.
And to make as many things possible happenfor the person who's dying to have the
(15:50):
experience that they would want to have inpassing through that portal to their next.
great beyond, whateverthat might look like.
But there is sort of a, um, anunderstanding and spiritual context
of passing through the veil.
And, um, I know a lot of people in themystical world or mediums or people
(16:11):
who can feel energies like that.
They can really feel when the veil is thinand when the spiritual world is closely
connected with the living or when thereare certain messages coming through.
Um, I am particularlyfascinated with mediums.
I have met and seen and watchedon TV mediums that I felt like
(16:38):
This feels like we're exploitingpeople and this feels like we're
taking advantage of people thatare in a very emotional state.
And I have felt and seen thingsthat I know, um, and this is just
According to me, we're very authenticand we're very much, um, in the
effort of helping people heal.
(17:00):
And so I do want people to use their bestdiscretion, their intuition on whether or
not a person they're engaging with is justtaking advantage of their emotional state
or whether they are helping them healby connecting them to whatever messages
need to happen in the, in the afterlife.
Um, my experience with people passingon is that Yes, I have had what I felt
(17:25):
were very, very direct conversationsand experiences with people who've
passed on to the other world.
Um, I wouldn't go around tellingpeople that I am a medium.
I just have had experiences thatI do believe that anyone who's
willing to practice that skillor to engage with that, get in
touch with their own clair skills.
(17:46):
So whether they're clairvoyantor clairsentient or clairaudient,
or, um, there's many differentways that you can Access.
Excuse me.
Access.
Knowledge from that other side.
Um, but I do believe that there aredifferent dimensions or realms, or
they kind of exist as different, uh,in Reiki they kind of talk about it
(18:10):
as the different heavens, um, butsort of different levels or realms
of, from the plane of existencethat is Earth, and that, that that
exists in a higher, lighter sense.
So I do think that when a soul dies orleaves their body, they go into a level
(18:33):
of their white light selves that nolonger associates with the ego and the
body and their existence here on earth.
So when they want to connect orengage with someone on earth.
I think it's actually verydifficult for them when they've
passed through the light.
Uh, and that's just using terminologythat most people understand.
(18:55):
Um, I'm not saying for sure thatthis is what it's like, but they
pass through that realm intothe next level of consciousness.
And I think that they are so much intothe Being of light that they become
that coming back to earth and engagingas their ego self, looking like they
looked on earth, or, um, you know, evenengaging with the people that they left
(19:20):
behind can be very difficult for them.
I think that it can feel,
for lack of a betterterm, it just feels icky.
I imagine it to be more like if a personwas, um, going to, had moved on from a
(19:44):
very embarrassing situation, but they hadto go back and relive that embarrassing
situation, then that's what it would feellike to come back to Earth and to be in
their, in, in their, um, In that realm.
So I don't think that they'vereached out to connect very
often unless it's necessary.
And I do think that they do retainsome essence of familiarity with
(20:05):
their family members and loved ones.
I think they do watch out for us.
I think they do come to our events.
I think they're very much involved.
I just don't think that theyslip into what, what would be
considered, you know, a ghost.
Like we see them walking aroundin the clothes that they used
to in the way that they looked.
Um, and I don't think that they visit.
(20:26):
Uh, to give a message through amedium unless they really feel
the need to, because I don't thinkthat that's comfortable for them.
Um, and again, this is justaccording to my, uh, what I have
researched and what I have felt.
And so I do think, and I say thesethings because I want the larger
(20:46):
audience to know that there issomething mystical and magical about
the afterlife and about leaving ourearthly realm and into the netherworld.
Next, whatever we go and do.
Uh, I personally do believein reincarnation too.
I believe that our soulcan be like a diamond.
That it has many, many, many facets to it.
(21:07):
And that each lifetime we live,we experience things and we have
challenges that allow us to, shallwe say, polish or add pressure to
the unpolished and maybe, uh, dull,
Uh, craggly, foggy sides of our diamond.
(21:32):
So the soul is not complete and readyto ascend to the highest kingdom
of heaven or whatever you want tobelieve happens to us after we die.
I don't believe that it's ready to dothat unless we have experienced and
gone through the things that we aremeant to do to polish each and every
facet of the diamond that is our soul.
