Death.

Death. Let’s face it…

In this episode, Dr. Makeba is joined by her friends, Tommy Fu'rqan Washington, Ominira Mars, LaSheta Reynolds, and Kadijah Kemp, to discuss death, the transition process, and finding peace amidst loss. Together, they share personal experiences, expertise, and spiritual insights to help listeners develop a clearer understanding to gain a different comfort level with death, which is really just a part of life.

o  The guests bring diverse perspectives from their work, as elder care providers, death doulas, and spiritual counselors, as well as personal encounters with tragic losses. They shed light on the complexities of death, the emotions involved, and the importance of embracing uncertainty.

o  The episode explores the unique challenges associated with unexpected deaths and tragic circumstances. The guests discuss practices such as elevation and veneration that can aid in processing and honoring the souls who have transitioned.

o  LaSheta Reynolds shares her practice of communicating with ancestors and guiding souls to the afterlife. The discussion highlights the significance of establishing spiritual connections, providing comfort, and finding solace in knowing that loved ones are at peace.

o  Kadijah Kemp opens up about her personal experience of losing her child and the grieving process. The conversation delves into the role of grief counseling, group support, and the importance of creating safe spaces for parents and individuals navigating loss. She also shares her experience working with a medium to help gain closure.

o  Throughout the episode, the guests emphasize the importance of living each day fully, expressing gratitude, and appreciating the present moment. 

Take a moment to express gratitude for the people in your life. Reach out to a loved one, offer support to someone experiencing loss, or explore practices that promote inner peace and healing. Remember that life is a precious gift, and each moment should be cherished.

Dunbar Creek Collective: https://dunbarcreekcollective.com/
Going with Grace: https://goingwithgrace.com/

Transcript

opem: 0:00

Bridge to Nairobi. Bridge to Nairobi. Jah, Show us the light. This movement phonetic. The chi is kinetic. You know what's up. We just leveling up. Eternal life. Children of light. Blessings upon you. The truth and the pride Women heal Earth. Cherish your worth. Get us back on track like rebirth.

Dr. Makeba: 0:22

Welcome to Sol Social with Dr. Makeba and Friends, the soul nourishing podcast that takes you on a journey of spirituality self-discovery and healing. I'm Dr. Makeba, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this metamorphic path toward embracing your purpose, trusting your intuition and igniting your inner light. In this episode, we will be exploring the topic of death and transitioning into the afterlife. I'm joined by my good friends, Tommy Fu'rqan Washington, Ominira Mars, LaSheta Reynolds and Khadija Kemp. In our conversation, we will touch upon various aspects of death from understanding tragic and sudden deaths to the importance of embracing uncertainty and finding peace in the process. Our guests will share their personal journeys and shed light on the role of death, doulas, spiritual practices, and ancestral connections in navigating the complexities of death. As you listen to this episode, I encourage you to reflect on your own understanding of death. And the impact it has on your life. Consider the importance of being prepared for the inevitable and embracing a mindset that values each moment. Let us learn from the stories and insights shared here today to foster a deeper appreciation for life and a greater sense of peace when facing the concept of death. I'm grateful to have you join us today. Okay let's talk! Well. Hello. Hello, hello everyone. Today we're talking about death or life and easing into that transition, really wanting to dive in and talk about death and what that means for us. We've got some extremely beautiful people on today to help us dive deeply into this topic that work specifically in that area and have had some deep personal experiences with death. We are gonna try to keep it light, but it may get heavy because death can be a heavy topic. At the end of this time together, my goal is for people to have a much clearer understanding and a different comfort level with what it means to transition and go on to that next phase of your life, that afterlife. Fu'rquan, would you like to introduce yourself for us?

Tommy-Fu'rqan: 2:51

Hey, Fu'rquan, Washington. I hail from Atlanta right now in Jersey City, New York based. My experience with this process, I am becoming something and I'm not quite sure yet. I am presently in my professional position I run a group home within Queens. I deal with elder care. I've had two of my clients pass, one of my clients passed recently because of Covid. I pretty much have an unlicensed nurse, so I was also doing his hospice care. During Covid I found myself working within New York Presbyterian in transport. Part of my job was retrieving the bodies when people expired. And I was in the hospitals during the high time of covid. I don't have to pretty much say where that has led me, but I found peace in the morgue and I found my crew amongst the transit people. There were like four of us. Since I've had that experience in the hospitals, things have been in a transition for me. I'm excited to be here and see what I can learn and hear from everyone else.

