CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land.

Talking about death is often deemed morbid or taboo, but to fully embrace life, scientists, psychologists, and spiritual leaders all agree—contemplating death is the key to living a life with meaning. In this episode, Joanna Ebenstein, author and founder of Morbid Anatomy—an organization exploring the spaces between art and medicine, death and culture—is joined in conversation with CIIS faculty and Chicane philosopher Saraliza Anzaldúa exploring how to befriend death.

Sharing insights from her latest book, Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life, Joanna discusses what it means to be mortal and shares how to both come to terms with what death means and live alongside it without fear. In doing so, you can see your own life in a new light and discover what makes life worth living.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 17th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Saraliza: Hi, everyone. Hi, Joanna. I'm super excited to have this talk.

Joanna: Me too. And hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us tonight. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Saraliza: So I'd like to start with the basics. What is death and what meaning does it have for you?

Joanna: Yeah, that's a great question. What is death? And I think my first answer is we don't know. And so to me, it is the great mystery of human life. And I think to me, that's what I find so compelling about it.

Saraliza: Yeah, there's definitely something that both attracts and repulses us about death. And I love how you just situate that in your book, how it really draws in the reader. And I'd like to hear, I mean, there's just so much to get into, right? And I think one just starting point is why you think death matters. Why should we care about death?

Joanna: Yeah. I mean, to me, I don't see how death can't matter. Like I think a story I tell in my book is when I was, as long as I can remember, people called me morbid because I've been interested in these things. Maybe some of you out there have had the same experience. And for the longest time, I'd say, OK, yeah, I guess I'm a morbid person. But then one day I just began to think about it. And I thought, OK, if every single person who's ever lived has died, if everyone I know and love is going to die, if I, barring some medical miracle, will also die, then isn't it more morbid not to think about it? So I guess to me, I feel like looking at the historical record, it's been part of the human condition and the human experience, our arts, our philosophy to think about death for all of human history, because it is this great mystery. It's something we live next to that defines our lives in certain ways and certainly can change our lives in a flash. It's a profound part of everyday life. And I think there's something unbalanced and unhealthy in an individual and in a culture when they're not bringing this part of the life experience into their conscious awareness.

Saraliza: Most definitely, especially when you consider even at the peak of our life. Our very cells are growing, but also dying. Just thousands and millions of things are dying inside us. Death is inextricably bound up with life. So why do you think that there has been this categorization of death or even giving just the acknowledgement of death as something to be considered taboo, morbid, especially here in the United States?

Joanna: Yeah. I think the United States is a particular case study. I've traveled around the world and I feel like there's nowhere I've seen that pushes it away as completely as the United States. And I think there's a number of reasons for that. I think the United States is a newer nation. First of all, we're babies on the world stage. We're maybe like teenagers. Teenagers don't think about their own death. But I think there's also this sense of a desire for positivity and this desire to embrace what is good and what is pleasant that I think many people who immigrated from other countries with difficulties chose to come to the United States and start over and start a better life and a life that's free of the kind of hardships. And I think that is related to death as well. So I think there's something in the United States that it conflicts with our self view and our desire, our kind of desire to endlessly self create ourselves and the belief that we can kind of do what we want with our will. And I think there's something about death, which is this great kind of slap in the face of it to our ambitions, right? Like it's, we can invent amazing skyscrapers. We have incredible technology. But at the end of the day, we're going to die. And I think there's something about the United States in particular that is really attached to a worldview that can't accommodate that for some reason. And this might have to do with capitalism as well. I don't know. That's an idea that I've been wondering about because I think it seems that in the United States, capitalism is the most entrenched of anywhere I've been. And to me, when I think of contemplating death, I think that that is the enemy of consumer lifestyle to some degree. If you're constantly thinking, if I die tomorrow, what do I want to do with my time on earth? It's probably not spending 80 hours a week at a job you don't like, right? In order to buy something. So I think there might be something about that too.

Saraliza: Most definitely. And just this idea that human possibility is infinite. And on that infinite, we can capitalize on it. That infiniteness of like, oh, anything's possible and we can achieve great heights. And death is very humbling. It is the great equalizer.

Joanna: Exactly. Well said.

Saraliza: So that gets me thinking about, so you mentioned Mexico and you live in Mexico currently, about different ways of relating to death around the world. Can you talk more about healthier alternatives in relating to death?

Joanna: Yeah, for sure. So I got to know Mexico through a friend of mine, Salvador Olguin. I met him at my space in New York City. And he's from Monterrey, Mexico, but he was living in New York. And he started coming to events we were producing. And he started producing Day of the Dead events for us in New York. And then soon he started to lead trips to Mexico for Day of the Dead. And I went on all of these trips. As a matter of fact, our next one is coming up starting October 31st in Oaxaca. People can join if they wish. There's still tickets available. But this was really a life changing experience for me. I had grown up in California and I had not been to Mexico. I didn't know anything about Mexico- that’s not true. I knew about Day of the Dead because I was interested in death. And so when I saw the Oakland Museum did an exhibition about Day of the Dead many years ago, I volunteered as a docent. And that's when I really started to learn about it. But I think I was really changed by it, by going to Mexico. And to me, I think there are many cultures that deal with death better than the United States. But Mexico is the one I know most intimately. And from my experience here, there is a way in which death is given a more complex reception or experience than it is in the United States. I feel like in the United States, we're kind of told, well, death is tragic and death is horrible and it makes you sad. And those things are true. And they're true in Mexico, too. But there's also joy and there's also humor and there's also the sense of communing with returning family members that I've just found incredibly touching. And then also from being here and speaking to people of all different ages, I really get the sense or at least I had the sense listening to people that, you know, maybe if I was born in Mexico, I might not be afraid of death the way I am in the United States. I think there is something about a different way of looking at it and a different culture that allows for death to be a part of everyday life that makes it less frightening.

