Becoming a Psychedelic Death Doula

In deep gratitude, we reflect on one of our most powerful conversations yet with Sania Khan, a Liberation Artist-Alchemist, Elemental Somatics Guide, Futurist and Multimodal Storyteller, where we explore what it means to live embodied futures. Sania's work centers around safety in the body and accessing the limitless creativity, joy, pleasure, sensuality, and imagination that are vibrating within us so that our inherent wisdom and cosmic knowingness can be shared with the world with full integrity.  This week we learn about Sania's work and how she guides others through a journey of somatic reconnection to safely come back into their bodies in order to understand their energetic experiences beyond the confines of language.  “What I'm doing in my practice is merely giving language to, in my own unique way, the practices that have existed long before me, practices that care to be in right relationship with the natural world, with the unseen world.” Through embodied futurism, a concept rooted in intergenerational healing and collective liberation, Sania walks with others to explore the depths of ancestral trauma and memories etched within their bodies to discover the transformative power of embracing our authentic selves. We reflect on moments in our personal journeys where we embraced unconventional choices, and explore the link between the profound power of sacred deviance and the liberation that arises from breaking away from normative structures.  In this very sacred and divinely inspired episode, it becomes undeniably clear that Sania's work is ushering the world forward into a new and liberated future. A future where we're fully embodied and in right relation with ourselves and the world around us, wholly connected to the ancient wisdom of the past, and the future we want to create.  “As you soften into your expansion, I just want you to be able to rest in the knowing that you're supported not only by other souls who want to experience you in your sovereignty and expansion and will celebrate you for exactly that. You are also held and supported by your benevolent ancestors, both human and cosmic. You're supported by this ecology that you're within and surrounded by this ecosystem of, again, the natural world, the unseen world that also wants the best for you. You're ultimately supported by this most vast, infinite energy that is our reason for being here, that also wants the best for you.” Learn more about Sania’s work and connect on IG at @heysaniakhan.

This week’s episode with Jess Lieu, who is a Somatic Sex Educator and Sexological Body Worker, is a really special one for us. Jess and Ellen met at a recent Death Doula Retreat with Going with Grace, and we’re honored to share this incredible episode.    Jess has an infectious love for life and pleasure, we both felt it so deeply in this conversation where we dive into all the facets of pleasure. We explore the inextricable connection between death work and pleasure work. We talk about societal expectations around pleasure, and how often those expectations don’t align with our experiences. And we dive into all the emotions and experiences that can come up in this work, especially if shame is present. Jess helps us understand the importance of boundaries and trust through this process, and how helping others reconnect with their bodies through pleasure and sensation opens the doors to deeper understanding of ourselves, more connectedness in relationships, and feeling more alive day-to-day.   “Often I work a lot with desire and consent. Oftentimes there's a disconnect between what we want and how our body is responding. Through working with the body, somatic practice, we're able to begin wiring and creating a congruency between what we really want and externalizing that through valuing what we want, trusting what we want, and then finally being able to ask for what we want. Yeah, pleasure, boundaries, feeling more pleasure, feeling more aliveness day to day or explicitly with sex and relational things, boundaries is a big one.”   In this very special conversation, Jess shows us how powerful healing through pleasure can be, and how we can use our senses to savor sensations as a way to connect with our bodies and cultivate more pleasure in our lives.   If you’d like to learn more about Jess and her work visit www.sensingsoma.com.    Connect with Jess on IG at @sensingsoma .   Ep. 99 - Healing Through Pleasure is now streaming on Apple and Spotify.