Dr. Makeba: 3:57

Omi would you please introduce yourself.

Ominira: 4:00

Hi everyone. My name is Ominira, but people call me Omi. I'm a black southern organizer, death doula and writer. I work mostly exclusively from a black southern in rural anti-colonial epistemology around death work. I'm the founder of the Dunbar Creek Collective, and this collective is an organizer of grief and death doulas who specifically work with colonized communities to make end of life care more accessible. And who usually work with Folks who are disenfranchised, such as houseless folks, and homeless folks with death and grief work. I'm really happy to be here. I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest person on this call, so I'm happy to learn from folks who have been in this work longer than me. I really love to sit at people's feet and discuss and learn, so thank you.

Dr. Makeba: 4:53

Thank you. LaSheta, please introduce yourself.

LaSheta: 4:56

Hello everybody. I am LaSheta. About 4 years ago my mom was getting ready to transition and that opened my spirit to the work of being a death doula slash shaman slash psycho pump, which is someone who carries souls to the afterlife. Think of grim reaper when I say psycho pump. A lot of my work is focused with ancestors. A lot of them have not crossed over. I have the ability to cross them over. I became a death doula through a company called Going With Grace, but that's the practical side of death doula-ing I focus more on the spiritual side. By day I'm a teacher, but my soul work requires a lot of work with ancestors and helping those souls find their way back to God.

Dr. Makeba: 5:46

Thank you. And Kadijah last but not least, please introduce yourself.

Kadijah: 5:52

Hi, my name is Kadijah and I currently live in the DMV Maryland. I'm an educator and I'm here because last year I lost my child. I'm still going through the grieving process. However, I was able to find peace after I spoke to several mediums, and one of the mediums walked me through my son's transition. It kind of gave me peace because I was wondering about how things occurred since it was across the country in California when I was here. And I just was envisioning all types of things. Hearing how he transitioned and how peaceful it was, gave me peace. I'm here just to get different perspectives and to learn as much as possible what work you all do and how that brings people peace or how you help them transition.

Dr. Makeba: 6:48

Thank you, Kadijah. You've experienced a lot of other death besides your son. I wanted you to share a little bit about just what you've been experiencing lately and some of the challenges with that.

Kadijah: 7:05

So, like I said, it's fairly new that I lost my own child and now being an educator in DC people are shot daily and I've lost students. So I've lost people who are somewhat close to me, but then I'm also meeting other parents and moms who've lost their children. And it's happened rapidly, so, I'm still trying to process what my purpose is and how I fit into this puzzle. Because usually when you watch something on tv, you can relate and you feel sorry, and you're like, oh, you know, you, you feel, you may have feelings, emotions, however you can detach because it's not occurring to you. But now that this happened to me, sometimes it's overwhelming emotionally because I'm an empath, so I take on all of these losses and I'm just trying to figure out what am I supposed to do with it.

Dr. Makeba: 8:05

We are all born and we will all die. Like those are sure things And one of the things that I've experienced so much these past several months is how real that is. I always believed that the people who passed on their spirits were still around. We could call on them and all that stuff. Like, I believe that, but since they've been actually talking to me it's very different. It's a very different mm-hmm. When they start talking to you, it's like, oh yes. Oh my God. Ok. Ok. Fuquan, I feel you would like to share a little bit.