Saraliza: There's that saying, Los Muertos Viven Hoy, the dead live today, meaning that the dead are with us. So you mentioned like communing with the dead, but we too are the walking dead. And I just love that idea that death is multiplicitous. It can be tragic, but it can be joy and it can be in the past and present and future and just weaving together that multiplicity. So. I have so many questions.

Joanna: That's ok, take your time.

Saraliza: I want to go because we're on the topic of Mexico and there's just so many rituals bound up with Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos. What are your favorite rituals, not only just surrounding, commemorating the dead, communing with the dead, but also maybe daily rituals that you have, death practices?

Joanna: For me, the simplest and the ritual that I engage in most often, and probably most people do, at least from the classes I've taught, I get the sense, is having an ancestor altar. So I'm in my office right now. I'm looking over. I have an altar that has many things on it. But among those things, it has images of my grandparents, a professor who was a mentor of mine who died recently. And yeah, exactly right. They're a part of my life. And I think that is such a simple practice that anyone can do. And when I was in Mexico, I remember I went to a friend's house. He brought me to his mother's house where he grew up and she had an ancestor altar and he kind of saw me looking at it. And so he was explaining it to me and he said, well, you know, whenever my mom is having a problem with like my my sister or something like that, she lights a candle and talks to her mother. And I just think that's such a beautiful, such a beautiful concept. It's so simple. And and I think that, you know, whether we believe literally that we can speak to the dead or there's an aspect in which they live within us and we can access that wisdom, there's there's something that that takes place there that I think is very beautiful and healing and also keeping, keeping your loved ones as part of your your process of living life, your daily life, you know, the prosaicness of everyday life, which I find very beautiful.

Saraliza: That is very beautiful. And I love that you still relates to one of your professors who was a dear mentor to you. We need to value our teachers. We need to value our lineages and our mentors. And that's quite beautiful. I love that they're on your altar.

Joanna: Yeah, I think of them as chosen family and given like birth family and chosen family. Right. There are certain people that just resonate in you so deeply and and change your life in a way that family does. Right. A mentor is one of those people.

Saraliza: Most definitely, for sure. Well, this leads to my next question. You mentioned the like healing and relating aspect of honoring and relating not only to death, but to our dead. So can you talk a bit you mentioned this in your book about the need to engage with the shadow and what we can get out of it and what impact it has for how we live our lives by engaging with that darker aspects that scare us.

Joanna: Yeah. So throughout the book, I draw a lot on the thought and ideas of Carl Jung. It was very influential to me. I do Jungian analysis. I've been studying Jung for a long time and I find his His way of looking at the world, the one of all the modern thinkers I know that is most in harmony with the the wisdom of the past that I found the things that resonate for me in the past and I learned about the concept of the shadow from him and the idea his idea of the shadow is that There's a part of ourselves that's in the light, which is our consciousness, what we know about ourselves. There's a part of us that is unknown that's in this shadow. And this is true on an individual level, but also on a cultural level. And so the shadow is that which is not necessarily bad, but that which is denied, repressed, disdained, not looked at. Right. And so, you know, what he talks about is how when you you have an aspect of life an archetype, for example, like death. Death and life are kind of, they’re polarities on this on this on in continuum. Right. And if you're going to give attention to life, you have to have just as much attention to death. And so by the United States putting all of their attention into life and avoiding death at all costs. Right. There's a real imbalance. So culturally, there's an imbalance and personally I think there's an imbalance to and I think When something is in the shadow, it becomes frightening, you know, I think this is part of why people are afraid of death is because they're not looking at it because rather than say, okay, what is it I'm afraid of. What is it, what is death to me. What do I think about that. They're just pushing it away. And so we know from psychology. Right. When we repress something. It doesn't mean it goes away. It just means we it's not conscious and once it's not conscious, it just becomes more frightening and has power over us. So I think for these reasons. It's really important. When I say you would say to is that the goal of analysis is not to make you like a better person or a, you know, A less n- or well I guess a less neurotic person would happen naturally, but really it's about becoming whole. So it's about taking those things that are in yourself. And again, he would emphasize that the shadow’s not necessarily bad. So it could be that in our, our family of origin. There was some element that is true to ourselves that Are, you know, might benefit us a lot, but we pushed it down because it's not appropriate there. So the idea of Jungian analysis is kind of to become whole. It's to find your shadow through a descent into a symbolic land of the dead, I would say a symbolic underworld. Right. Find your shadow be friend it and bring it into your consciousness and that makes us whole. And that also makes our culture whole. And so one thing that I think is really interesting about that is he believed that creators of all types artists, writers, poets. Are kind of naturally inclined to excavate that what's what's in the shadow as a way that heals our culture. So I wonder if that's why people like us. And I know a lot of other people out there are interested in death right now because It has become so gratuitously pushed away that the only way to create balance again is to bring it back. And I think intuitively, people who are dealing with The creative arts are are at least some of them are drawn to these things and wanting to bring it back and maybe unconsciously create a more balanced culture or contribute to a more balanced culture.

