SPEAKER_00 0:01

Oh, welcome back, folks. And uh today uh I wanted to remind you how difficult it can be after the loss of a loved one. It is not an easy path to be on that you're sometimes mostly forced to be on. Yeah. And we have this wonderful podcast encounter with a man named Day who told us the story of after his father passed away, he couldn't, he didn't want to leave the house. He just was shell-shocked, traumatized, just was ready to not be engaging in the world. Fortunately, his canine companion needed to be going outdoors every day. And Day just kind of got into this automatic routine of going out, walking his dog. Probably, I can almost imagine like just not even being there.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

But yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

The beautiful part about this experience for all of us, honestly, is that he found a way to start ritualizing his grief.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

And he joins us today and he talks about it. And I would love for you to both listen to this story, find his book, look at his pictures online. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

And he was such a sweet, wonderful guy. And just yeah, and the the like mandala-like things that he makes just out of nature. And I said that he would just do this as he'd go out. He'd just sit and he'd start gathering things in or gathering things as he was walking, and he'd end up making this beautiful, beautiful thing. And you know, you look at him online, you think, wow, somebody must have painted this. It's so beautiful. And then if you look closely, you can see pine needles and feathers and just you know, everything from from nature. And there's lots and lots of them. So he's been doing this for a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

And um didn't he say 14 years or something? It's been a hot minute.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Beautiful ritual. And you know, ritual is such a great way to deal with loss. So stay tuned. I think you'll really enjoy this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Absolutely. See ya.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Let's start over again because I want to find out how to say this. Is that Schildkret? Schildkret?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, Schildkret. The D is soft, it means turtle in German.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Oh, beautiful. Schildkret. Yeah, Schildkret. Okay. All right, start again. All right. Thanks for joining us again for the end of life conversations. I am Reverend Joaquil David Matthews. Our guest today is Day Schildkret. Day is an award-winning queer author, artist, ritualist, and teacher, and is internationally known for morning altars, which BuzzFeed calls a celebration of nature and life. And I just was looking at a bunch of them, and they are that. With nearly 100,000 followers on social media, Day has worked for nearly two decades with thousands of individuals, communities, and organizations to help heal the culture which is needed through a meaningful creative response to marking personal and collective change. So glad to have you.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

So glad. And I am the Reverend Mother Ana Luisa Hermendadis. Day is the author of Hello, goodbye, 75 Rituals for Time of Loss, Celebration and Change, which hit Amazon's number one book in three categories, as well as my personal favorite, Morning Altars, a seven-step practice to nourish your spirit through nature, art, and ritual. He is also the founder and principal instructor of the Morning Altars Practitioner and Teacher Training. Hello, hello.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Hello. The link to all that so you can check it out yourselves. So thank you. So Annalisa, I think you have the first question. Do you?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Tell us today. What inspired your life to begin this? What was the inspiration in your life for you to begin this work?

