Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning. Hey, how
are you come on in? Have a seat. As you're listening to this,
I will be climbing the stairway of many pyramids and buildings at polank Hopefully
we can climb the pyramid of the Inscriptions, which is where Lord Pacall is
one of the most famous Mayan rule of the Maya dynasties. I guess you
could call it that. And we have as our guide doctor Edwin Barnhardt,
and we've been listening to ed for a couple of years now. Describe his
research and his work. One of the fascinating things about him is the fact
that he excavated and surveyed Polanki and what can only be described as a groundbreaking
view of Mayan cities from a surveyed relief point of view. And that means
that you survey the buildings and you find new buildings, and you also provide
elevation for the local hills and perhaps mountains that are associated with a civic area
or a ruined city. So again, you know, we're on our annual
Mexico tour, and so that's what will be That's what we're doing as you're
listening to this, and I promise to post some unusual photographs of portions of
our tour. Most notably, we're going to be visiting Villa Hermosa, Mexico,
and that is the home of Leventa, one of the oldest omech sites
in the world. And there's this outdoor museum I keep talking about. I've
been wanting to see it for well, I want to think, like fifteen
twenty years, just have never been able to get out there. And so
we're going to be visiting this outdoor museum in Leventa, and this is a
home to some of the most unusual carved what they call altars and statuary in
a huge setting. Now I don't know why it's outdoors. It's pretty hot
down there, that might be one reason. And it's shaded outdoors, but
there's also an indoor portion as well. But so I'm going to be photographing
this. I got this new camera, a DJI camera thinking about GoPro,
but Gopro's kind of fading a little bit, and the DGI quality of the
image is just astounding. So I'll be recording close ups. I have my
selfie stick. You can't get you can't touch these monuments anymore, but you
can get really close to them. And I'm very curious about how they were
carved, because it's almost like they were created for molds, that's how smooth
the figures are within the stone work, and most of them are in carved
in basalt stone, very very hard stone. The other site area, the
other portion of these museum, of this museum, is these out door these
heads. We don't have a clue who they are. There's no writing.
We really don't know a hell of a lot about the Omec because we've never
found a burial, we have no skeletory remains, we don't have artifacts that
are identifying rulers or kings, but we know that they're very, very old,
and so that's that's really one of the highlights of the trip for me,
is visiting Leventa and looking at these ruins, these artifacts. We're also
going to go to the what's remaining of the pyramids, and it's funny because
they I've heard a number of different times that there's a huge underground complex of
tunnels and pathways that you don't see, and this is another area that just
is screaming for ground penetrating radar and things like that. It's just challenge for
the Mexican government or the archaeological community ina to develop the funding for that.
So who knows. So anyhow, as you're listening to today's program, imagine
me climbing the pyramids. And I'm not rubbing it into your face. I'm
just wanting to know that's what we're doing as you're listening to this. So
this was recorded a few weeks ago. So yeah, we're doing our Mexico
tour, all right. Today's program is on death, so we're talking about
the process of dying and death. And my guest today really is unique in
a way because she's what they call a death doula. Now, when my
son was born, we had a birthing doula, who is a woman trained
in the proceeding, the different phases that a woman goes through as she's ready
to to deliver, the contractions, what to do with that, and in
many cases you can have I mean, a doula can help you have a
birth, a natural birth. In my case because at the time my wife
had a condition, the birth was at a birthing center with the doula and
a nurse practitioner. We really didn't want to have a birth in a hospital.
And I'll talk about that some other time. But a death dula is
a very rare person. This is somebody who has discovered and researched and has
been trained in the old systems of passing. And this is understanding what the
body does as it is passing, as the body is dying, off the
various sensitivities of the person, what the sounds are, how they consume food,
how they communicate. And this is something that we have lost in our
modern society when we are passing, When we are dying, it's usually in
the hospital and it's not surrounded by loved ones. And because some people just
think of it's like I don't want to be around somebody who's dying, but
it's it's very very critical as you are passing to have loved ones come and
show up and kind of say hi, what's going on, and say goodbye.
And this is something that you'll hear in today's interview, which I was
surprised at, is the is what are how our ancestors processed a loved one's
passing. In many ways, it was a celebration, It was an annoyance.
It was an acknowledgment of their life. And in the earlier phases of
death, you know, you're more coherent and you can acknowledge pece people and
communicate. But you know, the further into the dying process that you go,
less communication abilities you have, you might not be able to talk.
You may only be able to open your eyes and acknowledge somebody that's important too,
And that's something we'll talk about today. So interesting program. The books
called Death Nesting The Heart Centered Practices of a Death Doula, and my guest
today is Anne Marie Cappel. So much happening in the world right now.
We look at the Middle East and there is tragedy, simply tragic what's going
on over there, and children are being killed, hundreds of people are dying
and it is sad and it brings up the whole death process. And today
we're talking about something that we need to really grasp onto with greater understanding,
which is the death process. My guest today is Anne Marie Cappell. She
is a death doula, community death care educator, nursing assistant, and she's
a ranky teacher and a meditation teacher. She has written a fascinating book called
Death Nesting, The heart centered Practices of a death Doula. It's funny because
in the West, we don't appreciate the process of dying like our ancestors did.
And we're going to learn today not only how the ancestors, our ancestors
processed the role of assisting in someone's passing, but this wonderful book gets into
what our body goes through when we are dying. So Anne, Marie,
welcome to Destiny. Great to have you. Thank you, Cliff. I'm
very happy to speak with you. I have to ask why or how did
you get involved in this work because it's not for I mean, a lot
of people would say, do you have an aptitude for this or is it
something where it's like, you know what. I was reading a book and
I thought, I want to learn more about that. So tell us a
little bit about your background. Yeah, I you know, I suppose well,
as a child, I always had a fascination with death. And it's
so funny. So when you ask people who are adults who work in the
field of death and dying, a lot of times they have had an interest
in death since they were very little, and it maybe has shown showed up
in different ways, like maybe they liked spooky books, or maybe they liked
ghosts, or they liked witches or they like And so I always had that
when I was little, But I really was impacted by caring for my grandfather
when I was quite young. He came to live with my family and I
when I was about twelve years old, and he had Alzheimer's, and I
saw the patients that it required. I saw the stomach that it took,
because you know, there were trips to the bathroom that were kind of messy.
