[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00.37 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place I'm your host Jala Prendes (she/her) and today I am joined by Cameron (he/him) and Desiree (she/her). Yay yeah so desiree has been on this show before but it has been a minute. Desiree was on the top most downloaded episode of my show. It is the most popular one! Episode number 3 on diversity equity inclusion and belonging so that is a testament to how fantastic she is Desiree. 00:24.60 Cameron Oh well, there you go? yes. 00:36.20 Desiree Get I have coffee so I am doing excellent. It is the way. 00:37.76 Jala How are you doing today. Coffee is the way and Cameron I have not had on the show before but he is the one of the mainstays of the Monster Dear Monster podcast. 00:57.79 Cameron Yes, no thank you I'm very happy to be here. You had an episode coming up where I had actually some applicable knowledge. So here I am. 00:58.53 Jala Which is of course part of Fireheart Media. So welcome to the show Cameron. 01:11.73 Jala Very randomly when Dave told me that you had applicable knowledge about this topic I was like "he what now". 01:16.45 Cameron Like oh yeah, look I may be a school music teacher. But I was doing my best to get elbow deep in bodies whenever I could and I I did not end up doing that for a living. It's on the books. Maybe maybe maybe as a backup if the school system collapses or something. Ah. 01:34.96 Jala So so in the zombie apocalypse we know what Cameron is doing okay, so anyway, what was the zombies actually dead this time so take the head off first. Yeah. 01:40.11 Cameron So yeah, I'm doing the cataloging. 01:51.18 Jala so so so yes ah today we are talking about the concept of death positivity this is a super important topic because death is something that every single person deals with in their lives pets people you love your own actual mortality. And it's also a topic that in the west is something that makes so many people squeamish and so like we just need to talk about really like we just need to talk about it. There's not really a space to um, allow for people to properly grieve. 02:28.10 Jala And in avoiding death the way that the west tends to do it just kind of ah makes it harder to deal with when it happens you know there's it's easier to deny that it even occurred in a lot of cases. So. 02:45.85 Jala Like people and I say say this in a lot of cases because I'm thinking in my head of a bunch of stories from the order of the good deaths death in the afternoon podcast like the first season is all about all these different ways wild ways that people just were were not accepting the fact that their loved one was actually dead. 03:05.37 Jala And so um, it's a thing. It's like an actual ongoing problem that we face. So ah, what ah brought you here Cameron I mean you already said being elbow deep in bodies. But I mean like maybe. 03:20.55 Cameron Um, yeah, um, yeah, so for the time that I was in University before my terrible mental health forced me to stop studying I was studying forensic science. 03:22.70 Jala A little bit more about that. 03:34.72 Cameron Ah, specifically with an eye to be working in the city morgue because that's the only stable employment you can get in forensics in this area of the world. Um, and yeah I did ah two and a half years of forensics I was great at all the practical stuff I was terrible at statistics. Um, and my claim to fame is slipping on a spilled bottle of ethanol and face planning into an elderly woman's ah, chest cavity it very ah hands on. 04:01.40 Jala Oh wow. 04:11.31 Jala Quite familiar there. Ah I So I said familiar I didn't say intimate. 04:13.99 Cameron Yeah, yeah I don't think intimate's the right way but it felt Yeah, yeah, but it certainly felt familiar I think is a good. Um, this is what my parents get when they say I have to do a science degree. 04:31.26 Cameron And let me pick which signs to create. 04:37.46 Cameron Ah, ah, but yeah, yeah, it it was. It was a great course I would highly recommend? Um, but ah I'd have to add the caveat I've never been that squeamish about like physical death stuff. But we'll talk about Positivity more through the episode I I obviously have. 04:55.74 Cameron A lot of the emotional baggage I think basically everyone does about death but the the physical side has never really bothered me particularly so that's part partly why I got along great in the practicals. It's It's more interesting than off-putting for me. 05:13.49 Cameron Which continues to this day as my podiatrist can tell you I'm the only person who's enjoyed toe surgery. Um I was I kept asking questions and I think we put her off. 05:21.79 Jala Ah I kind of don't want to ask you about that. But. 05:28.73 Cameron Ah I was like oh let me see and's like really usually people ask me to put a hand in front of what I'm doing to this word like no I want to know I've never seen tow stuff. It was all like organs when I was studying. That's the important stuff when you're looking at what killed someone? No one dies of like a toenail normally. 05:46.19 Jala Ah, well don't say that somebody has is probably in the Guinness book of a world record. So. 05:46.37 Cameron Oh yeah, absolutely yeah and if their if their spirit wishes to type as a bad review I'll take that one as my fault. 05:57.64 Jala That would actually necessitate somebody going to the trouble of putting any review anywhere by the way, please do that thing and take a minute to go put a review hopefully not a bad one. Ok. 06:13.14 Jala And Desiree why are you on the show I mean other than the fact that I asked you because it's been a minute since you've been on. 06:21.50 Desiree For sure. Um, so I have died so that's a thing. Ah um I was eighteen months old had an incredibly high fever and apparently had a grand mall seizure and then was clinically dead for several minutes. 06:23.76 Cameron Oh that's goal. 06:37.23 Cameron Oh wow. 06:38.47 Desiree This is a thing. My mother will never let me forget until her dying breath and probably even after then she will haunt me to remind me of how much I scared her that day. Um, but it's always been kind of a part of my story. 06:48.00 Cameron Fair Enough 06:54.73 Desiree But I've also always sort of been surrounded by death just by nature of all of the various pets that I've had and living in the country and like having more and more pets dropped off things like that. Um, and so what got me into. 07:11.11 Desiree The ask a mortician Youtube channel which we'll get to I'm sure. Um, and really delving into her death positivity work was the summer of 2020 I had 3 pets pass away in less than a month so you know dealing with a global pandemic and. 07:29.87 Desiree Having to say goodbye to 3 different pets so quickly. It was like let me re-explor my relationship with death and really I've never necessarily been upset by it but really spin that so it's not just a neutral relationship. It's actually a positive relationship. 07:45.65 Jala Right? It is because again every single person deals with this at some point and we will hopefully be able to cover talking a little bit about like fear of death and grief. 07:48.26 Desiree I think is a really exciting thing. 