Crossing the River: Meeting Death with Ritual with Sarah Kerr

0:00 Welcome to Next Level Soul, the place where we deep dive into the mysteries of existence, uncover hidden layers of consciousness, and explore the journey of the soul. I'm your host, Alex Ferrari, and every week we sit down with the world's leading spiritual teachers, mystics, scientists, and truth seekers to illuminate the path towards awakening. Here we ask questions that truly matter. Why are we here? Where are we going?

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1:18 by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or positions of Next Level Soul, its host, or any of the companies they represent. Now let's dive into today's episode. I'd like to welcome to the show, Sarah Kerr. How you doing, Sarah?

1:33 Hey, Alex. I'm really doing well. Thanks for having me.

1:36 Thank you for coming on the show. We're going to have this, no pressure, but a really needed conversation. It's a conversation that many people avoid and for good reason. Nobody wants to think about it, but you are a death, a quote unquote, death doula, correct?

1:52 I am a death doula and also a sacred death care guide.

1:56 I definitely want to go down that road. I want to definitely go down in that world as well. It is something that is, I think, a very needed conversation. And it's something that most people rather not talk about. I mean, I'd rather not talk about the day I'm leaving. Like I joke all the time, everybody wants to go to heaven, just not right now, which is very, very true.

2:19 But it's something that all of us have to deal with. And usually we're dealing with it with our loved ones first. or a friend or a loved one or something along those lines. And that's the first time we see it. So tell me what, what got you in this amazing field of being a death doula and a sacred death care guide. Yes, yes, yes.

2:42 You know, I came at it from a couple of different places. One, I've always been very sensitive. I've been sensitive to things that other people don't see. Like, like I imagined many of the people listening, It's the world is very full and busy for me. There was a lot going on. And so I've been attuned to these other experiences all my life. And then about 17 years ago, maybe my dad had a stroke. And so that was really the first experience for me. And he had a terrible stroke and he lived for a while. But that was first a social death and then his actual death.

3:16 So that was a real transformational journey for me. I had never had that. I was in my late 30s. Had really never met or met that experience of a close loved one dying. So that made me realize how ill prepared I was and how much he needed not only the medical and physical support, of course, but he needed soul support. He was really struggling with where am I going? What is happening? What am I doing? And he was a, he had a PhD in geology. I mean, he studied rocks. He was so material and of this world.

3:47 And then suddenly he was laid low in a long-term care facility thinking about where he was going and he didn't have any map. And so I really thought, okay, there's, There's something that's needed here. He's going to need this. Other people in my life are going to need this. I'm going to need this. And I really made this big shift and made this my life's work. It fit with a lot of other experiences and this sensitivity to the other world. So the work I do at the Center for Sacred Death Care is really about meeting death from the perspective that all the things you talk about on your show, the non-ordinary experiences, the spiritual experiences, the energetic experiences, that those are real. And then how then

4:26 do we meet death from that perspective?

4:28 So people who watch the show and have really done a lot of their own soul seeking throughout their life. You know, I feel very comfortable with and I can't say I'm saying it very nicely now from this point of view. I'm very comfortable with death. I'm not afraid of it. I don't want to go right now. I feel I have a lot of work to do and I want to see my kids grow up and all that kind of good stuff. But I'm not terrified by it.

4:51 I'm not scared by it. I have a framework that makes me feel very comfortable about the transition from what I've experienced, from what I've seen, from the mystical things that have happened to me in my own life, and then just from talking to over 200 near-death experiencers as well going through it. So I have a really, I feel, a strong framework within my own life. Now, I haven't been tested yet. So it's all talky-talky until you're ready there at the door. But generally speaking, I feel that I'm much more prepared for it than I was five years ago or 10 years ago before I started doing this work. I can't imagine someone who is either one, raised in a fear-based religion, whichever that one might be,

5:36 or two, studied rocks their entire life and have no concept of anything metaphysical, soul-related, spiritual at all. It must be terrifying in those two extremes. How do you, well, first of all, do you find the same thing? And secondly, how do you, how did you help your father kind of go through, if you don't mind me asking, how did you help your father through that transition? Because he was kind of the template, I assume, for you, for all the work you do.

6:06 So many interesting things you've named there. It is, you know, the people you named, people who were raised in a fear-based religion and people who have no template, the people I often work with are another group in there, people who see there's a different framework. And I love the way you use the word framework. I often use the word map. It's a kind of conceptual framing that says, this is where I'm going. Because death is just the lights going out. It's really scary. If we don't know where we're going, if we don't know how to do something, it's more frightening. If we have a pathway, we can imagine.

6:41 And so the people I often work with are people who have a framework. They have a sense that soul continues. They know that death is a transformational journey. It's a kind of initiation for the dying person. The living people are going through their own transformational journey. They know there's soul transformation in there. And they are right in there with us that life goes on, that there's another side and that their loved one continues. But they don't know how.

7:13 They have a framework often, maybe not even articulated, but they don't know how. So that's kind of the frame. And I think in a way my dad was a little bit that. He was a very true scientist in that he was open to what the evidence showed him. You know, there's a kind of science which says, well, this can't happen, so I won't believe it. But he was like, well, if this is what the evidence is showing, I will proceed. And so what we did was a lot of ritual work. Really, ritual is at the heart of what I do, because when we're alive, body and soul are together. And when we die, whether that's over time or quickly, body and soul separate. The medical system, thank goodness, supports our body. Our soul needs a different

8:01 kind of medicine, and ritual is the medicine for our soul. So we did a lot of ritual work around saying goodbye, around connecting with his ancestors. I built him a beautiful altar beside his bed that had three layers, two layers, I guess. The first one was all the people who died, pictures of his ancestors, funeral programs from people who died.

8:23 This was the village of the ancestors. And then there was a second layer, which were all the people who were still alive, all our family, all his friends, to help him kind of orient. Oh, this is who I'm leaving. This is who I'm going to. And so he would align with that. So a lot of ritual work, saying goodbye with his friends, helping him adjust energetically and internally to this big transition he was going through.

8:46 The film Coco, which I'm sure you've seen.

8:49 I have not actually seen the film Coco.

8:52 Oh, my God.

8:53 I'm not a big film watcher.