(21:54):
Um, I'm using metaphors, uh, to help.
explain how I understand it to work.
Um, and that doesn't mean that thisis based on any dogma or religion.
It's just how I've experienced,uh, coming to this kind of
knowledge with my own experiencesand readings, things like that.
(22:14):
But the reason I tell you all ofthis is to help you understand that
whether it's in one lifetime here onearth or whether it's after we We are
reincarnated or whatever we have to do.
I think that we are given many chances.
I don't think it's like, you live onelife here on earth and that's all you get.
And if your life is miserable, or ifyou happen to be born with like a I
(22:38):
don't know, uh, you're a sociopathicpsychopath that doesn't know anything
other than, um, harming people.
Um, I know that there are people who wouldsay, well, those people don't have a soul.
They're just here to doharm to other humans.
And that can be really harsh.
Um, and you can be a sociopath and notdo harm to others, just so you know.
(23:01):
I'm not saying that either.
Ugh, it feels like so many differentthings that I could get totally blasted
for, but all I'm saying is that there arepeople who believe that those people don't
have a soul at all, and I'm saying, whatif they do, but their experience of having
that difficulty here on this planet, andmaybe spending their entire life in prison
(23:23):
here, and then dying It might feel tothe rest of us like a waste of being a
human when maybe that was just one sideof the diamond of their soul that they
needed to polish this time and they neededto experience something else next time.
And there's karmic debt thatthey need to, um, that they need
to, uh, experience something.
(23:47):
And it's a larger picture that no onehuman could ever have all the answers for.
And that we get to another idea thatI want to touch on, which is when it
comes to death and the afterlife, um,I really, really appreciate the ideas
brought by, uh, secular Buddhism, whichis to be comfortable with uncertainty.
(24:07):
A lot of people seek out religiousdogma or religious ideas about what
happens to us after we die, becausethey want the certainty of like, I know.
For certain that if I do these thingson this earth and if I'm a good person
and I do the right and I make theright choices and I'm worthy, I get
to go and be in a heaven afterlife.
I get to be in something that isreward at the end of it all and
(24:30):
makes all the sacrifices thatI had in this life worth it.
The fact of the matter is, isthat none of us really know.
Even I'm sitting here telling you whatI think I know or what I have felt
and what, um, how I've experiencedit, but I can be totally wrong.
Nothing that I'm sayingcould be right either.
It could be just as simple as thescientific explanation of our soul
(24:53):
dissipates, dissipates into, into,um, into the rest of the world.
And it becomes part of theenergy that operates the world.
And either way, that's okay.
I'm not a person who at this pointin my life, at least, is walking
around needing to know those answers.
(25:14):
And I think that there is a great comfortand relief when you get to a place where
you can say, I actually don't know.
I don't know what happensto us after we die.
I don't know if there's a soul.
I don't know any of that, but isit going to change how I interact
(25:35):
with other human beings or how Ifollow rules or don't follow rules?
Because all that really matters in thislifetime is that I live to be my most
authentic self and that I resonate ata frequency that is most authentic.
So, If I wait till the afterlife fora reward, am I really making good
use and time of my life here now?
(25:57):
And those are questions that Ithink are worth asking yourself.
So maybe taking a book out ofsecular Buddhism, being more
comfortable with uncertainty.
Is a great path forward.
I want to, um, reference a, inmy research about death and, uh,
(26:24):
there is a fantastic documentary.
Um, we mentioned it in the episodeI did with Tiffany Lesik, where
we talked about, um, alchemy.
Uh, she knows personally, as she is aDruid in the, um, Anglesea Druid order.
She, uh, works with.
Christopher Hughes, who lives in Walesand is a druid and also he was a mortician
(26:51):
for many years there in Wales and for,uh, working for the, the Queen, I believe.
I'm not exactly sure how all that fitsin, but the point is he made a documentary
that's available to watch on, um, uh,through the Welsh television program
(27:12):
CS4C, I think is how it goes.
You can watch it for free,you just have to log in.
So I will put all of this, um, in mynotes in my blog on my website for those
who want to go back and reference it.
But he has four episodes of thisfantastic documentary he did called Marw
Gwda Chris, which is Death with Chris.
(27:32):
Um, it has English subtitles,he speaks in Welsh quite a bit.
