MUM

“Grief can come in all forms of different emotions and expressions. And so we express it in the community, right? You can do it by yourself, but I think it's cool to do it with a friend or in the community because then you witness each other. And that's the ancestral way we're supposed to grieve together and not get freaked out about me screaming and losing my... if you're weeping and screaming, people are coming like, oh, get your s**t together.”

Gris Alves is a Mindfulness Teacher, Thanatologist, Integrated Recovery and Healing Guide, Earth Based Ceremonialist and Trauma-Informed 500HR RYT Yoga Teacher; Host of The Tales of Recovery bi-lingual podcast, and currently training in Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry Therapy Process. She has been leading humans in spiritual, health, and addiction recovery programs for over 27 years. Helping others process trauma, embody and ritualize grief, deconstruct and release limiting beliefs that stem from the social conditioning and programming that hinder our integrated well-being.

In this episode, Gris shares her personal journey in walking with her mother through the end of her life. Even as someone who had formally studied death and grief, she shares that the experience of companioning her mother through this portal was still challenging and also heartbreakingly beautiful.

Learn more about Gris Alves at grisalves.com.

Follow them on IG @grisalves and @talesofrecovery

Your support matters!

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

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.

"If we can be with aging, we can also be with death. Right. Like, they go hand in hand. I feel like aging and death are sisters. They're sisters. One moves slow and one moves fast, but they walk on the same path."

In this episode, Xochitl Kusikuy Ashe – a 5th generation Peruvian medicine woman and Ellen's mentor – shares about her relationship with death and how it has been a teacher in her life.

Xochitl describes death as having sisters, which symbolize different aspects or ways in which death can occur. These sisters are metaphorical representations that help us understand death from various perspectives – the Sister of Aging, Sister of Illness, the Sister of Accidents, the Sister of Evil, the Sister of Suicide.

And just as there are sisters of Death, so are there sisters of Life. These sisters are associated with support and embrace for death. They may represent the transformative power of death and the growth that can arise from experiencing loss.

About Xochitl

Xochitl Kusikuy Ashe has been a teacher and guide in one-and-one mentorships, workshops, and ceremonies both in the U.S and internationally for the last 27 years. At 16 years old she became the first female of five generations of men to be initiated into the healing traditions of her Peruvian ancestral lineage. She is a Medicine Woman in the Peruvian Andean tradition and has worked with sacred plant medicines since the time of her initiation. For the past 23 years she apprenticed under her Godfather, a Mazatec Medicine Man of the ancient tradition of healing with the "Nti-si tho" "Santitos" or Psilocybin mushrooms.

She is a professionally trained herbalist, IFS Therapy Practitioner (Internal Family Systems) and specializes in the ceremonial use of Cacao and Psilocybin Mushrooms. In her practice, Xochitl focuses on the healing of generational trauma and the ways in which that trauma impairs our ability to thrive, create wealth, and have a positive impact on the world.

Founder of Magical Medicine Journeys, an Indigenous women owned retreat company, that offers legal Mazatec Psilocybin Mushroom Retreats in Mexico. Xochitl’s mission is to honor the traditional indigenous knowledge and ceremony of sacred plant medicine and provide the most authentic and powerful life changing experiences.

She is faculty at Esalen Institute, The Microdosing Institute and the Shift Network.

Learn more about Xochitl at Xochitlashe.com.

Follow Xochitl on Instagram @xochitlashe.

We're grateful for your support!

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 first ever episode of Mum, host Ellen Wong shares her journey in befriending Grief, supported by the sacred mushroom, after decades of escaping and resisting.

She breaks her silence through the inception of Mum and invites you along on this journey in meeting the many deaths of our lives through stories, liberating ourselves to live LOUD and preparing ourselves to meet the end of life with openness, peace and permission.

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.

Death is a vital part of life. It marks the end of every day and season. It’s present in every exhale and goodbye. It guides you through all your life transitions.

Death initiates you into change – the only constant in life. Without it, there would be no growth, no new chapters, no expansion, no transformation.

Each of us are the heroes in our own journeys. We face our fears as we walk into these death portals, shedding old skins, and re-emerge anew. We do this many times in a lifetime. Our stories hold deep wisdom and offer healing.

I’m Ellen Wong – I’m a storyteller and entheogenic death companion. I walk daily with brave souls through death and rebirth.

I invite you to enter this portal of discovery with me. And together, let’s break our fearful silence and uplift our stories of death and grief , so that we can all be inspired to live our lives, LOUD.

Welcome to Mum.

Follow @mumthepod on Instagram

Visit TripwithEllen.com to learn more about private Death/Rebirth mentorship and medicine journey programs.

Join the Medicine Membership to attend a virutal medicine ceremony and integration circle each month, as well as access a growing library of journeys and meditations facilitated by host Ellen Wong.

In this episode of MUM, host Ellen Wong invites Mariah Gannessa, founder of Four Visions, to speak about the Warrior Spirit, experiencing spiritual death through medicine ceremonies, and living life in totality in all of its flavors and colors. They exchange stories of their relationships with plant medicine, and discuss how sacred plant allies can support grief.

About Guest: Mariah Gannessa was born and raised in Northern California and now resides in Cundinamarca, Colombia. She has spent the last decade immersed in the healing cultures of the Amazon and has dedicated her life’s work to the plants and indigenous peoples of the rainforest. Inspired by her many years of apprenticeship deep in study and service with the Inga tribe of Putumayo and working intimately with them to preserve and share their traditions, Mariah founded Four Visions, a platform dedicated to the amplification of indigenous cultures and integrating ancient plant medicine into the modern world. Mariah is also the President of Magic Fund Amazon, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Amazonian lands, peoples, and their cultures.

Four Visions just launched a very special collection of rare, Amazonian plants, roots, barks, flowers, and seeds. Our prayer is that our offerings provide our community with the tools, resources, and access to support your deepened connection with Nature and all of Creation.

You can explore the Rainforest Herbal Apothecary and let the plants speak to you by visiting our website.

Special discount for MUM listeners: 20% off your first purchase at fourvisions.com with the code "MUM"

Mariah’s Links & Offerings:

Four Visions - Apothecary

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About MUM

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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 programs.