SPEAKER_02 3:51

I you know, the inspiration, interestingly enough, was loss and um and grief. And um, you know, it was about 15 years ago when my dad died. And he went through about four really long years of um of cancer and fighting cancer. And um, and after he died, I would say for almost a year, I was really disoriented in the ways that only that kind of loss can can create for you. Um the kind of disorientation where the person that you orient your life around, partner, father, mother, child, is no longer there. And so with my dad, it was it was like, how am I in this world without him? Um and thank goodness I adopted my my dad's dog, little Rudy. And she was a miniature schnauzer, and she she got me out of the house. She got me over the first, the hardest threshold, which was my front door. Um, everything inside of me just wanted to hermit and hide and be on the couch under a blanket, and you know, dogs do what they gotta do. And so she got me out, she got me out of the house. Yes, and um, and I remember in those early days, you know, I was just walking her and my head was down. I I really remember this. I was ruminating in my mind, and I saw the distinction between her and me. She was curious at the world, she was excited, she was in the moment. I was in the past and the future. I was in, I was kind of lost in my in my thoughts. And one morning we went to the top of a of a hill inside of the park near my house. And I remember this very well. We were under, I was I was sitting under a eucalyptus tree, and I noticed that there were these beautiful mushrooms growing under the tree. And almost like a kid, like the impulse when you're a little kid, I just started to, without thinking, rearrange the mushrooms, just putting them in a shape. And then I started to just take bark and and eucalyptus buttons, and I just started to create order, which is very interesting because my life felt so disordered. Yeah. Right. And so I was my hands were doing something that my mind wasn't really aware of, which was which was remembering order and remembering symmetry, remembering beauty in a time where it felt like things were really, really messy and um and confusing and ugly, and all of the things that come come with loss. Yeah. And so I looked, you know, it was like an hour, it felt like a minute, which is interesting when you're making art. And I looked down and I realized something, and this is a you know, more of like a food word, but something had metabolized in me. Yeah, yeah, something had been processed inside of me. My grief wasn't in stuck in me. It was moving out of me. And so I thought to myself, can I something happen? Can I come back to this very spot for 30 days every day, just for however, 30 minutes, an hour? Can I make one of these every day? And I did. I was, you know, suddenly my mornings became almost like treasure hunts. Um, my neighborhood became more alive. I became more, my curiosity became more online. And I would sit under that very tree and um, and I just let my hands move and pick things up, put them down. And halfway through those 30 days, I looked down at one of the pieces I made, and it was a tight pine cone that I surrounded with with sunflower petals in a square, and it was built out from there. And I looked down at the immediate memory I had was my father's hospice bed. Wow. And I saw the symbolism that was there. I was using fours and twos, twos were me and my brother, fours were me, my brother, my mom, and my father. There was a lot of symbolism I didn't realize I was doing. And in that moment, I realized, oh, this isn't just something pretty. This is actually, I'm giving my grief a place to land and I'm giving myself a way to remember. Yeah. And in doing that, this name that I've come to call morning altars came through, partially because I was making them in the morning, partially because the word altar is really interesting. The etymology of that word means to raise up. It comes from Latin altus. And in a way, I was putting my grief down so I could raise it up again and see it differently, not as an affliction, but as something as love, as remembering, as a way of being with my dad every day. And I think that that was the lifesaver because you know, life happens, like work happens, routines happen, care, you know, I have to take care of other things. And grief gets almost like a backseat. Yeah. Right. As life continues. And this gave me a container every day to be A outside in nature, which was essential, it gave me a timeless space. B using my hands and not my mouth, you know, not my words. Sometimes words. Right. Right. Sometimes grief just has no interest in language. Right. And it also gave me a way of making meaning, which I think in a culture that where everything's so um, in some ways, uh, you know, very practical. And um, we're working with a lot of we're working with like a meaning, a meaning, um um, you know, we're like weak with meaning in the culture.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Um, you know, this gave me a very tangible way to make meaning from something that seemed senseless, which was loss.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

And so every day I just kept on doing that. 30 days came and went, I didn't want to stop. And um, and then I realized, oh, this is actually in writing my first book, I realized I was doing these seven movements, and each one is its own teaching. Each one, I mean, I've been in this now for 15 years, and it's the it's like it's still teaching me.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Um, because it's really bringing me back every time into relationship with the greater than human world.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

It brings me back into relationship with myself as a maker, as a creator, yeah. Which it's it's easy to forget these days, and you know, when everything's being sold to us. And it also brought me back into that I can make meaning every day with my with both my celebrations and my losses. And that if we don't do that, life suddenly becomes this like long wander where we don't know where we are inside of that. But when we put these things down and we make meaning and we make markers, we can suddenly realize like where we are in this great unfolding of our lives.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

And so Yeah, setting that intention is beautiful. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Yeah, and then I started teaching this to other folks, and now tell us more about the work that you're doing now.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

The the in the well, hold the phone, Lakio.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, yeah, okay. I have a question. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