The, uh, I mean, he speaks tothe camera and everything in
Welsh, so that's why I love it.
Learning Welsh, right?
But he does a fantastic jobtalking about different cultures
and how they deal with death.
You will see in this documentary, that'swhy you have to check the box if you're
(27:54):
older than 16, because you will see death.
You will see dead.
And it's fascinating to me howdifferent cultures have different
ways of associating with death.
And one thing I noticed, and I wantto bring up before we talk about
culture specifically, is time.
(28:14):
That in one episode where he goes toIndonesia, he notices that in the city,
When they're very close quarters, uh,lots, high density population, not a
lot of space, they have to bury bodiesin the cemetery on top of each other,
stack them, because there's so many.
They are, um, of a Muslim faith andthey need to bury their bodies very
(28:38):
quickly after death so that, um, firstof all, it's very hot, very humid,
very muggy and hot in Indonesia,but also because of their faith.
So they, um, They have a family thatthey are following that they are showing
the father of the family had died justhours ago, and they are already at the
(28:58):
grave site, they've already gone tothe mosque, and then they go to the
grave site and they bury their fatherand husband within hours after his
death, and the grave is covered up.
The, the plate that the woodenplate that says their name
is, marked, marking the grave.
(29:20):
The family sits on and around thegrave and they cry and I find that
really fascinating and I wonderhow much time is left to grieve.
If that gives them a lot of closurereally early in the grieving process
so that they can move on and grieve,After he's already buried and it's,
(29:43):
you know, it's time to just grieve.
Or in another place, the same countryin Indonesia, there's another place in
the mountains where instead of buryingquickly, they Wait years, um, sometimes
before they bury the body and the bodiesare kept in sort of like coffins, but
(30:04):
in kind of the home where their familyis living and the family actually
can sleep in a bedroom next to them.
Um, in their language, theyrefer to them as ill or sleeping.
They don't say they're dead yetbecause death for them does not
officially occur until they are dead.
buried until they have the funeral.
(30:25):
And sometimes it takes two or threeyears to put together the whole funeral.
And I think that's, um, like two extremeexamples of how time can be in play
there because grief, specifically,when someone has gone through a loss,
(30:46):
uh, of a family member, this in thehealing world and the work that I do is
not something that we clear like we dowith a lot of other heavier emotions.
At least I don't, um, can't stay forany other healers that are That do the
work that I do, but for me specifically,I never go into a session with someone
(31:07):
who is grieving to release that grief.
Grief is something that although it doesstill feel very heavy on our bodies, it's
a different kind of emotional experience.
It's not a pain that we want toclear ourselves of, because it is.
(31:28):
along the same lines and, uh, otherside of the same coin as love.
We wouldn't be grieving a person even ifwe didn't particularly like that person.
And I have, I experienced that withsome clients where they're grieving
someone they didn't like or respectin their lifetime, but they're really,
really struggling with their death.
(31:51):
I, I make it very clear, at leastin the work that I do with We're
not here to fix or clear your grief.
That's not something that you'reever going to be able to be released
from because it is an importantpart of your living experience.
And we don't heal it in the way that weare clearing it or getting rid of it.
(32:13):
Healing in this case just meanswitnessing it, understanding it.
and respecting it for what it is.
And I think there is somethingreally, really sacred and special
about grief of a death, particularly.
Um, there's so manydifferent types of grief.
We talked about grief.
You know, when I talked about infertility,that's grieving a loss as well.
(32:34):
But this particular griefI'm talking about is death.
The grief you have after a death.
It's not a pain that I oranyone or yourself can cure.
And it is something that, um, um,That we never, never want to move
on from and probably wouldn'tbe able to if we wanted to.
(32:58):
Um, I think I've heard it said tocertain individuals who were grieving
the loss of their loved ones.
You know, that they can getthemselves ready to move on,
that they can move on from it.
There is a way to live your lifeto the fullest and most authentic
(33:19):
and most aligned with the path youdeserve to be on after a death.
And that should be the goal.
But it isn't about moving onfrom the death, because I think
that there's no such thing.
I think that someone's life impactingyou enough for you to grieve them when
they have passed the portal, passedthrough the veil, gone to the next level.
(33:42):
World.
That is a beautiful thing.
So, um, I do particularly experiencedeath myself when someone has
passed on, is it feels to me likethey're just in the next room.
