The Case for Darkness and Perspectives on Death: Part One

In this freeform podcast episode, hosts Jennifer Taylor and Tava Baird explore themes around music, spirituality, and the concepts of light and darkness. Jennifer introduces the monochord, an instrument that produces a hypnotic sound ideal for meditation and healing. The conversation shifts to a spiritual discussion prompted by a message from the angel Samael, who speaks about the interconnectedness of light and darkness and the necessity of embracing both. This leads to broader reflections on divine feminine energy, the misconceptions around light and darkness in spirituality, and the cultural handling of death and dying. The episode encourages a paradigm shift in understanding the sacred aspects of darkness and the end-of-life process.

Resources: 

Book: Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die
See it here: https://www.amazon.com/Graceful-Exits-stories-Tibetan-Buddhist/dp/1590302702/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2N7W6D1OIWGRQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2heT4Zdptl8uDLHCauatQSp4uHgrjrWKfzIjRlR3IE4SoNOVoOWvVM2tNhJaGZFSlPKeKkRqK_og4ewCk3IJbzNk9RU7nRCylPdVBy-K4lmVvfc0HwoLsaflspDFmif2fwgWSVms01USfTSRG7uldoZ_-Khxcnw5asTPbePH9dqQTOc9Zt8q4Dtaosf4lw_h8g8RgEDG3aJEubHc28t8KA1G_bHjh1KUIG25BY-KPEU.Kqzzk2xEg0_9GjtTJnkFuryspW5nS8gTVC1hf7FIn2s&dib_tag=se&keywords=graceful+exits&qid=1738039680&s=books&sprefix=graceful+exits%2Cstripbooks%2C61&sr=1-1

Thank you joining us today, remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to keep up to date with your tribe.

Connect with your Hosts!

Tava Baird: tavabaird.com or https://darkflowerbooks.etsy.com.

Jennifer Taylor: Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts https://www.willowridgereiki.com/

Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

Tava Baird: Good morning, Jennifer Taylor. 

Jennifer Taylor: Good morning, Tava Baird. I am so excited to find out what we are talking about today! 

Tava Baird: listeners, we are completely and totally unprepared for today. We are just, we've just decided to fly by the seat of our pants rather than showing up and claiming that we're talking about one thing and then getting diverted into another.

Tava Baird: We are instead going to have Jennifer start with the Catalyst. Uh, that seems to drive all of our conversations, which is our, our music first thing. And she has a really cool instrument to share today that I had never heard of before. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, it is called a monochord and it is. It's really, really cool. It's basically all the same, [00:01:00] like these strings that are all just strung kind of in a row and you can tune them in many different ways.

Jennifer Taylor: But the way that this is set up is to where it's all the same note, but different octaves of the same note. And when you strum across it, it gives this really beautiful, um, Like drone kind of thing that I especially love to sing with. it really, it provides just this wonderful background and soothing, soothing energy.

Jennifer Taylor: it also somehow, It also creates these higher notes that sounds to me like angels singing. It's like these higher notes that are not, none of the strings are tuned to that, but you'll hear it playing. So, I'm excited to play it. That was my Christmas present from Keith.

Jennifer Taylor: we have been longing for a monochord for many years. And so he took the leap and got that for me for Christmas. So I'm really excited. 

Tava Baird: [00:02:00] And Jen just did a wonderful description of what it looks like. But if you actually want to see what it looks like, we are happy to announce that we are in the final stages of getting our YouTube channel up so that we can actually put up the video of these conversations in case you want to.

Tava Baird: Oh, there she is. She's actually holding it. I can see right now. So if you are a person who enjoys video along with your podcasts. Well, check out our YouTube. We're under Mystical Musings. Our handle is at Mystical Musings Energy, and you'll be able to actually see the instrument that Jen is, playing. 

Jennifer Taylor: I have not made it as far as having a stand for it. So, even if you're on YouTube, you will see the back of me. I'm going to sit on the floor and play it.

Jennifer Taylor: But, uh, I look forward to getting that all set up to where you'll be able to see me more playing it then as well.