I saw how my parents struck with finding care for him at a you
know, all hours of the day, and also the humor in it as
well, that you could be going through all of this and be having a
really emotional experience and then also the funny things that would come out of it,
and and so it normalized it for me. So caring for for an
elderly individual who was losing their faculties in many different ways, and the emotional
hardship of that, but then also the lightness to it and that this was
natural and this was this was what was happening, And so I what what
really happened? Is. As time went on and I was an event coordinator,
so I was doing fashion shows and music festivals and weddings, and it
was all very high speed, high show kind of activity. And it started
feeling more and more and more empty to me. And you know, I
wanted it to be a bigger show, a better show. I wanted people
to be happier. I wanted, you know, all of these things that
were really I mean, you can't always get all of that was feeling very
empty, and it was actually my work with a homeless man who I took
under my wing. He was eighty nine years old, and I started caring
for him, and I fell in love with doing this work with him and
learning about him, and also just the understanding that someone's way of living could
be so different than mine and yet that can be okay too. So not
to push my values and judgments on this person. He actually liked living on
the streets. He just wanted a place to go when it was very cold.
So not only was I learning how to care for this gentleman and he
accepted the care, he loved it, but I also it was also a
lesson in really community death care, in embracing the way that people are so
that they can have the best possible death that fits with their life. And
after doing that, I knew this was my path and I worked with a
crossover event. That's kind of fun. It's the thirteen Indigenous grandmothers arrived in
town and I was the lead coordinator. So we had these incredibly powerful elders
and my event coordinating skills, and so it really was the crossover event where
it just solidified. I'm like, I got it, I know it.
I'd like to get a copy of an audio or video of that elder's gathering.
That sounds very cool. Was it on? Was the theme on passing
death? No, the thirteen Indigenous grandmothers were touring. I don't know if
they still are because a lot of them have become quite aged or have died.
I don't know if others have taken their place. This was a mon
Pillier, Vermont. It was not recorded, but they were just wreading the
message of caring for our planet and listening to excellent and the importance of sacred
water. It was really hard, right, what is it about the Western
culture that considers death a failure? Why we do we have I mean,
we still have this problem and I have had speakers in conferences who are experts,
like Levigne and some other people that have spoken on the process of dying.
But it seems like we want to be young forever. We are so
challenged to die. Why why do you think that is? That's really big
question. Well give me, give me the short answer, because you're working
in this field and in this book Death Nasty, and we're going to talk
about that. I want to talk, you know, about the practice of
it, and it's wonderful. But why do we have such a problem with
it? Why, you know, we're like, I'm not going to die,
I'm gonna live forever. I want to be young. I want to
have my face lifted. I want to I want to you know, dye
my hair. I don't want to be an older person. Yeah. Yeah,
we're a society that does not respect our elders in the slightest and so
I'm sure over time in different cultures people have been obsessed with beauty and youth,
but we've taken it to an absolute extreme here where we isolated anybody that
is not producing, that is not you know, boosting the economy, that
is not putting on a happy face and putting our best book forward. And
you know what we tend to prize is people who look so quote unquote looks
so young even though they're a particular age, and it's just it's unbelievable.
So it's made for a very unhealthy, unhappy, grief stifled society. Yeah,
it's it's harming us and in many ways. And I think we've seen
this continue to unfold over the generations and I don't know where it's going.
Saying as there are filters that you can use in your phone that make you
look like absolutely glamorous, like that's crazy gorgeous. I know. I mean
I've been looking at those apps and they're like it takes like years off your
face, so like you're a very young person. If people are putting those
up on their Facebook pages. Yeah. Yeah, So you're saying we're having
problems as a society because we're go, go, go, go, and
and uh we don't sit and quiet our minds and look at I mean work
with nature and so forth and so on. So it's an unnatural way of
living, is what you're suggesting. Is there any is there any hope for
this? And because in a minute here I'm going to ask you another question
what you bring up in your book is how did our ancestors process the problem
this this end of life point of you know, reference, How did they
go about doing they seem to be so connected with the earth, you know,
and seeing animals die and seeing elders die. How did how do you
think that there was what was the difference? What is the difference do you
see with with just to clarify with how we read death and dying in society
now versus how our ancestors may have treated it. Yeah, well, I
think that an interesting aspect is that we now have access to so much because
of the Internet, because of social media, that we're able to see.
So, Okay, you gotta sorry, You're gonna have to edit that cut
out. I totally just lost track of what I was saying. Sorry about
it. I'm asking you some important questions because we talk a lot about the
ancients and a lot of the native cultures are very connected to the earth,
and they they through cycles, seasonal cycles, winters, fall, spring,
summer. It's kind of like the body, you know, in many ways,
you're going through these processes and at some point you're bodies like Okay,
I'm ready to pass. I'm ready to transition. Why what was the difference,
What is the difference between our ancestors understanding of death and how we treated
today. I think a lot of what happened was that we were seeing death
regularly. So when people died in the home or when they died in the
community, it was really an event that people would come together to dig the
hole to bury the body to and and deaths were expected. Death happened at
all ages, all the time, and so there was nothing foreign about it.
So it's not even necessarily that people, you know, were living so
close to the earth. I mean, and certainly in some cultures that's true.
It's just that there was no hiding death because there were no other options.