We absolutely adore this week's guest on Woo Knew. Eva Liao is a Consciousness and Spiritual Growth Mentor who helps others experience more calm, happiness, and connection in their everyday lives. We were brought together through a divine connection and this conversation was so much fun.   Eva just turned 39 and is starting a whole new chapter of her life in Austin, Texas where she lives in an Airstream trailer and fulfills her dream of starting an intentional community with a friend of hers. Eva's story is wildly inspiring, and in learning about her journey we got to excavate all of the layers in our very real, and often challenging experiences that came up when making a life changing decision like hers.   This is such a special episode because we really explore the liminal spaces, the in-between, and what those moments mean for us. We go into the depths of all of the emotions that come up, the questions we ask ourselves and the uncertainty that comes with not knowing what the future holds. Eva's strength and vulnerability takes us on this journey with her, and her experience is so inspiring because it's something that we'll all go through at some point in our lives. And through example, she teaches us the power of learning to trust and surrender in these messy liminal spaces.   "There's been no moment, actually, where I could not trust life. Again, I don't want to say this flippantly. Like, it's easy. This does feel like trust boot camp. Like, I'm living on a moment by moment basis of being like, every time I notice tension and it is a meditation, if I notice tension, it's like, okay, can I trust life right now? And it's just been really beautiful, actually. It's been so beautiful because then I can let go and surrender and be like, oh, my God, I don't have to control everything. It's a weird mix of, like, I'm not in the driver's seat, but not to say that I don't have responsibility, but I don't have to be hyper vigilant."   We talk about the importance of having community and tools to navigate these transitions, how major life changes can affect our nervous systems and our need to feel safe, as well. And if we're open to it, how these moments offer beautiful opportunities for growth and learning.   Ep. 98 - The Messy Liminal Space is not streamng on Apple and Spotify.   If you'd like to learn more about Eva and working with her, visit evaliao.com. You can also connect with Eva on Instagram at @iamevaliao.

This week we had the incredible privilege and honor of sitting down with Xochitl Ashe, a Fifth Generation Peruvian Medicine Woman, Founder of Magical Medicine Journeys and Visionary Mentor for leaders, entrepreneurs, creatives and world awakeners, as well as Ellen's medicine mentor. Xochitl shares so much wisdom with us in this conversation and we're deeply grateful for all the ways her teachings have impacted our lives and practices.    Through her mentorships, Xochitl helps others heal ancestral trauma and get back into deep connection with the Earth. She teaches us that through this work, we're able to find a deep spiritual connection to all the blessings our ancestors have to share with us, and it opens up a divine spiritual reconnection to the Earth.   For so many of us, money and love are deeply embedded ancestral wounds that we're working through. Xochitl helps us understand these wounds from a new perspective rooted in the wisdom that energy, inner power, love and prosperity are all energies, and invites us to think about how we source. She explains how sourcing vertically through our connection with the divine brings us back into our inner power and leads to sustainability and abundance. And when we source horizontally, we seek from things or people outside of ourselves, which is outside of our control and disconnected from the Earth, which leads to suffering from lack.   And to support those who are are working through a sense of lack or facing something difficult, Xochitl brings us back into connection with the Earth Mother. She offers wisdom to us as space holders on how to support others in finding trust and reconnecting to the divine love of the Earth. "I have myself witnessed in my own life and in the lives of those that I support, that at any moment when we are disconnected from this divine being that is the Earth, we suffer. We suffer from lack, we suffer from bad health, we suffer from lack of clarity. We can be in a lot of confusion. The premise of everything I do is really to reconnect us back to this incredible supporting energy, which is the Earth as a benevolent entity, energy that is our divine mother." As a 5th generation Medicine Woman, Xochitl has spent 27 years working with the sacred mushroom and offers retreats that are rooted in the indigenous wisdom of the Peruvian Andean tradition of her ancestral lineage. She talks to us about her upcoming Mazatec Psilocybin Mushroom Retreat in July, and how through this work it's her mission is to give reverance and honor to these medicines.   Ep. 97 - Sourced from Spirit is now streaming on Apple and Spotify. --------------------------------------------------------- Learn more about working with Xochitl and her offerings online at xochitlashe.com.  If you'd like to learn more about Magical Medicine Journeys and Xochitl's upcoming medicine retreat, visit magicalmedicinejourneys.com. You can also connect with Xochitl on Instagram at @xochitlashe.  Xochitl will also be featured in the upcoming Hay House Healing & Beyond Psychedelic Summit May 15th-19th. Register for this free online summt here. --------------------------------------------------------- Xochitl (So-chil) Kusikuy Ashe has been a teacher and guide in one-and-one mentorships, workshops, and ceremonies both in the U.S and internationally for the last 27 years.  At 16 years old she became the first female of five generations of men to be initiated into the healing traditions of her Peruvian ancestral lineage. She is a Medicine Woman in the Peruvian Andean tradition and has worked with sacred plant medicines since the time of her initiation.  For the past 23 years she apprenticed under her Godfather, a Mazatec Medicine Man of the ancient tradition of healing with the "Nti-si tho" "Santitos" or Psilocybin mushrooms.   She is a professionally trained herbalist, IFS Therapy Practitioner (Internal Family Systems) and specializes in the ceremonial use of Cacao and Psilocybin Mushrooms. In her practice, Xochitl focuses on the healing of generational trauma and the ways in which that trauma impairs our ability to thrive, create wealth, and have a positive impact on the world.   Founder of Magical Medicine Journeys, an Indigenous women owned retreat company, that offers legal Mazatec Psilocybin Mushroom Retreats in Mexico. Xochitl’s mission is to honor the traditional indigenous knowledge and ceremony of sacred plant medicine and provide the most authentic and powerful life changing experiences. She is faculty at Esalen Institute, The Microdosing Institute and the Shift Network.  