08:04.48 Jala And you know different anxieties that people have about that as well as all of the physical stuff. Um, so you know like we will. We will go as long as we can within reason to talk about these things. Um, but yeah, definitely that's a thing. 08:14.48 Cameron And implement it. 08:20.40 Jala And as for me, why I decided I wanted to do an episode about this. Um I have been in lots of situations where I've lost people in my life I've lost pets of course. Um. I myself have been in lots of near-death situations I have had cancer twice and so like whenever anybody says cancer. Even if it's like a treatable cancer. The first thing if somebody tells you you personally have a cancer is. Oh my god I'm going to die and that's what everybody else thinks too and so everybody's just like acting like you are the walking dead at that point and it's surreal sirreal and you know my cancer was very treatable. Um, you know I had it twice. The fucker came back and it got removed again. 09:04.84 Jala Um, it could come back again. But you know such is the nature of the beast right? But um, you know, just doing my due diligence doing all of my checkups and stuch you know by the way get all of your fucking checkups. Um, anyway, so doing all of that. But also I'm a caretaker for my elderly disabled parents. 09:24.66 Jala And we have had lots of health scares in the last several years that have turned my hair gray. So um, you know I've I've had to deal with it I've had it in my face and we already know like that we've we've had conversations my parents and I about like what their wishes are for for their end of life care for their um you know like. 09:44.64 Jala Body processing like what happens after they pass we already know their wishes on that. Um, but trying to kind of get past some of the anxiety of it and trying to talk more about it and then also to become familiar with it for my own sake like what do I want to have happen to me and at first I was like. 10:03.52 Jala Oh cremation cremation is better than burial. But then it's like it's like oh actually that drops a lot of carbon into the air and all this other stuff. Maybe I don't want to be cremated after all what other options are there and just kind of digging in from there. So. 10:21.24 Jala I'm also somebody who's constantly studying so like years ago I had gone on this whole like I'm going to read a memoir you know Mary Roach's Stiff and then I'm going to read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty and then I'm going to read whatever like I was going off on like ah, a tangent because of course. Ah. 10:40.88 Jala Audible and in Amazon and everything are like recommending similar books. So here's me going. Oh that sounds interesting that sounds interesting and just going through a bunch of different stuff. So basically I I was already thinking about it and I was like you know this is something that people get really weird about like they get. 11:00.13 Jala So much anxiety and everything that they just they don't want to talk about. They don't want to Confront it they don't want to think about it and that's actually to their detriment because that means that you have a lot of unresolved feelings. You know and that means that death can be even more traumatic for you because you are. 11:19.62 Jala Um, you know like avoiding it so completely you know and not letting that that um, grappling with mortality and that grappling with um you know, just your grief your sense of of loss and everything not letting that have room to breathe and trying to bottle that up just makes it. 11:38.62 Jala Like a bomb ready to explode. So so that is how we find ourselves here today. So ah, the first thing that I want to actually talk about is you know what? the hell is death positivity and where did it come from what is this death positivity movement that you guys are talking about. 11:58.70 Jala So ah, it actually begins so far as I know anyway like I think there's there's a longer history of it. Um I'm not going to delve super deep into it I believe there is um, a an article on the order of the good deaths website that tells you the whole history. But we for our purposes we're starting with Caitlyn Doughty because that is. 12:17.94 Jala How desiree and I first came to the subject. Caitlin Doughty is a mortician author and advocate of funeral reform and and 11 she founded the order of the good death which spawned the death positive movement. And is working to legalize human composting and aquamation in all fifty states. Don't worry. We will talk about what those are in detail. Um, and her Youtube documentaries which are like called ask a mortician as desrae had mentioned. 12:52.31 Jala Ah, have been viewed over 250000000 times and she has 3 books all of which were New York Times bestsellers so she's very well known. Anybody who has ever looked up anything about morticians and stuff have definitely seen her so um. 13:11.83 Jala Does right? Do you want to tell us a little bit about the ask a Mortician you do. 13:16.16 Desiree Yeah, so I think initially Youtube recommended her channel to me because of an episode that she did on the whaleship essex so that um. Folks don't know is a ship that was basically the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby dick which I read many many times since Seventh grade because a teacher tried to challenge me by reading it and then praised me for it. So it immediately became my favorite book because I got praised for my good teacher. 13:49.20 Desiree Um, so occasionally I watch things or learn different things about Moby Dick and I think that was why it recommended her to me and she does a lot of those types of historical like what would have happened to the people who were on these tiny little boats that got separated and things like that. Um. 14:08.78 Desiree Doing those sort of um, what would have happened to these corpses type videos and then that led me into some of her more death positive work. So for folks who might find 1 type of video on her channel. Not so appealing. 14:27.51 Desiree See what else is up there because she's got all sorts of variety there and I really do think there's probably something for everyone one of her more recent videos is talking about um, something that's kind of close to me because I'm from Indiana and Indiana was just. 14:47.29 Desiree Not able to legalize aquamation in that state because of politicians and things and whatnot. She does a fantastic job of explaining that but she's also where I learned about aquamation and how it differs from cremation. So it's sort of educational and. 15:07.36 Desiree Entertaining and sort of different slices of death. 15:10.99 Jala And something that I think really helps with talking about death the way that Kaitlyn does is that she has this very kind of like soothing but also kind of droll like you can kind of hear the smile at all times in her voice. 15:27.24 Desiree So physical. 15:29.30 Jala Even if she's not physically smiling you know and like that that kind of calm and slightly amused sound. Um, you know is comforting to hear you know, especially when you're talking about a difficult subject. You know like it's It's not amused in a way that it's like Ha Ha death is so funny but like. 15:48.29 Jala It can be death can be funny, but um, you know it's more like this isn't so scary you know I guess is what I try I'm trying to say there but some. 15:48.58 Cameron Boom. 16:01.24 Jala So I'm actually kind of curious before we proceed to talking about the order of the good death in more detail just know that it is a leader of US funeral reform and of course the death positive movement. We will talk about that in a second Cameron is there anything over in Australia. 