TrueLife - Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester - Cataclysmic Lullabies

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester is the Madrinha and President of Céu do Montréal, a Santo Daime (Ayahuasca) Church she founded in 1997 in Montréal, Canada.She is a transpersonal counselor, she trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Assagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grof.She worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve an Section 56 Exemption to import and serve the Santo DaimeSacrament (Ayahuasca).She is an ordained Interfaith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity.From 1986 to 2018 she has been a workshop leader, teacher, and in private practice.She is the author of Ayahuasca Awakening A Guide to Self-Discovery, Self-Mastery and Self-Care, Volume One and Two.She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being and personal transformationhttps://www.revdrjessicarochester.com/https://psychedelicscene.com/2024/06/20/entheogens-psychedelics-nosc-and-the-search-for-wholeness/ One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins

maze, lights my war cry Born from the blaze. The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody is having a beautiful day.

I hope that the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing, and I hope the wind is at your back. I have an incredible show for you today. A friend of mine, a reoccurring guest, and an amazing individual. Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester is the Mahadrina and president of the Sioux de Montreal,

a Santo Dimei Ayahuasca church. She founded in 1997 in Montreal, Canada. She's a trans-personal counselor. She trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Asagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav, Graff. She worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve an Section 56 exemption to import and serve the Santo Dali Sacrament. She is an ordained interfaith minister with a doctorate and divinity. From 1986 to 2018, she has been a workshop leader, a teacher, and in private

practice. She is the author of Ayahuasca Awakening, a guide to self-discovery, self-care, volumes one and two. She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being, and personal transformation. Dr. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. Well, I just have to say, you know, I always love your introductions. And, you know, here you are going about the birds singing and the wind at your back. Well, I'm sorry to say the birds are not singing in Montreal. The wind is in your face.

And with the windshield factor, it's like minus 27 or something. I could hardly walk yesterday. I mean, the wind was so strong. I love being outside. I love being in nature. I like to see the trees and the earth and the flowers and the birds singing and you've got it all that, okay, except this is this back winter. The only thing that things around are a few crows, okay, and some sparrows and usually some very hungry Cooper's hawks who are, you know, they come into the city around this time because they've caught hungry and they're looking. at what they can find. So I always have to laugh where you are. The sun is shining and the birds

are sitting. And we're struggling through snow drifts taller than I am. Okay. If you were to look at snowstorm material, okay, you would see. And that brings us to the topic today. Yes. You know, it's about, we're going to talk about grieving for a whole bunch of reasons. It's a topic that you and I have never discussed. And there's a specific reason why we're going to be talking about it today for me anyway. And not that it isn't a pertinent conversation to be having regularly because there's so much that happens in everybody's lives that is connected to loss. And so we're talking about grieving and loss and kind of how species sense.

we are and how easy it is to go into a little bubble around a variety of things that happen. So the reason we're talking about it today is because on January 31st, my husband died. Now, we had been together for 30 years now, except seven years ago he had a tragic accident, which broke his neck C3, C4, for anybody who knows what I'm talking about, which meant it left him quite a public. As an artist, he actually was de-typical that he had a little movement in his radarm just enough that after a year, he started to ask me for colored pencils and pencils and paper and wanted to have a go because he loved his art. And so I'm going to talk about loss a little bit from his viewpoint and then loss from the general viewpoint.

Okay. Now, I had seven years to grieve as his health decline. Now, this was something I had encountered many times in the decades that I worked in my private practice where people had a loved one, a family member, a dear friend, perhaps somebody close to them, who suffered from something that dragged. Okay? And this might be before medical assistance in dying, which, of course, we have here and come back now for many, many years. And so you had no other choice but to come through the journey. These journeys are difficult. Are you still with me?

George, are you still with me? Yes? Yeah, we had a little slight, yeah, I'm here a little bit. Yeah, it kind of faded out or we're connecting a little bit. Yeah, a little technical glitch going on. Okay. I'm going to take that that somehow the internet is being sympathetic to the conversation, as agreeing or something.

You know, you take it as it is. So, you know, loss is, I was just saying that, you know, many, many people get to accompany somebody through a difficult journey. Some deaths are sudden, and there's no warning. It's just bang gone. Okay, that's a completely different kind of breathing because there's no preparation for it. It's the loss it's sudden, there's no preparation Whereas with a you know something similar to what I went through of seven years of a company my husband through his You know his kid his situation in his medical conditions

You have all the time to contemplate and meditate on What grief loss attack We need love what all of these things are about. So, you know, in the seven years, I'm going to share a few things in case they're helpful for you and for the listeners, which is you learn how deeply we become attached. That's the first thing. We become attached to the things that we like. We become attached to the things that we want.

we become attached to the beliefs we have about how we think our world should be, how we think our life should be. And we realize those of us who are on a path of self-exploration and self-mastery realize pretty quickly how selfish we are, how we long for things to be convenient, how we want things to be comfortable, familiar, the known.

And when it all goes out the window, okay, and we are facing the unknown, the uncomfortable, the unwanted, right? Then we have to come to terms with actually who we really are. That's where your character shows up. That's where your character shows up. That's where your faith shows up. That's where your authenticity shows up. You come to understand that you need whatever you are doing, that you need to balance it with some genuine authenticity within yourself. You learn to grieve what was.

You learn to grieve what wasn't. That now has no possibility of being. So to all of you out there who are thinking, oh, well, I'll just save up a little more money and then I'll go on that holiday. Or you know what, I'll wait until I retire to take up whatever hobby it is or whatever thing it is that you think you might want to do or learn. No, actually, do it now. So one of the biggest lessons that you learn is that in the end we have no control over things. But life arrives. What did John Lennon say?

Famous quote, life is what happens while you're making other plans. He might have been quoting somebody else. I don't know, but he's the last person in preference I have on that one. And so you have to come to terms with this. What was? And that can be a grieving process in itself. As you have to review, give yourself a little bit of a report card. Is this making sense?