This week's episode is so divinely timed with the upcoming Scorpio Lunar Eclipse on Friday, May 5th. We had the honor of sitting down with Inez Singletary, an astrologer who is also versed in Qabalah and Tarot, creator of Many Moons Astrology, and mentor to our dear friend TanyaMarck.   Inez explains how an eclipse is connected to the north and south nodes, and guides us through the transits for our upcoming Scorpio Lunar Eclipse. She helps us understand the collective energies coming up this week, how we can work with the nodes to receive guidance, and how these transits are inviting us to call our power back through deeper connection with our ancestors.   Inez also did a reading for both of us to help illustrate some of the energies we're moving through. We were both blown away at how seen and validated we felt in receiving Inez's wisdom. It felt like she'd been intimately walking with us since the beginning of this eclipse season. And our charts were great examples of how impactful the eclipse energies can be--calling us to let go, stretch, grow, and expand.   If you'd like to learn more about Inez and work with her, you can connect with her online at manymoonsastrology.com. Ep. 96 Scorpio Lunar Eclipse is now streaming on Apple and Spotify.    ---------------- Inez Singletary is an astrologer who is also versed in Qabalah and Tarot. She interprets your chart as a mediator between you and the cosmos by holding the chart up as a mirror that helps you see where you’ve been and where you are going. She doesn’t tell your fortune, she helps you to hear, see and shape your fortune.   Inez came to astrology more than 40 years ago and views it as her faithful companion, counselor, mirror, and guide. She has written new and full moon counsels twice a month, for the past 35 years, missing none of them!   Inez is the author of Making What Your Means Can’t Buy, a treatise on resourcefully living a life that gives you life. She also enjoys making and facilitating multi-media art for its meditative, expressive and restorative properties.  

There are so many things I’m grateful for on this journey, but walking alongside @tripwithellen on her journey and witnessing her transformation has been a deeply profound honor. In this week’s episode, I received the gift of interviewing Ellen about her recent experience at the End of Life Training by @going_with_grace .     In our conversation, Ellen reflects that some experiences, no matter how short, are life changing. And I could feel this truth resonating so deeply for her. Ellen’s reflection takes us on a journey with grief, and fear as our co-pilot. She welcomes them in, and invites us to find new ways to hold and walk with them, so that we can receive their greatest gift: Falling in Love with Life.    “I just realized it’s not in those crazy peak experiences that we’re always searching for that makes life worth living. It’s all these tiny little moments that are found in the everyday. Like literally waking up and seeing the sun outside. Or maybe not seeing the sun but seeing fog outside. I mean, that’s just as beautiful and mysterious and fascinating, you know?    Just being in this body and being in every moment is enough.”   Through this experience Ellen has connected with her soul purpose and it’s been an honor to witness. Ellen is a Shandong/Taiwanese-American psychedelic death doula who guides medicine journeys, breathwork, sound and somatic root healing. She companions people to face their fears and journey through death portals so that they can live and die, free.   She is a resident facilitator for DoubleBlind Magazine, and co-creator of the “Woo Knew.” Podcast.   Learn more about working with Ellen at Tripwithellen.com and connect with her on IG at @tripwithellen .   Ep. 95 Becoming a Psychedelic Death Doula streaming now on Apple and Spotify.   ———   Learn more about the End of Life Training by Going with Grace at https://goingwithgrace.com/ and connect with them on IG at @going_with_grace .   Going with Grace is an organization that “exists to support people as they answer the question ‘What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?’ and to support family members in completing the affairs of their loved one’s life after a death.”  Going with Grace is founded by Alua Arthur, death doula and recovering lawyer.