I may not be able to sit here in thisroom and connect with them and converse
with them like when they were alive, butI don't feel like they're gone either.
(34:07):
Um, and that has helped menot feel like I have to.
Grieve and get into a state of depressionover their loss that would be debilitating
to me and being able to live my life.
Um, and so I hope that for people who aregoing through the experience of grief is
(34:28):
that you can be comforted to know that
that you're very valid ingrieving and will probably
grieve for them your entire life.
And that's like having that.
It's the same as having theirlove with you your entire life.
So getting into that, I'm goingto talk a little bit about my
(34:49):
experience with death and grief.
And that is that, um, I haven'tparticularly had to suffer the loss
of someone really, really close to me.
But I have been witness and observationinto a family that I married into
that has a very close personalrelationship with grief and death.
And that has given me some sortof a unique experience with it.
(35:10):
And that, um, my husband's familyhave had a lot of loss and a lot of
that loss is people who were younger.
Um, not, you know, just elderly.
(35:31):
So it's a different experience.
I,
I have seen it a lot of different ways.
And one thing I've noticed about beingConnected in a family that has had to
go through that many times even beforeI entered the family, but then I have,
(35:51):
you know, been their witness and partof grieving with them when we've lost
people since I joined the family.
And one thing I noticed is that, um,as a family and as part of all of
the same religion, they, Do all livein proximity, very close together.
(36:11):
They used to joke that it waslike a compound or a commune of
their family because they allused to live in the same block.
Um, even when children have grown upand gotten married, they've lived,
they've only moved in the same town.
They, they have remained very close.
My husband and I are probably the onlyones that have moved farther away.
Uh, even now we live.
just an hour away, anhour and 20 minutes away.
(36:33):
And we're, we live the furthestaway of anyone in the whole family.
So they live in proximity, very close toeach other, but I haven't particularly
seen a lot of experiences where they areclose in relationship with each other.
Because when we get together, a lotof conversations are typically about,
you know, what happened at church.
Sure.
The neighbors or, uh, you know, Oh, Isaw so and so at the store the other
(36:57):
day, or, um, how is your garden growing?
And things like that.
Um, what I would call more surface levelchitty chat than deep level conversations.
My family and I are of thedeep, emotional, and really
Get down into the nitty gritty of lifekind of, kind of conversations, but
(37:20):
my husband's family is not like that.
Uh, just different ways of doing things.
I'm not saying anything is right orwrong or giving any judgment about that.
Just they're close in proximity,not necessarily close as in
vulnerable with each other.
But I do notice that when Tragedystrikes and it has many times to this
unfortunate family, but they, theyhave someone who passes away and they,
(37:45):
they get real close in those moments.
I see them talk more openly andmore vulnerably with each other.
As they talk about the loved onethat's passed, they talk about
memories they have of that person.
Um, and they only really do thatin the days and weeks after the
(38:10):
death and in preparation of thefuneral and things like that.
Um, the people who have passed on inthe family don't often get mentioned.
Um, you know, rightly so, becauseit's painful to talk about them and
remember them when they've passed on.
But, um, but I have seen that sometimestheir religious beliefs, Uh, are, are
(38:36):
made to sort of, uh, be the answerto all the questions about death,
and we should leave it at that.
So, unfortunately, you know, for myhusband growing up, when he, when he
had to go through experiences wherehis brothers passed away, and his
sister passed away, he, he has lostall of his siblings in this world.
(39:01):
And, you know, out of fourchildren, he's the only surviving.
for listening.
Which is pretty incredible when youthink about the statistics of that.
So when something like that wouldoccur, it would often be, um, all
of the emotions and the grief aroundthat event and the tragedy of it would
(39:24):
be overridden by religious beliefs.
So it would be like, We knowwhat happens to us after we die.
We go to church.
Church has told us that we live forever.
If we do XYZ and we stay faithful tothe church and the gospel, then we
will see our family members again.
And that belief was held so strongthat oftentimes the actual healing that
(39:45):
needed to happen, even like going tocounseling or therapy together as a family
to, to express emotions and grief in ahealthy way, wasn't done in the past.
I'm happy to say that hopefully that has,that pattern has been broken and that
more and more as the, as the generations,the younger generations grow, we move
(40:07):
into a space where that's not the case.