Okay, how do they do in that relationship? I mean, if you really want to understand yourself, So there's the loss, there's the coping, there's the adjusting, there's the grieving process, which we'll talk about in a moment, the stages of grieving and loss. Cooper Ross's work and Stephen McLean's work. But in the end, you have to go deep inside of yourself. And you find out a little bit more who you are in the face of loss. Now, loss is, did you want to say something? You're looking so thoughtful.

I, for me too, like my wife has stage three cancer. And everything you're saying right now is a process that I seem to be not only learning about, but going through on some level. And, you know, that you spoke about attachment. And it just seems like a tricky balance. Like how do you, you know, letting go of someone. for a long time seems like you're attached to this thing, but releasing too soon seems like a betrayal in some ways.

It's a weird balance. I think it's trying to teach us balance on some level. That's a very good observation because grieving is a process. It's not a thing that you do and that's it. It's a process that has many stages to it. And you can cycle through the stage. stages over and over again. Now, Kubler-Ross identified them, and they became part of the cornerstone of the approaches in palliative care, for example, you know, certainly in the hospitals.

Here in Canada, I can only imagine that that would be the same in Europe and the United States for sure, which is understanding the stages that people go through. The first one is denial. well, this can't be happening, you know. My husband had denial for seven years. As close as when, even when he was really declining from about December, early December, it was seven years in December from the accident. He was still in denial. I think I'm getting a little stronger.

Maybe in the spring I'll get up more. So what do you do with that? That was a whole learning unto it. you know of how to deal with somebody who's decided they're going to pitch their tent in stage one of the grieving process which is denial yeah and then there's anger you're angry that this thing has happened you're angry at the loss you're angry at life handing you this you know misfortune this this this strife this struggle that's something that's been special of precious to you is now gone and it's not coming back. Okay.

Or something that was precious to you is now walking away from you. So it's not just death that we grieve and we'll get that. But we'll get a little further down on to more deeply into that. So back to the stages, denial. In some circumstances, denial is actually a very good indicator of recovery. They say that research in people who have hard to task, a certain amount of denial around it actually really helps them recover. Okay. I mean, that sounds obtuse.

But if you think about it, it's like, okay, okay, I'm going to be fine. Actually, might be a really good attitude to have in that moment. And so we move from denial into anger, where we face an experience, you know, whatever it is. is the anger is about most of all it's usually personal inconvenience I mean that sounds terribly selfish but come on let's own it I you know all all my years have been working with this almost nobody actually names these things except maybe in the privacy of my of my office where they know it's confidential and it's never going to be repeated and their family but it's personal inconvenience how

terrible this has happened yes terrible but what about me Okay? What about me? What about my life? This is interrupting my life. This is interfering with my plans. This means I have to deal with things I don't want to have to deal with. So that's all part of it. That's all part of the anger stage. There's bargaining. If I'm really good, maybe this will call me if I'm really good if I bargain with, if I do this, if I do that. So this whole bargaining discussion that can be an internal dialogue with the universe or an external one with whoever's there. So there's all this bargaining that goes on. And then there's depression when you realize, uh-oh, I guess I have to accept whatever this is.

And then there's acceptance. Now, it's not a straight line. It's not chapter one through five read straight through. It's a cycle. You can go home denial and get into the anger, feel somewhat depressed, do a little piece of acceptance, work your way right back into anger, okay? And so it's understanding that we might cycle through these things a few times until we feel kind of, okay, I think I've accepted it now. I think that I've come to a place of let go, of the inner peace, of kind of, like what was your definition of acceptance? be. That's a great question. I guess for me, the definition of acceptance is

realizing that there's a bigger process that I don't know enough about and that there has to be, I have to have faith. Acceptance is faith to me. Okay. Now, you've said your wife has stage two cancer. First of all, stage three. Stage three. Oh, I thought you said stage two. Okay. And so I know privately I've sent all good vibrations and prayers and love and light and everything possibly to, you know, help you feel supported in the situation. And, you know, lots more of healing vibrations to you, to her, and to her whole family. Thank you. And as you struggle with the situation in front of you and, you know, today's our conversation, some of it may feel personal. not just intellectual, you know.

And so, you know, back to Buddhism for a minute, you know, for all the great traditions, I have to say that I'm so grateful to the Buddha for the simplicity of the teachings. None of us is, you know, it's from the four great truths. No one escapes illness or suffering. Everybody has someone in life. Okay, life is difficult. No one escapes illness or suffering. late, we'll die. When we can accept that, that everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end,

how many times I've said that to people to help them see, you know, this two will pass. Everything ultimately does. We just may not like the story of how it unfolds. That's the piece. How to come to be at peace with the story as it's unfolding, and that I think is the most difficult upon it. How can I live, be here now? How can I live in simplicity and a certain level of inner content of peace or tranquility or serenity when all this is happening in my life? When I've had this loss or I'm facing this loss, what's going to help? The same thing. that helps when you've had a loss is when you're facing a loss. They're the same things.

The first one is take care of yourself. Take care of yourself. Because we can't help anybody else if we're not in reasonably good shape ourselves. So taking care of ourselves, that means physically. With good nutrition and our vitamins and regular exercise and then whatever practice of meditation, you know, Tai Chi or yoga or prayer or a faith or religious practice that encourages and supports our own faith. So taking care of ourselves.

If we know that we're taking care of ourselves, and this is not selfish. It's not. If we keep denying ourselves to try and prevent law, or try and cope with loss, we will only end up in getting codependent and collapsing. Now, for many people, codependency is very tempting because it feels like I'm doing something. It feels like I'm actively doing something. Well, yeah, but that's something may not lead to well-being for the people involved. I myself am a cancer survivor.

It's 30, more than 30 years, 34 years ago now. And I've had so many clients and friends who are gone now who did their journey with that illness and other illnesses. And what I can say is this, is there's something of deep presence of learning that can be had. I'm going to quote Jack Carnfield now. He says the only question you ask is, how well did I love? Right? How well did I love?