Tommy-Fu'rqan: 8:45

Oh, I, you know, you just, you talking to me with that because when they start talking, first thing you, you're like, oh my God, what is this? am I crazy? what's going on? Then if you're coming from a Judo Christianity, they, you're like, wait, is that God? wait, is there just one God? And just like we're saying people are scared when they hear death. I've always been attracted to it. And I wanna hear more about rural southern tradition, cuz I'm from the country in Georgia, so I've always been attracted to that, but we don't talk about that. Soon as you bring up death, oh child we need to put some blessings on you or something's wrong or ooh. And you spooky. And I was always the spooky guy. I had to learn how to become cool with being a spooky guy. When I was in the hospital, I knew things had started taking the turn because I remember going into not only picking up the bodies, but the rooms where people were they were in a coma. And I could feel them and I could feel fear. And some people I could feel were about to transition and they were scared. I would go in the rooms and I would hear things like, People screaming or just, just, it's just a sense of fear. And in some rooms you could go in and u would feel overwhelming peace like people knew what it was. And then it was remarkable when I would pick up bodies, because some rooms I walk in and they didn't even know where they were. The room was just empty and you could tell somebody just got pushed up there and you had to take'em away. And then there were rooms where you went in and it was like, oh my God, this is chaos. Let's just do what we gotta do and, and get this done. And it was it was amazing experience. From there all the stuff, I'm just gonna sit back and shake my head a lot because I have so many questions to where to go and so many things I wanna say. But because this is all developing and it's also about becoming okay with it. Not believing that I was gonna go to hell or I was doing something wrong. And that was 30 years of work just to get to that. So now I'm just standing in my glory and, and letting things develop. At my job, I had an 83 year old man who died. He was born blind. His family baptized him when he was six months old and left him on the fire station. And when he passed, he was Polish and I felt some need to reconnect him with his roots. I was always playing polish things for him because he thought he was ugly and unloved and he spoke a horrible language. Anybody from New York know he was from Woodside, Queens, so that was very Polish. And he was always scared of death. I found myself praying with him, doing Catholic things with him because that brought him peace. I also had to battle my own things in my past. He passed away and I was really sad that I wasn't there the day he passed away. Because he was fighting death so long, and every time I was there, it was felt as it was my job, just comforting, let him know it was okay. Let him know that he won his life. You're a blind man, born in the mid 20th century, and you live to 83 in a institution in New York City? Okay. This guy used to be door to door salesman, blind, lived in Harlem. He was cool. So, it was just something it's just all developing. So I'm gonna step back, you know, anybody has any insight, jump in, please.

Dr. Makeba: 12:00

I'm glad that you shared that. My father was afraid of death and he would say not that he was afraid necessarily, but that he didn't want to die. He wanted to stay as long as he could And so I remember when he was sick and we knew it was time, it was hard to make the decision to stop giving him that excess care that was doing nothing but really harming and prolonging the death process. And when we finally did let him go, it was hard and sad but the calm that came over his ailing body and that was in the room, the quiet that was in the room, I knew that he was in a better place. I knew that we made the right call and it just, it felt good. And I knew he was with his brother and his mother and they engulfed him with their beautiful light. I felt it deeply in my spirit. And I do feel like even when people understand that, It's still hard cuz you grieve that person physical presence. Yeah. So Omi please share with us

Ominira: 13:19

I only practice being a death doula with very close family until I feel called by spirit to begin practicing outside of my family. I come from a large family, so it's so many of us, so many people. I'm always meeting with my family one-on-one and I offer them free death education and my services for free. I see this as an act of building community around death and grief, because I also want them to have the same tools to go build with someone else. I would agree that, being a death doula, there are so many different sides. Like LaSheta said, there's a practical side to being a death doula. This work has been practiced for centuries, since before the beginning of time. There have been death doulas, there have been death workers. They may have went by different names, but this work has been going on since people have been dying. And yeah, so there's a practical side, and then there are folks who are focused more so on the emotional side. So they become grief counselors. There are folks who are more focused on the spiritual side of preparing folks for end of life. There are so many aspects to what being a death worker or a death doula is. And I think as this career or practice begins to grow, I hope a lot of people feel more excited to step into what it means to do death work. In terms of being a death doula, I think my role here on this earth is to build out some sort of infrastructure So people can access death, education, death work. Again, I practice with my family, but most of my job is connecting death doulas. I'm also trying to connect my work of being a death doula and a grief doula to my anti-capitalist work or my work around organizing around black lives. so that's the work I do as a death doula. I guess my answer to that question is that there's a lot of ways to arrive to practicing being a death worker.