It's a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Let me go for it, go for it, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Well, I I wanted to uh talk about so I was in an herbal training program and had some time working with uh a curandera from Mexico. And part of what I recognize too with your work is the we we would always have altar settings and you know when we are in ceremony. And you know, we bring the natural more than more than the human world to be with us. We have relationship with them. They also bear witness to this moment. They're also telling us how they want to do this. It's not just us in our creative thing. We are in we're in tandem with the natural world and spirit to create for you. It's you know, a place to to other than word define a loss or grief or transition or metabolizing a thing. And it's also about being bringing the sacred into these very um like present moment, right? So I wanted to say like it's not just about bringing our grief, it's about bringing our joy, it's about bringing our curiosity about what the medicine brings us. It's about who are the allies in the natural world and what do they want to say. But you know, I just wanted to bring that up because it is it is something that's been a practice of mine for like a decade or two. And even children do that, right? You see them in playgrounds and they start organizing, you know, the pieces of of um whatever's there. Yeah, usually it's like wood chunks, and then somebody runs and gets like a rock, and then somebody else finds a feather, and suddenly the the collective joins in a process. And I this is so important to me. I think that that I really appreciate that the sacredness of this practice is beyond grief. It's beyond, it's beyond words.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, yeah, perfect. So true. Yeah. And we do see it as a pattern. We do see it as a pattern, just natural pattern for humans to want to create beauty out of and that as a way to structure and get through things. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Yeah, I mean, I a lot of you know, in this greater teaching, you know, my the current cohorts I teach, it's about, you know, seven months of learning with me. And and so much of the foundation of the practice over the years is a practice of relationships. And and what does it mean, first and foremost, what does it mean to be in a relationship with a with a world more vast than you? Yes. Right. And um, and so so much of this is coming out of our self-directedness, right? And coming out of our sense of like we know we're in control, we know what's happening all of the time, right? Right. And yeah, and yeah, and and and for instance, you know, the first, the first, I mean, honestly, the every module of my teachings, but the first, especially the first three, is really what does it mean to be in relationship with the vastness, with the greater than human world, with the places that we live, right? And and for a lot of us, that is myself included, you know, especially with the technology, we become so um drunk on um knowing what's going on. Yeah, I call it destination addiction, you know, that we know where we're going. Say those words again. Destination addiction. Destination addiction, yeah. Yeah. And so a lot of the first few months of learning with me, it's a it's a practice of wandering and letting the place speak to you, and letting the place call you in different directions and not being so attached to knowing where you're going and following a c a bird calling you, following a shadow, following the movement of the wind, um, and and seeing what discoveries come when you put down the reins of destination, when you when you know where you where you think you know where you're going. Then we move into the a very similar concept, but in terms of making. Because so many people stop, they don't they don't think they're creative because they don't they, you know, they think they need to get it right or it needs to be beautiful, right? And so, what does it mean to also wander with your hands and make and let the creative spirit move through you and become almost like a a channel or a conduit, yeah, right? And getting out of your own way and just letting the movement move. So that's the second part, and then of course, the the soul of the practice is really about impermanence, right? And and everything I've for me personally, I've made thousands of altars and not one of them exists anymore. Yeah, and so it's it's really also a practice of again returning back to wonder um and control. What does it mean to let go? Yeah, and to know that what you made was made now, but also it is moving, yeah, it isn't a groundless experience, just like you are. And and the beautiful thing about the altar making, the art making is the stakes are very low. You know, although I've made altars, you know, I made one, I was the Andy Warhol fellow for uh a summer, and at the end, and the only prerequisite was that the press and the board of the fellowship would come see what I made. And um, 30 minutes before they arrived, the ocean took it.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

And I spent days making it's an Andrew Goldsworthy moment. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

I love that, and I got to see my relationship personally with change, especially when it wasn't what I preferred it to be. And I got to see, I got to see, you know, my resistance to it. And look, what was I expecting? I made this at the foot of the ocean. Like, what am I more important than that? Or what my preference was that she would take it when the press, you know, after the press showed up. Yeah. And so, and so in a way, it is um it's it's a practice of coming back into relationship with change, both from a place of of um surrender and and also reverence. Yeah. And so much of these, you know, I teach about adorning the thresholds of our lives. Um, when life is changing, we, you know, it's not asking us to get through it as fast as possible. It's not asking us to get over it, to get on the other side, get back to normal. It's not asking that. Thresholds are asking for a different kind of movement, language. It's asking us to slow down, it's asking us to be in the in-between.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