16:15.50 Cameron Yes, if he can't tell by the voice. Yeah. 16:20.67 Jala Because I guess we didn't mention that to the listeners you're over in Australia um, well it doesn't necessarily mean you're physically there. You could just have the accent and have been you know anyway, so is there anything god. 16:33.26 Cameron Ah, raised in an outback steakhouse. 16:38.84 Jala Ah, thank you, you have caused me to have my first facepalm in a while on my show congratulations that is an honor people ah strive to make me facepalm so home right. 16:49.11 Cameron Um, yeah I'm glad I'm the I'm the Jala-chan's Place comedian of the week 16:57.80 Jala Ok, so is there anything like a death positive movement over in Australia. 17:04.48 Cameron Ah, not explicitly over time we've had the similar pushes for the approval of aquamation and things like human composting. Ah, in Australia at the moment. The more recent thing has been the movement for voluntary euthanasia which has especially western australia has sort of just been rolling over these last couple of years into a really noticeable thing in the public eye which is important to talk about because. 17:35.90 Cameron You know part of what death Positivity is. We'll get to is not seeing death as the most terrible thing that could ever happen and voluntary Euthanasia sort of falls under that because for some people in their lives. There is a time where death is the sort of morally correct and ethical option for them. 17:54.59 Cameron Ah, to choose themselves Obviously not to have impinged upon them. Um, and yeah, you know it's been the the usual cascade of the the more conservative politicians saying people will just use this to kill off their grandparents and steal inheritances and other people going. Ah. 18:13.55 Cameron Yeah I don't think anyone's going to do that. Um, as as it sort of tends to go in politics on more more emotional issues like emotionally charged might be the better term here because obviously as we'll get into the death is a very loaded topic. 18:32.30 Cameron Especially in western culture. So yeah, um, but we we had a push for aquamation here in 2015 and to the best of my knowledge. It's legal because I looked it up and if I paid $6000 I could be acquimated tomorrow. So. 18:45.97 Jala Ok, but provided that the voluntary Euthanasia goes through and anyway, um so yeah, yeah, but um, definitely something to mention about the the voluntary euthanasia thing though. Um that terrifies a lot of people but at the same time. 19:02.96 Jala Imagine if you were just basically um, you know pretty much just brain dead or you know in in it like with a terminal illness that is not going to get better and you have a situation like that where like your quality of life is already bad or it's just going to decline more. You know like. 19:22.44 Jala That should be your right to be able to figure out and in that my opinion but it should be your right to be able to choose that. So. 19:27.74 Desiree So I yeah I would agree with that and that essentially is what happened to my grandma which sort of made me more death positive and more open to volunteer Euthanasia in humans because she had multiple strokes. 19:45.39 Jala Wow yeah. 19:45.73 Desiree And got to a point where the hospital said we are ceasing nutrition. Okay, that means you're going to let her starve to death because she's not conscious and that dying took a very long time and I had the thought you know I can give my pets a good. 20:04.20 Desiree Kind death. Why was I not given the opportunity to give that to the human I loved most in this world. 20:10.85 Cameron Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's it's more or less. Yeah. 20:11.72 Jala Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, exactly and it's just that should be that should be a right? that should be something that is able So um, what the hell is death positivity. 20:29.46 Jala A movement to normalize discussions about death such as the one that we're having right now folks who are a part of this movement. Don't find talking about the subject to be morbid or taboo is just another part of the life experience that everybody has um. 20:45.45 Jala Death positive folks believe that honest conversations about death and dying as well as working towards healthy processing of grief are cornerstones of a healthy society and um if you doubt that at all listen to death in the afternoon at season 1 even just episode 1 and just listen to that. 21:04.84 Jala Listen to those wild stories that caitlyn tells you about and then just go Wow Yeah, that's not healthy. We we need to be able to grieve better. Ah, this is wild So there are a bunch of different tenants of the movement I don't know if we want to just kind of like alternate through these and just kind of talk about them. 21:24.11 Jala Cameron, read the first one. 21:24.72 Cameron Sure yeah, the first tenant is that I believe by hiding death and dying behind closed doors do more harm than good to our society which yeah I absolutely agree with that like like you said it's an inevitable part of our lives. It's. 21:43.48 Cameron Strange and definitely not good for us to sort of shove that off to the side and just never look at it. Don't think about it and then suddenly one day it's going to pop back out on its own and then you won't be equipped to deal with it. Um, yeah, like ah I am fortunate to still have all my grandparents but my. 22:03.70 Cameron Grandfather on my mother's side has been through a lot of cancer scares over the last sort of 8 years and the first one put me out for like two weeks because I had no idea how to react to it and then he was completely fine. 22:17.23 Cameron And then it came back five years ago and then everyone was like no this is definitely it. He's definitely gone. They did the scans. He's like 50% cancer by Mass or something and then he was fine. Um, but I I was much better at dealing with it the second time around. Ah you know I was able to handle going in to see him in the hospital and hearing the results and. 22:36.59 Cameron Ah, helping my mother deal with all of it obviously because I'd had the the trial run initially and imagine how much easier that trial run would have been if we just talked about the fact that once someone's over 60 It's going to happen eventually you know? yeah. 22:47.76 Jala Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and I I also find personally that when I had cancer to actually research the cancer and what it's physically doing how it's treated all of that like the more information that you. 23:04.64 Jala Arm yourself with not just about the fact that these things happen but also what is happening in detail. What is what is going on like being able to quantify all that instead of it being this scary unknown thing helps to kind of ground you in reality and go okay I know what's happening. 