8:55 Okay, so first of all, so you have to watch the film Coco because it talks about the Day of the Dead, the Mexican idea and framework of once a year you put all your ancestors up on the altar and then for that one day they're allowed to come back and visit you. And that's the Day of the Dead. And then you go and you celebrate and there's a party and you just feel that all of your ancestors are there. That framework is so beautiful because it gives you an absolute map. Do you understand that like, you know, grandma Coco, who is the, you know, the, the namesake of the movie, she's going to be there with me even after she passes. And I'm not sure if you've experienced this too. I come from a Latino background and

9:37 in the Latino culture is there's a lot of that, uh, the metaphysical, the spiritual it's in, you know, the psychics, the mediums, all that stuff is really in our blood. So there is a much better understanding where I find in the west, It's not that. It's either fear-based religions or I got nothing. Is that what you found as well?

9:59 Yes.

10:00 Yes.

10:00 And my ancestry is Celtic, Scottish and Irish, everywhere back. And of course, Halloween is the same thing in the Celtic traditions, but we are more distant from it. Or at least certainly I am and many people in my world, certainly in North America, we've lost our connection. I'm always a little envious of people like you who are still in active traditions that have that as part of the lived experience. It's really lost more in the dominant materialist West.

10:30 So absolutely, people say, I know this is sacred, but I don't know what that means and I don't know how to do it. I know it's something because they have this inner, I mean, it's the inner intuition. We all have this in our soul, but they don't know what, it means or how to proceed. And that's where we help.

10:50 That's where I help is the actual pragmatic rituals.

10:53 Now, I want to go back to your father one more time, if you don't mind me, because I think it's really important. I feel that people, I want to hear what you went through because it was the beginning. It's your origin story. It really is the origin story of your work. In many ways, from my point of view, from the spiritual perspective, I believe that he gave you that gift. Because without that experience, you wouldn't be doing the work and helping so many souls around the world.

11:19 Is that fair to say?

11:20 I had a dream in which he came to me.

11:23 Oh, I'm getting chills. Oh, I'm getting chills.

11:26 Oh, really? It was a heartbreak because he was seven years immobilized on a bed in a long-term care center. Very alert. Very alert. And that he went through all of that. And in the dream, it was very clear. This was not the only reason. He had his own soul development and learning journey to do. But it was a factor, was that he knew that this was my gift.

11:50 And he knew that if he gave me this, this would be my apprenticeship. So he absolutely nailed it.

11:56 I get goosebumps. I'm like, oh, I'm getting all sorts of chills talking about that. And so what did sitting by your father as he was going through this process show you that notebook? ever could.

12:11 You know, I really devoted myself to supporting him. I remember he died. He had the stroke. He had the stroke. Big surprise. I was living in California, flew back to Canada. You know, we kind of spent a month or so getting everything, my mom, my family getting, we all got organized again. And then I went home and it took me about six months before I was even through my own grief. I was just so devastated by just this massive shift in our family. And I was walking down the street and I can remember I was living in Oakland and I can remember exactly the street I was walking on and exactly the place I was walking when it suddenly clicked. And I had this thought that he needs soul help. And I am the only one in

12:53 his life that can do that. I don't know exactly how to do it, but I'm the one. And so I began that journey. And I was learning about ritual. I was practicing ritual. I was in school at the time. I was doing my PhD in ritual. So I was in the zone. I was right up immersed in all the ritual. And so I just began working with him and doing these rituals. And what happened was I started to dream. And I had always been a big dreamer, but I started to dream. And I would say for a year, a year and a half, I dreamt of ancestors in my father's family line three times a week.

13:32 Never once in that year and a half did my mom's line come in. I've had lots of dreams about my mom's line. But for a year and a half while I was really in this with him, it really was clear that the ancestors were with me. And I did things. Some of them were really ritual-based. Some of them were on the outside very pragmatic. I found a woman who was a social worker who also was a, what did she call herself? A family historian or something. Anyway, she interviewed him. I gave a bunch of photos of his life. It was very well photographed life. He had lots of amazing experiences. And I said, you know, I think here and here and here were some places in his life that are kind of unresolved. So I had

14:15 her interview him ostensibly for this book that we created of the photos. But at this point and this point and this point, I said, just go deeper. And so she did a little therapy with him and helped him process that. I was trying to help him really unburdened. what he needed to let go before he left. And then we did a big, beautiful goodbye ritual where we had two, we did one with family and one with his friends, where I invited each person to bring a gift no larger than an inch in any direction. And we went around the circle and it was a gift for him to go in his canoe, to cross the river, to go to the village of the ancestors. And so people went around and they had these very concentrated, very

15:00 symbolic very highly thought out gifts because it's small. They weren't expensive. They were, you know, a seed, you know, or just these tiny things. And people went around and they got to say goodbye. And he got to hear what people often only hear at their funerals, which is how much he was loved.

15:17 That is so beautiful. And you're right. We always wait to the, after they're gone to say how you truly feel about it. This ritual is so beautiful. And I think, I hope anybody listening can incorporate this in one way, shape or form into that process because it's so It's so beautiful and so powerful. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

15:44 Now you talk about something called the sensing, sensing the spiritual dynamics of death. What is that actually, what is that actually like in the body? It's a very broad, broad concept.

15:58 Well, you know, I think it, It goes back to what you mentioned earlier about framework, that there is an underlying energetic architecture to how people die, to how body and soul separate, to what happens after the soul leaves the body, to how the soul begins the journey across the river, to how the soul is received on the other side of the river. I use this image of the village of the living, the village of the ancestors, and a river between.

16:29 The river sticks, if you will.

16:30 The river sticks, of course. So many places and traditions have water as its image. So it's very transcultural. And so when we understand that journey, then we can, and this is what I offer my training. I teach my students this, how to be sacred death care guides, how to guide people on that journey. So to be looking at a family and working with a family, a dying person, and seeing a certain set of dynamics is, saying, oh, this is a sign that this is happening at a soul level. And this is the kind of ritual that would help release this. So a little bit like in physical medicine, we understand that if your temperature goes up or your blood pressure goes down, there are signs. And then there are interventions. We need this. You need this pill.

17:19 You need that. At the soul level, we start to recognize, oh, if this is happening, this is a sign that something's moving too fast. And we need to back up. and resolve what happened here so they can move forward. And a classic example of this, I work with people before, during, and after the death. So we really have this framework in the Center for Sacred Death Care that the veil is transparent. It's just a flow right through, and we wouldn't stop right at the last breath. But there is something incredibly important, of course, that happens at the last breath.

17:56 That's the end of your physical connection with the person. And when I work with people who are grieving after a death, I often say to them, what happened right at the last breath? Did you spend time with their body? What kind of container was there? Was it rushed? What was happening? And did you have time to integrate? Because part of this soul's map is that our soul moves more slowly. in the body, someone takes their last breath.

