MUM

In this MUM episode, medicine person Ekua Adisa shares about the conscious practice of skilled grieving and the 7 steps in creating a solo grief ritual (get ready to jot down notes!) that allows time and space for the body beyond verbal expression. Both Ellen and Ekua also discuss the non-linear, spontaneous experiences of grief in the day-to-day.

More on Ekua Adisa:

Ekua Adisa is a gender fluid medicine person at the intersection of Black Southern traditions and indigenous African practices that center ancestor veneration, conjure, earth magic, channeling, plant medicine, ritual, and community care. Ekua is also deeply influenced and inspired by the teachings of Native people indigenous to so-called North America, as well as various Buddhist lineages. As an intuitive medium, an energy worker, and a ritualist, Ekua’s pleasure-purpose work is inviting and supporting collective and individual grief work with ritual somatic practices, supporting people to connect with their ancestors for guidance, making and sharing plant medicine, and supporting the dead to transition with grace, elevation, and dignity. As a death care worker, they are excited to deepen into the work of supporting people to confront impermanence and prepare for their own eventual end spiritually and logistically. Ekua has twenty years of experience hosting and facilitating groups primarily in liberation movement spaces, and fifteen years experience as a healing practitioner practicing with various modalities.

Link with Ekua:

• Ekua’s 7 Step Guide


• Website


• Instagram @ekuaadisa

MUM is produced by Ellen Wong and edited by Stepfanie Aguilar. Your support allows us to continue creating this podcast. If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review. Keep this conversation alive by bringing it to your communities.

Follow Mum on Instagram ⁠@mumthepod⁠.

If you are interested in working privately with Ellen, visit tripwithellen.com to learn more about her Death/Birth program and her spirit medicine solo retreats.

“The presence of grief means that we need space, and our need for space means we need to honor our rest. We need to honor these natural cycles. And that is a key piece of our personal liberation effort.”

Welcome back to Season Two of MUM. We ended Season One early in response to the genocide occurring in Gaza.

As we return for this second season, MUM creator and host Ellen Wong reflects on the relationship between personal and collective liberation.

If liberation is being in right relationship with all that is and honoring the natural cycles that govern our bodies and world, then celebrating death and embracing grief must be part of our liberation efforts.

How are you focusing your energy and gifts in service of our collective liberation?

Ellen’s note – the documentary she mentions in the episode is called “Trees and Other Entanglements” and the story she tells is of Carolyn Finney, Ph.D., author and environmentalist.

Your support allows us to continue creating this podcast. If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review. Keep this conversation alive by bringing it to your communities.

Follow Mum on Instagram ⁠@mumthepod⁠.

If you are interested in working privately with Ellen, visit tripwithellen.com to learn more about her Death/Birth program and her spirit medicine solo retreats.

“Suddenly I just didn't know who I was without that anymore. It was a real unmooring. But I think that I felt completely untethered to this world. I had nothing holding me here anymore, and that was really weird. I did not expect that. I think I expected to be sad about my dad being gone, but I don't think I expected—I literally do not know who I am anymore, and I don't know what my attachment is to life because I've lost so much of my context that I didn't even know was that big of my context.”
Karen Shih is a fellow first-generation Taiwanese American death doula (in the making), a triple Gemini, and a deeply devoted dog auntie.
In this episode, Karen shares about the death of her father, which led to her stepping out of her career to honor her grief.
Karen shares, “After my dad died unexpectedly in October of 2015, I completely hit pause on my life (which is a huge privilege on a variety on levels that I think most people can't do or maybe wouldn't even choose to do if they could). I quit my job, watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy, traveled to Taiwan, and eventually left New York and my life there behind. It felt like I stripped my life and identity down to nothing and had to start from scratch. The next 7+ years felt like a slow incubation as I navigated my inner jungle and surfaced a path and myself choice by choice.”
Learn more about Karen Shih at https://www.life-changing-magic.com/
Follow her on IG @shihster
This episode was edited by Nina Maria Iniestra De La Riva and comes to you with the support of Erika Mai T. Apuli from Earth Rooted Assistants.
Your support means so much!
If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review.
Follow Mum on Instagram ⁠@mumthepod⁠.
Visit TripwithEllen.com to learn more about Ellen's Death/Rebirth private mentorship and medicine journey programs. Listeners receive a 10% discount if they mention Mum during their discovery call. Scholarships are awarded on a first-come-first-served basis. Payment plans available.
Join the Medicine Membership to join our monthly virtual medicine ceremony and integration circle. Access a growing library of journeys and meditations facilitated by Ellen.