23:10.42 Cameron Yeah, yeah. 23:23.83 Jala I Know how things are going to go and you can kind of grapple with that better. But if you don't know what you're you know fighting with how are you supposed to do battle. You know so. 23:29.79 Cameron Exactly yeah. 23:33.92 Desiree Well and how are you supposed to give your loved ones The great final gift of meeting all of their last wishes if you don't even know what those wishes are because you've never spoken about it. 23:48.77 Jala Desiree. What's the second tenant. 23:55.63 Desiree Yeah, so the second one is I believe that the culture of silence around death should be broken through discussion gatherings art innovation and scholarship. So this is one that um. 24:13.83 Desiree Also ties into something personal to me and that assuming I can find an advisor to get on board. My dissertation topic will be something that was inspired by 1 of Caitlin's episodes of her Youtube channel and it would be looking. 24:33.32 Desiree Books that have been bound in human skin and ways to ethically manage those types of items in a collection and of course when I talk to everyone about that They think oh well, you just want that because it'll make people gasp and and faint in all of those things. No I. 24:52.95 Desiree I'm interested in it because I am death positive and because it is something that exists in the world. These books do exist. They have been tested and I think it was 18 of them have been documented as being bound in human skin. What do we do with those. 25:11.63 Desiree And so that tying that into scholarship I think also helps normalize it and kind of reduce that sting of shock that everyone says that I'm trying to evoke. 25:26.20 Cameron Yeah, absolutely and you know like art discussing death has good historical precedent in all cultures. Um the the thing my mind immediately jumps to is you know all the depictions of the great plaques. 25:41.58 Cameron And things where that no one had another way to express it so you do a painting of a skeleton mowing down London and things like that and we can. We can have much healthier art about death and our experience with it in the modern day. Um, otherwise we might end up with the covid. Version of that I guess which would be weird like ah, a giant skeleton mowing down everything except essential retail stores. Um, yeah, um, yeah, that that honestly yeah, it's it's probably the best way. It's just to you know. 26:19.95 Cameron Talk about it not shut it away as with the the previous tenor don't don't hide it and yeah, actively discuss as we're doing hey look we're creating art through discussion in a gathering in an innovative way and desre brings the scholarship with with the dissertation potential. 26:39.60 Jala Right? Well I myself have ah like I usually in my art career. Okay, let me back up ah in my art career because I am a fine Arts painter. Um I usually paint. 26:39.94 Cameron Ah, yeah, yeah I think that's a good way to do it. Definitely. 26:55.90 Jala Very pleasant, very happy things I Like to say that I paint the light but then I write the darkness because I wrote a comic and I was working on it for a while. It's just it's very. 26:57.11 Cameron Yeah, yeah. 27:08.79 Jala Intense for a single person to try to do an entire comic by themselves especially on a deadline with as many things as I have to juggle. Um, but I was working on a comic for a while called C'est La Mort which is "that's death" in French and it plays off of C'est La Vie. 27:25.52 Jala And in that story. Basically there is this jaded fellow who is married has two kids. Ah whatever he ends up getting shot and killed randomly one day and he dies and then. 27:41.34 Jala He confronts death. But then you know he just kind of is looking at his own body and going huh I didn't realize that I had gotten so complacent about this that and the other thing until he like was out of body and looking at himself and then he doesn't want to go and you know go to the Pearly gates or whatever because. 28:01.25 Jala He doesn't know what comes next and he doesn't want to be judged and that is something that we will talk about in the death anxiety section of the show but he doesn't want to be judged and so he's like ah I don't I don't want to go death and then death is like oh you want to relive your life. Okay, well. 28:20.80 Jala Have fun with that now you're going to be stuck in a loop for the rest of your existence have fun and so then the comic starts with you know, like that. That's all in the intro. The first prologue section and then it goes from there into him witnessing his own birth. 28:37.40 Jala And you know going through different aspects of his life and kind of realizing like how he developed the way that he did and where things changed and how he reacted to things over time and you know like it's kind of the whole point and purpose about the comic is really about like you know grappling with the fact that you will die. 28:56.94 Jala But also appreciating and understanding. You know, like what's going on in your actual life as it's happening to you because you don't get to go back and look at it again. You know so I think that C'est La Mort...the art in that I would totally redo um I was on a super super time crunch that I put I I had set for myself and so um I would if I ever go back to that project which is a potential thing. Um I would probably have to redo all of the art and I might just do it like a story. 29:32.20 Jala That is mostly prose with like illustrations or something instead of trying to do a comic just because again for 1 person to try to churn out. The entire thing is just so hard. But I think that you can still get it on like comicsology or something. Ah, if if they didn't take it down I don't know it's been a while. But. 29:50.37 Jala Anyway, so I even wrote a comic that was musing about appreciation of and grappling with the fact that you will die and you know things about your life and just kind of like general awareness and because I realized that so many people my own age are just like super apathetic about a lot of stuff and. 30:10.12 Jala You know like they and they have been kind of beaten down by the world to the point that they you know just don't care or they're so jaded that um, you know things become a real struggle to to care you know and um, that's a real problem that we face in our society. So anyway. 30:29.63 Jala I didn't mean to go off that long but that the the third tenant is I believe that talking about and engaging with my inevitable death is not morbid but displays a natural curiosity about the human condition I covered that. 30:43.23 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah. 30:44.89 Desiree Ah, indeed. 30:46.69 Jala So cameron next one. 30:49.32 Cameron Yeah I believe that the dead body is not dangerous and that everyone should be empowered should they wish to be to be involved in care for their own dead and as previously stated someone who's done a full face plan into presumably someone's grandmother I'm sorry whoever that was. Um, yeah, dead bodies aren't dangerous unless you are particularly clumsy and and you know, ah again, traditionally historically like the family caring for the body was a big thing. Um. 31:24.14 Cameron Yeah, it's part of it was part of the grieving process forever and now instead you you hand off a family member to some guy in a suit and they show up three days to six weeks later in a casket and that's the last you ever see of them. It's very detached and sort of Dis dispersonalized and. 31:44.17 Cameron Um, you know I'll be very honest and don't know if I would be personally emotionally strong enough to do that for my family members. But the the option I think should be available to people. Definitely. 