And you know from prior conversations, maybe a year or so, the codependency is not love. Right. It's not. And so it's going back deep inside of ourselves and saying, okay, what here is

real, what's authentic, what's now, what is going to be the way to serve? Good question. Are we given the space degree? No, we're not usually given it. We have to actually create it. Okay. That's the thing is we can't wait around expecting someone to hand it to us. We have to have healthy boundaries. We have to say, I'm not going to be able to do this right now. We have to be able to say I'm sorry but somebody else do this I'm sorry no I can't do that okay we need to have healthy boundaries we need to be able to ask for help we need to be able to put that out there can someone please help me with this and whether that someone is a professional of whatever kind oh and I want to do a little

I shouldn't call it a proselytizing but a little it's more than guiding but I'm I'm going to bring out my strict voice now, okay, my teacher voice. Anybody listening, if you don't already have your will, could you please do that this week? Anybody who hasn't made their full power of attorney, I'm not sure wherever you are where they live, it might be called a mandate in the event of my inability, or better still, a full power of attorney, so that everything is in order. And the third piece is, prepay you, you know.

A few years ago, I sat with Sidney, my now gone husband, and I said to him, Sydney, this is what I'm going to do. Now, he always knew that I was going to look for some kind of an environmentally sound way. At first, it was just going to be cremation because I didn't want to have all that metal and everything lacquered wood put into the ground.

I couldn't possibly see how that would help. So I would every now and again check what green barrels were like. So it has to be three, maybe four years ago now. I looked into green burials here in Montreal, and I was delighted to see that they have come a long way. And so I sat with him, and I said, well, this is what I'm going to do. and it's really simple and you get cremated and then it's not going to happen this week but obviously when spring comes there's in service and the ashes are combined in the earth

or the tree and you can choose your tree there's this beautiful grove on the side of one of the main cemeteries here in Montreal up on the mountain and you're planted in your spot with the tree that we've chosen. So your ashes go into the earth, which is kind of very, you know, for me, feels right. And it becomes part of the tree. And so we chose our trees and which tree we want. And we both chose a kind of tree that gives berries that feeds the birds because I love birds. And the idea of feeding birds really fits by idea of things. And so he agreed, which was extraordinary because all the decades previously that I had tried to kind of nudge him into talking about things like that he didn't want. He had that, you know, kind of classic male, vital, I'll be here forever and I'll always be strong and, you know, everything that I want I can go after and get.

And he was very, had very much that kind of an energy. So this accident just threw everything out, you know. So I was absolutely delighted that he's agreed with that. And, you know, making life easy. One phone call, but I saw the day before, okay, it's going to be very close now. One phone call and everything was in place. And so this is the thing about understanding that there will be lost. It doesn't mean that we dwell on it.

But we just have this calm, respectful understanding that the greatest gift we can give to those who we are going to leave behind is to have everything in place. To have everything simple and in place. That our wishes will be respected to the best of anyone's ability as to what we wish to happen. And then it's quietly resting and waiting until the time that it is. needed and then when it's needed it just goes into place okay and it makes everything so much more simple I've watched people struggle who've had loved ones who haven't left bushes who haven't had whales who and and it makes such a difficult difficult struggle for everybody afterwards so that's the kind of no thought I just want to

put out for people that if you haven't done this you really might want to think about doing it okay and it isn't gruesome and it isn't morbid and it actually doesn't make you die sooner you know i can't believe some people actually think if i do my will and i prepare my burial it means he'll probably get hit by a truck next week no it just means that you've made your loved ones have an easier job at managing everything so okay long slow deep breath i'm can we come back to the we given the space? And I was saying, no, we have to take it. But what does that look like?

What does it look like taking the space that we need to grieve? I think it's like you said, it can come off looking like selfish. You can come off looking like denial. But I think it pairs nice with what you said. You have to be in shape, mentally, physically. emotionally, you have to be the best of you to take care of someone else.

You have to, you have to, you have to, there's so many lessons in there when it comes to that. I don't want to go too far off topic, but it's, I think giving yourself time or space to grieve is also giving yourself time

to learn the lessons that life is trying to teach you. For me, it's been, for me, the space to grieve has been quiet moments where I realize I perceived time differently. I don't see time the same way. The grieving process has a way of forcing you into this eternal now, this ideas that you thought were important, at least to me, have sort of shedded this way. Sometimes the space to grieve seems like darkness where there's nothing there until all of a sudden this

ember of insight warms up inside of you. And you're like, whoa, I never thought about that. So given the space to grieve is finding time for yourself to have these insights that are both heartwarming and, you know, crushing at the same time. I know that's kind of not really a tight definition, but that's what I think of. And you certainly weren't off at all. Okay. You were right snack on top. So yourself a break there. So yes

And what that looks like is different For everyone You know Some of us need the alone Quiet our own space Where we can cry Or we can meditate or we can pray Or we can ask questions

Or we can sort through all the photographs Of the journey shared together Okay We can think of all the memories We can deal with any regret I mean, few Franks Nautra regrets. But then again, do pew to pute attention.

Is that what he says? Okay, that's a good place. Yeah. That's a good place. I mean, it's impossible to live a life not have a few regrets, okay? It's just not possible. Oh, I wish I'd done that thing differently. Oh, I should have really said yes to that and I should have said no to that.

Okay, that's actually helping to dwell on them or fester in them is not To accept them to learn from them what can I learn from this How can I how can I weave this into my life story of who I am in this reality and and how I Intend my life from the inside to flow to the outside knowing I have a little control over what, you know, the flow of life, the drift of life is doing. But how do I navigate myself in the drift of life? And we will encounter losses. I mean, there's, you know, remember the teenage years when we lost our childhood?

We went from endless summers where all we did was play, right? Run out the back door and climb apple trees. and ride our bike up and down the street and maybe go to summer camp if that was part of it and in the winter there'd be a snow day. There was no school yesterday. Everything was canceled. I don't think it'd go anywhere.

I mean, they still haven't cleared most of the streets of the sidewalks. The strips are up to here, if not higher. So snow days were fabulous. But then slowly all of a sudden, slowly all of a sudden, that sounds like because it feels slow, but then it's all of a sudden it's gone. All of a sudden it's gone.

And then there's adolescence and body changing and rudes and all these strange things that happen. And then there's high school. And then there's, oh, my God, what am I going to do with my life? And when we start to understand at a certain point in our life, that life is this steady stream of, change of attracting, holding on to, embracing, and then letting go. And how to become masterful with that?