Dr. Makeba: 15:14

LaSheta I know that you have a whole practice where you leave things for the ancestors. You really communicate with your ancestors very regularly. I wanted you to share a little bit about that how you came to doing that and what is your practice?

LaSheta: 15:34

March, 2019 my mom said to me, I have cancer. August, she said, I have stage four cancer. In my mind, I knew exactly what that meant. Prior to my mother being sick, there was no work for Ancestry, none of this was familiar to me. And all of a sudden spirits sent me say, Hey, I'm gonna give you this. I'm gonna give you this, I'm gonna give you this. First, I'm gonna give you the connection with your other ancestors who, ancestors who have transitioned. So you can elevate them, so they can receive your mother. So the elevation process took about nine days, that's when we did the veneration with the food, the offering, the prayers, all those acts of love. So when it was my mother's time, she could be received. The day that she actually died, my brother's door opened and a gust of wind went by. I knew my dad came and got my mother's soul cuz he passed before her. Ancestor venerations to me is important because it opens the pathway to your other ancestors. My mom, while she was in the dying phase, I was able to say, Hey, this is what's going to happen. Make sure you go to your light. That light is for you. Don't stay here. We will be fine. I can find you if I need to find you. You know what I mean? I gave my mother a year rest before I actually called her back to help me. So now I know in the spirit world, she's on my council. I have one more seat, that's my grandmother's seat. I felt my mother dying. I felt the day that she was gonna die. I called it. And once I felt my grandmother's transition, I can start the elevation process again for her. When she gets to go before God and say my granddaughter did this for me. This is an act of love. In turn she comes back to help me. So the spiritual side of it is bigger than the practical side for me. If I was gonna do the practical part of it, I would do sitting vigils where I sit with people at the end of their life and just gave them my energy to know that where they're going is beautiful. They don't have to fear anything. Like I don't really operate in the space of fear because I know who God is. When I talk to people about death, I say, why do you fear things you have not experienced? Then they start thinking. I said, you plan for everything. You plan for baby showers, weddings. Why won't you leave your family the gift of you planning for your end of life celebration. My niece already knows it's gonna be a party. It's no mourning. It's gonna be a party, it's gonna be a tattoo party, it's gonna be a party when I go. I talk to people because I've seen more death around me since my mom passed. I had a coworker, I would talk about death around her. Guess what? She died. I hope me talking about going to the light and understanding that there is nothing to fear resonates with people. Part of my job is to help them ease out of the fear. I said you will lose everything that you love. That's just the beauty of God. And so when you lose that you gain so much more. So my day job being a teacher, I talk to kids about death. I have students who have lost their parents, and there's nobody at my school that talks about grief. I talk to the kids about it because it's a real thing. It doesn't have a gender, it doesn't have a age. It's one of those things that will happen to everybody. So, you know, it's a gift to me to be able to talk to people about it and help ease the fear? The spiritual part of it came one day I was sitting at my kitchen table and all of a sudden I heard we are ready to go. I was like ready to go and I was like, what is going on? So Spirit said, go get some candles, go get some crystals, line'em up this way, and get some water, I had to do a candle for my mom's side. I had to do a candle for my dad's side, and I had to do a candle for source. And all three candles were lit. I did a collection of prayers. It didn't take long and after I did the last prayer, everything was peaceful. Those souls that wanted to go went. I was at a conference. I could not finish the conference because I was so sick because there were people trying to cross over at the conference. I had to call my friend to do reiki for me But I called her and she was like, those souls are trying to get you to cross them over. I literally had to leave my conference room and do a five minute crossover session with those souls. After that everything was calm. Now I find I can do it very quickly. I've done it in my dreams. That's a part of my ancestry. Do I know those ancestors? I have no idea, but I know that they are psycho pumps who have helped souls cross over. So I know that's a gift that God gave me. Do I use it all the time? No. I just use it once spirit says, Hey, we're ready. And so my clientele, I don't really have clients, I just talk to people about death because I still teach during the day. When I retire from teaching, it's full blown work. There's no stopping me so the people that I'm meeting now will be a part of the journey as I get older and as they have people who die and wanna know what happens to the souls. So it's more spiritual than it is practical for me.