31:55.84 Jala Well and we will talk about it more. But um, it is legal in the US for people to have a home funeral to take to have the body at the house and take care of that body at the house and to have a funeral at home. You do not have to take your dead. 32:13.00 Jala To a funeral home as much as the funeral home will try to push you into it and try to tell you that you have to embalm your dead. You don't you don't you It is not a legal requirement for you to do So is it common for people to have a home funeral. No, but it is something that you can do you are able to do here. 32:27.95 Cameron Well, that's very cool. That's nice. 32:33.31 Desiree Yeah, there are different requirements and you'd want to look into it by your specific state if you're in the Us but essentially most of them will just come down to oh you have a few refrigerated packs in there with the body great that counts. 32:37.44 Jala Yes, so Desiree. What's the next tenant. 32:47.48 Cameron So fair enough. 32:55.41 Desiree Let's see I believe that the laws that govern death dying and end of life care should ensure that a person's wishes are honored regardless of sexual gender racial or religious identity so sort of the title 9 of death protection. 33:15.47 Jala Since you were on the DEIB episode and like basically ah leading the way on that This is a perfect one for you to read. So. 33:18.90 Desiree Yeah, um, apparently um, yeah, so that you know as a cisgender person that's not something that has necessarily had to cross my mind in the same way. 33:33.80 Cameron Yeah, you don't have to think about what they'd write on a tombstone. Yeah. 33:35.29 Desiree Um, it has for various other reasons. Yeah, um, like even the religious aspect or for me a lack of religion if I die before my mom again. Ah she will certainly make sure that there's. 33:52.47 Desiree If I'm dead long enough to have a funeral she will insist on a funeral and probably some sort of religious. Whatever. Um, so yeah, certainly not be respecting my wishes but ah Caitlyn has some really great things to say about queer and trans bodies. 34:11.90 Desiree And offers some insightful advice for folks who are in that position who know that their family would not be likely to honor their wishes would bury them in clothes that don't align with their identities and. 34:29.53 Desiree Or have their hair cut or makeup put on or not put on all of those things done to their body. They wouldn't want done and she offers advice on how to talk to a trusted friend or mentor about how to have that conversation with them of could I Trust you to be my death person. 34:47.67 Desiree I would put in writing you know make this very easy this. These are my wishes. This is my person you know what I want and could ensure that that person has that final piece of respect in death of that aligning with how they identified in life. 35:04.24 Jala Absolutely and the thing about it too is like how fucking shitty is it that you have to deal with crap from god and everybody when you're alive and then you get like dead named or something on your fucking tombstone if if you have 1 35:15.84 Cameron Yeah, yeah, literally. Yeah yeah, absolutely. 35:23.30 Jala Like Bullshit you know, like that. The final fucking insult like you can't even die in a manner that you want to die like that's yeah yeah I I cursed a lot you can tell I'm mad about that. 35:38.90 Cameron No no, that's right. 35:41.15 Jala I believe that my death should be handled in a way that does not do great harm to the environment correct I am I you know want to unfortunately in Texas ah you cannot be aquamated at this juncture. Um, but there is green burial as an option. So um I can be. 35:52.99 Cameron Oh that's good at least? 35:59.64 Jala And there there is such a thing as conservation burial. We will talk about that too. We will get there I promise so Cameron what's the next one. 36:09.48 Cameron I Believe that my family and friends should know my end-of-life wishes and that I should have the necessary paperwork to back up those wishes. Ah yeah, yeah, again, part of openly discussing things about death in society is tell people what you want done because. You know, depending on your personal beliefs or even just feelings about it. You might want your body to remain as whole as possible depending on how you passed or you might want to be cremated or aquimated or thrown off the side of a ship although I question the legality of that in most areas. Um. 36:44.98 Cameron But yeah, it's ah it's important to make sure people know your wishes and important to have the legal backup because as we discussed particularly for people of queer identities ah having the the sort of legal enforcement of your wishes could be very important for those wishes to actually be fulfilled. So. 37:00.84 Jala Right? right? Desiree what's the last one. 37:04.91 Desiree The last one I believe that my open honest advocacy around death can make a difference and can change culture I you know I also teach sex positivity as part of my day job. 37:22.74 Desiree I see Death Positivity is just the other side of that coin. So if we can change the culture around sex positivity. We can absolutely change the culture around death positivity. 37:35.15 Jala And I recently had an episode about sexuality and in that episode. We also talk about death because it all. It's all part of it like um there there was a quote from um, an article from a doctor of something or other probably a psychologist. Um, who. 37:53.50 Jala Was saying basically that sex is a radical act of living anathema to death. 38:08.66 Jala Ultimately wins except that like through sex which sexuality can um, manifest itself in creative ways that are not physical sex acts and things so like through the creative process which is part of the sex drive. We also trump death by making something that continues on after we are gone. So um, so it's like this really interesting article. It was linked in the sexuality episode which is also a really good fucking episode. You should listen to it. So ah. 38:42.61 Cameron Is a good fucking episode or a good fucking episode because you you. 38:46.94 Jala I'll leave that up to you to decide all right? so anyway anyway so ah what does the order of the good death. Do they provide information and other resources regarding death and funeral practices including but not limited to Caitlin's Youtube series. 39:04.21 Jala An entire archive of articles a podcast which I already mentioned death in the afternoon social media posts and membership for access to lectures newsletters and other events throughout the year they also provide funding via a grant program for like-minded institutions and support other nonprofits and advocates for funeral reform. They also do legislative advocacy playing a crucial role in the creation and writing of bills providing Testimony to the senate and congress providing public education expanding awareness and leveraging public support for legislation on a variety of issues. So why are they advocating for change in the funeral industry in the first place exactly capitalism big c yeah, you put the big c yeah, yeah, well. 39:47.31 Cameron Well, there's a word there. It's called industry. Ah, ah shake my hammer and sickle. 