18:28 Even if this happened with my dad, I knew he was dying. I was this far from him when he took his last breath. And I was still shocked and surprised. We know it's coming. We're prepared. We are still shocked and surprised. So at a soul level, we need to support that shock. And so if I'm working with a family in the moment, I know, oh, at this moment, we need time. So I have this whole extended, sometimes four or five hour ritual we do after the last breath before the family leads the body. Because often people, someone dies, I don't know what, I guess we call a funeral home, I guess we go home. But they need space. And so after the death, when I'm working with someone who's grieving, I'll say, what happened after their

19:15 last breath? And if they didn't get that space, I know that they probably can't move forward with their grieving. because they are still kind of stuck back there. It's almost a trauma pattern. So we'll do those rituals after the fact. I call it a proxy body ritual. We redo that last breath moment so people get to do what they missed. And it allows something to loosen in the soul, and they can let go of that jerking surprise experience and move with some fluidity into the next stage of their grief. and the next and the next.

19:51 One thing I've noticed that I've spoken to a few death doulas, and I call that, for lack of a better word, if you want to be referred to as something else, it's fine. But people who help in the death transition, whether they be palliative care, nurses or end of life nurses or hospice nurses, those kind of people, I've yet to run into one. I'm sure they're out there, but I've yet to run into one that is strictly material, that she's a materialist or he's a materialist. There's something that happens through this process that is so undeniable to the soul that if you do it again and again, you just can't deny what's happening in the room um and and i find that that's stage one is like yeah there's something else i don't know what it is

20:46 but i'm going to help them through it then you go to all the way to the other line i'm like i had a shared death experience i'm going through the light with them all that kind of stuff and everything in between from your experiences first of all do what's like some of the most beautiful um stories you might want to share with that you've seen with other of your clients or people you've been in the room who've been in the room and they've sensed something, they felt something, they saw something, maybe the shared death experience, maybe they just felt energy, maybe they just felt relief, maybe they heard something. I'm just curious if there's anything like that that you've gone down.

21:23 So back to this idea of framework, what I teach my clients is this framework. This is what you can expect, not only physically, but I teach people about deathbed phenomena. This might start to happen. You might have this experience. You might have this experience. They can be, as I'm sure you know, they can be quite subtle on the outside, but really deep and emotional on the inside. And people say, I think my grandmother came to my room last night.

21:48 And so I really help them validate that. Like, yes, your grandmother came to your room. We are going to take that at face value. So when I work with client families, I really build a culture where this is normalized. And what I find is when I help people build a culture where everybody talks about it and it's normal, it happens more. Because when there's no space for it, people say, well, I must have been making that. They diminish.

22:13 And I think of one woman in particular who was in her mid-40s. She was dying of thyroid cancer. And she was very alert. I mean, she was playing crib the day before she died. She was incapacitated, but she was awake and alert. And for the week before she died, and it only happened when she was playing crib and her grandmother was an incredible crib player. As she was playing crib with her kids, with her friends, she would start to hear music coming out of her cell phone that no one else heard. And it was very pragmatic.

22:45 She said, sometimes it was classical. Sometimes it was like African acapella and it was, it was coming out and she could talk about it. Didn't weird out the people she was talking about it. And it got richer and richer. So things like that, how does that happen? She was attuned to something, and she really connected it to her grandmother, who was like, she imagined reaching across from the other side to say hello, to be ready to carry her across.

23:13 People have really powerful dreams. They see things when the body, you know, see things leave the body when the last breath happens.

23:21 Is there anything, have you heard of the shared death experience phenomenon?

23:24 Oh, yes, yes, yes.

23:25 Have you?

23:25 Yes.

23:26 Have you, I'm not sure, have you experienced anything like that or have any of your clients experienced anything like that?

23:32 You know, I have, I'm not usually there at the death. Of course, you don't have to be. I've certainly had, I've had dream visitations from clients for sure, not in the shared death experience, some of those other ways. And I, for me, that's actually quite validating. It's validating for my students because you can do this without having had those experiences.

23:53 Sometimes people feel like, oh, I need to have those experiences and I haven't. just to be with this process. The movements people make and really the people that really come to me a lot are people who are practitioners, like you talked about hospice nurses, who have been having those all their life. And they, you know, I worked with a client, a funeral director, who said, I get home and my clients, the people I've involved are still in the room with me. And we did some research, like we did some ritual work and exploring. And it was clear that she was the last person who had been kind to some of these people. And they were in that in-between zone. And they're like, oh, my life's been a little hard, but this person's really nice. I'm

24:38 going to go home with her. So I often help people untangle those experiences. Or a chaplain I worked with who, she said, you know, when I'm really aligned with my clients, When they die, I feel them. It's a very physical sensation. I feel them put their hand on my shoulder, get a little push as they die. I've been helping them and they just push me out. She said, my training did not cover this. What does this mean? What do I do with it? So that's where I'm working with lots of people. People who have had profound multi-day, I had a woman not long ago talk about this multi-day shared death experience where she was in and with both the person who was dying And his brother, who had died a year before, helping him, he had been in

25:25 a terrible accident, helping him untangle from this world, connect to his brother. She was really this, the word I use a lot is psychopomp. Psyche is soul, pomp is guide. It's this guiding the soul across. So people who are often helping on that journey and who often have naturally been helpers on that journey, but haven't known how to tell anybody about that. They think, am I weird? Does anybody else do this? Is this okay? Is this wrong?

25:58 Or often they have this innate skill, but they haven't really figured out how to put it into place. Maybe you are naturally musically talented, but if you learn to play an instrument, you can structure it. And so I help them kind of structure it, understand boundaries, understand consent, permission, ethics around it all.

26:21 I want to ask you this. What is the effect on the soul of people who do this kind of work? Because you're experiencing energies, experiences, connections that a human, a normal human going through this experience, or even a normal soul going through this experience of this insanity that we call life. doesn't get affected. So I'll just use myself as an example. I speak to people like yourself and all sorts of different mystics and psychics and mediums and channels and all these kinds of different gurus and things.

27:02 Most human beings are not going to have 2,000 conversations with these kinds of souls. So it has affected me just on my own journey. It's affected me in my own soul, my own abilities, my own sensitivities. I have to imagine after you help 700 souls across or 1,000 souls across or some, I know one that did 2,500.

27:27 He volunteers and he's a near-death experiencer, did 2,500 crossings. That has to affect you in a way. What's your experience personally and what have you heard from others?