That's a great point. Yeah, So we ended up and this is
fairly recently. You know, in the around the nineteen twenties was the great
hospital boom in the United States, and not long after became became antibiotics,
and antibiotics were a miracle. They still are in a lot of ways,
and so there were miracles happening all the time. When when people could send
their loved ones to the hospital and they would come back, they would come
back home again, and that was so powerful. Doctors became so powerful,
medicine became so powerful that people just entrusted all of their sick, including their
dying, including their elderly, to medical care. Yeah, and then easy
enough to have the funeral home come scoop them up after that. And so
death has really been removed from the household and a lot of ways removed just
completely so that people are not even attending the dead, are not even attending
their own funerals now very commonly. And so you might say goodbye to Grandma
when she's up and walking around, and then she dies and she gets buried
and you never saw her body again. Yeah, And that's one of the
gentle deaths. Those are the beautiful, gentle, expected deaths that really people
can find some degree of comfort in. But when they're completely hidden, and
when headline news is about wars, refugees, mass shootings, and then we
have video games and movies about different kinds of tragic deaths, those are the
things we're exposed to and not gentle deaths. And I think that's probably the
biggest difference about what has changed drastically over generations. I myself know, I
mean I I was with my grandfather as he was passing. He decided he
wanted to be at home and the family cared for him up until I know
he died at home. It's many years ago, and so it was shocking.
It was shocking, and it was everybody was numb. I remember feeling
very numb about it. Talk about I mean I was, Uh. My
son had a birth doula and it was she was great for my wife at
the time. Talk about a death doula, What does that mean? What
is an encompass Mmm, So, a death doula is very very much like
a birth doula, where they're you're assisting ushering the life out of the being,
just like the birth dola would usher the life and you know, in
transition to to be here on earth. So it's an easy way to describe
it, which says everything and absolutely nothing is it's a non medical, holistic
caregiver. And the word non medical is in there because we're not doctors unless
you happen to be a doctor. But we're not doctors. We're not necessarily
trained medical staff, we're not lawyers, we're not you know, all of
these different professions, and yet we happen to have a lot of the the
skills, some of those basic skills, or we can point people in the
right direction. So what happens during the dying time is people get you know,
understandably very emotional. It's really hard to think of everything that quote unquote
needs to be done. And so a death doula should be somebody who comes
in who is this constant presence that offer for a little bit of clarity,
a little bit of calmness, a little bit of encouragement saying you're doing it
right and this is okay. And that encouragement could go to not just the
one who's dying, but also the family member's friends, community. But something
really important to know is that, or just to understand, is that death
dulas have always been around. So the work of a death duela is nothing
new. It's just that the name death doula and this context is something that's
pretty catchy right now and people think, oh, I want to do death
duela training, But it doesn't mean that the training they did was any better
than somebody who was just in the situation and had no choice. You know,
there are plenty of caregivers who dulah the dying who've never done a certificate
course, but they are They go through it with their spouse or their aunt,
their uncle, their child, whoever happens to be. So this work
has always been done throughout time, and it's important to remember that that it's
not any kind of exclusive club. I feel like sometimes when people think that
it's a specialty training that you can do, that it means that they might
not have these innate skills themselves, and they do. You people rise to
the occasion, they adapt, and they do what they have to in different
circumstances. Yeah. I like that The book is death nesting and this is
the theme of the book, which is fantastic. Describe what that is,
I mean, besides making the space where this person who's dying comfortable and holistic,
discuss some of the other attributes of a nesting situation and why it's it's
critical because and we're going to talk here about the actual which is wonderful about
the book. You get into the actual process of what the dying person is
dealing with on a physical level. But what is the why is the nesting
aspect so important? Well, the sooner you think about your own death and
dying process, the sooner you'll be able to really appreciate what's going on for
you right now in your life just as it is, so you know,
if you can imagine your future dying process and what it might feel like to
you and really lean into that. I have some meditations in the book,
but to really feel and think and experience as best you can with your genation
what it might be like to be dying and what happens is you know,
some fears might come up, but if you push those aside, leave the
fears aside, and just think of what kind of thoughts might pop up in
the dying process, then you might realize, Wow, I feel a lot
of guilt about X, Y and Z or I really actually I have never
gone on this trip. I've been saying I'm going to do it for thirty
years. I want to actually do this trip so by and this is part
of the death nesting process. So that's an emotional kind of self self death
nesting that one can do. So that can help you live a better life,
which is really the importance of doing any kind of contemplations about death and
buying. It's so amazing what you just said in this meditation where you're revealing
or experiencing your death. Even though you might be a young person, all
this other thinking is coming up, like why wait, I need to go
to this vag I need to go to this place on a vacation, I
need to do these things that I've been thinking of. So it's actually a
process, which is fascinating. I mean, that's so amazing because it's like
the death process. You're done physically, and you're saying through this meditation it's
like, get up, get off your ass, go do what you've been
yearning to do before you leave the planet. Yeah. Yeah, And you
know what, it doesn't even necessarily require a bunch of money and time.
It could be that you just really have felt guilt and this happens for fifty
years because you have always wanted to apologize to so and so. That can
be an enormous weight lifted off from your chest that you can eliminate that so
it's not showing back up again on your deskbed. So there are you know,
beautiful fun things you can do, like I've always wanted to dye my
hair purple, Well, great, go for it. But there's some of
the emotional things that don't have to be so extreme. And you know what,
maybe nobody will ever know, and it's just something that you took a
look at that you decided you wanted to resolve so that you didn't have that
sitting with you or literally like a weight on you when you were dying.
Would you say that this meditation has come up in your practice as a doula
seeing people say I wish I would have done this, I wish I would
have cleared my relationship with this person. I mean, that's a big one.
I read that in your book, and I've heard from other people that
they didn't resolve issues with family with friends, with loved ones. That's right,
yeah, right, And you know that that also is I don't know
because they didn't live in you know, generations ago. But that also is
a kind of a sign of the times where you know, showing a weakness
is not anything that you would do. Showing any kind of vulnerability is not
you know, it's not prized in our society, and so people, yeah,
they try to save face their whole life, and regrets and guilt are
very common in the dying process. Yeah, let's talk about where people die.