How do we open? How do we open to life? I found that I think most people are partly open. And some more so than others, to life and to what life is bringing. and how to navigate that. So how to open and receive in the moment. What is here and what is happening. How to navigate skillfully with that.

How to embrace it. And then how to let it go. Whether it's a stage in our life, you know, chapters in our life, much as we have adolescents at one end, we have the late 40s and the early 50s of the other. Okay. And there's a big close year.

maybe more so for women, more noticeably for women. But there's all these stages in life. And what we have to do is we actually have to grieve that we're hot stage is done. That stage is done. You know, there's something very interesting that happens to women, you know, about how we go through these stages in life. And actually, nobody can see it with this entire. wall is covered with all these fabulous images. It's what I've always done in my office so that

people sitting there, for example, are looking at these fabulous archetypal, transformational, trans-personal images, okay? And I have the babe, the maiden, the mother, and the crone right across the top, those being female in this life. And those are the stages. And at the loss of each one, as those chapters are closing, okay, how do we say, wow, all the good things? So gratitude, gratitude. Look at all the good things. Okay, there were hard things and difficult things. And wow, I have so much gratitude that I had the strength or the will, the support, the grace, whatever helped me through that.

Okay. But I'm here and wow, gratitude for everything that was good, that was a blessing that I could open and receive. And then grieve the things that were hard that were difficult. And sometimes that means, yes, actually grieving, actually like crying and going through those stages, which are normal, human, healthy stages. to recognize and understand deeply, you know. And as things go full cycle, so there's two things that become important. You see there's a question here.

It's from... 0.7 to 35 to death. No, I never heard that. That's sort of lifting out some very important developmental proceeds. Okay. I would say zero to six is the years of dependency, you know, and then smoothing through from dependency until you hit around 12 when you get into counter to dependency.

And then that's where we push it. We cling to life and dependency, cling to mom, dad, and, you know, what have you. And then we start pushing away. We need to identify ourselves separate from, okay? And then once we emerge through that, with its very important conceptual level changes at around the age 13 to 14 and then 15 to 16. Once we've hit 18, we have this, wow, okay, independence, I can drink, I can drive, I can vote, you know, all these important things. I know it's 18 to 21 in the range there.

That's because their brain keeps developing until we're about 21. Our body will still, we have to just have to say really it's about early 20s when we can finally say, okay, this is now I'm at my peak of development. And now everything from here forward is maintenance and decline. So, right? And depending on how well we do maintenance. So then after independence, after we've found our independence, we realize that we're not independent at all.

I'm completely dependent on hydro Quebec to give me electricity and et cetera. I'm completely dependent on Canada to give me passport and pay me money for my work and give me social structure and education structure and Medicare. And we are interdependent. And that is considered to be that level of maturity is something that we keep maturing with a greater and greater understanding of interdependency, of how we're all connected and how when you grieve, I grieve. Now, it's not a personal loss, but it can relate to a personal loss because loss is something that is the deepest of human experiences.

No, it isn't sex, actually. It's loss, okay? A lot of people get fooled by that one, right? I'm not putting that one. I'm not trying to minimize the importance of that. I'm just saying it has its appropriate and healthy place in all human. and life, but loss is the deepest, okay? On the emotional level, loss is the deepest.

And they're often connected, romantic relationships and loss are certainly all those romantic love songs and books and plays and films are about love and loss, right? So it's deeply embedded in the story of the human experience. So we talked about, in any process of loss, at least my, the map, the cartography that I work with is that loss is something that we're experiencing at a regular basis. It might be a small thing. We lose our keys. It's a small loss compared to the loss of a loved one. But every little loss, every loss we experience, we can learn something about our

and about the nature of reality of what it is to be human, what it is to be in community, and what we can learn about how to cope with loss. Does this make sense, George? Yeah, it's it kind of begs the question for me. Like, and the question is, is there a difference in the way the body grieves versus the way the mind grieves? I was wonder if you could touch on that a little bit. Ooh, okay. So can we do, can we bring it down? I like that question. Thank you. Can we, can we say the body and the mind and then the emotional level, the soul level, and then the spirit, spiritual. Okay, so we can do that.

So the body, yes, because if we're talking about, I mean, I know this is going to sound perhaps, you know, in the face that my husband just died two weeks ago, but I had seven years to come to terms with that. The first year and a half, there was a whole lot of grieving. And then I was able to come to turns with, okay, this is it. And I got through the stages in cycle after cycle. Okay, so by year two, I felt like I'd really found my feet in it, and I was really able to go. And then the next few years, It was just making adjustments as to what felt like the right way to go forward. And then, you know, year by year coming to terms with how to manage myself and how to be in a kind and respectful place, you know,

which kindness and respect for me are great manifestations of love. They are. Would you agree? kindness. Yeah. Are real manifestations of love. But love isn't like just the clingy, romantic, sexual stuff. That's fabulous stuff, by the way.

I'm not diminishing it. But it's those really deep, centered, firm experiences of inner peace and tranquility and serenity in the face of being able to manifest kindness and respect. in these processes of coming to terms of things. So one thing, and, you know, I want to use my mom. It's a perfect example. Actually, the last two years have been interesting for me with loss because, first of all, the father of my children,

my first husband, he died two years ago. Then last a year, so October 20-23, my 102-year-old mother died. So there was plenty of time to come to terms with. There was nothing sudden about that, okay? There was plenty of time to make sure everything was complete and everything was, anything that need to be said had been said, anything that needed to be understood had been understood,

anything that needed to be done was done. Those are the good things that you can make sure of when you see that there is a decline and you see that there's, you know, things that need to be addressed, you know, which you don't get with a sudden death. With a sudden death, you can be left with. Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I say that? Why didn't I ask about that? You know, those are hard parts for some people about the grieving. So this is what I'm going to share with you about my mom is very common. Okay, my father's death was quite sad. And so there was only a couple of days between the time he fell in all, and then he passed two days, really.