Jennifer Taylor: [00:03:00] [00:04:00] Um, [00:05:00] uh, Uh, Um, uh, Uh,

Jennifer Taylor: Um, uh,

Jennifer Taylor: Namasteya Mahandayi Kannaye

Jennifer Taylor: Kammaye Kanna Ki[00:06:00] [00:07:00] 

Jennifer Taylor: Um, Uh,

Jennifer Taylor: Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, [00:08:00] Uh,

Jennifer Taylor: Well, first off, that was absolutely lovely. I could listen to you sing with that monochord all day. I know we've talked before about the concept of stories and music and dance actually creating sacred spaces around them that people could visit.

Tava Baird: And I just felt like there was such a beautiful environment constructed. There that I was able to just walk [00:09:00] into and then Samuel started speaking over top of it and it was, the perfect place to sit and contemplate and we don't have to talk about this topic today, but he brought it up and I think it's an interesting topic because I think we glance off of it frequently in our previous episodes.

Tava Baird: Like, we mention it and I think it's a commonly held belief between you and I, but I don't know that we've ever just done a whole podcast on this topic. And after he finished speaking, I realized you mentioned something to me in a Marco I was listening yesterday that is bang on this topic. And I went, okay, this, this is probably it.

Tava Baird: So, I'm going to go ahead and read, and I'm going to try to go slow because I'm terribly excited about this. I'm going to go ahead and read what came through, uh, [00:10:00] while Jen was bringing through her music. And so this, I feel, I feel like I'm in church. These are the words of Samael. Here we go.

Tava Baird: What is the nature of the soul? Light and darkness, two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. They are defined in terms of each other. And you, a mortal entity, are defined in terms of both. But what you have been told is wrong. There is no war here. In all darkness, light. In all light, darkness, symbiotic, without the acceptance of both, nothing is whole, for nothing and no entity is ever just one thing.

Tava Baird: There are holy books among you that divide the [00:11:00] world into good versus evil, light versus dark, angel versus demon, high versus low, I draw your attention to the dividing line that man has set between these things and discourses on at length. Versus. Conflict. Or. Eliminate that line from your thoughts to truly understand the nature of nature, the nature of the holy, the nature of your soul.

Tava Baird: Do not say, light, light, light, only, for it does not exist. And in the end, you will find that it was never true anyway. Let us instead accept, care for, and learn to walk with darkness. Do not be frightened. Do not be afraid. For you were birthed from dark, and to dark your [00:12:00] ashes will return. Let us turn our attention from the over examined light, and let us contemplate why you were asked to ever turn away.

Tava Baird: And, Jen, you said something really interesting about, this was in a Marco that I was listening to yesterday. And, to be fair, I think I listened to about five Marcos yesterday, so. but you were talking about something that Elizabeth Gilbert had said regarding, and that's reminded me of this a little bit, regarding, um, the idea of turning the other cheek and all of these sort of, um, behaviors and how they, that oftentimes holy books are telling us to be, and how the comments may actually have been.

Tava Baird: very much misinterpreted. And do you know what I'm talking about? What you brought up? 

Jennifer Taylor: I do. And in fact, I wish that [00:13:00] I had gone and found that.and listen to her specifically, because I'm not sure I have a good, clear representation of what it is that, that she had said.

Jennifer Taylor: it was a part of a conversation that it was told to me, by someone that I highly respect, who's an incredible energy healer and animal communicator. We were talking about the kind of different aspects of the divine feminine, the different aspects of working with, um, energies and the types of energies and the types of sounds that come through in order to kind of break things up.

Jennifer Taylor: And actually we started out talking about sound and that, um, she was hoping that. the work that I do could help her to open her throat chakra, because that had actually happened in listening to the podcast with listening. when Archangel Michael [00:14:00] came through the sound of his sword came through.

Jennifer Taylor: And at one point she said something about I'm sure I'll make, some of the wrong notes and things like that when I'm learning and I was talking about that there is no such thing as a wrong note because in sound healing and using sound as a healing modality and.

Jennifer Taylor: And tool that there is really no such thing as the wrong note and performance. There may be a note that was not written into the script, you know, that was not a part of the music or a song, a note that's discordant with the other notes, but when it comes to using sound for healing, that Sometimes the notes that sound, really dissonant are actually the most important and powerful because they break up, energy, like impactions kind of in, you know, these like balls and cysts of energy in us and that it takes something of that kind of [00:15:00] vibration in order to be, recognized and allowed in and dispersing it.