Dr. Makeba: 20:41

And LaSheta, I see as part of your future that you'll be teaching this to the children as well, because we need to know these things now. I do believe that this is something that will be incorporated into the classroom at some point, so we have less fear from a younger age. As kids we are not scared of anything. So why should we be afraid of death? If they're taught and they understand, then they can live their lives more in the present and not have that fear of what's to come. Khadija's situation was a little different from what we're talking about because it sounds like in a lot of these cases, the death is anticipated or it's something that you could plan for But in the cases where it's not like a murder, what is a death doula's role in that? What can you do to help in that situation?

LaSheta: 21:37

Here goes the elevation part again. When a spirit, when somebody is deceased and it's not all lilies and roses in peace is a tragic death. Elevation works very well. You'll see elevation, like when celebrities die, they leave flowers, candles, prayers, all that is all that is veneration? So it's a nine day process that anybody could do where you offer the necessities to your people? So it could be bread, water, white flowers, anything that makes you think of your person and you do it for nine days. And on that ninth day, there's a sense of peace that comes over you. I did one for Kobe Bryant and I did one for my friend who died from Covid. I just prayed for their families because I know they died very tragically. Nobody expected to die, but it happens? So the elevation is a great tool to use. People can do that to help the souls transition. Because prayers work, that's the only thing that supersedes, time and space. Cuz guess what? They're act of love. And so love is what supersedes time and space. So that, that, that grief is just love in another form? And so when you do the elevation, you're elevating your, your person's spirit. So if they died tragically, now they can feel the love coming from the person who's behind and it helps them process death. Then it helps'em come back as well to help in another way that's more beautiful than the way they could help when they were here.

Ominira: 23:15

So my, my older sister, it was a, both in with my sister and I. So as I mentioned earlier, my sister, was struggling with the last stage of addiction. And so we were preparing for her death because we had to respect her autonomy and her decision was that she was not gonna stop using drugs. There were many times in the past where we, you know, had to have interventions with her and we wanted her to go to rehab. And she refused. That's when we began preparing for her death. However, my sister was tragically murdered and her body was found in a dump site in DeKalb County. And to this day, we don't know what happened to her. But someone had rolled her up in tarp and disposed of her body, and her body began to deposed about a week later. And so that was extremely shocking for my family and I, because we were preparing for a more, quote unquote, peaceful death. We were preparing for something that was more certain. And so I feel like when that happens, and as a deaf doula, my advice to folks who are processing a tragic or a violent or a sudden death is to begin to have a relationship with uncertainty. The thing about death is, death is certain and uncertain at the same time. It's certain that we're going to die. It's certain that we're not going to be here on this earth in this form forever. We're going to change forms. Just like the butterfly. But we don't know when, we don't know how. And so death is a mix of both certainty and uncertainty. And in my work as a deaf doula, working with the demographic that I work with, I have to do work around bringing up uncertainty in a way that does not perpetuate fear. I'm trying to take this idea of uncertainty and separate it from fear because there is no need for us to be. We may be fearful of the uncertain, but there really isn't a need when, again, death is not the end. Death is only just a transformation or a change. In undergrad, I studied a lot of physics and I talked to my clients a lot about black holes, I don't know if y'all know what black holes are. But they've been around, scientists and physicists and astronomers have discovered black holes and they're seemingly this empty black hole in space that sucks up everything. And scientists have described this as an empty place. This is where things go to die. And recently I think it was two years ago, they discovered that these black holes where they thought that things go to die matter stars, meteor wars, all of these things go to die, they actually birth stars. At the end of uncertainty can be joy, can be growth can be a lot of different things. And out of my sister's tragic death came growth. My sister always speaks to me in spirit. She's just like, I know you lost me suddenly and that was a tragic loss. However, look at what you've gained and also you're going to lose again. This is not the only time that you're going to lose someone that you love. It's a matter of being spiritually, practically, and emotionally prepared for tragic things to happen. It's about having a safety net for loss to happen in our lives because change is inevitable. Death is inevitable. And if those things, those two things are inevitable, so it's loss. Loss and gain are not binary to one another. That's what I like to tell some of my clients. Becoming familiar and okay with loss is a big part of preparing for a death that is sudden or tragic. That doesn't mean that you're not going to feel that pain but that pain doesn't sit there forever.