27:38 You know, I talk a lot about what I call the archetype of the death walker, which is this pattern in some people. who are called to this work. They are sensitive. They have these experiences. They feel this. They just know something about death. They're not afraid of death. They're the people in their families who are the ones who show up when someone dies. They just know. They're death walkers. And as you say, they're not kind of normal people. Other people think that's a bit weird. And that was definitely me. And as I began this process with my dad, I also didn't know what to do with it. And I didn't know I was kind of maybe embarrassed to talk about it in certain situations. I knew that, you know, this isn't what you talk about

28:25 in public, you talk about this in these other special spaces. And what's happened for me is it has just been such a consistent and constant demonstration that this is true, that the veil is thin, that it lifts, that people cross, that the ancestors are there. that it's become, I say, as real as rocks. The world is just bigger. There's a little box that we often keep things in that says, this is ordinary. And then we say, oh, this is non-ordinary or extrasensory or supernatural. That box is kind of blown up for me. It's all real. And experience is experience.

29:04 Your grandmother talks to you. You had a hamburger. Those are kind of on the same level of experience. And it's so validating. Just say, this is normal. And to be able to talk about it. And just say, yeah, like as exactly as you do and the people who come on this call. And so that's a huge part of what happens, I think, is it's coming into what's really has been true in my soul. This was real for me, but I thought I was too sensitive and I thought I was too weird and people wouldn't get it.

29:33 And I judged myself a lot for these capacities that I had and these experiences that I had.

29:39 And so.

29:40 thing absolutely happens with my students and my clients that they've had these experiences, they've had these feelings, but they don't have a framework for what to do. They want to serve dying people. They know that the world is bigger. They know that the journey is bigger, but they don't have a framework. And so they get a framework and they have this like, oh my God, suddenly I make sense to myself. These things that I thought were flaws or problems in me, they're actually my superpowers. And these things that I kind of kept hidden, people tease me because I was always curious about death. Well, they come and they join a class, they join a community, they're part of an experience. They realize, oh my God, I

30:21 found my people. I'm not weird. This is actually important. So it's a very big coming home for people into the reality that has always been true for them.

30:30 So you're basically pulling the curtain back a little bit on what is really there. It's always been there. Now we just are able to perceive it a bit more. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm assuming with every one of these experiences, that curtain opened a bit more and a bit more and a bit more. So now it's completely wide open. Do you get surprised anymore?

30:48 Oh, all the time. All the time.

30:53 We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

31:03 You know, one of the rituals I do is a kind of community-based ritual where we support the dead who haven't crossed. So people will come and they'll say, oh, you know, I've been having dreams of my mom. She feels like she's stuck. Or my father died by suicide and I really feel like there's some unfinished business and he might need some help. So we do a ritual process with that where we essentially invoke these experiences in the space. And it's incredible. I mean, I guess that it happens doesn't surprise me, but the depth of what happens and how the ancestors show up and the incredible love and support they have for us and how when we create this ritual space and when we set these parameters around how to do it, what comes in and

32:04 the solutions and how things resolve that we never could have imagined. It says we are not making this up because none of us could have thought of this. There's something bigger directing this. There's something bigger at play that is just moving towards healing and love.

32:17 Now you say something regarding something called initiation.

32:24 Thank you.

32:26 That's the way, initiatory, that you call serious illness and death initiatory. Can you explain what that means?

32:34 All through our lives, we have things that end and things that begin. And there are big stages in our lives where something really big ends and something really big begins. And that initiation is the is the traditional ritual practice for helping people navigate the end of a really big thing and the beginning of something new. And so death and loss and grief are initiations, not only for the person who's dying, but for the person who's alive. So, you know, traditional culture might have an initiation ritual. Like there's a Latino one when girls are 15. What's that called?

33:17 That would be quinceañera. Quinceañera. Quinceañera.

33:20 So they have a quinceañera.

33:21 Or a sweet 16. A sweet 16.

33:23 Exactly. Or a bar mitzvah. That's saying you were a child, now you're an adult. Right? And so we mark this. There's an outside change, but the ritual helps the soul inside change. So... You're working, you retire. You're single, you get married. We have these transitions in our life. And in those range of transitions is you are married to someone who's alive and now they're dead, right? You lose a spouse. You lose a child. You go through your own journey of transformative loss with a big illness. It's like the sense of the door opens, you get pushed through and the door closes again. And you can never go back to where you were. So those are initiations and thinking about death as an initiation for the person

34:11 who's died. That they have been on this side of the river. They're dying. They're going to essentially go through the door and cross to that side of the river. Initiation rituals help our soul do that. So to say you're dying to this life, but you're being born to that life. And how do we support that? And of course, for the grieving, it's the same. who you were when the person you loved was alive, you're not that person anymore.

34:42 You need to die to the old version of you and allow the new version of you to be born. And that takes time. You have to let go of all the things. Well, we used to have breakfast together and now we'd go on holidays together. And when I needed help with this, she'd help me or he'd help me. All the things that we have to say goodbye to when someone dies, all the secondary losses. So we have to say goodbye to all those things. And then we have to slowly grow into a new version of ourselves.

35:10 So after someone has really been through, I call it an initiatory journey after death, they are someone new. And it's often this experience, they kind of get to the end and they sort of peak up and they're like, okay, I think I'm back. I went through this great journey, but now I'm back. And they come back with gifts and skills. Because they've been transformed by that journey. If they have the support to do it, some people just know support is too hard and they kind of skip it.

35:42 It doesn't work. If you want the skills and healing and integration, you've got to go through that down and up. They come back and they, like near-death experiences, have had a huge initiation. They come back, they have something to offer. They are changed and they are changed in service of their community.

36:00 It's the hero's journey. You're coming back with the elixir. Absolutely.

36:04 Yeah. You lose, you fight the dragons, and you sail away, fight the dragons, and you come home. It takes time.

36:10 It takes time, and you have to be willing to fight the dragons. You have to be willing to walk the journey, and that's where the gifts are at the end of it. That's the reward. And then you come back and you share what you've learned. That's humanity. That's what we've been doing since we've been walking around this little rock. that's been floating around in space for so many years.

36:31 But I think often we don't realize that when we talk about initiation, we talk about a rite of passage. And a rite of passage is a ritual. So we actually need rituals to help us do each of those things. And it's rituals that can support us. A ritual at the deathbed after someone dies can help you make that transition, right?

36:52 A funeral is a ritual. These rituals are... are what allow us to move through the initiation. We just try and go from they're gone to I'm on the other side.

37:01 It doesn't help.

37:02 It doesn't work. We need to go through it. But absolutely, the rituals help us be with the experiences.