And I use that example to hopefullyshare with people that even if you
do have a very strong religiousunderstanding of death, that being
able to energetically and logicallyexpress those things should happen.
outside of the realm of the religiousbeliefs, because that would be the
(40:30):
most healthy way to bond over that.
But as, uh, in Maruguru, Chris, thedocumentary, he explains that the Welsh
culture, it's very much not talked about.
Um, when a person has died, theyare, you know, the corpse or the
body is not shown afterwards.
(40:52):
Um, it's very unlikely that peoplewould, you know, let that be seen
or public or anything like that.
And that it's, you know, There isa very, um, structured process as
far as going through the, the stepsto the funeral and those, and the
ceremonies and rituals that need totake place, and then the person is gone.
(41:16):
And even grief and emotional expressionis happening, mostly behind closed doors.
Um, and that is a lot of what I seein the American culture too, which
may be just, uh, Just a residual,the aftermath of the people who've
immigrated from Northern Europe intoAmerica, that we brought that with us.
(41:38):
The idea that like, oh, you know, deathhappens, but we don't just bury that down
under a blanket and We're not going totalk about it too much, but there are a
lot of cultures that give expression todeath as more of a, um, a full out there
open and honest expression of whateverfeelings or whatever needs to happen.
(42:02):
And I am thinking, and I'm goingto mention because of my Celtic
background, the Keening women.
Um, when we talk about in Celticculture who were actually hired to
go and express mourning out loudin public for a person who's died.
(42:23):
Sometimes it was a strangerto the women because they were
hired to be there to do this.
But in being able to express that ina loud, actually like mournful crying,
they were They kind of give permissionfor everybody to do it, even people
who maybe wouldn't have normallybeen that public with their emotions.
So, I have such amazing respect
(42:47):
for the, the cultures that allow that,the cultures that encourage that,
and Keening Women, in my opinion, isa really kind of amazing way to, um,
to bring death out into the open.
And, uh, in Indonesia, the, uh, theone that, um, the culture, uh, where
(43:07):
the people waited years to, to do theirfuneral rites and things like that,
um, it's interesting because you noticehow there's one, uh, When the funeral
starts, they bring the bodies from thehome that they've been in for a couple
of years and they bring them out.
And everybody in the village,including the women, especially
the women, come and publicly mournand cry like the keening women.
(43:33):
They cry in, you know, fullon public displays of of
emotion, crying and all that.
So they do that, and then thenext day Chris comes back to the
same funeral, festiv festivities.
And this time they are.
laughing and celebrating and havingdrums and all kinds of things.
(43:55):
I mean, death is not hidden away atall in some of the cultures that Chris
engages with in this documentary series.
Instead, death is openly expressed invery, very, a regular part of the of life.
Obviously in the episodethat he goes to Mexico.
(44:16):
We have Dia de los Muertos,which is the day of the dead that
where they it's a celebration.
They have the flower petals that lead thedead from the cemetery to the homes or
the Or a procession where they take theofrenda and they take it to the gravesite
and they wait all night at the gravesitewith food and drink and wine and whatever.
(44:37):
And they wait for their relativesto cross the veil on that one night
and, um, and have a meal with them.
And I think that's really beautifuljust to honor your ancestors in such
a way that makes it very personal.
I for one have adopted some, someof those traditions in my own family
and household, where we do make anancestor altar during Thanksgiving.
(45:00):
It's meant for Samhain, or what wouldbe Dia de los Muertos in Mexico.
It's, uh, meant for Samhain, but, um, Ilike to kind of combine different things.
So, rather than celebrate Thanksgivingin the traditional American sense
of Thanksgiving, which I just don'treally agree with celebrating, uh,
we have our feast, but we have ourfeast and we have our ancestor altar.
(45:24):
We create these little luminarieswith our ancestors pictures on
them, and I let the childrenintroduce which ancestor they have.
Each person gets to bring an ancestorto the table and we say this is my great
aunt so and so or whatever whoever itis that we brought and we might tell
a little story about them or anythingthat we've we've learned about them.
(45:46):
And then we light a little candle,or we click the little battery,
uh, on the little tea lightcandles that our battery operated.
And we say, welcome so andso, and we put the candle in.
And everyone says, welcome so and so.