Kadijah: 26:55

So listening sparked up a lot of emotions because preparing for loss and having an understanding of death, I read years ago, many masters, many lives that talks about reincarnation and it kind of walks you through the transition. So I feel like I have some knowledge. However, my son was 22 years old standing outside and weighed maybe a buck 50. He was shot 16 times. Okay. Nothing, I don't think, nothing could prepare me for that. Even though I'm very spiritual I understand death, but I feel like that loss and a lot of the parents that I meet, it's not their level of not understanding transition and the cycle of life, but it's that sense of loss. And I think their spirituality, they question it like, why would God do this to me? I know that my purpose is working with moms and other survivors of gun violence, helping them grieve, helping them understand their laws, but also how to process it. I'm a teacher, but I'm also studying to be a therapist. So I know a lot of moms, a lot of parents told me that they don't like going to therapy because the therapists don't really understand their loss But speaking in groups with other parents, they feel more comfortable because they know that pain. As I try to figure out, my purpose, I kind of know, but I'm trying to hone in just listening. I have so many questions because after my son was cremated, maybe this happened June 15th, 2021 and you mentioned your sister, you lost her on 10 20. That's my son's birthday. So that just made me like,

Ominira: 28:56

ugh, that's my sister's birthday. 10 20. Yeah, it was her 30th birthday. That's

Kadijah: 29:02

my son. Well, the 24th, his 24th birthday. Wow. So, yeah, it's been hard. And a lot of people look at me and they're like, you're so strong. How can you advocate? And how can you do this? This is my healing. This is how I find healing in my loss. How did I find my peace? When I spoke to the medium, she walked me through, because like I said, it took place in California. He was standing outside. I didn't know anything. She walked me through the process of how he was in the ambulance, how when he was shot that he was actually calm and he was just like, oh shoot, my mother's gonna kill me cause I shouldn't be where I'm at, or whatever. She made me laugh and it just was like, that sound just like him. I'm like, yes. But then also just telling me that someone came for him, someone came for him. There was a point in time where he was actually watching everything taking place. He made it to the hospital. He was watching it kind of like a movie, like what's gonna happen? Knowing that he was leaving this earth and wondering how we, his parents are gonna react to this. It gave me peace that someone was there to greet him and to make him feel like everything's gonna be okay. And that has helped me tremendously through my loss. I mean, and I don't share this with a lot of people, but I have it recorded and I just listen to it sometimes because it just makes me feel like, you know what, I know that he wasn't there crying, screaming for me. You know, that he was okay, and it just, ugh, it helped me so much. Yeah.

Dr. Makeba: 30:46

Whenever I hear you talk about that story, my heart it's so heavy because if anything ever happened to my daughter, I don't know how I would live. I don't know how I would go on. Even recognizing that there is an afterlife, even recognizing that she's good and all that, I still feel for you because I know that walking on this earth without your baby is really, really hard. It's really, really hard and it's still fresh. I appreciate you sharing and accepting this calling and recognizing that it is a need. You know, God puts us through certain things so that we can be helpers, so that we can be teachers. And sometimes those lessons are hard and they suck but the world will be so much better for it. His death was not in vain. Death is a part of life. It's a transition. We need to live each day as if it's our last. Be thankful for it. Pray and meditate at least a couple times every day, so that you can relax and receive.

Kadijah: 32:18

And I just wanna say thank you. Dr. Makeba for the meditation. I feel like I found my tribe that helps me process my feelings as well and gives me peace by my deep breaths and going to yoga and going yoga.

Dr. Makeba: 32:35

Yoga is the move. All right, folks. That's a wrap. Thank you so much. I appreciate you so much. I love you all so much and I'm looking forward to next time we get together. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please take a moment to express gratitude for the people in your life. Reach out to a loved one, offer support to someone experiencing loss, and explore practices that promote inner peace and healing. Remember that life is a precious gift and each moment should be cherished. Love y'all.