You write in your book thirty one percent of people die at home,
and it appears to be growing. In the beginning, when you introduced who
how you got into the doula practice, you were saying that a lot of
people are dying in hospitals. If you have a choice, should you pass
it home? I would I would think yes, that's a simple answer.
But if you don't have the care to pass it home, that's the big
issue, right, That's right, that's exactly right. So people so with
an expected death, which is what we're considering now, to die in a
nursing home or residential care, or your own home or your family's home,
or even in a hospital setting, it really depends on so many different factors.
Does the person have health insurance, so are they going to cover the
hospital stays? Do they have enough money to stay in residential care? Does
a residential care facility allow hospice to come in? And sometimes people, I
think most of the population statistics say, would choose to die at home,
but it's not always possible for many different reasons, and sometimes they're not going
to get the best care if they're at home, because it does take a
village. It takes a lot to care for somebody who's actively dying, you
know, somebody who's actively dying can be like that for weeks, you know,
twenty four hours a day, or it could be just a couple of
days, and so you have no idea. People have to clear their schedules
in order to give this care. They have to leave work, they have
to find their own childcare, whatever it happens to be. So sometimes facilities
are better equipped to deal with this, but even that is a real shortage
right now, and it's not guarantee that anybody will get some kind of amazing
care. Yeah, that's a good point. Talk briefly about an advanced directive
and why this is important. You had this in your book and I was
like, wow, that really makes sense. I kind of have an advanced
understanding of what your process is, what you know, how you want to
be cared for while you're well mhm yeah. So the uh, the Vermont
Advanced Directive. You can look in your state and see if they have an
advanced directive. There are national advanced directives that you can take a look at.
The one from Vermont is a really good one, and they have a
long form and a short form. But it's so funny it says a good
time to update your advanced directive is when you have a diagnosis, a death,
a decade, birthday, deterioration, divorce, these five d's and divorce.
Why in the world would you tell people those are all like really really
emotionally heavy things. That's not a good time to look at advanced directives.
No practical because you need to rename your next of kin than the person that
you want to be your agent. But it really could be something that is
a family event. Hey, guys, this year at Christmas, we're going
to work on our advanced directives. You can have a drink, you can
have, you know, some coffee, you can have. It can be
like, it can be something interesting that you know where you have to be
creative though, And Marie, you're saying Christmas, I'm going, oh my
god, I thought you were joking, But you're serious. I am very
serious. I think it to be fun and disturbing. You got to make
it fun. And you'll see some people will perk right up and they're usually
proud of the fact that they have done their advance directive. And then some
people will kind of like slink back to the corners. And but why not,
why not talk about it? Because let's say it's a flop, right.
It was introduced during the holiday, nobody talked about it when they went
home later, it still was in the back of their head, you know.
And that's okay, because you know, it should be part of normal
conversation, you know. And it can be funny, like saying, hey,
Mom, you know I want the China cabinet, you know, when
you die, that kind of thing, you know, it's funny. My
grandfather actually did that. He was a doctor and he collected all kinds of
stuff that people said they wanted. And he actually, long before he passed.
This is like maybe a decade before he passed, he says, this
will go to you, this will go to you. And I was like,
what are you doing? You know? But it was actually smart because
he cut off all the fighting that would have happened. There was fights anyhow.
But it's easier for people to name things they want to give away than
to think about it whether or not they want a feeding tube. This is
true. Oh that's a whole different thing. But one conversation can lead to
another, and I just wish it was a little bit more commonplace. Let's
get into the actual physical dying. I really enjoyed the portion of your book
where you describe the physical, the sensations, the senses that are coming and
going. Talk about hearing, What are they? What is someone who's is
passing? What is that all about? I think it's so beautiful that hearing
is one of the last senses to go. So if you can imagine that,
you know, imagine you're just laying in bed and it's it's dark,
or you have your eyes closed and you're not moving, sound becomes everything,
right, So you know, at nighttime it might be scary if you hear
a sump, but in the daytime, with your eyes open, you might
hear that same thump and think, oh, it's nothing. But that's the
power that is attached to hearing, and so that sense really opens up when
everything else begins to close down. So the person's no longer eating and enjoying,
tasting and smelling food, they're no longer looking at their surroundings. So
hearing becomes just this beautiful opportunity to access the person who's dying. And that
is one reason why it's important to consider the surroundings, the sounds that are
going on within the room. Although you know in a lot of ways,
by the time the person gets to that state, I believe you know,
they're hearing it, but it's not really impacting them all that much either.
So it's kind of an in between state. Like again, like if you
can imagine being kind of asleep and you might know some things are going on,
you know, some bustling around, but it doesn't really have your attention.
Yeah, we're going to take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors
to identify themselves, and we will return with my guest today, Anne Marie
Keppel, discussing her newest book, Death Nesting. We'll be right back.
My guest today is a death doula. Her name is Anne Marie Cappell,
who's written a book called death Nesting, using traditional methods of helping someone pass
over to the other side. Would you say that people in that process of
passing are in an altered state of consciousness? Oh yeah, oh yeah,
you know. It seems kind of like to me, if you have ever
witnessed a woman in labor, and let's say it's been a longer late labor,
and she's deep in the labor process, kind of all hell could be
breaking loose around the person and they are in their own space, and I
refer to that as a secret nesting, which I talk about in the book,
and I have witnessed it being the exact same thing, the same kind
of internal labor that's going on with somebody who's dying. I've and this is
I don't know if you can address this or not, but I've had people
on the program and spoken to people who are, like you, a doulah
that are working with a dying person and they are seeing things. They're seeing
relatives show up, They're seeing all kinds of stuff, their guides, their
hired their wisdom teachers. What do you say to that it's there, it's
there, and it's real, and there's no way it can't be real.
You know it's But I mean, as a doulas someone's talking to you,
do you see Jane over there? Well, how do you react to that?