Jennifer Taylor: And that had led us to a discussion of the different types of energy that come into an energy work session and how you can't necessarily just love away a, hardened thing that you find in someone's energy field. And just sort of bathing it in this loving light.

Jennifer Taylor: doesn't really do anything. 

Tava Baird: Sometimes tough love is necessary. Yeah. It's 

Jennifer Taylor: like it needs more, you know, what will often come in is some kind of energy in, in some form. And it may be represented in our minds in the form of something, you know, with like a dragon type of energy or some sort of thing that doesn't look all pretty and fancy and fluffy.

Jennifer Taylor: It looks fearsome and sometimes scary. And, but that's the energy. It's like needing to match the type of energy, but bring in I want [00:16:00] to say more sacred, holy version of that, this healed version of that vibration in And that's what's able to just, to dislodge and open up and release and heal these things.

Jennifer Taylor: when I first started thinking about it, I was like, I don't know that this has anything to do with it, but to some extent, I think this does speak to what, um, Sam, I always talking about in that we think, when we're doing energy work, if we just bathe everything in, in light and in, this.

Jennifer Taylor: Kind of fluffy, positive, happy kind of energy. It's not always what things need. And we talked about getting comfortable with that idea of the sacred darkness, the womb, the void, the space of, infinite potential that we all come from. And looking at darkness in that regard. And then we also were talking about the, divine feminine.

Jennifer Taylor: And that's where the, Elizabeth Gilbert, information was [00:17:00] coming in. one of the big things that came out of that for me was the reminder that, Embracing the divine feminine and there's a lot of movement nowadays to bring back the divine feminine and the goddess energies and things like that.

Jennifer Taylor: And it's often misinterpreted as we're just supposed to be loving and positive and kind and gentle and nurturing and soothing. And that's. part of the divine feminine energy, but that it's also, you know, this, it's also fierce and protective and has strong boundaries and upholds that which is in right relationship.

Jennifer Taylor: And that, working with Sekhmet and how, Sekhmet came in as one of my, primary guides early on. And I was terrified. I was like, Oh, this all just seems scary and doesn't seem like what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm [00:18:00] supposed to be all love and light and, she is loving and protective and fearsome and even, Quan Yin, who is known for her compassion and mercy and love has this really fearsome side as well that will come in and tear out the things that need to be removed for the highest good.

Tava Baird: I think in thinking about it a little bit, I think especially if you've been part of an organized religion, this idea is, it's sort of set in our heads. I grew up Catholic as I'm sure people who've listened to the podcast before now, and pretty much the only woman. that they show you in Catholicism is the Virgin Mary.

Tava Baird: So you have this maternal loving figure who shows up in the stories of the birth of Christ. And then, no, people don't really talk about her that much, like she appears a little bit later, but first off, we have the [00:19:00] whole concept of the Virgin Mary, okay, and there's this whole idea that she's born without sin, that she's this pure light, and she's Pretty much only described in terms of being a mother, right?

Tava Baird: We have no idea what Mary's workout regimen was. We have no idea what hobbies she had, what book she liked to read, or what curse words she knew. She's very one dimensional when we look at her in Catholicism. Or at least in the Catholicism that I was taught. if you are female, you often feel unaccepted because who are you going to look up to?

Tava Baird: Your choice is, you know, the Virgin Mary or a nun, and nuns are supposed to be, they're defined as the brides of Christ, okay? You don't really have a lot of, women, roping around in the Bible, who are shown in a favorable light, who aren't shown as either being a mother or a bride, right, as the whole way that they're defined.

Tava Baird: And [00:20:00] so I think what happens a lot of times when people say, Okay, I want something for me, I want faith that speaks to me, and they go out looking, When they hear about a goddess, the first attributes that they gravitate towards are what they know from, their upbringing. I know that happened to me.

Tava Baird: I went and went, goddesses are all sweet and motherly and loving. And because I wanted to feel accepted, the idea of a mother reaching out to me was really appealing. What happens over time. Is you start to realize that that is a very one dimensional view and it's not what real women are like at all. I mean, holy cow, childbirth, okay?