And beauty making and meaning making are ways to slow us down and to anoint the threshold, to acknowledge the threshold, to recognize, like, oh, I'm interfacing with the mystery here. Yeah. Right. Right. And beauty making allows us to put down the fear in our relationship with the mystery and to and to see it as something worth revering.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Oh, beautiful. Yeah, wonderful way to think of it. Yeah, I think we were we were just talking about impermanence and and earlier on and and uh the the fear that people have around that and and the way that they face it the different ways that through I'm in it right now.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

You know, I was just the other day, my sister was my sister was just diagnosed with stage four um pancreatic cancer. You know, and I'm in the midst of impermanence right now in my family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and and it doesn't being practiced in this doesn't make it easier.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Yeah, you know, there's nothing easy about it. It just is becomes it, it's it means that the muscle, the way of being in relationship to life means that I love it even more so. I grieve it even more so, I hold it closer, even more so, you know, and there's um probably you're familiar with um the author and shaman Martin Prechtel. Um but Martin has a beautiful quote and he says, you know, when we're grieving for the things that we have, it's called praise. And when we're praising for the things that we've lost, it's called grief.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

And so my my my sister is, you know, I still have her. Yeah. But I'm but I'm praising her right now. Yeah, yeah, I'm holding her really close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Well, it's like you've expanded your consciousness to make sure that that praise moves into her sphere more uh like more focused, more 100%. The deeper, right? Because otherwise it's like, oh, you're she's still there. She's still there, and now this is here, and she's like, nope, she's right here.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

But I'm even doing this, you know. I have a two-year-old puppy at my feet right now. And I mean she's only two, but I'm but I'm praising her because I'm remembering her impermanence. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. You know, and that's true with everything. I mean, we don't know if we're going to wake up tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

It is, it is my it is my daily um prayer and breath work that I do as I walk. It's like I really do this impermanence piece, even for myself. Like, I will not be here. Yes, I will not be here. It's none of this will be here, yeah. It's coming, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Like, yeah. And it's it's interesting how closely we are kind of both of us relating to this because Ana Luisa just had a puppy adopt her.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

And well, actually, let me just like reframe that. The universe wanted me to pick up this puppy.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Sound good. I needed to be.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, I was I was on the reservation and you know, talking about impermanence and stuff, and and uh this puppy had been abandoned at this family's acreage, right? But nobody wanted the puppy. And the puppy was very mistreated, I mean, physically brutally mistreated. And I watched as it all played out around me, and then you know, the the last day that we were there, I was like, huh. Uh, kids, like, tell me about this puppy. And they're like, it'll be dead next week. It's gonna be gone. Nobody wants it. It's gonna be puppy soup. Who cares? And I I left the reservation and drove back at five AM the next morning to go pick it up again. Because the impermanence is real and that life would have continued. But in that moment, the universe was like, you need to pick this person up and engage with this person and then move it forward, right? So I so I I w I we just had a uh somebody else we spoke to, but I want to also recognize paradox. Like I have been saying this for a dozen years. Like we live in paradox. We both live in the joy of this of praising this moment and the sheer terror and anger of like it will not last. And so there's this constant push-pull. Your peace, you know, the joy of making your peace at the edge of the ocean and gone. But it both existed and it's no longer here.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Exactly. I used to, I used to make sand castles with my son all the time, and that was another experience just like that. You know, it would either be the kids throwing their footballs around or a dog or you know, some two-year-old that comes up and goes, Wow, that's cool, and decides to jump in, or the ocean would come back and take it, you know. But also um my my wife was diagnosed with the same thing, pancreatic fourth stage pancreatic cancer, but almost two and a half years ago now. So um we're still living that day by day, you know? Yes, they are. Um, so yeah, so many ways we can relate to what you are sharing with us. I really appreciate you and and that you came and came to talk to us here. So it's lovely. Um day.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