As someone who's supporting the passing, Yeah, you say, oh,
is Jane over there? You wouldn't ever tell them that Jane is not there.
However, as a dula, first of all, I don't put my
values and beliefs on the family that I'm working with. But and all of
that, anybody who works in death care, ask a, hospice nurse,
hospice workers, people RNs, people who are working in the er, people
who are e mts and emergency vehicles, death duelas people talk about others coming
to them, you know, so it deceased loved ones. They might give
them different names. They might say angels, they might say there's a man
over there. They might not, you know, they might not identify necessarily
with someone's name. But there are, over and over and over again,
just beings come to help help for the transition. Right, yes, right.
You brought up a really good point in the fact that a doula is
a facilitator and you do not impose your values and beliefs on the person who
is passing. I mean that's really critical, isn't it. Yes, Yes,
absolutely, And I have worked with so I might believe and see and
notice that, you know, somebody has arrived, so there's been an energetic
shift, but I wouldn't talk about that. And I've worked with lots of
people who don't believe in anything other than their body dying, and that's perfectly
fine and perfectly beautiful most of the time, or at least the people that
I have worked with, they are very closely connected with nature a lot of
times, and so it's easy. If I'm working with them and they're having
trouble getting out of their body, I can work with them and say,
hopefully I would have talked to them in advance to get to know them and
what brings them comfort. But I can have them swim, just swim.
You can just swim out into the distance and just keep on going. If
they really love swimming, or if they really love being in the forest,
walk in the forest. How far can you go? How far can you
walk out? That's the last part, as they're really ill. Is that
what you're helping them do is keep swim, keep swimming, or walk on
this hike, take your hike, smell the foliage and so forth. Is
that what you're suggesting or is that just like a regular thing you would do
over a period of time. No, I actually haven't heard that's what I
do. I haven't heard of any other doula or you know, quote unquote
psychopomp that's somebody who helps somebody get out of their body. Use those techniques
that I use those techniques because they seem fitting with the people that I'm working
with, and it's just you know, it's just an adaptation to something.
Somebody might say, go to God, go to Mary's, go to Mary's
loving arms. And so when there's a religion, you can tell them to
go to go to a lat wherever it is that the person needs is believing
where they're going to go. But when the person has no beliefs, sometimes
people they get to their deathbed and they actually don't have any set beliefs of
where they're going. Oh interest, So then we just work with Okay,
what brings you comfort, and we try to get try to really distill it
down to just the feeling of comfort, because their comfort might be attached to
an earthly thing. Yes, and they're going some plaze or they're leaving their
body where they're not going to have that earthly thing that brings some comfort.
So then they find the comfort within their body, and then I can tell
them to open that comfort, make it bigger, or if they're having trouble
leaving their body, to use these other methods. I want to mention real
quickly. You have a short paragraph or two about working with psychedelics, and
there are some native people who will use psychedelics towards like mushrooms or I don't
know, maybe various forms of cannabis to kind of have a vision quest or
have a sense of what's happening. What do you suggest on that? I
mean, you didn't really suggest, you were just kind of throwing it open
when as a possibility for those people who perhaps ingest psychedelics, Yeah, yeah,
I mean there I would never suggest somebody necessarily do psychedelics if they didn't
ever do it. Yeah, but if it calls to them, I say,
well, why not check it out. But it's nothing that I necessarily,
you know, say, hey, have we tried to But and yes,
I mean that is what shamans and medicine people have been doing around the
world for eons, and so you know, and in some places it was
not the individual that went on this journey. It was the shaman that went
on the journey on their behalf. So it's it's not always that the individual
that has to do this. But in a lot of psychedelic experiences, people
experience their own death a form of death. Yes, and it's not always
in the in the journey, it's not always pleasant. A lot of times
I think it is. But no matter what, there's something that can be
gleaned from it if you have the right setting, the right you know,
the right space that's being held for you. It's it's such a shame that
sometimes people do psychedelics in a party atmosphere and then they have this very you
know, it doesn't actually matter, like whatever kind of experience it is that
they have, that it's kind of cast aside. Or maybe it was really
scary and they didn't have any support, nobody had to talk with them about
it, and then they're just left with a kind of an additional minor trauma.
Perhaps, Yeah, setting is really everything. I love that you brought
up something I thought was very interesting. The shaman would take the place of
the dying person and experience the psychotropic experience or take those products, come back
and perhaps report to the person who's passing what they can expect. Yeah,
well, psychedelics, even if the person is not currently dying, A medicine
person can journey on their behalf and come back with a message, So that
can be very common. But also putting somebody who wanted to assist the dying,
if they were in a light altered state of consciousness, they might be
able to much more easily meet the other individual on the same plane or on
a similar plane where they can actually help guide them out of their body.
Yeah, I love that. That was great. Talk about the process the
person who is passing, what they're going through when it comes to eating,
digesting, and elimination, which is very critical because we all eat, we
all drink, and when you're asking, it's a different situation, isn't it.
Yeah, Yeah, there is a there. There can be a lot
of a lot of hardships, a lot of family dynamics that arise around eating.
So it's very common that families come together and they eat, or you
know, communities come together and they eat and they eat it, you know,
just at the dinner table or at a wedding or at a funeral,
and it's it signifies health when when people eat, it's it means that they're
still living. Basically, So as people are going through the process of their
you know, as their diagnosis progresses, or as they get closer to dying,
they may stop eating as much, they may stop eating altogether. They
may not even want to drink anymore, and that's an eat harder ones.
So a family member seeing that Mom isn't eating anymore and she's not even drinking.
Can feel like the mother may have chosen this, by the way,
but it can almost feel to other family members like a form of abuse,
that the mother is being neglected. She should at least have hydration, she
should at least have an IV when really it's called voluntary stopping of eating and
drinking, and it can really help through the dying process. And then you
just interrupt you It helps because it begins shutting the system down. Is that
correct? When you stop eating and you stop drinking, elimination is halted,
right, Yeah, Still there's still some output. There's It will take a
while because your body is filled with water and liquid and so there still will
be some urinary output. Eventually it may completely stop, depending on how long
of a period of time this is going for how long of a period of
time a person lives for. But it is one form of hastening death.