And so she could not take his clothes out of the closet. It took a year and a half to two years. She wouldn't take his dressing gown off the back door in their bedroom. She wouldn't take that. She needed that. She said, I need to be able to smell. It was very physical. She needed to have that physical sense of that she could still connect to him in that.

Now, they'd been in the only 60 years together, so that's a long time. I mean, she was 18 or 19 or something, 20, maybe when they were very, very young, when they married during Second World War. So this is very normal. I had many clients who said they can't. They need that time. It's part of the coming to terms with and letting go, that thought that they can still hold on to physical aspects of the person, the way the person smelled.

Now, that makes sense if we understand the sense of smell is really the strongest sense that we have when we're born. Our eyes are barely working yet. our hearing isn't making sense of much. I mean, we hear when we're in our mother's body, but we're hearing her digestive system and her heartbeat and all of those things, okay, the plumbing. And that's what we're hearing when we're in our mother's body, you know.

And that smell is the first thing. And that's, and that you can see that in kittens and puppies and, you know, in humans. It is smell that is there. And basically that's the strongest identification with the recognition of kind of the tonality of the voice without understanding any words that are being spoken. And the mother's heart people. Because those are the things that are familiar.

So it's the sense of smell, actually, where often people have the deepest attachment, which is the scent of, let's say, a beloved's perfume or aftershave will activate a very strong memory. For my husband, my association will always be nag champa incense because I was a bigger incense and he always wanted to burn it. So anytime I'm going to smell nag champa, I'm going to put him. It's, it's, it's, you know, for somebody else, it might be certain songs. It might be, that will activate memories that are strong and, and have deep meaning, you know, deep meaning. and so we physically there's that the loss for if it's a and this only really you know is individual by individual okay you can't say it's for everyone

but there will be that loss of a sense of the physical closeness so to be able to if it's a parent to be able to hug them or hold their hand or talk to sound of their voice If it's a partner, a loved one, a romantic partner, it might be the intimacy that comes from the closeness of the emotional and romantic partnership. It will be layered with how connected you are to the person on a physical level. The more connected on a physical level, obviously the body will miss. I'm going to use my, I had lots of cats in my life. I don't see your ginger cat anymore. You don't let her or him in your room. I love ginger cat.

So I have had many cats. I had a ginger cat when I was a teenager and named Ginger. And I have had quite a few cats in between, but there was two cats who were really very special to me, two Bernice brothers. I can still cry thinking about them. Okay? They've been gone many years now.

They've been gone many years. But they were so deeply connected to, on a physical and a spiritual level. Now you're going to say that's a little crazy. No, these guys were really spiritual cats. Anybody who's read my books can read stories about my cats and how they intuitive things that were happening, that they have no other way of knowing other than through some, you know,

transpersonal means, some non-ordinary state of consciousness means because there's no other way that they could possibly know things were happening, you know. And so when, you know, the one went and then a year later the other day, I missed their dear little furry bodies. They're purring, their company. You know, and so, yeah, there's a physical aspect to loss that may not have anything to do with romance. I did not have a romantic relationship with my cast. Let's just put that straight.

Okay. That's too weird. It was deeply loving, you know. And I'm sure all animal, people who love animals and have had animal companions know exactly what I'm talking about, whether it's a parrot or a horse, that there's that deliciousness that can happen, that real strong connection on a physical level. And that is a loss. And that is not there anymore.

It's a loss. And you just have to grieve the sadness. And there's no way of avoiding it. There's no way of shilling it up with something else. We'll talk about that more in a minute. Remind me if I don't naturally go there. Okay. Emotionally, you know, again, we have many different types of, I've lost so many dear friends.

And it's a deep, their deep losses. Gone. Just gone. And there's a sadness. There's, there's a, you know, we go through the cycle. of missing and feeling a connection with and something reminds us. And what brings an inner peace in loss is gratitude. Gratitude for all the good things shared.

Gratitude for the teachings, not just the lunches or dinners or birthdays or get-togethers or something like that. Because you talk about my cats, it's crazy. I immediately need to cure up a little bit and blow my nose, crazy. But it's gratitude. Gratitude for the good things shared. Gratitude for the good teachings. Gratitude for all the parts of the journey.

And then gratitude for the teachings that we learned in the hard parts, what we learned about ourselves, what we learned about life. So gratitude for that. And then, you know, for those of us who are spiritual people, wishing well, you know, wishing well. In our spiritual practice in the Santa Dhani, we have, and many of these I were doing, I was doing hybrid versions and teaching hybrid versions and more kind of neutral non-denominational versions through all the years trying to help my clients with ritual come to terms because ritual is really helpful in loss.

Doesn't matter what it is. We have kind of very common rituals for birth and for right of the rites of passages for marriage. You know, there's the wedding and the marriage and the party and the vows and all that jazz. And then we have rituals

for death, for the passing of someone, the end of someone's life. And now how do we make that feel personal and right for us and how do we make it fit? And what are the kind of rituals that we do when we're alone? Is there a ritual that we can do when we're alone? Is there a meditation, a prayer? Is there a sending light? In my tradition and in the Santa Daini, we don't try to hold on to anybody.

I know in some other traditions they honor their ancestors. Many traditions honor their ancestors. This is common to many traditions. And some kind of try to hold on to them. Like they try and talk to auntie so-and-so or uncle so-and-so, or grandma, so-and-so. That's okay. You know, I personally don't do that. And it's not a common practice in the Santo Daini. Because we more or less believe that we need to let that person go so they can follow their karma. We don't know if they might reincarnate. We don't know. Maybe they're reincarnating right now. And if we're trying to hold them back into the Uncle Harry life, how can they go further on in their own soul evolution, whatever that soul evolution is going to look at? And so this is

kind of a deeper letting go. That's vastly different if someone, if someone decides to show up, Like, for quite a few years after my father passed, he would appear to me in dreams. And he would only appear when he had a really important message to give me. I would wake up in the morning, and I knew I'd received a message from my father, from the astral. And I mean my Earth father, I don't mean Heavenly Father, okay? I mean Earth Father, my father. So my dad, okay? And I knew immediately, I had to do exactly what he told me.

me. The information that he transmitted to me in that dream was powerfully important for me to follow him. And so those kinds of things, people have always shared with me their spiritual experiences and where some ancestor or, you know, parent or recently deceased that showed up in a dream or a meditation and has shown them something. Again in my books, I talk about some of my personal experiences, some which were a little bit more shocking in the moment, but which I came to understand and, you know, receive great teachings on. And so that too is a deep letting go when we have a sense of somebody and just to send light, you know, just to send light and send more light.

and not telling them what to do or where to go or anything like that, but just thank you and light. There's a little hymn I received that we include in the mass. We have a special ritual that we do after someone's passed, and it's a son for dining mass. It's not like an angrily menace or a hamleth mask. And the hymn goes is very short and simple. Goodbye, farewell.