Um, and we started this eversince the, um, We started doing
it at Nursing Kin at the Samhain.
(46:10):
And I think it's a great way for my kidsto personally know and understand their
ancestors that have passed on before them,before they were, came into this world.
And, um, and some of those relatives arevery personal, personally connected with
them, because as I said, my husband'sfamily has had a lot of very tragic.
(46:31):
Young deaths in one family.
So my kids would neverhave gotten to meet.
Unless they met them in the preexistence,which is a whole other spiritual
concept we'll save for another day,but they get to meet their uncles.
They get to meet their aunt.
They get to, um, give a little helloand shout out to their grandma.
(46:55):
My husband's mother who's passed on andanyone else that has passed on before that
they were aware of them and, um, and theyget a close personal connection with them.
And I think that that is abeautiful way to let death not be
something scary and taboo, but tobe something that is, uh, familiar.
(47:18):
And that is where we are going to getthe last subtopic we're going to talk
about, which is fear versus acceptance.
I have had conversations with peoplewho, um, they themselves or family
members of theirs will not talkabout death, will not talk about it.
They haven't, if they have preparedfor, for it with a will of some kind
(47:41):
or a trust, they, they don't discussit with their family members, which
I think is sad and probably not asmart or wise decision, but, uh,
it makes it very difficult for theirfamily members to prepare or want to.
Give them what it is that they wouldwant, not just after death, like as in
(48:02):
what they would want as a funeral orwhat they would want to celebrate their
life, but even as preparing for death.
And I remember in the, in thesecular Buddhist podcast, he
mentioned a story where he had afriend that was preparing for death.
Diagnosed with a terminalillness cancer, I think.
And he lunched with them one on one andhe said, what's it like to be dying?
(48:25):
And his friend said, I don't know.
You tell me, what do you think?
What is it like to be dying?
He says, just because I was diagnosedwith terminal cancer, doesn't mean
that I'm dying before you, youcould be hit by a bus tomorrow.
We're all dying.
We just don't know when that will be.
And we have no certainties about that.
(48:48):
And if the tragic deathsthat I have been in.
seen and experienced in my husband'sfamily have taught me anything.
It's that, it's that I could, Icould have an aneurysm or something
in my brain and drop dead tomorrow.
What is it that I wouldwant to leave behind?
And what, what is it that I wouldwant my children and my husband and
(49:09):
my family and everyone I know to, whatwould I want them to know before I go?
I would want to know, I wouldwant them to know that they're
loved, that I loved them.
Um, which if I've had trouble expressingthat, then I want to work on that.
And I would want themto know that it's okay.
That if I die, I'm okay.
(49:33):
No matter what, even if there'snothing after this, you know,
let's say the atheists are right.
There's absolutely nothing, butthat's okay too, because I won't know.
And I won't be sadbecause I'll be nothing.
I'll be okay.
Don't worry about it.
And don't be afraid because I amgoing to be alright, and you're
(49:57):
going to be alright, and it'sall going to work out just fine.
And, if I die, that means I didall the things I was meant to do.
Whatever that was.
I did it.
I'm done.
So I'm good.
And I just think that in talking aboutand discussing death openly with my
children, it will help them have a comfortof, uh, a comfort with uncertainty that
(50:22):
I myself have and would like to have.
And that no regrets, right?
I remember when I was going to England,before I left, I thought to myself, well,
I'm going on a plane for a very long time.
Lots of things can happengoing to a foreign country.
Lots of things can happen.
I'm just going to sit down and write outa letter as if I don't make it back and
(50:47):
write a letter to my family and say allthe things that I want to say to them
so that they can just find the letter.
And I will, you know,have my last word in.
So I did.
I sat down and I wrote a big oldletter for my husband and my kids.
It was very emotional.
Of course I cried during it, butnot because I was sad or afraid,
but because it was emotional.
And what I recognized in writingthat letter as if I was going to die
(51:11):
was I don't have a whole lot to say.
Other than I love you and everythingthat you do is okay with me and I
accept you and you can forgive me,hopefully, for anything that I did to
offend you in my lifetime and Um, anddon't be sad for me because if I die
(51:33):
on this trip to England, I died doingsomething that I am absolutely thrilled
to be doing that I, that I would love.
So it was worth it.