39:57.17 Jala The thing is once you get that? Um capitalism all up in there then you've got funeral homes who are pushing grieving people to buy the biggest funeral package because that's what they you know that would honor their dead The best and all this other stuff. So. 40:13.29 Jala And that becomes a massive financial Burden they are trying to kind of like ah wheedle people into you know, buying stuff and like manipulating them when they are at their weakest point. So you know funerals especially traditional funerals. 40:28.83 Jala Are very expensive and especially with inflation and the the you know economic gap that just keeps on widening you know like it's nonsense. So what's another reason. 40:29.69 Cameron Facebook yeah, okay. 40:43.48 Desiree Environmental is a huge reason for sure because we have a finite amount of space and a not finite amount of few current and future corpses. 40:44.74 Cameron But well yeah, yeah, absolutely. 40:59.30 Cameron Yeah, yeah, we are multitudes. 41:02.64 Jala Well and then the embalming So fluids are majorly poisonous and then like they are put into the ground which then poisons the ground So that's cool. 41:17.53 Jala And then when you again I mentioned this earlier but when you get cremated you are dumping a bunch of carbon emissions into the air. So um, you know like there's there's now if that's like your wish. Okay, so be it but understand it does have this effect. You know. 41:31.14 Cameron Yeah, yeah, like ideally I would say I Really love ideally the idea of like the the traditional sky aerial where they clean you up and then they put you out on a rock somewhere and literally let nature. Take its course. That's definitely not legal here. 41:51.28 Cameron So I'm going to have to settle for probably like acclimation or something. But ah if if you're environmentally minded. You do have to like think about that kind of thing. Um and even potentially things like you know the care of a plot if you're buried somewhere. It does technically contribute as well. 42:10.41 Cameron Lawnmowers and the preparation of stoneworks and things like that. Nope yeah, which is a sick I Love that idea or a tree. 42:12.76 Desiree Which you don't have to be buried anywhere if you become a coral Reef which is my. 42:23.49 Desiree Ah, yeah, they um, it's well it's it's an amazing thing that I learned about maybe ten years ago it's a company in the us called eternal reefs and you collect your cremated or now aquamated and they do accept aquamated remains I checked. 42:42.21 Desiree Um, even though you get 20 to 30% more ash back. It is still organic material as opposed to cremation which is entirely non-organic material and they take your ashes and they put them in a little cement ball. They call a pearl in the middle of an artificial reef and then you. 42:59.67 Desiree And your pets because you can be buried with your pets um up to 2 in a in a reef ball with whatever so you have to pick your two favorites. Um, but you can then contribute actively to rebuilding an environment that desperately needs it. 43:14.92 Cameron Yeah, which is very cool. 43:15.48 Jala How do they? How do they know how many pets are in that urn you could just put I'm just saying I mean I had a really big dog. They don't know what it was. 43:23.92 Desiree Ah I mean I do have tiny critters. 43:30.63 Cameron Oh man, yeah, some necromancer in 500 years is going to be very confused when he raises that particular section of the reef. Oh um, yeah. 43:36.94 Jala Right? right? Oh man, well and then something to um I caitlyn had posted or the order of good death. Ah order of the good death. 43:37.57 Desiree Um, for sure. 43:50.75 Jala Had posted somewhere an article that was about like that hole becoming a tree thing like that's actually not as environmentally and environmentally friendly as you might imagine and um, it's not as easy as you might imagine too So like ah, there's an article somewhere on there. So if you're curious about that. Definitely check that out. Ah so yeah. 44:10.26 Jala But what else is wrong with the funeral industry. Well we already mentioned it before but when you hand off the body of a loved one to somebody else who processes it and does everything and you know you have 0 involvement and you basically don't even like if you want to you can just your loved one could die and you could just never see the body ever. 44:13.68 Cameron Yeah, and have no understanding of the process either. You don't have to know? Yeah, so it didn't happen. Yeah, yeah, Absolutely yeah. 44:28.78 Jala At any point you could just hand it off and never see it. You had no understanding of the process and you haven't confronted it at all at all and that yeah that that definitely can stunt your grieving process for sure. 44:42.20 Desiree Well or I think as a child I was afraid of death in some ways because when a grandparent or someone would pass the corpse that you see lying in the Coffin does not look. 45:00.20 Desiree Like the person that they were and so it's very I mean unless you have a really really good Mortician but even then like it's It's not going to look like the alive person right? and so that can be very jarring in the grieving process if you didn't see. 45:05.69 Cameron Even then yeah sorry. 45:16.85 Desiree The corpse as they were while they were still your person. Um. 45:20.23 Cameron Um, oh yeah, absolutely like part of that is sort of like the uncanny valley effect like the the biological thing going on in your brain but it is powerful to say the least um I had a family friend pass away last year from 45:37.87 Cameron Cancer as well because it's going to get us all. Um and I I actually played at a funeral for the music and they did an open casket. So I got a glimpse out of the corner of my eye from like thirty meters away and part of my brain just went. 45:56.74 Cameron That's wrong and triggered a little bit of like the the Monkey brain anxiety attack in the back of my head I'm like no I got to play this fugue now I can't think about that I can process this later but it it is if you're if you're not used to being around bodies and even if you relatively are. 46:14.29 Cameron And so I am it can be confronting to see someone dead when previously you just saw them alive and there's this whole process that went on in between and like instinctively you don't understand what's happened there necessarily? Um, yeah, it's a lot. 46:32.45 Desiree When I will say if you are ever had if you ever of the privilege of being present for a death and it is a privilege um it will not feel like it in the moment I happen to be the only person who was present when my grandma passed away. Um. 46:49.51 Desiree Which my family does still hold against me and to them is apparently an indication that I was her favorite whoops my bad. Um, yeah, hang that held on just for me until I was about to leave town and have to come back to Kansas and she was like nope okay does raise the other one here I'm gone now. 46:57.30 Cameron Held on just for you? yeah. 47:09.50 Desiree Um, it really is a powerful moment and you know as a child I also couldn't be in the room when my pets were euthanized because I was so scared of it. But after you've been present for 1 death. You know it sort of demystifies that and I've been present for several pet deaths. 