Tava Baird: That is not tidy and demure and quiet, okay? You are literally a portal bringing through a life into this world, right? There is blood, there [00:21:00] is screaming,stuff is getting torn often. So, like You know, you think about the, the reality of being mother is not this, idealized, you popped out into a stable and there was a drummer boy standing there and you never hear about the contractions Mary went through, right?

Tava Baird: Or, you know, the, the diapering. of her son. All of these very real messy things that women do every day. And you also don't hear about them as powerful in their own right. And I remember I spent, my first years in the pagan community with this idea that it was love and light and motherhood was, was what a goddess was.

Tava Baird: And then the Morrigan showed up and, you know, the Morrigan, she is extremely fierce. She's a battle goddess. She's a goddess of sovereignty. She's a goddess [00:22:00] of fate. Her crows and ravens. Eat the dead on the battlefield and bring their souls back to the cauldron of rebirth. And I went, Oh my God, Bridget, this ain't right.

Tava Baird: And I was actually terrified the first time she appeared. but what she was doing was balancing me and letting me see that,If I spend my entire life trying to rip out all of the parts of myself that aren't tidy and pretty and motherly, I'm not ever going to accept my whole self because there is a lot about me that isn't tidy and pretty and serene and kind all the time, and in being able to embrace the lessons of the Morrigan and a lot of these other goddesses, I started to accept that I could be a [00:23:00] That there wasn't anything wrong with me the way that I was. And except that what is divine is a lot more than a very narrow definition.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, we're given this sense of, motherhood and the sense of, like the Virgin Mary, but. motherhood too, and requires a fierceness as well. sometimes you have to, go to the school board and stand up for the needs that your child has and that are not being met.

Jennifer Taylor: Sometimes you have to stand up to your child and say, this is not healthy or balanced or acceptable. you need to change this behavior because it is. It's unhealthy. it's not safe or whatever it is, and it's uncomfortable and it feels terrible having to do those things.

Jennifer Taylor: But. sometimes that's the right thing and the way to bring balance and healing and health [00:24:00] and harmony within your household and or your business or the school or whatever it is. Sometimes it requires that. It's that dissonant note that needs to break those things up and that brings things back into balance.

Jennifer Taylor: I learned really early on in motherhood because our older children had, extreme beginnings,prior to entering foster care and in order for them to feel safe, like what I wanted was to just love all of the pain and trauma out of them. And what I learned was that that didn't make them feel safe, boundaries and, a very clear, understanding of this is, this is within the realm of what is accepted within the household and this is not actually allowed them to relax.

Jennifer Taylor: And they were more relaxed, it was loving, but it was firm and definite and steady. And that energy [00:25:00] allowed them to relax in a way that just being like, Oh honey, you know, what can I do? Let me, let me, you know, it would like all of that would just sort of spiral them out of control.

Jennifer Taylor: And I think it's another example of, setting boundaries and I had to be, more strong and in the way that I was in order to help snap them out of something, out of a rage or something. And in doing that, that's what brought balance.

Jennifer Taylor: And it felt terrible to do. And at the time I, I saw the effects, but I didn't really honor that as a, an important part quality as much in motherhood, in order to really bring about the most healthy balanced children, it can't necessarily be all of that, fluffy kind of nurturing feeling things as, either.

Jennifer Taylor: I think it depends on what we think of as nurturing, like is nurturing simply nobody ever hears a flawed [00:26:00] word from your lips. Is it that you absolutely never lose your composure? Is it that your house is always perfect? Cause here's the thing, 

Tava Baird: Those things aren't honest, right? Nobody is like that all the time. the most perfect, serene person you can think of, excuse my French, but they even say fuck sometimes like they do. It's just people stub their toes. They have days that are off. They have days that are sick and it's not healthy to be all one way, one time.