What um what are the challenges that you find teaching people about this ritual, this ritual work?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah. About paradox, isn't it? The paradox of it. Yeah, the challenges of it. Um I'd say, you know, it's along the lines of some of the things that I've shared, which is first and foremost, that there's a right way to do it. Um that there's a there there. Um so much of my work is process-oriented. It's about, you know, it's the, it's the it's the journey, it's not the destination. Um and and I think that, you know, in this age where we're so used to things like immediacy with technology, right? We're used to things starting and ending kind of in an instant. Um, I think that people oftentimes bring that into um how they expect relationships to work and practices to work. And I think relationships and practices, they're about a daily attending. Right? They're they're they're about like an always attending to it, keeping it, maintaining it. It's like how I treat my garden. You know, I don't have an expectation that there's an immediacy with the garden, you know, that's kind of a crazy way of being, but for some reason we bring that into the ways that we expect to learn or be in relationship or practice.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

And yeah. And I think part of this is overcoming that um that spell of immediacy. Um so much of what I teach about, you know, I'm talking quite a bit with you about thresholds. Um and thresholds, I mean, this is kind of like I shouldn't tell this publicly, but here we go.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Oh my god, you and me, man.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

I'm probably, you know, I'm I'm working on a new book. And um, and the book is very much about entering and exiting, about um beginning and ending. And um, and I think that, you know, speaking of immediacy, even the way that Zoom begins, right? We have we press a button and we're in. Yeah. And um that's not how it used to be. And how it used to be was entering and exiting were were long. And a lot happens when you give yourself space to enter into something, when you acknowledge, when you remember, right? And it's it's almost touching upon the the skills of hospitality. Yes, right, a long way in, a long way in allows there to be trust built, allows there to be relationships established, allows the spirit to enter, allows there to be a lot of um a sense of belonging, you know, a long way out. There's all there are things that happen when we allow there to be uh, you know, a long way out of things, not the immediacy of an exit. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah. And so there's, you know, certain things that are teachers to us, you know, including cultures and including nature. And um, and so I think that, you know, as as you asked, what's one of the challenges? I think the challenge is slowing down inside of everything, yeah, especially as we move through thresholds in our lives, as we enter into new stages of our lives. But even as we enter into the day, yeah. I mean, how much of us are we just like, you know, just trying to jump up and go. Yeah, jump up and go.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

And also end the day as well. Yeah. Um, it's funny, it reminds me that when we first started doing this, we would always pause and have a little breath or two before we got into the doing that. We got to start doing that again.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

We did I and I think about that occasionally because without you knowing, I also like it.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah, I definitely do that heavy time too. But yeah, but I was like, we encourage you. We haven't offered that. Yeah. Yep. And then we do the poetry at the end, which is our way of kind of slowing down the ending. So I I really um appreciate that reminder. It's so important to us. It is a reminder. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

And but in, you know, to like just kind of jump over a lane around death and dying, too. It's it's interesting how off how often I've been asked by people, you know, mom's in hospice and you know, we're doing the work, and everybody will lean in a bit, a little embarrassed, but they'll say, How long will this take?

SPEAKER_03 28:10

You know?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

And I'm like, I could take a couple of weeks, it could take a couple hours. We don't know, right? And and it's really interesting how people really, really, really want to know the parameter around this time construct, right? Yeah. Because I kind of just want to make that time go fast or whatever, you know. So I'm like, get through it. It's gonna take what's gonna take.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yeah, yeah. I think that's part of our culture too. This kind of production is the top, is the most important thing, production and profit, you know. So I I this is such a counter way to be, and I appreciate that you're not only sharing this, but teaching it um to folks. It's great. Um, is there, you know, with with all the work you're doing and dealing with, you know, fate talking about loss and and creation, is there anything that you fear about the end of life for yourself or anything, you know, we've talked about the fears that come up. What what about yourself personally?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Um, it's interesting. There's my personal experience right now is um there have been over the years many, many different teachings um in terms of my the way that I'm relating to death. I'll give you an example. Um starting about 2022 um to about 2024, um, I had a very, very intense insomnia journey. And um and it was a very clear um thread from that experience to like, oh, this is teaching me how to die. Um because there's nothing, you know, waking up at three in the morning and not being able to sleep, and there's no one else, it's totally dark, yeah. Right. And and also the fear of tomorrow, like of not gonna be able to function.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Right there.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Yeah, and and yet, and the thing that really helped me through that journey was um was first and foremost, a lot of love towards myself, you know, and forgiveness, and and also um like I mean very similar to what I'm teaching about, like no destination. We're we're not trying to get anywhere, you know. This too is a journey, and there's no there's no like sleep isn't the destination, right? And and so I think there's there's a lot of reminders with me around um coming at breaking free of that spell that there's a there. And I think that is um in some ways really becoming a teacher for death. You know, when I was watching my father die, um, you know, he was really he was just immersed in so much fear and and really like screaming, like, help me, help me on his hospice bed. And um, and just you know, he needed to know that he was being held by something larger than him. Yeah, and and and in some ways to relax and surrender and to feel this this greater web holding him. And um, you know, this has been a big teaching for me in my life as well, is to continue to um tend and feel and and acknowledge the greater web that holds me um so that I can continue to surrender um into it. Yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah, very lovely. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