Saraliza: Yeah, and you mentioned murals in your work and how that is a way for oppressed communities to Use art as a way to memorialize their dead and circling back to our earlier conversation about why death is taboo in the United States. And engaging with that shadow. The United States has a long history of genocide oppression and there is this refusal to To to acknowledge that death and often the dead are erased. They're not memorialized and so artists have this really important role with remembering communing with the dead and Etching that history when otherwise it would be erased. And that's another multiplicitous way of like engaging with the dead that sometimes it can be bittersweet. Sometimes it can be regaining of the self. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on how using art as a medium to engage with the dead can, as you say, heal can make us whole can and pull that shadow and the light together.

Joanna: Yeah, I think what you say is so interesting in it. It made me think of like several different things like you were talking. So the first thing I thought about is what you said about Disenfranchised communities. I think that's so important. One of the things I think it made it into the book. I can't remember that I think I talk about is I was hired by a university many years ago, like in 2009 to document memorial shrines in inner city Philadelphia and They went with me into these neighborhoods that were that had seen a lot of violence and you could see because there were different sorts of memorials there. There were shrines that had been set up for the recently dead, often children. With people having lit candles, leaving toys and notes and cards or sometimes it would be adults and then it would be not toys, but you would see You know, all sorts of other things. And then sometimes these murals on the sides of buildings that were so beautiful. And I'm sure everyone has probably seen them. You see a portrait of somebody and their name is written in an artful text and some information about them there. And I really began to see these as like a A kind of vernacular art from another part of US culture in which death is not distant, you know, I think it's really important to say that for white affluent culture death is taboo and distant. But in this culture. It's every day, you know, and so when I was walking around photographing them, people would come up to me sometimes quite angrily and say, what are you doing and say, oh, I'm here with this university and they okay okay And then they'd say, well, let me, let me tell you about this. This is my brother. This is my uncle. This is my cousin, you know, and it really, really hit me. So just going back to what you're saying, just to affirm. Yes, yes, yes. And then I also think, you know, as you said, our country, the United States is founded on genocide that is not acknowledged and As people try to acknowledge it more and more, there's more and more pushback and I think there, there is something very haunted about a culture that can't look with clarity at its at its dead and it's what it did to to be where it is and I hope that's changing But I don't think our culture can heal until it integrates its shadow, you know, which is the fact that the lands that we prosper on were taken through killing and through unfair, at the very least, right, unfair arrangements and and that it's not, I didn't learn about that until college. I don't know about you.

Saraliza: I mean, public education in Texas, you could probably guess.

Joanna: Texas, yeah. But I was California and still.

Saraliza: Oh, wow. And I think, you know, as we've been discussing this reluctance to acknowledge that history is very much tied up with our inability to discuss death. And I love that word you use the haunting because we're haunted by our dead and it's a specter that it's like a poltergeist and in and it I think that the poltergeist Is not only something that will make things chaotic. It'll make things dangerous. But in some cases, it’s a type of possession. And it makes you just do unfathomable and unspeakable things. And I think very much our time is characterized with this inability to engage with death with that shadow and it possesses At least some So some people in power, especially That they're unable to relate to other people. They're unable to relate to reality. And I think your, your project of helping people engage with death is such a good medicine. And I love how I have your book here, is that at the end of every chapter there is ways to practically engage, think about things that they learned practices ways to learn more and it's just so accessible. Can you talk about some of your favorite practices like in the book that really Really Just like either you spoke to you in such a way that you were like, I have to like let people know about this or maybe a practice that you would recommend the people start with.

Joanna: Well, thank you for pointing that out. To me that was super important because I feel like as a reader, I've read so many books that have great content and somehow I'm excited, but it's like if you ask me later what I read. I can't even tell you, you know, like I personally like to have a An activity that I do that that helps me to synthesize and digest and and make it my own so I can walk away and still have it as a part of me. So that was really important to me. And yeah, in the book, I put in all sorts of exercises that I found really useful in my own life. One of the most simple that I recommend Is just if you're struggling with trying to make a decision. But for example, when I said, I wanna move to Mexico, but maybe that's crazy. I don't know. Instead of saying, what do I really want to do. I said to myself. What do I want to do with my time on earth. Is this what I want to do with my time on earth. And it's a very simple addition. But to me, it creates. This is the beauty of contemplating death to me right by reminding yourself that there's a limit. There's a limit to time and that there will be a time when you'll be on your deathbed, possibly with regrets. Right. What and that's that leads me to another question I often ask myself, would I regret on my deathbed having done this or not having done this, you know, and I think that helps me. When I'm in a situation where something is risky or feels a little frightening, which often are the things that help us grow right those things that are slightly out of reach or feel a little bit uncomfortable. Those kinds of questions can really help clarify. Another of my favorite exercises comes from my friend, Mary, she's an artist that I just part of my matriarchal society club and she told me about this beautiful thing she does with her children. So she says that there's all these ancestors that the children have never met. So once a month or whatever, they'll, they'll make a special dinner and that dinner will be foods that a deceased ancestor really loved. They'll bring out photos, photo albums, and they'll talk about that family member with the child. So there's very, very simple things you can do that. That are fun and that are low hanging fruit, I would say, and that I think can enrich your life.