Tava Baird: Think a lot of cases when we talk about the case for darkness, it's also the case for honesty. Right? What you were talking about with the boundaries found that a lot when I was working as a teacher, uh, if I was just trying to dole out pure sweet love and nothing but good news constantly,what was going to happen at some point would be that I would be expected to tell somebody that everything was okay when I knew it wasn't okay.[00:27:00] 

Tava Baird: I was going to tell somebody I was okay when I really wasn't. And that's not honest. I used to do lots of meetings with parents where I had to sit down and tell them that their child had special needs or that we suspected their child had special needs and what have you, or that their child was struggling, which are all hard things to hear.

Tava Baird: And I would tell families, look, you might not always like what I have to say. What I have to tell you is not always going to be pretty, but what it is going to be and what you can rely on is I will be honest. and give you the information you need to move forward from here and find the solutions that you need to find.

Tava Baird: So there are going to be times when you're angry at me. There are going to be times when I say things you wish I wasn't saying. There are going to be times when I have to tell you something that feels very brutal in your heart and I'm going to do it in the [00:28:00] kindest way but I want what will actually help your child.

Tava Baird: It's not honest for me to pat you on the head and blow smoke up in all of your orifices and, and tell you that everything's okay when it isn't. I like a phrase that you said.

Tava Baird: You have much better that you talk about the, you want all of the options that are in the highest good that are moving us forward, darkness and light are very much from someone's perspective. What may look light to one person may look dark to another.

Tava Baird: but what we're looking for is the result. What we're looking for is the honesty and what gets us to the next place that we want to be. And so I think, starting to spend time with the concept of divine darkness as well as divine light is really, really [00:29:00] important. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. 

Jennifer Taylor: it was a really, challenging, and really confronting kind of thing to hear so much from Samael about the need for embracing the darkness and not equating darkness with evil.

Jennifer Taylor: And that was, that is such a connection that especially in Christianity and in our just You know, daily vernacular, everything is, going to the dark side, there are all these, um, all these associations with dark meaning evil and the importance of separating the two.

Jennifer Taylor: And I remember from very, very early on, Sam, I was saying, you have got to stop making the association of, good and evil with light and dark. And I think that's maybe the The easiest, the best place to start when you're trying to understand what it is that Tava and I are talking about. And also that [00:30:00] I completely get, it is a hard thing to, it feels unsettling, when you're first starting to open to that idea 

Jennifer Taylor: I've been taught so much. And my training of like, only light, only light, only stay in the light, only work with the light, there was really a fear. There was a huge fear that was built by the idea of, darkness was something that was constantly trying to get you, that it was like in any little moment, if you let down your guard, it's going to jump in and take over and something bad is going to happen.

Jennifer Taylor: That those were kind of the thoughts that I had when I first started hearing Sam, I'll talking about embracing the darkness and I'm like, Oh, no, what is this?maybe this is leading me down a bad path because there's so there's just so much fear that is.

Jennifer Taylor: Placed around the darkness because it's spoken of as evil. I think if we can talk about and share some of our experiences with this [00:31:00] darkness and we decided that, language. Is so limiting and that we needed more words for darkness because they're all these different versions of what people mean.

Jennifer Taylor: And so we started calling it the divine darkness to help to instantly put our mind into that place of this is a divine darkness and instantly that took away some of the fear kind of de escalated some of that brace that was coming up in us. And more and more, we've had experiences where we're starting to honor that, that divine darkness and the element of that and what it brings and the importance of it.

Tava Baird: Absolutely. And I think the other thing that is challenging is that often we seem to associate light with life and dark with death. And we don't handle [00:32:00] death well in the United States in general. we have tons and tons of celebrations and Rituals and all sorts of beautiful things for bringing a new life into the world but there are n ot a lot for the end of our incarnations. luckily this is starting to change with the idea of, death doulas and, hospice care has become a,much different thing and more people are being trained in, helping people to cross from this life as well.

Tava Baird: But we still have, oh, such a long way to go. here's the reality is, and it's a reality most of us don't like to think about, the reality is we're all gonna die. Okay, Jen's gonna die. I'm gonna die. We're all gonna die. And you, a lot of our gut reaction to that is, Ooh, don't say that.

Tava Baird: Let's not talk about it. And then it happens. Or we have people in the end stages of their life. [00:33:00] And we are at a loss for how to bring them comfort. how to bring ourselves comfort, and how to prepare ourselves for this transition, and for what sort of relationship we are going to have with the dead after they're gone beyond simply missing them.