And sometimes when people hear that hasten death, it can sound kind of grating,
It can sound like an alert. But if somebody is actively dying,
this is a perfectly okay thing, which means instead of continuing to give the
body nourishment and energy, that it allows the body to kind of EBB and
just allow the output of energy to stop or to greatly reduce, and people
can end up in a kind of euphoric state where it if you watch somebody
go through it, there may be some hard days in there, but they
look pretty good, like it looks like they are doing the right thing for
themselves. Would you call that kind of a death fast where they're basically cutting
all nutrients, including liquids out, and they're doing it not even perhaps knowing
that they're doing it. They're just like, I don't want to eat or
drink anymore. My grandfather passed that way. Took them a couple of weeks,
but you know, I can't remember how long time. I think it
was at least a couple of weeks. But it's almost a natural inclination for
someone to do that, isn't it. Yeah, it can feel very natural.
You know, everybody's body is different, everybody's idea of how the process
should go is very different. But you see that very commonly with animals.
It is natural. Talk a little bit about caring for somebody who is in
the life stages of life, their skin, moisturizers, things like that,
And because I really thought that was a good touch that you had in the
book. I didn't even consider that. So talk a little bit about that.
M So as people, you know, as the life experience tends to
get very small, of course, we don't know what kind of inner work
is going on. It could be very expensive world. You know, there's
just this there's this inner nest where they are their immediate surroundings, and they're
pretty stationary. They might be rolled from one side to another to prevent bed
sores, all right, yeah, yeah, but it's they're not getting up
and doing things. And when you're doing that, you know, the body
can get stiff or you know, cold and hot in different places. All
that's very natural. But it's one way that if the dying person allows it
and feels comfortable with it, it's one way that the family or loved ones
can continue to have an intimate relationship with the person even though they might not
even be talking anymore. So they could say, would it feel good if
I rubbed your feet and just rubbing some massage oil in there, or perhaps
some massaging their scalp, massaging their hands. As far as moisturizing, yeah,
there can be you may want to keep moisturizing the person's lips and mouths,
because that can tend to get really dry, especially if they're breathing through
their mouth over and over again. And sometimes I'm not so sure that it
actually bothers them all that much, but when the caregivers are looking at the
person, it looks like it's bothering them. You know, Oh, interesting
chaps don't look very comfortable. Fascinating. I'd like to learn a little more
about what you call spiritual support. And before we started we booked, I
mentioned to you that I was a reiki teacher, and in your book you
talk about reiki. Why is I mean, I understand what reiki's all about,
but talk a little bit about working with reiki healing vibrational healing with somebody
who's passing. Hmm. I think it's a beautiful way, again to have
this intimate exchange with the person who's dying. If prior to the person's active
dying process, you have been granted some permission, because you know, permission
is everything energetically, but it can be a really beautiful way to engage in
healing them energetic body, so allowing an exchange of energy for any kind of
hang up in any particular chakra area that really can can begin to release so
that the person can can leave their body that much easier. I think,
and you suggest this that if you can, as a doula or a caregiver,
can work with someone before they get into really the last stages of passing
and understand what their spiritual practices are, that can really be helpful. Can
it? Because maybe if someone meditated regularly. I don't know if you can
meditate in your if you're passing. What do you say to that. I'm
a long a lifelong meditator, and so I don't know if I would be
able to. I don't know what stage it is. What do you suggest
on that somebody who's been meditating for years? Yeah, I am a lifelong
meditator too, so it is. I believe it's very helpful. The people
that I have worked with who have had a really strong meditation practice, I
have found that they are much more willing to It's strange to say this,
but I'm going to use quotation marks quote unquote except they're dying, because it's
therese all kinds of variations on acceptance and what that means and et cetera.
But that what I have seen is that it's a much more peaceful process that
they have already been and they made friends with their mind. They've already made
friends with their thoughts. So even if they're having the exact same thoughts as
somebody else who has never meditated in their entire life, it's at least not
a stranger to them. So they say, ah, you know, they
can recognize, Wow, I have this thought on repeat. I'm going to
either let it go or I'm going to visualize something that's really peaceful and keep
my mind right there. So I have found that it has from my experience,
it does make an easier process. Fascinating you talk in your book you
say that most different different cultures practice the same typical technique techniques. Talk just
a little bit about that, because when you were saying that, I was
thinking, Okay, Asian cultures, European cultures, Hispanic cultures. I know
about the Spanish cultures. I don't know about the Asian cultures so much.
But so you're saying in your work that if you you are working with someone
from a different culture, the techniques and helping them past are about the same.
Is that what you're suggesting, So it can be. So what I
tried to focus on with death Nesting is really kind of what happens with the
body that is universal, right, heart is going to become erratic no matter
who you are, on what corner of planet Earth, the breathing is going
to you know, this is how the breathing comes into play. And so
I did try to for that segment of the book, going through the dying
process, I really tried to just stick with what happens with the human body
during the dying process. Now, culturally there'll be all kinds of different ways
that people decide to care for the person who's dying and how they care for
theiry. And I always tell people I am not an expert in every culture
through the different dying and death practices, but I don't have to be in
order to care for somebody who is dying from a different culture or religion that
I'm familiar with. So as a death Duela, I can be there to
share emotional support and give resources and not necessarily take place in any of the
ceremonial aspects of care. That's not for me to do. And the whole
idea of for me being a death la and everybody you know, a lot
of people have a different opinion here is the death relationould really be in the
background, supporting the family and friends and community to do the work for their
dying loved one. Yeah. So again you're a facilitator and you're not imposing
your things. So someone came in and said we would like to do this
ceremony, this and this and this, that's not going to be It shouldn't
be a problem, you know, not at all. I should just do
some research to figure out how to not be invasive or disrespectful. So,
you know, if it means covering my shoulders, That's what I'm going to
do, you know. So just make some very basic courtesies for how to
show up for them. But you know, sitting sitting with someone while they
cry, that's pretty universal, you know. So there's some ways that a
death doula can be a presence that is really comforting, even though they might
not have any of the hands on care for the one dying. Fascinating the
books called Death Nesting the Heart Centered Practices of a Death Duela. My guest
today has been Anne Marie capel Uh. You have a section in towards the
end of the book which I didn't even consider, which is very important.