See you in a little while. Goodbye, farewell. you on the other side. May you travel swiftly carried by the divine light. May you travel swiftly straight into the heart of God. That's it. Simple. Go into the life. Be at peace. All is good. All is well. No. Did you want to say something? I'm just taking it all in. It's interesting to think about the relationship. You have with someone after they pass on to whatever comes next. You know, and I enjoy hearing about the way in which different people communicate that way.

It's also interesting to hear about your father coming back to you in a dream on some level. Is there, why do you think that it? Like, on some level, if they're reincarnating, if they're coming back in a different way, how do they still have the ability? I know this is kind of a crazy question, but how do they have the ability to come back and talk? to us. Is that like, is that something bigger than both of us or is it a manifestation or what are your thoughts on that? Well, my thoughts on this are based on my experiences. Right. Okay. So, you know, this is, I'm going to compare it's scuba diving. You know, when you're looking at the ocean, it's big and it's blue and it's powerful and it's noisy and there's waves and there's currents

and everything's going on and then you put on your scuba gear and you go out and boat and and then you drop down 30 feet, 50 feet, 70 feet, 90 feet, however deep you're going, and you're in a whole other world. And you can communicate quite differently, you know, from down there. Now, I have to say that, yes, what you said, is there something just so much larger than us that we don't really understand it? Yes, absolutely. I totally agree with that. It is our little human brain

would love to be able to intellectually understand this and put it all nicely in a little bit package. Like, wow, look, I just did the Rubik's Cube. Okay? In like three minutes flat. Okay, no, I can't do that, by the way. But no, the universe is not a Rubik's Cube that we can just fiddle with and master.

It is the great mystery. And I might have shared this experience if I have, and you're going to hear it again. But I was once, and I wasn't in the Dami work. I was just falling. I was just kind of not quite asleep yet. I was actually meditating, lying on my back at a very open position, and just breathing and meditating, and all of a sudden, bang,

I felt I went up as far, far, as high as I could into the light. And high, high, high until I felt like I was on, I don't know what the ceiling of heaven. I don't know how else you need to describe it. And I was still connected to my body in some way. And I asked the question, what lies beyond here? What lies beyond this? Very clearly and quickly, the answer came back.

As long as you're still connected to your human being formed, you won't know. Okay. They told me. Yeah. Okay, got it. Okay, so from that moment, I stopped trying to figure it out. And so all I can say is this is as a spiritual person who, and I believe all people are spiritual people, and it's their individual connection to that that helps them to develop it in any given lifetime or to focus on other things.

And that's their karma. and that's theirs to follow, and we shouldn't be fiddling with it. Okay? We shouldn't be telling other people how to do that. If they ask, we can share. They ask, we can give guidelines. That's all I think we can do and support. And then it's between them and their higher self.

What is going to unfold and what is how that's going to be and what that's going to look like. It isn't a Santa Claus wish list. You're not going to get all that stuff under the tree on Christmas morning. You might get something that you had no idea that you were going to get when you asked for your spiritual awakening. It might come in such a package that you had no idea. And you're going to go, what?

Sure, this is it? I didn't ask for this. Yeah, but if you do that, that's what's going to lead you where you need to go. that's that's called cosmic humor and so and that's another thing gratitude and a sense of humor and it's not macab

okay no one should think it's macab a sense of humor is actually what helps us go through some of the most difficult times in our life is finding some humor in it being able to make light of ourselves not light of anybody else but just make light of ourselves

on life's condition So what is out there and how do people manage to connect with us or beings beings of light? Guardians of light. Now in my belief systems and again, Sankalda, me very, very much in alignment with my personal experiences and belief systems, otherwise I wouldn't be walking the path, is that there is reincarnation, that there is something that is, whether we want to call it an eternal soul, an evolving soul, a transforming soul, if we even want to call it a soul or a spirit or an essence, that there's a something. It won't be my body, that will go.

It won't be my character. No, that will go too. My personality. No, my mind. No. Okay. It's not going to be any of those things because that goes with the outer flesh. But there's a something that will continue its evolutionary.

experience. Now, do we incarnate boom after one after another? No, I think that there is, that there can be a period of in human experience what we call time. Now, is it possible for all of the above? Yes, it's possible to go very quickly from one death into another lifetime. Okay. The Buddhist says that's why babies cry. But I said, babies cry because they're going here again. I love that humor. I love the humor in Buddhism. Well, I'm here again.

You know, for the last few months of my mother's life, she would wake up and she'd go, oh, I'm still here. You know, sense of humor. A very famous quote, which I find very interesting. Attributed to Marlon Brando, the last words he said before he passed was, what was all that about? What was all that about? You know, and when I read that, it's like, yeah, you nailed it.

It's like we get some kind of life review. And we go, where? was all that about all that psychodrama and silliness and nonsense and ego and all those silly things we did and all the good things we could have done and we didn't and oh my god I did a few good things you know so yes it's a great mystery and at the same time I myself have encounters with what I can only call the beings of the light with spiritual guise and and I I'm not alone in this. You know, this is a very large percentage of the human population.