“What I've learned through this work is that I can allow the emotion, the energy, to be in motion. And when I make space for that, it goes away. Even grief. Grief can take longer. There's no time frame here, but it is what it is. But if I can soften and allow that wave to come over me and I give space for it to show up, to reach the peak of the experience and to discharge, I can function much better in the world because I'm not spending so much energy trying not to feel the emotion or not to feel the feeling.”

Kimberly is the visionary Founder and CEO behind Somagetics, a trailblazing company dedicated to enlightening individuals about the profound impact of trauma and providing accessible tools for healing.

With an illustrious career spanning over three decades, Kimberly has worn many hats, including that of a functional nutrition practitioner, a skilled bodyworker, and a compassionate home birth midwife. Through her extensive experience with thousands of clients, she made a pivotal revelation: unaddressed trauma, held within the body, often lies at the core of various health challenges. This epiphany led to a transformation in her approach.

Kimberly is passionate about sacred transformation. In this conversation, she shares her work with terminally ill cancer patients in their dying process and birth midwifery early in her career. These experiences led her to co-create Somagetics, “a trauma-informed, body-based energetic technique that transforms defensive patterns and enables physical and emotional healing.”

In this episode, Kimberly shares, “What excites me now is the possibility of sacred transformations that can happen between birth and death. Currently, my focus is supporting people to transform old, limiting defensive trauma patterns so they can access their true divine essence. We can learn to identify the trauma patterns but identify with our eternal essential self. And that is the place where we create the life of our dreams.”
Learn more about Kimberly Ward at www.somagetics.net
Follow her on IG @somagetics_
Watch and Stay tuned in on YouTube at Somagetics
This episode was edited by Nina Maria Iniestra De La Riva and comes to you with the support of Erika Mai T. Apuli from Earth Rooted Assistants.

Your support means so much!

If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review.

Follow Mum on Instagram ⁠@mumthepod⁠.

Visit TripwithEllen.com to learn more about Ellen's Death/Rebirth private mentorship and medicine journey programs. Listeners receive a 10% discount if they mention Mum during their discovery call. Scholarships are awarded on a first-come-first-served basis. Payment plans available.

Join the Medicine Membership to join our monthly virtual medicine ceremony and integration circle. Access a growing library of journeys and meditations facilitated by Ellen.

In this MUM episode, Death Midwife and Artist Rebecca Mullins shares about death work being collective liberation work,and how her experience of her mother’s sudden passing led to the creation of a ritual offering that supports the dead in crossing over.

About Rebecca Mullins:

Rebecca Mullins is a Death Midwife, Multidimensional Artist, Animist, Grief Guide, Parent, Ancestral Liberator, Energy Practitioner, Conscious Culture/Paradigm Disrupter.

She serves her community from a decolonial, liberatory & Soul centered place. She works with the seen and unseen realms and energies to create art and ritual tools, plus guides people in traversing life and meeting death in a sacred, conscious, compassionate, honest & heart-led way.

Her body of work and service is guided and informed by the elemental, ancestral (human + non-human) and cosmical planes - for this she’s deeply grateful.

From Rebecca, “The prayer I hold for us all is fullness & liberation of the Soul. May the work I create and offer the world empower folks to walk the braiding path alongside one another.”

Link with Rebecca:

Rebecca’s Website

Instagram

MUM is produced by ⁠Ellen Wong⁠ and edited by ⁠Stepfanie Aguilar.⁠ Your support allows us to continue creating this podcast. If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review. Keep this conversation alive by bringing it to your communities.

Follow Mum on Instagram ⁠⁠@mumthepod⁠⁠.

If you are interested in working privately with Ellen, visit ⁠tripwithellen.com⁠ to learn more about her Death/Birth Program and her spirit medicine private retreats.

Water + Fire Free Community Grief Circle is every 4th Tuesday of the month at 6p pst / 9p est. Register here.

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