Saraliza: I think those are all really amazing practices and very accessible because you also talk about things. So you use the example of funerals for the living to get into that space of what would it be like if I died. That are maybe less accessible. Funerals are expensive, even if it's just I'm going to like lie down in this like wood coffin, you know, check the prices of plywood at your local hardware store, they’ve gone up.

Joanna: Absolutely. No, yeah, for example, there's, you know, if money's no object, maybe you want to go to Mexico for Day of the Dead. But one of the things I offer is a kind of a second choice would be watching the movie Coco, which is one of my favorite films, the Pixar film about Day of the Dead, which I saw with my mom who's never been to Mexico for Day of the Dead. And there's a scene where the camera's kind of coming in over the beautifully lit cemetery and my mom leaned over and she whispered to me with excitement, she said, Is that really what it's like? And I said, yes, that's exactly what it's like. Like I think he does a really, Lee Unkrich, the director, does a really magnificent job of capturing it. So there are things that are within reach. And many cities have their own Day of the Dead celebrations, especially in California and Texas probably too.

Saraliza: So, I guess that leads to my next question. Because you're talking about the variety of like death practices, and how even like Day of the Dead, it's not homogenous right, they even vary between cities and regions. How would you recommend, so as people go through the book, they're learning about these death practices, and you talk about how it's a very personal thing. It's a practice, a tradition tied to a community, tied to a lineage, but how you relate to the dead and to death is like a very personal thing. So how would you recommend people make things of their own? Where's the starting point? Where's the inroad into those practices?

Joanna: To create kind of your own practice of that sort? Is that what you mean? Well again, I would go back to the ancestor altar. For me that's just so simple and so easy. But there's a lot of exercise in the book that also will help you kind of find your way. So what I'm trying to do through the book is kind of help people to, over the course of introducing them to different concepts around death. And so each chapter is based on a different concept. So one is death with value, one is fear of death and the search for immortality. One is what happens after death. One is ancestors and their veneration, right? So each chapter kind of talks about different traditions in different times and places, and then has exercises, which some of them are thought experiments, some of them are saying, you know, helping you kind of excavate your own understandings of or thoughts about death. And then from there, I think you can start to organically kind of find where it is that you want to heal, I guess, or create something that helps. You know, I think everyone has, as you said, death is very personal and our feelings about death are very personal. And I think everyone has a different, I should say everyone has a different, but there are differences in how we relate to it. And need to relate to it. And so I think for some people, it can be very practical, you know, so I try to have prompts for all sorts of people. So there's the practical prompts, which is not really my path. I'm not that interested in the practical, but I think it's very useful for people. So, for example, there's a form that my friend John Troyer, who works at the Center for Death and Society created, which is basically something you can give your family and friends, they know what to do after you die. It answers all of these very, very practical questions. And I have death doulas who give advice about storing your passwords and giving them to feel all the practical elements. So I think some people that helps them make them feel more comfortable. For some people, it's more spiritual, I think, or psychological anyway, where you just kind of want to take a deep dive and say, you know, if I can imagine death as a person, what might that look like? Would it be male or female? Would it be friendly or not friendly? Right? All these kind of playful, imaginative exercises, a lot of which bring in the unconscious as well, because I really believe that when you're dealing with something as profound and unknowable as death, like the conscious mind can only get us so far, right? So I also encourage people to record their dreams, which is something that I found really useful, to write in a journal. So all of these different ways of honoring and working with the invisible realm, you know, be that some people would consider that the realm of the spirit, some people would consider that the realm of the unconscious, right? But either way, I think for me, that's where the work needs to be done.

Saraliza: And I don't remember exactly your phrasing, but you wrote something like, do you feel it like in your spirit, in your heart? Is it helpful? Like, are you moved by this practice? And I love how even though you make just so many paths available, no matter what path you're inclined to. But you started with the advice of like, you'll know when the path feels right. And that's the place to start.

