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.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tripwithellen.substack.com/subscribe

“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.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tripwithellen.substack.com/subscribe

“This particular residency was a thematic one, and the theme was titled Meeting for Teas. So it drew artists curators and thinkers from all over. We all had this time and space to sit with Tea independently, sit with Tea communally, and talk about tea in all the different ways, including decolonizing as an aspect of tea and tea culture. And I couldn't stop crying the first two weeks when I was there, and I didn't even really know what I was crying about. To a certain degree, I kind of did, because the day that I received news that I've been accepted was the same day my Nai Nai passed away.”

Mimi Young, née Lin, is a Taiwanese Canadian animist spirit medium, Tea devotée, writer, and the founder of Ceremonie. Mimi’s work lies at the intersection of animacy and re-animation, intuition and creativity, using symbolic interpretation and ancient Chinese wisdom practices to commune with the Unseen and invite new possibilities during times of uncertainty and change.

In this podcast episode, Mimi shares excerpts from her limited edition artist's book, A Tea Stronger Than Death: Poems of Hurt and Healing While On Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain.

“Created during the 5-week thematic residency, Meeting For Teas, held at the Banff Centre for Arts + Creativity, located on the side of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain, this collection of poems and illustrations of grey-scaled cyanotypes (sun prints) is both prayer and journey through light, shadow, and verse, giving honour to the painful and healing moments of locating oneself over and over again, with Tea, the departed, and the more-than-human.”

She also has an upcoming sliding scale 6-week transformational writing series titled UGLY WORDS.

Learn more about Mimi Young at https://shopceremonie.com/

Follow her on IG @shopceremonie

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.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tripwithellen.substack.com/subscribe

"I think it's important as an elder queer person and I wear that very proudly, that I do think our stories are important because I didn't come from a place that where we had these tools. So as an elder queer person, it's also not too f*****g late for me to honor it now, right? And to go living this next however long on this plane as my authentic self, including name. And to just do that because I understand the healing frequencies that it sends back. That sends healing back to those that couldn't. And it models for generations to come."

TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them) is a two spirit, nonbinary, queer, native indigenous person of color and has been in recovery since 1989. They are the founder of Vamonos, a care and harm reduction practice that specializes in working with and supporting: people at the margin, 2SLGBTQ+, substance overuse/misuse, facilitator abuse, psychedelics in recovery, integration support + safety, and breathwork + movement.

TanyaMarck shares their journey of self-discovery and acceptance as a two-spirit individual. They reflect on their childhood experiences, including a summer romance at the age of ten, and how it shaped their understanding of love and identity.

They also explore the significance of an intimate ceremony and the merging of their two spirits, ultimately embracing their whole self and sharing their story to inspire compassion and understanding.

Learn more about TanyaMarck at tanyamarck.com.

Follow them on IG @tanyamarck.

Email at [email protected].

Your support matters!

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.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tripwithellen.substack.com/subscribe

"We hear celebration of life in reference to funerals when it comes to people's death. And I don't think we should wait until someone dies to celebrate their life. We should learn to celebrate now ourselves, the people we love. Also, why do I have to wait to die to rest in peace?"

Lily Truong is an existential Earthling existing as a first-generation Vietnamese-American queer femme, a squishy human with a squiggly brain psychotherapist, healing arts practitioner, coconut ninja, lover of life, companion of death, dot connector, community builder, rebel anarchist, cool rich auntie, and proud cat mum.

Lily's dad died when she was two. Her partner was murdered in 2020. And her mother died in 2021 on Mother's Day.

Lily has been walking with death her whole life. In this episode, Lily shares about her personal experience with grief while supporting her mother through her death journey, and how this experience has changed her perspective on life. She also talks about how her mother's unexpressed grief affected her understanding of death as a child.

Lily and Ellen discuss the importance of celebrating life now rather than waiting for death, as well as prioritizing rest and peace in everyday life. And they reflect on the transformative nature of grief and the need its expression.

About Lily Truong

Lily Truong is a pre-licensed therapist working in community mental health and private practice, whose ultimate intention is to share the transformative possibilities and benefits of counseling and communal care with those in search of healing. She operates through a social justice lens with the perspective of a first-generation Vietnamese-American queer femme weaving between the intersections of Eastern philosophies of mindfulness and contemporary depth-oriented theories in clinical practice. As a mental health counselor and healing arts practitioner, she is passionate about decolonizing and deconstructing oppressive ideologies; healing relational wounds and intergenerational trauma; reconnecting to ancestry to honor the lands and our lineages; merging inner worlds with outdoor environments by integrating nature’s healing into therapeutic practice; embracing life as an embodied experience; discharging shame for radical self-acceptance, bridging the interconnective synergy of mind/body/spirit through psychosomatic awareness and integration; and promoting diversity consciousness, community empowerment, and compassionate action.

Learn more about Lily's work at heavyhearts.club

Follow Lily on Instagram @cocolily.

Your support is greatly needed and appreciated!

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.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tripwithellen.substack.com/subscribe