37:07 So I'm not sure if you saw The Odyssey. It doesn't sound like you might have seen The Odyssey.

37:11 I'm not sure.

37:12 You have to watch The Odyssey.

37:14 I'll add it to my list.

37:15 Please, you have to watch. You know the story, obviously, of the Odyssey, yes. So the big thing with them is that in battle, if a soldier falls, they need to be given a proper burial. And if it's not, their soul is doomed to walk through Hades forever. So they have to be properly done. That ritual, I mean, to the point where Ulysses, is it Ulysses? Ulysses, yeah. Yeah, Ulysses, right?

37:44 He has to actually go back and try to create a ritual for those souls. But it is more for, I mean, that's a more mystical aspect of it in that mythology. But I feel it's more for him as a character to go through that because he needs to bury them all so he can move on. So that process of the funeral is so important. And that's why when people are lost, in ways that they can't bury them, can't say goodbye. You know, something happened, they got, you know, lost or in war or something like that. And there is no, there's no ritual. How do you deal with that as someone who might be going through it? Or if you have a client that like, look, my parents died in an airplane crash and they've lost, we can't

38:37 sit back. There's no way to, there's nothing to, there's nothing to bury. How do you work with that kind of scenario? And have you worked with that kind of scenario?

38:45 I have. And I think there are two interesting points there. Is the funeral for the living or for the dead? And so I'll ask that first, and then I'll tell you a story about a no body experience. So to my mind, it is very definitely for both. People die. They slip out of their body. Body and soul separate.

39:08 Most people get across the river fine. but there are people who don't get across. And shamanic practitioners understand this, lots of people understand this. I had a client who was a, he was an oncologist. Also very materialistly focused, but also very open to this. His father was dying. His father did not want to be there when he died.

39:34 And his father said, if I can't walk 500 meters, I want medical assistance in dying. This is available in Canada. Essentially, it's a euthanizing process where you get the medicine, a doctor supports it, and you have this beautiful, peaceful death. And he said, if I don't get made, I'm going to jump off my patio, off my balcony. So his family was like, okay, you don't want to get old.

39:56 You don't want to miss your dad. Like he just didn't want to be there for any of it. So he set up made, wouldn't talk about his death. He was joking. He joked all the way to the end. He wouldn't let them have a funeral. Basically, he was so afraid of dying and of what might happen that he really wouldn't let it happen. He thought, I just won't do it. I'll just have made.

40:18 So he dies.

40:20 Two days later, my client, the oncologist, the windows start flapping in his house. The lights start going on and off. There's, you know, the dog's hair is standing on end. All these phenomena start happening. And so he says to a friend of his, who's a Buddhist priest, what's going on? And the Buddhist priest says, oh, it's simple. Your father hasn't crossed. And he didn't want a funeral. So the funeral is often what helps people cross things.

40:47 Is it because it signals to the soul that, because a ghost, quote unquote, a ghost is someone, a spirit that decided, a soul decided not to leave. That's what I've understood. Or it doesn't know that it's past.

41:00 Yes.

41:01 It's the big thing. So the funeral is a signal to the soul because it's a, I imagine when we all go through this, it's a fairly confusing scenario. We've had this meat suit on for quite some time. This is our reality. And all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I don't have this anymore. Like it's being basically thrown into a, you know, a cold pool.

41:19 Like you're like, whoa, everything is different now. And if you don't have, and that's why spirits like ancestors show up and angels show up and sometimes deities show up to guide you. Hey, come this way, come this way. There's a light, come this way. Is that what you found as well? Yes.

41:34 And that if people, if they work with me, they are well-prepared, right? That's what the rituals before, they prepare people. But there's sudden death and people aren't prepared. So there are lots of reasons people die and don't cross or don't fully cross. And the funeral, I would say it signals, but it's more than that. A ritual is as real as rocks. What we do in ritual is we work with the energetic dynamics and we actually change things. We find the person, we help them get aligned, and we put our hands on the stern of the canoe. We push them across and we let go. That's what a funeral is supposed to do. It's supposed to send you across.

42:18 So it's not just conceptual. We actually send them. And so he didn't have a funeral and he didn't, he was, not only did he didn't have a funeral, but he was really not present to his dying. He really didn't want to die. He was just, you know, sometimes people are afraid of who they'll meet on the other side.

42:39 Based on their framework.

42:41 Yeah, or they're afraid they'll meet their abuser. Well, actually, it's not how it works. It's fine over there. Everything's, we know this. So this Buddhist priest came and said, we'll do a ritual. So he did a traditional Buddhist ritual that involved the family being involved. And essentially, it was essentially the same thing that a funeral does. They sent him off. They found him, they reassured him, and they sent him off. So a funeral absolutely serves the dying.

43:08 And especially if the death has been sudden and unexpected, there are lots of reasons that people get stuck or people get partly stuck. And I think you asked about not having a body. I worked with a family where there was a man, he was in his mid forties, he had two young children and he'd struggled with substance issues all his life. And they didn't know whether it was an overdose or a suicide, His body was found in his house five days after he died. And there's just no way to be present with the body. It was so decomposed. But it was such a shock to the family, which is why the moments after the last breath, when you spend time, help you come to terms with the fact that he was gone. So we did a

43:57 beautiful ritual. I spent probably five days almost embedded with his family. I was there several hours a day. There was a whole extended family in the house just processing. And one of the things we did was we got, people maybe have seen them, it's a cardboard cremation casket. So it's essentially like a big shoebox shaped like a casket, which is what bodies are cremated in. So we had one brought to the house. The kids decorated it. They lined it. Everybody painted it. They started to build his canoe to help him get across. And we didn't have his body, but we essentially... made the casket the energetic proxy for the body. So we went around, we worked for two or three days with this casket. People painted it,

44:45 they lined it with soft fabric. They were sending their love towards him and the support that he needed to get across to this casket because they couldn't actually be with his body. We did a ceremony where we had a bunch of flowers and we went around the circle and each person said what they loved about him, what they missed about him, And anything around forgiveness. His girlfriend said, I don't know if I can forgive you for doing this.

45:11 She needed to say that in ritual space. His kid said, I love you, I miss you. So we did these rituals. And then rather than, say, the body going to the crematorium, which is often that, saying goodbye, it was the closing of the casket. We imbued that with all that energy. And that was our sense of, OK, you're going.

45:34 We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

45:43 Which is a similar version of what this Buddhist priest did for my friend. You can shift the patterns towards healing by this ritual work.