Tava Baird: People who speak up and say, my grandmother passed on and I've seen her standing at the foot of my bed for the last three nights, immediately get put in this, you're in the woo woo category, you are crazy, you are, oh, you're just grieving. And what we need to look at is that that's a very limited way of looking at the world and also not a way that is in the best interest of ourselves or our loved ones who do cross over.

Tava Baird: we often don't have a lot of preparation for the concept of death. It does just seem like a [00:34:00] place we can't see. It seems like darkness. Whenever you see, the idea of the angel of death, he's always shrouded in black. think about, uh, Christmas Carol, okay?

Tava Baird: You have the third ghost that shows up. They never bring him in in bright lights in a tutu, right? He's always this dark, horrible figure that's pointing at this decrepit tombstone. this whole memento mori sort of thing. But death is a part of the cycle that we go through.

Tava Baird: And there are some beautiful rituals and customs and preparations in other parts of the world that we can look at and adopt for our own. And I think one of the reasons why Samael is very adamant about this topic quite frequently is that, if you read the old, old stories, he is the angel of death, right?

Tava Baird: He's equated with death. With [00:35:00] darkness with being there at the hour of death and dripping poison from the blade of his sword into the person who's about to die's mouth, and then they don't really go into what happens after that, there's this huge mystery that most of us never 

Tava Baird: really seem to want to turn our attention to. And so Samael's name is often associated with horrible things.

Tava Baird: but what I know of him and have known of him for over a year now is when he is in my vicinity, it is the same feeling you get crawling under a bunch of thick quilts in the middle of winter. It's dark under those quilts, but it's warm and it's safe and it's comforting and it feels like home.

Tava Baird: And I know that of him. And so I have difficulty picturing, and especially because he spends so much time giving us little tidbits and little [00:36:00] nudges to try to move us towards fully realizing ourselves in our incarnation on this earth. That's a very different picture than what is often seen. painted of him.

Tava Baird: And so I think he likes to bring this topic out and say, perhaps the picture you're painting of yourself is not necessarily in service to your truth either. You can be both. You can be, you know, an angel and dark the same time. 

Jennifer Taylor: And I think one of the favorite things I think I remember him saying to you, or you recounting was him saying about.

Jennifer Taylor: him being there at the moment of death. And as, the angel of death is my hand is warm and inviting. when I come to, to take you, it's one, it's not a snatching you away from something you were supposed to be here doing. it's not some sort of [00:37:00] violation of, the way that, of what is in your highest good when it's time for you to make the transition out of this physicalized life and back into spirit more fully that It is a warm and loving thing.

Jennifer Taylor: he is taking your hand and his hand is warm and he will walk you back to the ancestors. And that is a very, very different picture and it has brought a lot of comfort. And I love that. It's like you said,the images of the, the angel of death is always this terrifying, gruesome thing, not this beautiful, loving man, you know, angel who is reaching this warm hand and saying, here, let, let me, let me be with you.

Jennifer Taylor: And my experience of his energy is the same. It's this warm, unconditionally loving, caring, [00:38:00] safe, sacred, secure kind of energy that You just want to be in forever and, if that is what is coming to help us step out of these bodies, that's a wonderful thing and a very different thing to anticipate.

Tava Baird: It's pretty interesting to a couple of years ago, I started talking to people who work in hospice. People who work in emergency rooms, people who, are death doulas and talking to them about process of death. we all think we know, okay, somebody, they gasp their last, they die, whatever it is, but there are whole incredible processes that happen in the moments before and after death.

Tava Baird: But I had no idea about. And I found them fascinating. And the more that I read, the other thing that really stood out to me is the [00:39:00] sheer number of people who as they are dying, have an experience where they see someone else in the room. This isn't like one in a hundred. This is a lot of people. If we had data like this in 

Tava Baird: Any other field? We would go, wow, there's definitely something going on here. But for some reason or another, we'd insist on stamping our foot and saying, no, none of that's really happening. And I think that is because of our fear of death. Um, we also have this idea that this is the only life we ever have to live.