47:27.85 Desiree And it really is nice to be able to be there for them in their last moment. 47:31.87 Cameron Yeah, that's what it's about at that point you know? 47:36.28 Desiree Yeah, it's them. Not you. 47:40.77 Jala For sure. So funerals are also not currently equitable so depending on any number of different factors as we are all aware from the DEIB episode. We got you know the sexual orientation Gender Identity race. 47:52.56 Cameron System specific. 47:57.97 Jala Socioeconomic status etc. Ah, you can find yourself treated differently or unable to afford the types of thing that you are hoping to have happen with your dead. So. 48:08.59 Desiree Well and the the racial piece white people generally not all but most are not going to know how to treat black hair or do black makeup or you know Latino makeup anything. That's not this very pasty white skin tone I've got going on can be hard for folks to match or to to know what to do with and so there was an episode on the Youtube channel about you know, black people caring for black bodies and how the segregation of the cemeteries. 48:46.60 Desiree You know you want to Knee-jerk react. Oh no, that's a terrible thing the whites over there the blacks over there but some people in the black community were like no this is our space this is where we get to have ownership of our dead and saw that as. 49:01.81 Desiree Ah, lovely thing for them to be able to have that space that was held just for them even though the intention between the segregated cemeteries was not that initially. 49:14.33 Cameron Yeah, yeah, absolutely and that sort of stems on to the next problem which is ah, there's a lack of adequate care for peoples of various faith cultures and ethnicities with. 49:27.60 Cameron Ah, particularly profound lack of access for people who are disabled to go to montary school and become Morticians which I mean I can probably guarantee definitely results in improper handling of disabled bodies at least in a respectful manner. 49:47.75 Cameron Again to speak to my own experience. Not quite exactly the same and I know in the funeral industry. They're definitely a little more respectful than that. But ah, we were doing medical treatment of bodies and we had a one-s size fitsall policy when it came to storage which meant if you were over five foot 6 you lost your knees. 50:06.80 Cameron Um, yeah, ah and while that's more of a practical thing. It does also when you first learn about that you go ah that doesn't feel quite correct to treat someone who's given up their body for for the study of science. Um. 50:06.32 Desiree Oof. 50:18.58 Jala Right. 50:22.93 Cameron But yes this this the same thing here you you want people who can at least treat you know morally and ethically treat people the way they would want to be treated or are required to be treated if they have a particular religion or faith or if there is a a cultural or ethnic tradition. 50:41.67 Cameron And that they would want performed. Ah the the sort of homogenization of a funeral industry where it's that one size fitts all approach where most of the people who die are cis gender cisgender white christians. So. We'll take that as the baseline and then if anyone wants anything different than that package. They have to ask us and people might not think to ask they just go to their their closest affordable funeral home and you know later on they'll look back and go that wasn't. The right experience for my relative or my loved 1. 51:13.44 Jala Well and and then too like finding a funeral home or you know what have you that aligns with like your values and in what you you want done is super super important but like especially if it's something like a sudden death. 51:30.00 Jala You may not know like where to go or you may not be able to afford to ship it to somewhere else to a different place or whatever you know you don't have it research necessarily unless you were actively doing that Just in case you know, like again like that preparedness part, just. 51:49.75 Jala To have that ironed out so you already know in advance. You know. 51:51.97 Cameron Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. 51:52.20 Desiree Well Cameron mentioned the one size fits all model. The funeral industry is not prepared to handle one size Kaitlyn talks a fair amount about dying while fat and how if you want to be cremated. Depending on your size. The funeral home may not be able to fit you into their quote unquote normal cremation chamber so they would have to you'd have to pay to have the body transported to a place that had a larger one and the body has to burn longer at a lower. 52:29.17 Desiree Temperature due to the fat content which costs more money and oh well, we'll get around that by being buried. Okay, well then you have to have a plus-size coffin as if you know people want to be faced with plus size things even after death. But that was something that bothered them in life. You know it's it's. 52:40.67 Cameron God yeah. 52:48.60 Desiree All more money purely based on the size of the corpse that you're leaving behind. 52:55.38 Jala Um, so ah, so yeah, those are just a few I'm sure there's lots more to talk about there. Um, not actively being part of the funeral industry. However I cannot speak to that in great detail. Um. 53:11.60 Jala Aside from what I Google searched so um, but yeah, like you can definitely check out Kaitlyn's work and I'm sure there are lots of other um things critiques and such that you can delve into there if you're interested for more. But for now it's time to move on to actually what happens after you have died. 53:29.87 Cameron Um, yeah, yeah, this is my area of specialty This is immediately after death autopsies and consent brackets. 53:30.95 Jala So Cameron tell us about autopsies. 53:41.94 Cameron From the australian perspective because I don't know the law in America or the procedures they are probably broadly similar but again double check your state or federal laws as they may or may not apply to the area that you are in so an autopsy is a forensic medical procedure. That's. 54:00.83 Cameron Usually performed as soon as possible after a person's death and I say usually because this is a job. Basically no one wants to do. It's a job that is not particularly well funded and that means there is generally. 54:09.22 Jala Okay. 54:18.68 Cameron A bit of a waiting list as part of my study. We actually went to the city morgue where they spoke to us. They they very kindly took about 20 minutes out of their out of their work time which in retrospect is a mass of sacrifice. Um, the the city morgue in Perth here is routinely. 54:38.50 Cameron Ah, full week behind schedule and in particular times of the year is as much as nineteen days behind schedule on processing bodies for ah these are specifically for coroners autopsies bodies where an autopsy is legally required and it's. 54:55.40 Cameron Simply because we don't have the facilities or the staff to process the volume of people that die in a large inhabited area which is again applicable basically everywhere. Even if you're out in the styx If you're living in a more rural area. There's likely not a proper morgue. 