How do we talk to children about someone who's dying, and this is critical
especially when children are part of the direct family. M Yeah, ideally they
you know, in terms of the death duela, the death deela would have
nothing to do with that other than support the the adult to comfort and talk
to and care for the child. So it really would depend on what the
situation is. If the child witnessed something, you know, was it a
sudden death or was it an expected death. So it's really across the board.
And also the age of the child. Are they very little, are
they able to appreciate a puppet show where the puppets can work out how they're
feeling and talk about what happened, or are they a little bit older where
they might you know, benefit from a story or a video or whatever it
happens to be, or just part of the family conversation that they're not necessarily
excluded from it. There's a lot of times when people won't talk about anything
that's going on while the children are in the room, and they'll put them
in front of the TV or whatever it happens to be. I'm not saying
that's wrong by any means. I'm just saying that it's healthy for children to
understand that adults get sad, adults don't know all of the answers. Adults
can come together when they don't know what's going on, when they feel sad
or scared, and to listen to the conversation and see people's reactions. So
the children will oftentimes do as well as the adults do with the situation because
they're wh watching and learning. But it really depends on their age. Okay,
how would you say we're doing as a culture. You've been in this
for a period of time. Would you say that we're getting better at watching
our loved ones past or is it still a problem. I think it's always
going to rip our hearts out. I think it's always going to be sad.
You know. At the same time, there are some people who have
a really active spiritual life that really feel like they just slipped into the other
room, that really feel like they're just I love that they just slipped into
the other room. Okay, I'm believing. Yeah, the lifetime. Do
you believe in past do you believe in reincarnation? That's a good question.
I it always change, so I definitely grew up believing in reincarnation. So
my parents are they had, you know, sixteen years of Catholic schools.
They were very Catholic, but then when they raised me, they had all
their Catholic background but became very new age. Well, you're in Vermont.
Vermont's very hip. I have a lot of friends in Vermont. You know,
you guys have a cannabis that's legal and medicinal recreational as well. I
mean, you're just hip, so pretty cool. We're pretty cool. You
can come visit, you can come up here. So I do believe in
reincarnation, but to what degree. I'm always playing with, I'm always working
with. So it's impossible to not think that there's some kind of a spirit
world because you see it time and time again when you're working with people who
are dying. So that's solid. I see your case, touch Feeld,
I got that. In what form you come back again? And if you
have any recollection or any bleed through from other time? Quite possibly. I
do believe that all time is going on, or some form of time is
going on at once or overlapping, and so I guess I don't know if
the same spirit incarnates into a different body, or if there are all of
these experiences going on at the same time. Yeah, here's another one for
you. Do you believe that the reality that the departeds are going to is
preparing for them, that there's a whole system in place to receive the soul
of this departed individual. I think that's so beautiful. I hope. So
we should just spit it out and Marie tell us how many. I mean,
you've seen it, You've witnessed these people passing. You're a sensitive person.
I would think that you're like, yes, I can see that,
and I mean it like on a dimensional spiritual path. We're physical here now,
but there's other dimensions that are there that we're working with that we just
don't talk about because in this time of the world, this epoch, we
don't associate those other realms unless you're working with them, unless you understand them
on some level. Yeah. Well, I can say that I have had
clients that show up to me in spirit form and I will be walking through
I am not a medium, but I will say that I have medium like
activity, really often walking through a shopping mall and all of a sudden,
I look at somebody and I it's kind of funny. I'll get this really
strange desire. You know something, You'll say, go ask them out for
dinner, just to dinner. Just go ask them out for dinner. I'm
like, am right, you cannot ask that stranger out for dinner. That's
so weird. So I know that. And because I have had clients show
up to me and I understand what it is that they're saying to me.
I know now I didn't know at at one point that that absolutely is the
spirit saying, hey, hey, look, you know that's my husband.
Go go out the past life and somebody, somebody who was already dead,
and they're just prompting me like, hey, go get my husband, go
ask them out for dinner. I'm like, no, that's no, I
can't do that. Well, I hear what you're saying, so that you're
hearing voices from departed individuals, go and say hi, go better to dinner.
Oh my god, that is so funny. Memory. This has been
a pleasure. It's been fun. I think we need more books like this.
We need to hear about this. How can people get a hold of
you? What's your website? I have two websites, so my author website
is Anne Marie Keppel dot com and that's that's the hyphen, so just Anne
Marie Kepple dot com. And I have another one with my I'm a death
Dula educator as well, and that one is Star dust Meadow dot com.
Okay, and someone who's listening who is interested in becoming a duela, how
do they go about doing that? There are programs all over the place.
Some of them are online, some of them are in person. Research carefully
the teacher because there's no standard death Dula training out there, so every training
is very individual to each teacher. So research the teacher, make sure you
have a connection with them, and you're welcome to come check out my course.
Fantastic Hey, real pleasure. Thank you for the insight click you asked
fantastic questions. This was really fun, so interesting. When I finished that
interview with Anne Marie, I thought to myself, she is right on target.
She has an aptitude to do this kind of work, and I don't
think anyone can do it. I don't think you can grab somebody off the
street and say hey, I want you to learn how to do this.