It's worth risking my life to goand do and live my life to do things
that I really, really want to do.
And so when I got done, I felt great.
I didn't feel afraid.
I didn't feel nervous.
I could just go on withmy life and I didn't die.
(51:56):
I made it back andeverything is okay for now.
I remember my grandmother, the one Iwas talking about earlier, who was dying
and everyone got to gather around andeveryone got to say their goodbyes.
Um, I remember many, many yearsbefore that when I was just a kid, she
said something that I never forgot.
(52:16):
And she said, I'm not afraid to diebecause I'll get all my answers.
that I've ever wanted to knowabout anything about the world
and how it works and the universeand you know, God and everything.
She just said, I wouldget all that answered.
And that's pretty great.
I'm excited for that.
(52:37):
I'll be excited to have that finally.
And so I can go anytime and I'll be okay.
And she was still fairlyyoung at that point.
I remember she was probably only 65 whenshe said that I was just a little kid.
But it stuck with me because Ithought to myself, my grandma is
older and she will die someday.
(53:00):
And I, when I thought about that, Iwas devastated because I love her.
I loved her so much and I didnot want her to go anywhere.
I wanted to see her.
I wanted to visit her.
But when she said that, it made mefeel like even when she does go.
I'll be okay.
(53:21):
I'll know she's okay because shetold me she was okay with it.
And that's a sort of peace andcomfort I would like to give my kids.
And that's how I would like tohave a relationship with death.
All right.
And wrapping up this topic.
And I know we've been at it for a while.
Don't even know how long thishas gone, but we've Covered all
(53:43):
of the things I wanted to cover.
And in wrapping up, I just want to saythat life itself is full of deaths.
Every winter is a death.
Every time we go through somethingincredibly hard that makes
us question everything we'veever known, that's a death.
We are experiencing deathin many different ways.
of ourselves and of ourego throughout our lives.
(54:06):
And it's part of thecalcination of alchemy.
Like we discussed in the alchemy episode,it's part of the process of purification
that we need to go through to become ourabsolute philosopher stone authentic self.
The part of us that never changes thepart of us that's the pure and whole part.
(54:27):
And whether we get to be that afterwe die, or we get to experience it in
little moments of heaven throughoutour lives, living our lives.
I do believe that and I do knowI've experienced it and I can bet
that anybody listening to me rightnow has experienced that too.
So allow yourself to becomfortable with death.
(54:48):
Allow yourself to face it even whenit's uncomfortable to think about and
that aging and mortality and cemeteries.
won't scare you when you have areally good relationship with death.
Maybe seek out a death doula ifyou're still feeling uncomfortable.
(55:09):
I think that'd be a great idea.
All right, so to finish things up,I would like to thank Just Blane and
Ride the Wave Media for producingand putting out this podcast.
If you want to check out any ofthe other amazing podcasts that are
available, find Ride the Wave Media onYouTube or where you get your podcasts.
(55:29):
Many of my good friends are in my, uh,are in my social network, are in my
podcast network and have podcasts andum, have been guests here on my podcast.
And they have amazing contentthat you should seek out because
it's all a little bit magical.
I use magic every day.
(55:50):
I hope that you use this podcast,this experience to create magic in
everyday life, to strengthen yourrelationships, to heal, to prosper,
to thrive, and to have a great 2025.
You can find me and the workthat I do on Prism Healing.
(56:14):
My website is prism healing.com.
My Instagram is Prism underscore healing.
My Facebook is CourtneyPearls Prism Healing.
In any of those avenues, you can find me.
You can message me questions.
things that you have listened to.
And please make sure that when youare watching this YouTube video or
(56:37):
listening on Spotify or whereveryou're listening to this podcast, that
you like, subscribe, and even shareepisodes that are meaningful to you
with someone you think it will help.
That is why I create thiscontent is to help people.
And if any of the content orexperiences that I. Can put out there
in the world that might help you.
That is why I do this work.
(56:58):
And if you'd like to support thispodcast further, you can leave a review.
You can, um, Well, just liking andsubscribing is actually a great
way to support this podcast, butyou can also become a sponsor.
If you would like, if you have a businessand you would like me to mention or create
a promotion for your business and youwant to sponsor the work that we do here,
(57:19):
reach out to us and let And until nexttime, witches and wizards, go make magic.
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