Joanna: Absolutely. And I feel like that's something that that our culture also the United States in particular, somehow really makes us distrust our own observations and our own intuitions. And so much of my personal path that has brought me to writing this book has been learning to trust those things. And, you know, for example, this is the work that I'm doing is, is countercultural, to say the least, right? It's not for everyone. But at a certain point, I think you start to know what, what is right for you. And it's interesting, because this also leads to the idea of the psychopomp. So in the book, I talk about this idea of a psychopomp, which is Greek for soul guide. And it's a figure that leads you to death in different cultures. It could be a god, it can be an animal, it could be a shaman or a priest, right? But I feel like what– I had a conversation and I worked this into the book with a shaman that I know, named Christina Pratt. And what she said that I think is really interesting. She said, people don't necessarily need a psychopomp. They need a psychopomp if they haven't lived the life that they're supposed to have lived with their time on earth. So from a shamanistic point of view, right? Each of us is born with certain gifts and certain skills and passion that is supposed to tell us where we're supposed to be doing work, what we're supposed to be doing. And if all goes well, and we're able to follow that passion and use those skills and do the things that it was our life's purpose to do, we can die in peace with no unfinished business and not need a psychopomp to lead us over. It's the people that have not managed to do that, that are the ones who need help and guidance. And what I find really interesting about that is speaking to death doulas, you know, my husband is a death doula. And he says that they say that, so a death doula for those who don't know is kind of like the midwife of death. They're secular figures that help the dying to transition and they help the loved ones of the dying as well, often. So they say that when people are having problems with death and letting go, it usually, the problems usually fall under four different categories, which would be regret, unfinished business, guilt, or shame. And what's interesting is I was just interviewed by a medium on her podcast, and she said it's the same for how she thinks about people who return to speak to the living are, that they come back because of those things. And there's this, and this is how we've thought of ghosts for many traditions as well too, right? So I think, and coming back full circle to what you were saying earlier about, I loved what you said about, you know, the fact that there's a poltergeist in the United States. But I think it's very much about, like, think of all of the unfinished business that the dead died with, you know, and so again, if we want to think about it literally or metaphorically, I think there's a lot to chew on there.

Saraliza: Oh, for sure. And there's so many ways that various communities and cultures will imagine, like, the ripple effects of that guilt, that regret, that shame, from the kind of like innocuous of, you know, disturbed sleep, nightmares, to the very horrifying, like, Japanese ghost theory, the revenge ghosts that have unfinished business. And it's just interesting to think about that. And since you brought up psychopomp, what are some of your favorite death figures?

Joanna: I have one big death figure that's my absolute favorite. I'll end on that one. I love Persephone. That was probably the first one. Persephone, who's the queen of the underworld in the Greek tradition is one of my favorites. I'm trying to do another one, but I'll just I'll just launch into one I love. So I end the book with a discussion of my favorite death figure right now, which is returning to Mexico. It's Santa Muerte. She is a, many describe her as a psychopomp. She is a folk saint here in Mexico. She is, she's been around for people say maybe since the 18th century, it seems like she came to prominence, at least around NAFTA. Some people call her the NAFTA saint. She is seen I think it really captures the fact that she's seen as beautiful, and also at least the times is generative, right? The fact that she's pregnant, but she's a pregnant Santa Muerte, which I think is really amazing. And so in 2022, she was cited as having 12 million followers, and I've been told that since COVID, COVID's effects, it's gone up even more. But I think it's a really remarkable, if I want to talk in a Jungian sense, right? Coming from this idea, coming from the collective consciousness or the collective unconscious, this image bubbles up, that is like a compensatory image of death. So if we think of the Grim Reaper, and we think of a male punitive, he's got a scythe, then he's going to come in and he's going to mess your life up, right? He's going to take you from life. That's not the sense we got with Santa Muerte, right? She's a feminine figure. She's seen as a loving mother. She's also seen as someone who leads you to the next world. And yeah, I just think she's fantastic.

Saraliza: And I love how in the book, you talk about, well, maybe you could talk more about misunderstandings about the figure.

Joanna: Yes, yeah. I've had people get upset when I mentioned Santa Muerte. And I have to say, there's a point when I was like, do I want? I knew I wanted to write about her, but I wasn't, the only image I have in the book is a photograph of her, because I feel that I could write anything I want, but until you see the photo of how she really is, you can't really understand how different the perspective of death that could create something like this is from our own, you know? Yeah, I've gotten some pushback when I talk about Santa Muerte in a positive way and people say, oh, well, you know, she's the narco saint and she's the, you know, she's the saint of drug dealers and murderers. And I have a good friend named Eva Arridiz Fuentes, who did a film about Santa Muerte that she shows for my classes and in the Q&A, these topics would come up. And she had a really brilliant response that I, with her permission, put in the book, which she said, well, you know, all mafiosa might be Catholic, but it doesn't mean that all Catholic people are mafiosa and it's the same with Santa Muerte. You know, and that's very much been my experience here in Mexico. I have visited many shrines. I have spoken to people who said that they had had very difficult lives and she helped them and she helped them get off the streets and all sorts of things. So, again, going back to this idea of monolithic, right? I don't think it's a monolithic cult. I think that, yes, I believe that narcos do venerate Santa Muerte, but so do cops and so do taxi drivers and so do moms and so do trans people and all sorts of individuals. And what's so interesting is when I say trans people, she's also kind of a patron saint for those whom the traditional church does not accept because, as you said earlier, death is the great equalizer, right? Death accepts everyone, regardless of what they did in life. And so unlike the Virgin Mary, who might be like, you're a criminal or you're a sex worker or a homosexual, she accepts all of those people. And so there's something very beautiful about that as well.

Saraliza: And something, so you mentioned that she's generative, she's depicted as a mother. There's something that ties into the transformative aspect of death because death is not the end, although it can be an end. It's a phase in a longer transition. Things grow, they decay, they die, but then they get incorporated and regenerate again. And so it's a really process. And I think Santa Muerte really encapsulates that process and people in between transitions, between the cracks of society, they get left out because they don't fit a particular normative model that we find more in traditional death figures like the Grim Reaper or Catholic saints.

Joanna: Yeah, I think everything you said is absolutely true. And there's something I wanted to add and now of course I lost it. Sorry.