Tava Baird: And, you know, we have to make the most of it, which, which we do have to make the most of it. We are here to learn and to, Reach out towards others and to try to help us all move forward in, in knowledge and experience and joy. But sometimes doing that requires different things than we might think.

Tava Baird: it's [00:40:00] really hard when you start looking at this stuff, not to stay open to the possibility that that isn't exactly what we want. society tells us it is. You know, every movie you see, there's someone saying their last five heartfelt words, and then their eyes roll back in their head, and everybody cries, and then there's a sad funeral scene, and that's pretty much it, right?

Tava Baird: And Death is an entire process that we go through ourselves and that we go through when other people die and starting to listen to these people who are around death regularly, it is transformative. I really encourage people to, to look into it. There is a book I would recommend as well called G Graceful Exits How Great Beings Die.

Tava Baird: Mentioned it on the podcast earlier. 

Tava Baird: Graceful Exits, [00:41:00] How Great Beings Die. And it is the death stories of, and a lot, most of them are from other cultures.

Tava Baird: The death stories of spiritual leaders as. told by people who were usually there at the death.

Tava Baird: Zen monks and how they prepare for death and all of these people from different spiritual traditions 

Tava Baird: You read these stories and you think, There is so much grace in their passing and grace extended to the people who were around them and lessons that were given from these deaths to the people who witnessed them that would alter and change their lives for the better forever.

Tava Baird: it also makes you realize how poor we often are in our society at providing these experiences. I remember the first [00:42:00] time I ever went to visit someone who was in hospice care, who was getting ready to pass on. And I had never been to a hospice before, to a hospice center, and I didn't know what to expect.

Tava Baird: And the people there were being held. And I don't mean like physically, like someone was sitting there holding on to them. I mean, the entire environment of the place was 

Tava Baird: like being in a sacred place, but it also had an undercurrent of, there is the expectation of something better next. not this idea that you're just here until your suffering ends, right? And I remember visiting someone in this place and this person was beyond the point where they could respond in a way that I could see.

Tava Baird: And I remember sitting and holding their hand and reading to them and having a one [00:43:00] kind of sided conversation and telling them about how their grandchildren were doing and what was going on in the day. But I remember going to this place and on the way there I was going with a very dear friend of mine who is a generation older than myself, and I very nervous because I Not been around the 

Tava Baird: dying, we try very hard to shield people from the concept of dying. in a lot of families, we don't tell children until much later that someone has passed on. Or we pretend everything is fine when things are not fine. And I had never gotten to have the experience of being around someone who was dying.

Tava Baird: So, we're driving to this hospice center and I am a bundle of nerves because I couldn't anticipate what it was going to be like and I didn't know how to process it. And I was so grateful, because my friend who was going with me, who's a generation ahead of me and also [00:44:00] had been a mentor when I was teaching, I said to her, you know, have you gone to a hospice before?

Tava Baird: And she said, oh, yes. And, she was just so calm and so upbeat and, we're just going to visit our friend and I got there and she guided me through and modeled for me what was expected or what was all right in this completely new environment. And I will always be grateful to her because it made me feel very comfortable that I had a lead to follow.

Tava Baird: but it also shocked me that I had gotten to nearly 50 years of age without ever being around someone who was dying and without ever having been shown a way that you could be in that situation. for some people it isn't until their parents pass on or their spouse passes on that they really get any experience with this.

Tava Baird: And I think that comes as a shock. it would be really lovely if [00:45:00] this were more of a conversation if we talked more about the sacred darkness, not only in ourselves in accepting how darkness, works in ourselves, but also the darkness that we will head towards once again, once we, are starting to get ready to leave this earth. 

Jennifer Taylor: So as you are probably getting used to by now, this conversation went on for a little over two hours. So we have divided it into two again. And we hope that you will tune in next week to continue the conversation, but we didn't want to leave you at this spot, given all of the conversations and the types of topics that we've been discussing today.

Jennifer Taylor: So at the end here, right after I speak will be. a song that came through that was channeled and came through in the second half of the podcast that you'll get next week, but it's a very soothing, settling song. And so it just felt right to put it at the end of this [00:46:00] episode as well. So we hope that you enjoy and have a beautiful and blessed week. [00:47:00] [00:48:00]