This is by the way, just just just to acknowledge along those lines, really briefly, just because I want to acknowledge them. Um I have about you know 60 ancestral photos on my wall right here. Wow. And um these are as early as when photography was invented. And they were passed, they were care, you know, my some of my ancestors were fleeing and they didn't have anything. Um, they took maybe like one or two ritual objects and a photograph. And so I'm keeping them, and I have a candlelit right now to acknowledge, you know, amongst other things like the place that I live and the work that I'm called to is to also acknowledge like the web that I'm held by beautiful are my people. Yeah, that's right, you know. And and I I try and tend to them every day to remember I'm a part of them for better and worse, you know. A lot of them were really traumatized, um, but also part of my life is to heal that trauma and to remember that I belong to a people. Um, and so I, you know, they're they're they're here. And so when I talk about that greater web, I want to acknowledge them as that's important.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah, I appreciate it. It is important. Yeah. Um, let's see. Oh, this is a good one of our favorite questions.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

How do you keep yourself resourced when you're going through it? When what did you do when you were had insomnia? Pray tell.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

You know, it's funny that you're asking that because I've had I've actually had a really hard summer. Um a bunch of storms have passed through my life and that have really um, you know, hit me to the bone, um, including my sister's diagnosis. Um and and a breakup and a bunch of things. And um, and it's it's made me realize um that I I'm also, by the way, you know, I'm caregiving my mother who is in late stage dementia as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Well brother, you are I'm so grateful for those ancestors and for your morning rituals.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Thank you. Yeah. And so there's a lot of burden, you know, and um, and so two things I want to acknowledge around resources. Um, the first and foremost is a return to um to certain kinds of ceremonial and ritual technologies that just are good for me. For instance, sitting around a fire with with my community, um, which is hard to do in California because of fire restrictions, but you know, just the act of praying and sitting around a fire, being with the elements, being outside, listening to each other, listening to the fire. I taught a uh a fire circle class for teenagers for about 18 years, you know, teaching them how to be in relationship with the greater than human world, including fire. Um, so that's really important for me is to return to these um really simple ways of praying and and um and listening. And then the other one is, and I did this yesterday at the wedding, um, just dancing my ass off. And and and celebrating being here. Yeah, not just not just you know being in the weight of it, but being in the in the whimsy, which is my dog's name, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Oh whimsy, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Oh my ex-husband's an anti-wimsy person.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

You you can guess why we're not married.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Exactly. So I I'm with whimsy.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah, I love that. And and I'm just reminded of the wedding that I just went to your name. The wedding that I just went to was um with my daughter who created they actually created a theater production, but we danced for we we had a fire, and my my son was doing fire spinning, and um we danced for about four and a half, five hours straight. Uh just you know, and everybody was just it was such a beautiful um we wedding because of that. It was part of that. And of course the ritual that they did was phenomenal. And so yeah, I I really hear that. And you're right, that just did so much for me. I think I slept better that night than I've slept most of my life.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

I gotta go dance.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Yeah, yeah, get outside and dance. I have a new sticker on my um water bottle. I got that here. No, I got a different one. That says, um, we're all gonna die, so we might as well dance. Yay!