Saraliza: I'm sure it'll come back. There's just so much I want to talk to you about.

Joanna: Yeah, well this material is so rich and it goes in so many directions and it's always, oh yeah, I know what I want to say. I wanted to kind of piggyback on what you were saying and what you're talking about, which I think is so true and so beautiful, is this idea of kind of cycles of life, death and rebirth. And that's a chapter in the book as well. And I think what's really interesting about that is for most cultures and all of human history, death was not an end. You know, the scientific models, death is an end. But for most other mythological understandings, I have not found one in which death is just, that's it, kaput, you know. So I think this idea of an end is a very culturally specific one and part of what creates the fear as well.

Saraliza: Yeah. And so I would love to hear you talk about that. Like what are some of the traps that people fall into when they think about death?

Joanna: Yeah, well what I find surprising in a lot of the students that come my way is they seem to assume that science has proven that when we die, that's the end. And you know, the stranger and more exciting truth is science has not proven that. Science has not proven the opposite, but we still don't know, you know, which is kind of remarkable. So to me, I think that, I guess that the best way to say it is what I'm hoping this book will help people do is kind of start with the beginner's mind, you know, and forget all the things we think we know, because really, there's very little we know. You know, we know about the bodily processes and we know about some scientific aspects, but there's so much that is unknown. And that can be frightening. And to some people, I think it is, but it can also invoke curiosity and excitement, I think, you know. And that reminds me, I remember, I think I worked this into one of the exercises. There was a point in my life where I was invited to be a nanny in New York City, and I was really scared. And I said that to the woman who was going to hire me and she was a psychologist. And you know, excitement and terror are basically the same thing physiologically. It's how your brain parses it. And so that's something I think about too. I think there is an element where we can try to look with curiosity and interest rather than just fear. Even if there's fear there, also maybe being open. That's what I'm hoping this book will help people do. Be curious. And in my experience, being curious often trumps fear.

Saraliza: Especially when it comes to being open to alternative ways of being. So we talked earlier about how this kind of obsession with life and purity and the self, which a lot of modern science is rooted in that kind of European enlightenment will to power model. So for them, yeah, maybe death is the end. But for a lot of other ways of being in multiplicity, it's just another phase and the multiple transitions will go through.

Joanna: Yeah, yeah. And for many of our ancestors, it was seen as a rite of passage, you know, that's– rather than an end. And I think that's a, A, I think that's a beautiful way to think about it. B, so Carl Jung talks about, you know, this idea of archetypes. So archetypes are things that exist in all cultures or are expressed in all cultures. And life, death and rebirth is one of those archetypes. Not death as an end, but life, death and rebirth. It's something we see in cultures all around the world. And I think that's really interesting. And there's something else I want to say about that. I'm so sorry I lost my thought. But of course, we also see it in the cycles of nature, right? We see, you know, plants die in the winter and they're reborn in the summer. We see a caterpillar go into a chrysalis and become a butterfly. There's all these examples of the cyclical nature of life. Oh, that's what I wanted to say. Jung and his followers also said, and I think this is super interesting, that the psyche, when they've had analysands who are dying, the dreams that these analysands have indicate a moving of location and not an end also. So often people, and I've heard this, that hospice workers say this as well, when people start dreaming about having their luggage to go on a voyage, you know that they're going to die soon. So this is the imagery that the psyche is creating. It's not creating an end. It's creating all of these images of a continuation. So again, we can't know factually if we go on after death. But there's every indication that our psyche, our deeper psyche believes that that's the case. Isn't that interesting?

Saraliza: That is, and that's really quite beautiful. So of all the myths and stories, the narratives that you've encountered, what's your favorite or what are some of the things that stand out to you?

Joanna: I guess for me, I go back again to the story of Persephone. Of all the myths that I've encountered, that is my favorite. So the story of Persephone is that, some of you are probably already familiar with it, she's a young woman. She's a maiden. She doesn't have a real name. Her name is just Maiden. She's the daughter of Demeter, who's the goddess of grain and fertility. And she's picking flowers in the meadow one day with her friends. And suddenly the ground opens up and the god of death emerges in a chariot drawn by four horses and he grabs her and he drags her down to the underworld. And then her mother travels the world trying to find her and save her. And Zeus won't do anything about it because he doesn't care. In fact he condoned it, but that's a whole other story. But she decides she's going to take revenge. And so she stops tending to the fertility of the plants. And so the gods start to be upset because now people aren't making offerings anymore. So Zeus has to come in and he has to create a compromise. So he says, okay, she can come back. Well, there's many different myths, but the most common myth says that unfortunately because she had eaten some pomegranate seeds in the underworld, she couldn't leave completely. But her fate is that for a certain time out of the year she needs to be in the underworld, being the queen of the dead. And for a certain time she's on earth with her mother. And when she's in the underworld, it's winter in Greece. And when she is up in the upper world, it's the seasons in which we have vegetation in the world. And then that becomes also the basis for these mystery religions. So there's a mystery religion called the Ellucian Mysteries that are based on that, where some people think that through possibly a psychedelic brew, it seems very compelling to me. From what I've read, it's not been proven, but there's a ritual, it's like two days long, and people are given this immersive experience of a life, death and rebirth that seem to, in a similar way that near-death experiences do, cure people of their fear of death. So it was a ritual that was part of Greek culture for centuries that helped people with this, which I think is just remarkable.