We had the most incredible conversation with Yumi Sakugawa (she/they) in this week’s episode! Yumi is a second-generation Japanese-Okinawan-American interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles and the author of several published books including, I THINK I AM IN FRIEND-LOVE WITH YOU, YOUR ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BECOMING ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE, THE LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE HACKS, and FASHION FORECASTS.    Yumi’s journey is filled with joy and connection, inspired by a fearless pursuit of creativity, play, magic and experimentation. In this very special conversation we explore the importance of getting back to play and even get to hear about Yumi’s recent experience in clown school!   Yumi invites us to examine what creativity can become when we let go of expectations and attachments to output, opening us up to new perspectives and ways of connecting to our own creativity through exploration.   “When we broaden the definition of creativity and start off with the world view that everyone is creative, and creativity is simply disrupting old patterns to consciously co-create new ones, then it makes me think–well, just the whole act of being human from the day we are born to the day we die we are creative, because just our very existence is disrupting old patterns.”   We left this conversation feeling so fulfilled and excited to cultivate new spaces to play in. Get inspired and connect with Yumi on IG @YumiSakugawa !    Yumi’s multimedia installations have also been exhibited at the Japanese American National Museum, the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building, and the Peabody Essex Museum. Learn more about Yumi’s work online at yumisakugawa.com .   Ep. 94 — Permission to Play is now streaming on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Podcasts .

This week we have the honor of speaking with Leah Garza, Creator of Crystals of Altamira, Akashic Records Reader, Veteran Teacher + Education Organizer. Leah teaches us about Decoloniality and Ontology, what these concepts mean, and why they're important to understand for our personal healing.   “When I got into my PHD program, and I started learning these concepts I was like, ‘If only the public had access to concepts like Decoloniality, if only they had access to concepts like Ontology. For some people, that might totally shift.’ All of us who are seeking healing think that we have pathologies. We think that we are broken and need to be fixed. And what if that’s just not a true orientation at all? Like what if we were never broken? But no one will say that because it doesn’t make healers money. It doesn’t make big pharma money, it doesn’t make the mental health industry money. So I wanted to share this stuff.”   We also get to learn more about the Akashic Records, Leah's practice as an Akashic Records Reader + Mentor, and how she applies the lens of Decoloniality to offer radical healing.   Many worlds exist in this one world. In one world, Leah Garza is a veteran teacher and education organizer. She has spent nearly two decades in social justice movement spaces, working toward equitable change in public education. She earned her masters degrees in education and depth psychology and is currently working on a Phd in community, liberation, indigenous, and eco psychologies. In another world, Leah is a shapeshifter. The trials incurred personally and collectively, through the Trump administration and later the pandemic and uprisings, made her a seeker. Leah learned to engage her ability to shapeshift as she began to ask questions of her purpose in this lifetime. Leah is a practitioner of the Akashic records, and offers radical healing work through the lenses of decoloniality and relational ways of being to subvert the colonial agenda.   Learn more about Leah and how you can work with her at Crystalsofaltamira.com . Connect with her on IG at @crystalsofaltamira   2023 Retreat Update 🙏❤️🙏   We’re so excited to announce our first medicine retreat, Land is Body is Land, a sensory celebration of embodiment. Join us May 23rd-28th in Playa Azul, Costa Rica! On this retreat, we'll give ourselves permission to slow down and learn the languages of frequency and sensation. We’ll reconnect our senses and give ourselves space to feel, move and express. And we’ll reconnect to the land that sustains our bodies, learning to commune with the spirits of Nature and the Earth. We believe that healing happens in community and relationship, so we’ll be visiting a biodynamic farm, deepening our sacred relationship with food. And we'll be journeying through breathwork, receiving sound and energy healing, and journeying with the sacred mushroom. If you’d like to learn more, visit wearealldaughters.co and if you’re interested in joining us, please fill out the intake form on our site. We hope to welcome you into our circle.