45:53 And it's so beautiful that you're saying it's for both because when I asked the question, I was like, oh, it's really for us to process. They're good. But it actually makes a lot of sense that you really need to And it's energy, isn't it? It's energy and intention is what we're doing here. Absolutely. They could have died on the other side of the planet. And if you do this ritual for the family, that energy somehow, because we're all connected, it connects to them and they understand it.

46:21 And they're like, oh, okay, it's safe for me to leave.

46:24 They could have died 30 years ago. And we can still do it. Right.

46:29 It's just a process to let things go. I don't know if you've seen this or not. And it is probably one of the funniest funerals I've ever seen in my entire life, where it was an Irish funeral in Ireland, if I'm not mistaken. And he it's so funny because he's being buried. The man who died is being buried.

46:50 And there's everyone's there in black and everyone's, you know, somber. And then all of a sudden they put a speaker on. in the, there's a speaker inside of him. He's like, hey, hey, let me out of here. It's cold and it's hot. I can't see anything. I'm alive. Stop, Jesus. And you just see everyone just start just laughing. And the release of that, I was like, oh, that's, such a beautiful way to say goodbye and obviously it was very him because he was probably a jokester and it just and everybody's like well that makes sense but it was just so beautiful and he and you hear the knocking on the coffin he did the whole thing he's just like hey hey i'm in here stop it isn't that beautiful though isn't that a beautiful way to to do it.

47:39 Well you know what's beautiful is that it was a fittings funeral for him And that's what I think where people struggle around funerals is they've been to funerals that didn't fit the person. And it doesn't feel right. This has to be aligned with your values and aligned with just your character. And so perfect. Exactly.

47:56 Yeah, I already have a song that I want in mine. And I've already told my girls about it. And I've already told my family about it. And now my mom, unfortunately, can't hear the song anymore. I've ruined the song. I won't say what the song is, but every time she's like, I can't, I turn it off. I can't, I can't.

48:17 But the song is perfect for me.

48:19 That's such an interesting thing you're doing because, you know, for me and many of the people I work with, we don't have established traditions. You know, in a traditional culture, many people still do this, of course, people would know when you die, this is what happens. This is the song that gets you across. This is the ritual we do.

48:38 And so we've kind of internalized the map in our head, but you're actually pre-internalizing the map. You are teaching yourself and your family that when you leave your body and you hear that song, because it is, it's a little confusing. This is why You know, all the readings in the Day of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, they help you get oriented. You're teaching yourself that when that song comes on, that's the sign to point yourself across and move. I actually think it's quite an amazing preparation ritual.

49:12 I just, I don't know why I did it. I'm not thinking about it, but it's just like when I heard, that's one of my favorite songs of all time. And then when I heard it, I was like, oh, it's perfect. Like if I was at my funeral, I would want this song to be played. It just, it just, um, it makes all the sense in the world to me to do it, but it's, it's ruined it for my mom. Um, One thing I noticed, Sarah, about the people who do the kind of work that you do is there's a level of empathy there that is not a normal level of empathy. Like you are very empathetic. To walk into a situation, it can be an uncomfortable situation. Someone has just died. There's trauma. There's crying. The energy is, it can be unprepared. A downer, you know, not a fun

50:07 vibe to be around, let alone for your own family and your own friends, but to go into strangers' houses and to do this kind of work. I, first of all, applaud you because we need human beings and souls like you to do the work that you're doing. But would you agree with that, that in order to do this work, a hospice nurse, something like that, you really have to be at another level of empathy.

50:28 You know, I hear that so often. People say, oh, you must be such a good person. you do this work or you're so amazing. And it's true. It's, it's difficult work to do, but I really feel that everybody has a skill. We all come into the worlds with gifts. I could not do your job. There are a hundred thousand jobs in the world I could not do because I don't have that skill. And people, I think really when people can line up their innate, it's not even a skill, it's a gift. It's a soul gift. When people line up their soul gift and are able to do what they're just wired to do, it's not hard.

51:04 And so I think people who are doing this work, certainly from my own experience, my students, it is the thing that feeds us. And this is kind of embarrassing. Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but when somebody calls and they say, well, somebody's dying or somebody has died, I'm always excited and I really enjoy working. But if they say, oh, it was a suicide or it was a murder suicide or there's no body or all of the different kind of ways it can be terrible, I get a little excited because for me, that is not, I'm not excited for their heartbreak. Of course, I'm so moved by what's happening, but when it's really interesting and I can really go in and it's real.

51:53 It's real, real, real, real, Well, I understand what you're saying, and I hope no one misinterprets what you're saying. It's like I'm not excited about the trauma, what happened. But from a work perspective or a doing the work kind of perspective, it's interesting. So for me, I'll give you an example. I do interviews every day all the time.

52:18 And then sometimes it's like, okay, let's just have a conversation. But sometimes it's like, ooh, I've never spoken to someone like that. I've never spoken to this person before. I've never spoken to this kind of person before. This is new to me. This is interesting. I can kind of go and explore. It pushes you and it expands you by doing things that are not the normal everyday kind of thing. So I understand what you mean.

52:40 I think about surfers who want to surf a really big wave. Like, oh my God, I'm just at the edge of what I can do, but I can do it. And it's asking me to be everything I possibly can for these people. It is asking me to dig so deep and just deliver so completely. And it's so exhilarating to be able to do that. So it's the big surfing wave for the death doula.

53:02 Let me ask you a question, Sarah. You know, you're doing this beautiful work and I, you know, I, in my framework of reality, I do believe in reincarnation. I believe that we're souls here learning and growing and coming back and different experiences and all of that. Have you ever done any deep dive research into why your soul chose this soul blueprint, this soul path in this life?

53:29 Because this is specific, whether it's karmic, meaning that you're like, you know, I did a whole bunch of other stuff in the other life that was bad. So I got to if you want to go down the karmic, that kind of interpretation of karma, or is he like, no, this is the kind of work I love doing. And you've done this many times in many lifetimes, you were this person. It's something you enjoy doing and you just want to come back. Kind of like a musician. A musician, you know, plays, but maybe I was a great pianist once and now I want to be a great guitarist, but it's music, things like that. Have you done any research on that? I'm just fascinated and curious about that.

54:02 I certainly am completely with you. I really have this framework, again, we're talking about maps and frameworks, but souls come into bodies and they go out of bodies and they come into bodies and go out of bodies. And each of those turns around the wheel is a different opportunity to learn. And so there was something in this time in, and I don't know what caused it and where it came from, but there was something that this is the lesson that I need to learn. And this is the gift I have to give. So those two things are so linked for people that what they're learning. And, you know, I went through this experience with my dad that was so hard.