You have to have almost an insight into the process of leaving. And I
believe, and I've heard and I've read, I've talked to elders that passing
is a celebration in many ways. In the Indigenous community, someone who's dying
is celebrated. They eat and they hang out together during the person's passing,
and it is it's a celebration in life, but it's also part of the
experience, the human experience to die. And we don't talk enough about this,
and we don't understand it. We're all we're all about finding the perfect
casket, the right burial ground, the right headstone. That's all marketing,
that's all commercialized. We're forgetting the person, you know. And I think
I mentioned it before. When my grandfather was passing, he did not want
to be in a hospital, he did not want to be in a nursing
home, hooked up to tubes and stuff like that. And he had the
family around him right up until the point where he passed. And then there's
procedures when somebody we didn't even get into this today, there's procedures. You
got to have a death certificate and so forth and so on. So one
of my I think my it might have been my cousin who's a doctor,
knew all this stuff and he had it all set up so when the EMT
shows up, he did his sign off on it and then take the body.
I don't know. It's as our Western culture is like, oh that's
a I don't want to see that. I don't want to see somebody.
And I think it's important that we all see someone passing because it's part of
our conditioning. It's part of our condition. It's part of our condition as
a human being to see someone leaving their body. The other thing, which
is so very important is this leads to consciousness. Talking of consciousness, what
happens when we die and atheists would say nothing, you go nowhere, you're
dead. But more of the indigenous and ancestral traditions are you're leaving. Your
soul is leaving this encasement the body, and it's moving on. If you're
into Hindu traditions, okay, they're preparing the person and wondering where he's going
to incarnate. This is where all these Dali lamas come from. It's like,
okay, that guy, you know, the Dhali lama has lived so
twenty thousands of years and apparently there's a way to discover the child that's reborn,
and they do a test and if he passes a test or has certain
acknowledgement of key figures and words and items that the previous Dhali Lama had.
The that's the reincarnated individual. That's kind of cool. That's kind of cool.
You gotta wonder about that. And then I have friends that are like,
I don't want to come back to this. I am miserable, And
I always say I have one really close college buddy who's like, I'm not
coming back. I'm sick of this mess. I'm sick of the way earth.
Well, the thing is, that's this incarnation. This is what's happening
right now. There could be more pleasant incarnations. And I would love to
have somebody write a book on Okay, writing the script for a lifetime.
I think we've had a little bit of that with some of our guests.
But you know what I mean, who are the souls and guides who you
work with before you incarnate? Right? And is this script changeable? I
think it is. I think you come in with a script, but you
can modify it. So lots of lots to consider when you pass. But
it's not like you know, oh, my god, that guy's dying.
That woman, she is dying. I don't want to be around that.
No, No, you have to change that attitude. I'm guilty of the
thing too. I mean I've had relatives that are passing and I was like,
I didn't necessarily enjoy their company that much, but I was like,
I don't want to visit and then I'll be like I gotta say my goodbyes.
So something to consider. Hey, are you thinking about holidays next year?
What places you might want to go to? So much to do?
So there's so many possibilities right now of where you can go. But I
gotta tell you, one of the most amazing countries filled with antiquities is Egypt.
And we do a annual pilgrimage, if you want to call it that,
to Egypt every year and it is only fascinating, but it is awakening,
It is profound on a lot of different levels, and it is just
a wonderful tour. It's our Grand Egyptian Tour. We do it every spring.
The tour for twenty twenty four is April twenty sixth through May eighth,
twenty twenty four, and we just recently posted our itinerary This is a chance
to see some of the world's most fabulous temples, buildings, pyramids, and
statuary by a genius culture we consider as the Egyptians. Now I am coming
to the realization that a lot of these temples and things were there before they
showed up, before the dynastic Egyptians showed up, and it's now proving.
And we'll have Chris Dunn talk about a lot of the statuary was cut through
some machinery or technology that cuts it perfectly. It's too perfect to be man
made or man carved. But we get a chance to see all these wonderful
statues, all these amazing temples in a private setting. And one of the
beauties of our tours is that you join us and we see these things,
these temples, these pyramids privately without the public, and it makes a huge,
huge difference. It's not stressful, it's relaxed. We take our time,
we see things that are typically not available to the general public, and
we have a blast. Come out and join us. We're about halfway full.
We take very few people. We want to take about a bus load
hold about forty maybe fifty people at the max, and come out and join
us. See the itinerary. Register, go to earthancients dot com, forward
slash tours, look for the egypt banner and check it out. I mean,
I've been talking about people considering it as a Christmas gift, but the
more I think about it, it's more of a vacation time where you decompress
from your work, decompress from your family, friends, loved ones, whatever.
I mean, I got admit it. Even when I was married,
I was like, can I go on vacation by myself? And some people
would say, how dare you? How dare you leave your wife home?
Well, you know, as much as you love people and sometimes you got
to get out on your own. So I have my issues. So anyhow,
come out and join us for the Grand Egyptian Tour and you can see
the itinerary. You can register at earth ancients dot com forward slash tours.
If you register before the end of the year, that's December thirty first,
twenty twenty three, I'll extend in the discount of two hundred dollars off the
registration price and all you got to do is use the code get twenty twenty
four Grand Egyptian Tour twenty twenty four and we'll give you two hundred bucks off.
Come out and join us see the ancient world, the beauty of some
of these artifacts, the jewelry, the statuary of course, the temples,
and of course our final visit before we all get back on a plane and
fly home, Cufu Pyramid. We're geting a chance to see it on our
own for two hours. You can you can see the Grand Gow, or
you can see the King and the queens chamber quietly on your own. For
more information and details Earthencients dot com, Forward slash Tours. All right,
that's it for today's program. I want to thank my guest today, Ane
Marie Cappel. Her book Death Nesting just came out. You can get it
on Amazon and it's there to either download or purchase completely or purchase as a
book. All right, As always, the team of Ruth Thomas, Mark
Foster and everyone who makes this thing happen. You guys are amazing in your
rock as well. All right, take care, be well and we will
talk to you next time. And of the of the sloper as a sci