If you look at the research, you're going to see that I think it's over two-thirds of even American research of people. Have had encounters with what they call spiritual encounters and that have been very meaningful for them. Okay, so this is part of the human experience. And we can say we don't fully understand it because we don't. we don't fully understand gravity. We don't really understand, you know, black holes. We don't understand the Big Bang of the universe expanding. So we can just try and be humble and say there's so much that we don't understand

that we just have to accept that this is part of it. We know a tiny little bit. Maybe in time we'll know a little bit more. And there's enough research on reincarnation. that's been followed through where people remember where they lived and remembered people there and went back and identified them and There's not that that holds any great interest for me personal I mean the research is interesting, but I don't feel like I need to go back and say oh yeah, I live there when I was in another life. I mean, I don't personally feel the pulse do that because I think being here now in this life is so important. I have re-lived past lives and not ordinary states of consciousness and I have I'm extremely grateful for those experiences. They taught me a lot about me in this lifetime and patterns that came in with me that I don't want to be repeating in this lifetime.

Does that make some sense, yes? Yeah, that makes perfect. Was there anything that we said, oh, yeah, we'll talk about that later that we didn't talk about yet? I remember saying, okay, we'll get to that. Have we got well that yet? We walked around the block on this one and up now that. I think it was about emotional acceptance. I think as we were going through the different terms,

we're going to come back to emotional, but I can't remember exactly. Okay, so the physical can be extremely powerful, the missing of holding someone being close to someone. The sound of the voice, the smell of their body and their aftershave and, perfume and what have you, just our individual scent, you know, and the feel of us and to hug and to hold and that loss, okay? That's, it feels very physical and it is, really emotional, the sadness of not being with that person anymore that has been very important to us.

But not always person, it can be a beloved animal companion, for example. It can be the loss of something really important to us, so it doesn't even have people, okay? Some people have retired and it's been like a death. They've been professor so-and-so teaching geography or, you know, whatever, okay, for 35, 40, 45 years and then all of a sudden they aren't that anymore. And it's these kind of losses are, you know, that happen in these stages in our life, retirement for some people is a joy and they've done. around their home, you know, yay, and free.

And other people are deep heaved sobbing because now they don't know who they are. Yeah. They don't know how to live their life on a daily basis when they're not doing that and being that. And this is all part of the opening to, right back where we started. How do I, it's not just physically open, how I emotionally, psychologically, mentally, mentally, spiritually open to life? life is scary life is difficult

life is joyful life is wonderful life is exciting life is fun life is funny life is horrible it's all of those things all together

almost all the time how do we open to that and breathe with it and let it pass through you know thank you Stan Groff I want of so many teachings that he gave us that are so profoundly real

one of the things that will always stay with me he says be like the tree when the difficult things come it's the wind let it move through your branches and if it's really tricky and difficult then make yourself the stars out in the cosmos that's how much space there is for that difficult thing to just flow and flow through so instead of closing down instead of closing down and shutting down which is our human tendency to wall ourselves off to shut down to build walls to build our defense system systems, how do we open up physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually? How do we open up?

How do we say, okay, life? I got it. Can I hang on to my little foot in my toolkit and my backpack, my sense of humor, my gratitude, my life skills, my experiences, all the good teachings I've received. I'm going to put them in my backpack and I'm going to go on my path and carry on. on my journey. The difficult things come, and sometimes we have to sit down on the path, and we have to have a cry or two, and then we need to reach out a hand and ask for help, and we pick ourselves up, and we keep on going.

Yep, I like it. That's all there is to do sometimes. Yeah, gratitude, letting go, opening up, embracing, letting go again, sense of humor. And, you know, if somebody asks, how do you make the space, you, you, you, you, you, you, You make the space. You make space. Like you said, the space is all around us. It's just a matter of taking time to be aware of it.

Yes. And to clear the unnecessary things out. To hand them over, to delegate them, to close them. Okay, it's time to close that thing that I was doing. It's time to step down. It's time to say goodbye to that situation, that person, that job, that whatever it is. It's time to bow to it, thank it for the teachings and close. And then that creates a space that we can then say, okay, now this is my space to do this.

And now what do I need? What's going to help me go through this experience in a way that I will feel authentically supported and authentically myself and that I am bringing the best that I can into this moment? Because there's only this moment. Yeah, I wrote down a quote. I don't know if I can find it right here. To give consciously, to grieve consciously is to walk the edge between worlds, between what was and what is becoming, between the self you were and the self you are now faced to become. Yes.

I don't know who wrote it, but it's good. I mean, I might have wrote that, written that. I don't know. I've written so many things. I've lost track of what I've said. You know, I always try with tribute. You hear me say, oh, so and so this, because I love attribution and being able to give respect to the person who's channeled that good thought.

This one came from ChatGPD for those that are curious. Okay, JetGP stole it from a few people because that's all ChatGP is stealing from everywhere all over the Internet and sticking it together. Well, who knows what's puzzling it, yeah. Okay, long, slowly breath. We've walked the journey today of breathing and

we see that there's stages in life that we need to let go of go into the next one, that there's nothing new under the sun, that's right. And, you know, I want to say a few words about, you know,

species-centric, because that's setting the stage for our next conversation which we agreed to, and I promised a few people on LinkedIn that I was going to say more about self-importance and otherness. Okay, so that's our next conversation whenever that's going to be. But let's spend a moment with how species-centric we are, how we seem to, you know, in the face of tragedies and tragedies abound, I don't know if there's more today than there were 100 years ago

or whether there were also earthquake, there were, of course, storms and monsoons and earthquakes and floods and fires, all of that's been happening forever. So is it just that there are so many more people on the planet and our activity has disrupted the speed of the natural cycle on the planet and that our telecommunications has reached the point in technology where we can see instantly something that's happened that we may only get a letter about three months after it had happened,

if you know what I'm saying. When 100 years ago letters came on boats, right? And so you'd find out something happened three months ago or six months ago. And maybe we'd never even know about so many things that would happen. So it's hard to say if more things are happening. One thing that I find very striking, and I don't know, I hope people won't be offended by this, but I find us very much more species centric than we used to. Maybe I've got it wrong.

I'm willing to be wrong on this. But, you know, we saw in their news like everybody else did. We had terrible forest fires. You know, now in California you had them. This last few months, terrible forest fires. We had them, the wildfires all across Canada. I mean, the smoke from it was drifting everywhere. I mean, it was just terrible.