54:36 and out of it came this beauty. So there's something about this time around. My dreams have been so connected to this. It just, it's so clear to me what to do, but I often could not tell you how I know what to do. I walk into a room and there's a situation and I just kind of get myself out of the way. I try and be transparent not exactly transparent because I want to be very solid and stable and clear and present in the room to these people. But I sort of open up the gate energetically in the back.

55:09 Yeah.

55:09 I open up the gate and I just say, I'm a conduit. What's needed here. Tell me what's needed and let it come through me. And it's, we've talked earlier about being surprised. That is such a cool part of it because I'm so surprised. I never would have said that. Or, you know, and I say the examples I use, sometimes it's so small. I'll be talking to someone and helping them kind of prepare for death or integrate after death.

55:33 And I'll pull up some example, a metaphor that I would never use. Like it was one the other day, I talked to someone and I used this metaphor around competitive swimming. I don't, it's not something in my world. And he just, his eyes just kind of, he said, how did you know my brother was a competitive swimmer?

55:49 I didn't know he was a competitive swimmer. So these, these images that they start and same thing. I used one, it was a while ago now about skateboarding and And she said he loved skateboarding. So the world is feeding something to me.

56:08 So that's interesting. And now we'll go a little bit more metaphysical on this because, again, from my perspective, what I see happening in those scenarios is that you've become very empathic. and you've become very open to the other side, obviously, because you're constantly in and out of the veil. So you've actually, your veil has thinned to a point where now, and your intention is to open yourself up as a conduit, as you said. Other people would say a channel, but either way, it's a different terminology of information coming through, just like a psychic does, just like a medium does, like a channel does, but in a very different way.

56:46 And that's intuition too. But you've heightened that skillset to a way that you're like, what is needed in this room? And either someone on the other side, whether it be the person who's past or whether it be your own higher self, whether it be whatever, is something's coming in. But those are very interesting. That when you say those things, I was like, well, that's a form of mediumship. That's a form of psychic. And I don't want to label that.

57:10 I'm not calling you either of those things. But there's a form of that empathic ability that has opened up within you where you start to receive messages for that you would have never, there's no way of you knowing like that he was a swimmer, he was a skateboarder. It's fascinating.

57:26 Oh yeah. It happens all the time, all the time. I'd be just, I could give you a thousand that are some that are that little and bigger. It's that I've opened up, but I think more importantly, you know, when I train people, I talk about your medicine body. And your stance, and just like a medium or a psychic, has to have really clear boundaries, right? The gates are open, the gates are closed. This can come through, this can't come through. Just like the example of the funeral director who had the people follow her home. I had to teach her boundaries. I had to teach her energetic boundaries so that she left her work at work. So I've opened myself, but I've also done a lot of work to ground myself and to structure myself and to kind

58:15 of structure myself in a certain way around these principles of sacred death care so that I'm asking for information in a certain way. It's not a wide open call for anything that comes through. It's like, I have an intention of what I want to do with these people. Please flow through me exactly what's needed for that. So I think that I've opened myself, but more specifically, I've learned how to focus myself like i need this kind of detail so it's it's a both it's a surrender but a containment that says i need this how am i going to help them because i understand this is where they need to go because you can get all sorts of interesting juicy fascinating things from the other side but if it's going to be healing i need to

59:00 know what needs to happen next and and i'll all the time i'll say you know i have a friend who jokes about it she says this just in And it's kind of that, it's like, whoop, this just in. Sometimes when I'm helping someone design a ritual, I get this download of a ritual that happens so fast and so complete and so extensive. I can see what they're doing.

59:23 I can see what's happening. I can see how they're moving this. I can see a whole room full of people doing this ritual. I actually have to say, to the information that's coming through. Whoa, whoa, just don't go away. Just stay there for a sec. I have to finish what I'm saying to this person and allow it to come through. So it's very much about focusing.

59:41 Is there a moment that just like the, hey, I'm in here, let me out kind of moment, which is this moment of laughter. Have you been in the room at a afterwards awake or any part of the ritual where Laughter was the actual medicine that was needed in the room and something happened that was just, everyone just released the pressure because the pressure was in the room like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And then just something happened that everyone just burst out laughing.

1:00:13 We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

1:00:22 You know, absolutely.

1:00:24 Often, often.

1:00:25 I don't think I can name that. I'm not a very good joke rememberer, but I can't, I can't tell you how many times that this happened. And it's really, it's the value of dark humor. You know?

1:00:36 Oh, I know.

1:00:37 I know. I mean, it's, it's, it's the thing about dark humor is it sometimes doesn't translate. So I was working with this family and they had the body and we kept the body at home and we cared for it. And they put the, um, the lid on the coffin, um, to make sure it fit. And they left it sitting there for a little while and they picked it up and they realized that it had flattened the end of the guy's nose. And it was, it was, I mean, it's awful in some way, but it was also, you know, what could you do but laugh? And laughing, things about dark humors, they don't often translate outside of the situation, but there's so much, like, energy that needs to move, so much grief that needs to move, so much sadness,

1:01:22 so much fear, all these things that need to move. And you're in these really intense, intense situations that laughter can be such a relief. It just, and I often, when I facilitate funerals, I often try and build in both spaces for grief, like deep containment. It's okay to cry. When I'm speaking, if I really am like, pulling the strings.

1:01:46 I really want to speak in a way that invites people's grief. It's a space to hold grief. And I want opportunities where people can just totally break out in laughter about something this person did. Laughter and tears together move the energy. We're trying to move this energy of grief through us, and laughter can do an enormous amount for that.

1:02:08 If someone's in the moment of facing death, What's the one thing that you want them to know before anything else, either themselves dying or someone is a loved one dying?

1:02:20 Well, there are two things. If people say, well, what should I do to prepare for death? And in my experience, the thing that helps you meet death the best is community, is having people around you and having support. So if you can live a life where you build a community, then when you come to your death, you'll be supported.

1:02:39 So that's the bigger, you can't start that at the end, but the more community we have around each other, the better we are able to meet death, the more people we have to put their hands on the stern of the canoe and push us across. The more ritual containment we can build with more people who love them. If it's a week before and I meet someone who's dying, they've either got community or they don't at that point.

1:03:04 What I really offer them is this message. sense that there is something and a validation that there is more, that the veil, the river is real, that their ancestors are waiting for them, that life is not a light switch that goes out. It's like moving to a new neighborhood. And it's this transformation. And I often frame that in ways of metaphor that people can understand. And people say, oh my God, I will never think about death the same way again. I just try and give them just as much of a map as I can. So they have a sense of where they're going because it's so scary.