Saraliza: That's very interesting. And I find it fascinating that we're talking about nuances of death and multiplicity, that Persephone myth is very multiplicitous. So it's been interpreted in so many ways. So there's the transformative cyclical aspect, but there's also violence and finding one's agency and power post-trauma, post-violence. There is the idea that one can heal and grow after violence, until of course the next cycle of violence comes, which everyone can relate to. The feeling of, can there be life after violence? Can there be life after trauma? Can we heal from all that? And so there's just so much in that myth to experience, to think through.

Joanna: Sure. Yeah, and to feel into. And as you said, I think there's so many ways to enter it and to see where it might resonate for you. But also, after this violence, she's transformed. She's no longer Maiden, she's Persephone, the Queen of the Dead. So not only did it transform her, but it gave her her adult power and status. And I've also heard the interpretation that I really like, that maybe she wanted to be Queen of the Dead because she was worried about them and she thought they were lonely and it was miserable down in Hades, which I think is a really lovely way of looking at it as well.

Saraliza: Which reminds me, it brings me back to Santa Muerte. And well, there's contention in scholarship, whether these two figures are together, but Mictēcacihuātl, the Lady of the Dead in Mexica culture, that is more of a kind of motherly, soft figure that sees the dead not just as kind of like, okay, you're dead. Let me like, okay, let me assign you to a place based on how you lived your life. But as people to care for, they're still entities, they're still people that have spirit, that have heart and that deserve care, they deserve dignity.

Joanna: Yeah. I think it definitely, whether Santa Muerte literally brings in that goddess, there are goddesses like that that she's incorporating and I would argue that one too. I mean, I think what's interesting about that too is it makes me think of kind of the great mother goddesses that many scholars believe preceded patriarchal religions in which all of these different attributes were combined into one figure. So life and death, pain and pleasure, birth and fertility and rebirth and all of these things. And when Eva Arridiz-Fuentes was talking about Santa Muerte, she basically said she's the goddess of love, of luck, of protection, of everything essentially. And that really made me think of the great mother goddess and that maybe, and here we are with this pregnant figure, right? That it does seem to be some sort of a return to a more holistic divinity that is able to embrace and integrate all of these things that we have separated out in our culture that weren't always separated out, I don't think, in the same way. Or not vilified and, you know, one-side lionized and one-side vilified the way it is now. So I wonder if she isn't a return to that earlier figure that we need now.

Saraliza: Yeah, definitely that integrates the complicated, just multiplicitous ways that life happens, because it's not always pure, right? So even in moments of joy, there are moments that are tinted with sadness. And there's that whole story of, well, it's from Chinese philosophy where a horse farmer loses the horse, but the horse brings back another horse and his son is training the horse, but the son falls and breaks his leg, but then doesn't have to go to war. And so it's always from the good, there's a seed of bad. And from the bad, there's always a seed of good. And I think Santa Muerta very much encapsulates that multiplicitous, because life is just interwoven with so much complexity. And this kind of false myth we've been given that, no, you can have pure life, and you can have it all, and you can be at the top, and you can be immortal and live forever through your fame and your fortune. I think more people are waking up to, oh, that's not how things work.

Joanna: Yeah, and not only is it a false myth, but it's a damaging myth, right? It's like there's something so much more forgiving about a figure that encompasses everything and more true to our lived experience. And I think the kind of Judeo-Christian model we've inherited is not great for most people's self-esteem or psyche. It's very hard to live up to those ideals. Then again, Santa Muerta accepts you whether you live up to those ideals or not, which I think is very beautiful.

Saraliza: Very much so. So when you're exploring the shadow, you inevitably will have that sort of dark night of the soul, right? You hit that obstacle, that wall, and you're like, oh, maybe I do want to go back. Maybe this forest is too dark. Maybe the status quo is just what I have to be satisfied with. Do you have any advice for people who are reading your book, are going through these practices and encounter that wall? What would you tell them?

Joanna: That's a great question. What helped me was reading other narratives of other people who did it. And I think in a way that's what the myth of Persephone is about too, is this descent into the underworld and facing something very dark and then emerging, knowing that others have done it before you and come out with enriched lives. And for me, just reading those narratives, I was reading a Jungian book or several different Jungian books, which just talked about different analysands going through this because it is a part of the process of Jungian analysis and having faith. And the other thing I would say is, you know, and one of the exercises I have in the book too is thinking about your own cycles of life, death and rebirth you've had in your past. And all of those times when you've thought, at least I have, I'm sure most of you have too, had an experience where you thought Oh, my God. Oh, this is the end. I can't even believe, right? Something so terrible. But then for me, when I look now back with many years between those, I was like, wow, I wouldn't have done this or this or this if that hadn't have happened. You know, these things that just seem so, so disastrous, often, you know, become the life, the life, death and rebirth cycles in our own lives. Being fired from a job. Breaking up with someone these things that that can be so devastating. But then something happens and you realize you would not be who you are today without having gone through that. So I think those are the things I find comforting. But I would also say if people are really struggling psychologically, and they feel like this is too much for them, then you know your own limits and maybe it's not it's not time to do that at that point, you know?