I don't remember that in my lifetime, those kind of forest fires and wildfires. Nobody talked about the animals that lived in the farms. The only conversation was about people on the houses that were lost. Now, this is a tragedy. I do not want to diminish the tragedy of the loss that people experienced. The only animals we heard about were somebody's cat or dog that they found longer they lost. Wonderful touching stories about finding their dog two weeks later or their

horses that some neighbor managed to get to safety. Wonderful stories. Okay. What about all the wild animals and the birds are saying? We're so species-centric that we just stopped thinking about it. It's just a question mark I have. For me, these are terrible losses. These are really terrible losses. I remember when we had the Australian wildfires, it's a few years ago now. And somehow, I don't know whether maybe Australia is more enlightened away than we are. They immediately focused on the wildlife. There was an absolute immediate focus on getting those darling little koala bears out of the trees into safety and saving as much wildlife as they possibly could, rescuing all the wildlife that they could find running across the streets

and going into almost the burning forests and the burning places to try and rescue as much wildlife as they could. I mean, maybe some of it happened. Maybe it just wasn't reported. But this for me is a grief. This is a loss. You know, I'm very much, Chief Seattle. Have you ever read anything that he's written? It's absolutely beautiful.

And he talks about the creatures. And if we forget about the creatures, then we're not going to last very long. He talks about the land. Nobody really owns the land. The land is unto itself. Nobody really owns the creatures. The creatures are unto themselves. And if we forget about the creatures and if we don't take care of the land and we don't take care of the creatures,

how are we going to survive? And so for me, this is part of the end. unconscious loss that I think is really disturbing our younger people. I think that a lot of the anxiety and depression and addiction, what we're seeing is because we are not really grasping the importance of what. Yes, lighter horn, whoever you are. Some of us are broadening consciousness. Some of us are narrowing.

Yes, the global politics. with a politics globally, you know, only a small voice is trying to be heard and louder voices. And voices with more money behind them are speaking very loudly right now. And so how do we, because this is a loss, a loss of habitat is not, it's on some level, on the heart level, you know, you've heard me say so many times I write about it in my books, we're all one. And if we accept that we're one with nature. And, you know, I love the particle physicists, particularly. And I'll give a shout out to Professor Brian Cox, University of Manchester, Britain, his beautiful programs on the BBC Earth.

For those of you who get it on your love nature, sometimes it's on that, but mainly BBC Earth. and he does an exquisite job of walking through the desert and taking the grains of sand and talking about them and the rocks and then talking about the universe and the planets and the solar system and the black holes and he relates everything back down to the particles within us and how the particles within us are you know on this very Einstein that the particles within us are the same particles that existed at the beginning of the universe recycled and recycled and recycled and recycled you know the phosphorus within us is the same of the nature that makes stars in the universe and if we honor our earth and our creatures on the earth and our relationship with the earth if we are able to have gratitude and honor that and take care of it then i think that we can if enough people are geared for that that we can try and bring things back in the brain. But if we remain species centric, we've only focused on personal loss. I lost my house, I lost my car. Tragic, yes, we can also relate to that. That's a terrible awful thing.

We can have compassion for it. We can, you know, give money and we'll go fund me to help people. We can support our social services to help, etc. Support all our firemen and our policemen and our armed services. We do all the work to help in this situation. But what about the land and the creatures? And we need to help to broaden that. And so we are embracing the wholeness. And I think if we do that, then things will start to come back into balance. Does it make sense, George, what I'm saying?

But I look at how mental illness is being in mental illness, all this thing is guiding and addiction. I'm not saying it's not real. It is real. Okay. But where's it coming from? Is it possibly coming from the fact that the earth is overcrowded? Is it possible that it's coming from the fact that most people have lost their right relationship with nature, with themselves, with community, where everybody's on their phone. Most people eating processed not healthy food, so they're not connected to nature anymore in their bodies.

If you're not eating natural foods, you've already severed a lot of your connection to nature. What do you think? Is there a longing, grieving, unknowingness that's happening in our communities that are so separated from earth and from spirit and from the universe? And how do we bring that conversation in to help people understand the importance of it? I don't offend anybody, but it may sound like I like creatures more than I do people. No. I like creatures as much as I like people. Okay. I don't like one more than the other.

Creatures are equally important. I think it's, as crazy as this might sound, I think it's all necessary. I think we've forgotten law. You know, we've talked about loss today in personal relationships. And once you've gone, once you see loss, whether it's your keys or a family member, but once you begin to really sit with loss,

then you can expand it outwards and say, wow, look at the creatures, look at the environment, look at the trees. But you have to fundamentally experience loss on some level before you can widen that consciousness, I think. And it's because we've forgotten. And that's why there's going to be more loss. That's why it's so tough right now. It's because we're not realizing that we're all connected.

We're all part of this thing. And the more we neglect that and the more we forget and the more we narrow our vision because we don't want to feel the pain, the more pain comes. It's sitting with it. It's realizing like this is nothing lasts, nothing lasts. That's right. Well, on that note, you will say for today. I am looking forward to our thank you so much.

It's always a joy to be with you. You and your wife and family will stay in my prayers. Promise me I get to see the cat next time, please. No, I shouldn't. Because then everybody else is going to see the cat wandering around. so I've removed that request. Always enjoy to be with you. Thank you so much.

You stay in my heart in prayers, you, your wife, your family, and I'm sure that you are ensured that you are in good hands. Trust the process. The last thing, you know, as being a cancer survivor, I can say, trust your process. You have to have faith in the process you choose. I have to have faith in that process.

And you have to open to it and embrace it, and kind of surrender to it. You know, all my friends, I'll put my patience to you. And anyone is something. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Jessica. It's always heartwarming and beautiful. And I really, really admire you in the words that you are able to help me and everybody else here kind of see things a little bit different. And it means a lot to me.

And I will talk to you shortly. Let's get back to our regular programming. So hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody within the sound of my voice, if you participated today, if you're listening tomorrow, or sometime in the future. Lighter, core, Clint, everybody, thank you so much for being here. And I hope that you guys have a wonderful day. And that's all we got, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.