1:03:44 I think that's so much of the reason we're afraid of death in dominant culture is we don't know where we're going. And we think we're leaving. We think we're leaving everything and everybody. But if we can reframe and say, no, actually, you're crossing the river. You're going to where everybody else has gone and they're there waiting for you. And there are opportunities to continue to be in conversations I often feel like I'm like, I don't know, handing someone the roadmap.

1:04:11 If you don't have anything else, here's where you're going.

1:04:14 Well, Sarah, where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing in the world?

1:04:18 I am in all the places on the internet. My website is the Center for Sacred Death Care. I'm at Sacred Death Care on all the social channels. I have online courses. I have training. I work with clients. Less now I'm working with clients in person. Since COVID, it's been a lot online, but I do consultations and I'm really committed to helping people meet death in a way that honors everything you and I've been talking about, everything you talk on the show. Since these things are real, how do we translate that into practical actions at the deathbed, after, at the funeral? So love to connect with folks who are that way inclined.

1:04:56 And finally, the one thing I've noticed from this conversation that I really never thought about before when it came to death is rituals. And not only ritual for death, but also the importances of ritual within our lives. And there are those kind of mile markers that you just said, like, you know, you graduate from high school, you go to college, you become married, you get your first home. And even more, I was raised Catholic, so First Communion and Confirmation and Baptism.

1:05:35 our own development, but I really never gave it as much importance as in after this conversation. It just makes more sense. And in the death process, ritual and creating ritual, that's what's so beautiful about the Day of the Dead and the Mexican way of looking at death with their ancestors. It's so beautiful, and with Japanese as well. And so many Asian cultures, there's so many cultures that really work around ancestries and ritual. It's so important. big message that we need to put out there in the world, that ritual can help us go through things. And that goes through, you know, marriage is a ritual.

1:06:15 Divorce often is a ritual.

1:06:18 It's many times happier than the marriage, depending on the relationship. I hear, I hear. I'm happily married. But it is a ritual. So I think that's something I hope people take away from this, that ritual really can be the kind of the warm blanket that holds you through whatever you might be going through that really helps you out.

1:06:44 Would you agree with that?

1:06:45 Oh, absolutely. It's when we talk about body and soul, it's what serves the soul. It is medicine for the soul, the same way physical medicine is medicine for the body. Our souls need ritual. They need meaning. They need help adjusting to these transitions. All of those. If someone dies, two years later, you sell the house you lived in together.

1:07:10 That's a huge, huge event. And if you just kind of sell it like it's nothing, or you make a ritual that says, I'm going to say goodbye to all the life we had here. All these things. You're so right. That ritual just allows us to navigate these huge changes and catch up. Otherwise, we kind of get stuck and it's hard to move forward in our grieving.

1:07:31 One last thing, because now I just got another thing.

1:07:33 Oh, yeah.

1:07:34 Well, I love this. I love to talk to you about is I found that ritual. I just saw another movie the other day. Yeah, I know you haven't seen this one, but it was Practical Magic 2 with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. It's about witches and witches, but in a lovely way. Oh, yeah.

1:07:54 I'm all for witches.

1:07:55 Yeah, yeah. But I kept seeing spells and the pagan, it was basically pagan rituals, you know, and bringing together words. And then as I was watching it, I was like, well, that's mantras in the East, you know, in the Hindu tradition and in the Vedic traditions and the yoga tradition, those mantras are part of their rituals.

1:08:19 So.

1:08:20 with these kinds of rituals, it really has the power of the ritual is the intention behind it. Because the ritual by itself, if you go to a funeral and there's a box with a person in there and there's nobody around that person or around in that funeral, that is the intention of what is going on. The intention has to be more, because we've all been to funerals.

1:08:42 We're like, ugh, that was rough. And we've been to funerals that were like, oh, I feel like something is, I feel like I can move on kind of thing. But it's the intention behind the ritual that really matters. Because if you're just walking through the steps, it doesn't have the same power. Would you agree?

1:09:02 Absolutely. It's the intention that matters. And it's the ability, the skill of the ritualist to line up the actions with the intention, right? You have an intention. That's great. We have an intention, but you actually have to actualize that intention. You have to do rituals and create ritual gestures that help you meet that intention. So at a deathbed after someone dies, when I come, I'm not usually there for the death, but I've come after the death.

1:09:31 One of the rituals I do is build people to the place where they pull the sheet over the person's head. Right? Sometimes it takes four or five hours. We say goodbye. We talk about the ancestors. We do these beautiful rituals with essential oils. We tend to the body and we really let them do everything they need to do until they're ready. And I always have the person who's closest, the eldest child, the spouse. And it's a big thing.

1:10:06 Everyone's standing around. I have instruments. And I say, are you ready? Are you ready? And if they're not ready, then we do something else until they're ready, until they get to the point where they can pull that sheet over their head. And so my intention in that ritual is that these people make their first step of goodbye.

1:10:26 I will never see his face again. And the way I orchestrate that ritual lines it up with intention. So they are able to do that. So ritual is also about being able to work with metaphysics. It's like physics. There's this way that energy moves And when we understand how energy moves and what can amplify it, what can shift it, what these subtle dynamics are, then we can make rituals that do what we need to do.

1:10:54 Sarah, you are as perfect for this job as anyone I've ever met. You have such a beautiful energy to you. You have such a beautiful empathic energy to you. And I can tell that you truly care about this work. This isn't a job for you. This is a mission. This is a calling for you. So Sarah, I appreciate all the time you spent with us today. and all the work that you're doing to help people on their path and also help people awaken to the life that they have to still live. So I appreciate you so much.

1:11:25 Thank you so much.

1:11:26 Thank you so much, Alex. It's been really a joy talking to you and thank you for all the good work you do making this available for people. It changes culture.

1:11:33 It's beautiful. Thank you for spending this sacred time with us today. If you feel called to explore this conversation further, You'll find the show notes for this episode at nextlevelsoul.com forward slash 736. And if your soul is craving an even deeper journey, step into Next Level Soul TV, our streaming sanctuary for spiritual films, documentaries, original shows, guided meditations, channeling sessions, audio books, and transformative teachings. It's a space created to support your awakening, your healing, and your return to the truth of who you really are. begin your journey at nextlevelsoul.tv. Until next time, keep expanding, keep seeking, and keep walking your path towards the next level of

1:12:20 your soul.