Saraliza: Yeah, because I don't. I think especially in terms of personal journey, mental health, we think, okay, you know, I'll do like a six week program and then I'll come out better at the end and that's that'll be it. But that's not how things these complex works. It's something that you're probably would be working on for years, decades, maybe your whole life. And I love that you bring in my community learning from other people's journeys. You mentioned your mentors and so having not only strength in other people's stories, but finding other people to share that similar journey with and finding those people to learn from.

Joanna: I think that's a great point and finding people in your life that support the you that that is the truest you and that that help you have the courage to do the things you need to do I think is a really wonderful thing finding truly like minded people and people that aren't making you think that you can't do certain things. Absolutely for sure.

Saraliza: Yeah, and you, your website, Morbid Anatomy brings in so many people to learn from. Just, it's its own community of like minded individuals. And can you talk about some of the things that you offer some of the things you're working on. You've mentioned documentaries.

Joanna: Yeah, so Morbid Anatomy is a project I've been doing since 2007, and it's taken many forms over the years. Right now, we're mostly online and we, the thing that I'm most proud of is our, I call it Morbid Academy we have a school essentially with really wonderful professors from all over the world, who are teaching, not just about death but, about death too, but about all sorts of things that I feel like things that fall between the cracks things that people tend not to take seriously things that things that are that are that are maligned often. So what I really feel like our vision is is openness and rigor we bring in professors or teachers sometimes they're practitioners sometimes they're professors who approach their material with with an openness and a curiosity but also a rigor, a groundedness. So yeah, we do these online classes I teach one actually based on this book that people can sign up for so it's the book is a 12 week book I'm doing it over 12 weeks but six classes so we'll skip so people can read along and we can discuss and be a part of community. And as you said that community aspect really is one of the most beautiful things about Morbid Anatomy at this point, pretty much, once we went online which is right at the beginning of the lockdown. We began to meet like minded people around the world and a lot of people at that point, as we can remember right, we're starting to think about death in a new way so we started to to attract people. And of course there are some people who during that time wanted nothing to do with it, but there are some people who said okay, let's look at this let's let's try to I don't say make lemon lemonade from the lemons but you know use this as an opportunity, rather than just something to hide from and that's really a lot of what the Morbid Anatomy community is. I think they are people who are seeking greater meaning than the straightforward scientific world provides us. It doesn't necessarily mean they're believers in anything but rather they're just curious about what other ways there are of looking at the world. It might be cultural traditions, that might be dream work, it might be a Jungian approach. So there's all these different these different currents going on in our online classes. We also do trips around the world so we do our annual trip to Mexico for Day the Dead we have the next one starting on October 31, we have a trip coming up in Savannah, Georgia as well. And these are all led by local people that have a special connection to the place. We do online lectures every Monday we have a Patreon as well where we where I write articles and commission other articles, and we put videos from our weekly lecture series up there so we've got lots of different things. Oh, and in Brooklyn, New York if anyone happens to be there. We have an open to the public research library. It's free, it's open every weekend, it's kind of a little museum as well, it's got memorial objects and Santa Muerte figures and all sorts of things I've collected from all over the world. So definitely check that out if you're in New York.

Saraliza: That's really interesting I love that. Being an academic professor I'm all, I'm a bookworm. What are some of your favorite books about death. Yeah.

Joanna: I would say a book that was super influential for me if you're if people are interested in kind of an overview of cultural history of death there's a book by Philip Aris, a French academic, which is like the intellectual of history history of death and it's called The Hour of Our Death. It's the book stopper of a book or a, what do you say door stopper of a book it's huge, but it's, it's the book that really helped me create a scaffold on which to put everything else I've learned it's just incredible incredible scholarship. There's also a book I love called Wisconsin Death Trip. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. It's an amazing book it's so strange. It was an art project. And it's a collection of photographs and newspaper clippings from 19th century Wisconsin that shows a totally different Victorian world than we ever thought existed. It's just incredible incredible thing. Try to think of other things that stand out. Those are the first two that come to mind. Please come to the library.

Saraliza: Yeah, I'll definitely have to visit and I love the idea of the second book, because I think there is this problem of homogenizing in academia. I want to learn about romanticism. Okay, so you have you read a book and then you get that one idea about what romanticism is that I'm always very interested in books that are like, actually, over here this was this was going on and over here this was going on so just filling in the mosaic.

Joanna: No, absolutely. And going back to what we're saying about complexity, right? It's like we want to have this monolithic view of the past and I love these things that puncture the possibility of us ever even understanding it, you know, and going back to my mentor who was Mel Gordon who's on my, my altar right now, his philosophy he was a writer as well and his philosophy he would always tell students is don't read history books, go to contemporary sources and do your own research and that's how he created a whole career of finding different stories than anyone else's telling.

Saraliza: That's very beautiful. Love that.

Joanna: Yeah. I know right?

Saraliza: Well, is there anything you would like to say to our audience before we close out.

Joanna: I just want to thank everyone. Thank you for your interest in this material and if you know, I hope. If you are interested in this that the book is useful to you and thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it.

Saraliza: Thank you so much for your wisdom and I hope that this is good medicine for everyone who sees this and reads your book. Thank you everyone and wishing everyone a good night.

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