This week we had the honor of sitting down with Ruth Camillia. Ruth (they/she/ella) is a bilingual, bicultural, healing arts practitioner, reiki master, akashic records practitioner, and tarot reader. With maternal Indigenous roots from Los Altos de Jalisco, México, they integrate curanderismo and other ancestral practices into their daily life and work. As an intuitive and trauma-informed practitioner, Ruth believes healing is sacred. Ruth is a gifted healer and we're so grateful to connect in community together. It was so much fun getting to know Ruth and learning about their journey. Ruth talks to us about how their practice is influenced by their family and ancestors, what it was like to grow up in a family where they got to witness devotion, and how all of those experiences have shaped who they are. “This ‘Yes, And’ component is really prominent in my life, in particular at this period in my life because I’m in the midst of a lot of transition. It’s just such a familiar aspect of my identity and who I am and what it is that I do. Yes, I’m a white person. And, I’m a native and indigenous person. There’s so many different qualities to my identity that I can apply that to. And I just feel so fortunate to be in a position to get to experience that and share that with others. Because I know that I am certainly not alone. I know there are many folks who can identify with that feeling.” Ruth has an incredible capacity to connect with others through love and compassion, and it's deeply felt in all the containers she holds. Don't miss this week's episode where you can learn more about Ruth's journey, Akashic Records readings, and how she helps others step forward into alignment through their holistic healing practice! Connect with Ruth and learn more about their practice online at www.ruthcamillia.com and follow with them on IG at @ruth_camillia Ep. 92 - Ancestral Gifts is streaming now on Apple and Spotify!

We’re so honored to share this week’s episode with TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them)! TanyaMarck (lovingly nicknamed TM) is a beautiful soul and friend. They are the founder and alchemist of Vamanos, a breathwork and meditation facilitator, an intuitive practitioner, a medicine person, a witch, and a person in recovery.  Sometimes we're not aware of how the universe is guiding us in the moment, but in looking back on the synchrinicities it becomes clear there are no coincidences. And that's what makes this conversation so special for all of us. Our connection is an incredible reflection of the gifts we receive from the universe when we embark upon our healing journeys.   This week TM takes us back to the start of their journey and how the universe began planting seeds for their healing in 2010. Through a series of control+alt+delete moments, they accepted the invitation to examine their experiences in education and 12-step recovery, and began to explore who they are outside of those systems. TM’s journey is a profound representation of what’s possible when we’re open to receive guidance from the universe. Through sharing their experiences, we explore the process of shedding and letting go of what’s no longer aligned. We get to see how those experiences create space to call in healing, community, magic, and the tools that can help us move through life's challenges while cultivating deep spiritual connections. “I do feel very passionately that considering all of the ctrl+alt+deletes that keep happening all the time around us, that our greatest gift is to respond with magic and modeling and guiding, from a place of love and compassion and understanding.” Our conversation with TM is a really beautiful reminder that healing is a process of constant growth. It teaches us how to use our gifts of discernment, intuition, and intention in order to stay in alignment with ourselves, and to cultivate deep connections to the land, the plants and animals, our ancestors, and the world around us around us. You don’t want to miss this week’s episode!  Connect with TanyaMarck IG at @tanyamarck and learn more about their offerings online at TanyaMarck.com. @wooknewpodcast is now streaming on @spotifypodcasts and on @applepodcasts .     2023 Retreat Update 🙏❤️🙏 We’re so excited to announce our first medicine retreat, Land is Body is Land, a sensory celebration of embodiment. Join us May 23rd-28th in Playa Azul, Costa Rica! On this retreat, we'll give ourselves permission to slow down and learn the languages of frequency and sensation. We’ll reconnect our senses and give ourselves space to feel, move and express. And we’ll reconnect to the land that sustains our bodies, learning to commune with the spirits of Nature and the Earth. We believe that healing happens in community and relationship, so we’ll be visiting a biodynamic farm, deepening our sacred relationship with food. And we'll be journeying through breathwork, receiving sound and energy healing, and journeying with the sacred mushroom. If you’d like to learn more, visit wearealldaughters.co and if you’re interested in joining us, please fill out the intake form on our site. We hope to welcome you into our circle.