SPEAKER_00 36:46

I like that one.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

I would even make it more I would even make it more extreme, which is we're all gonna die. Like, so we dance. So we dance, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

So we dance, yeah. And I I as soon as he said that I was like, so we do everything that brings us joy, right? Everything.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Yes, I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

We save puppies.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

And save puppies, right? Whether we should or not.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

There's no shoots here. Don't shoot me. This is the universe, baby. I would remember. I'm just don't shoot me, baby. But I'm just I'm just a transport to whatever mysterious moment she's coming to.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

So this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. Do you have anything that you wish we would have asked you before we go?

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Anything I wish you would have asked me. Um Yeah, maybe um I don't know. Is there a story that you would want to hear of my work that I haven't told? Something that you're curious about?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Well, I love the story. I mean, I I just love your stories already. I love the the way those the the beauty of the altars that you shared uh online and you do on your Instagram and et cetera. Um the way they draw you in with the beauty, and then it takes a moment to recognize that every single piece in there is taken from nature. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

And there's um and that's that's um, yeah, I don't know, is that something that you would want to comment about or something that you Yeah, I'd say, you know, the word that comes to mind is the word taken. Um it's you know, the so much of what I've committed myself to in the work is the spirit of reciprocity. Yeah. And um, and not to engage, I mean, we're we're we're we're caught in a world of um, you know, of exploitation. Yes. And and so I'm preaching exploration all of the time over exploitation. What does it mean to be in an exploratory, relational, reciprocal engagement with the living world? And so it brings folks into an animus perspective, you know, that's that we're not working with objects, we're working with subjects and people like can and just like you know, just like anything, you don't just go in someplace and take what you want, yeah. You know, and so what does it mean to to give before you take? What does it mean to ask permission? What does it mean to be in a consensual relationship? Um and that really shifts folks' behaviors um to start seeing the world as a gift, to start seeing their life as a gift, yeah, and the purpose of a gift is to keep the gift moving, not to hoard it for yourself. Oh, yeah, so true. Right. And so I'd say, like, you know, in addition to wonder being a core practice and skill of our of my work and my trainings, uh, and in permanence being the soul really of the work and the trainings, I'd say reciprocity um and relationality is is a core feature of what I'm I'm really asking people to practice. Yeah. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Yeah, I can totally understand it and see that. I can and I appreciate that you mentioned that because you know, we do I mean, we could walk into a space and say, Well, I need that pine cone because it, you know, but you don't but you don't do it that way. You do it with love and appreciation and listening and paying attention to the divine and the people around you and the creatures around you, and saying, What is for me right now to create this beauty? How can I create this beauty? Yeah, and say may, you know, may I? May I, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

As my the my herbal teachers always said, you may know it's safe for you to eat, but you should ask permission first if they want to offer this to you. And sometimes they say no. And you just have to be, they're very clear. You just and I've taught my kids that I'm like, you don't just take, you're like, Are you do you want to come with me on a journey and nourish? You know, let's go. So yeah. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

And then you remember how much you're being gifted. Yeah. It really makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

It's really important. Yeah. Well, you also had a quote you wanted to share with us, which I think is very appropriate right now. Do you want to go ahead and read that?

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Yeah, sure. This is um the reason I chose this quote is to honor Wendell Berry, who just passed away last week. Yes. And the good work he's done over the course of his life to to really connect folks back to the living world. And so I'm choosing this to honor him in his passing. He said, When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be. I go and lie down where the wood Drake rests in his beauty in the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water, and I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light for a time. I rest in the grace of the world and am free. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Beautiful, pretty good. Pretty good, pretty dang.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

I've read that so many times over the last few days, and it's just still just it resonates every single time.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

So, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Thank you, Wendell. Thank you, Wendell Berry. Thank you, Wendell. Thank you so much, Dave, for being with us today. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you to Charles Heastan, the composer of the original music you are listening to now.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

And of course, thanks to you, our audience, and all of our amazing guests. Please come back next week for another great episode. Share this with your friends, family, and community. We hope you will subscribe and follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, and Substack. Each guest's additional information will be found in the podcast notes. And of course, if you have a good end of life story to share, please reach out. We're always eager to hear from you.