55:13.70 Cameron Within a short drive of you so you would likely be sent to a more urbanized processing area which can take even more time and put put you even more behind schedule which as part of the funeral industry often pushes people towards getting embalmed. 55:31.74 Cameron Shortly after an autopsy to preserve the body for the amount of time it would take to get back to its family. Um, yeah, that's it. There's 2 different types of autopsies mostly again, these are very general terms you have at Hospital Autopsy and a coronial or coroner's autopsy. 55:49.74 Cameron The hospital autopsy is basically done as soon as possible after you die in the hospital. Um, it's not necessary and it won't always be done and most importantly, this is a procedure where consent is mandatory. In Australia at the very least again as in if the next of kin or the immediate family are there. They choose to consent to this procedure. Um, it's not always automatically done if you're obviously in the process of grieving a a death. You might not think to think about what you're signing off on. Um, but it's important to talk to the hospital staff and think about what your loved ones wishes might be because this is mostly for general information. Um, whether if if a person's corpse specific causes of death. Is unknown or if they're suffering from a disease and there was not a specific diagnosis. It's really important to be able to know what happened for a lot of family members. You know if someone otherwise healthy drops dead in the middle of ah in the middle of the week you want to know what happened. 57:04.10 Cameron Often Some people just sort of accept that and move on and they are braver and less curious than I I think um and as specifically in the case, there's a lot of diseases that you can't diagnose properly until it has killed you. 57:24.40 Cameron Um, in specific things like ah certain types of dementia that are not really properly like you can diagnose the symptoms but you can't say it was exactly this unless you do an Autopsy after the fact, um, ah. 57:33.55 Jala And that can be that can be really important if it's like Grandma and you want to know if it's something heritable. You know. 57:40.85 Cameron Yeah, yeah, exactly genetic diseases and genetic conditions are things that we can all suffer from I am currently waiting back for tesser hols to see if I have Hashimoto's which is. 57:57.84 Cameron And autoimmune disease where my body might have eaten my thyroid gland sometime in the last two years um yeah yeah is it's my entire mother's side of the family is like her her sister my grandfather both of his sisters and like. 57:59.74 Jala Yeah, I have a family member that has that as well. 58:14.30 Cameron I should I should probably get that checked out now that I'm feeling tired all the time I wonder what that could be see my my mom didn't get diagnosed till she was 39 because she thought it was 3 children wearing her out and she wasn't wrong, but also also the autoimmune disease. 58:33.18 Cameron Ah, yeah, it's It's good to find out suspected genetic conditions and in general they are done to expand medical knowledge if you died of a relatively common condition. We still want that data point. Basically. 58:50.73 Cameron It can be important for studying future treatments that kind of thing and in actually in addition, it can be used to verify the efficacy of an and an attempt treatment if they did treat you for your symptoms and you ended up dying anyway. 59:08.26 Cameron It's important to be able to see if that actually helped you at all or if it just didn't do anything or if it actively harmed you that this is important information to have and um I mean as long as the wishes of my loved ones were aligned I would probably always opt for. Hospital Autopsy just for that. But ah, the advancement of science. Ah, um, on the other hand a coronial or coroner's Autopsy is 1 performed at the behest of the state and we're talking about the state. So now. It's politics. 59:46.21 Cameron This is specifically where information is needed about a person's death for legal reasons common in unexpected or potentially suspicious deaths and basically always mandated in deaths related to violent crime whether or not someone died directly from death. Criminal act itself or is just related like if someone if someone robs a bank and the teller has a heart attack. They'll often still undergo a coroner's Autopsy because that could be part of the trial is you effectively killed this person yada yada yada um, yeah, these are. 01:00:25.50 Cameron A little more contentious when it comes to consent because now the government is involved and law enforcement is involved and they tend to have their way again. This is all based in australian law if a loved one of yours is to undergo. Ah, coroner's Autopsy and you are next of kin they will attempt to notify you and once notified you have 48 hours tops to respond if you do not consent at which point they have to consider your your. Um god what's the word opposition to the procedure legally consider so they have to actually weigh the pros and cons of doing the procedure etc but ah often they'll consider they'll consider it and say well we need to do it anyway at which point you've got n. 01:01:20.92 Cameron Extremely limited timeframe and I'm talking days to a week to file an appeal at the level of the supreme court in Australia which jumps a lot of hoops. Um, because in coronial cases obviously time is of the essence ah evidence for illegal cases. 01:01:39.82 Cameron Quite literally rotting away from their perspective at least whereas from your perspective. Obviously it's your loved one who didn't want their body to be messed with it all after death or whatever their particular wishes were so we get that sort of difficult. 01:01:56.90 Cameron Interface of the law the state and personal wishes. Which yeah, it's a bit more fraught in that. But as I've also said they're usually really behind time so as long as you're hitting that initial 48 hours opposition you're probably okay for a bit. 01:02:16.76 Cameron Um, unless it's a particularly high profile case. Um, yeah, so um, so that's the that's the sort of the immediately immediately after this is in the first sort of hour to two days after someone dies. These are the things you have to think about in terms of consent. Ah, and whether or not your consent actually matters which is again another sort of political debate to have here. Um you you probably shouldn't be able to stop a full investigation of an actual murder but also. 01:02:52.13 Cameron Wishes of the deceased and their family are also very Important. So It's one of those big things that we definitely don't have time to fully fully get into here So instead I'll move on to what actually happens during an autopsy because talking about things and demystifying them is important. Um. So An Autopsy is a very rigorous, very structured surgical Procedure. No one is freestyling on your loved ones corpse. 01:03:17.21 Jala Ah, that that image is something because I I just see somebody in the Morgue with the headphones jamming the hell out like you know movie super ridiculous movie style like now you have presented an image in my head sir. Ah. 01:03:25.87 Cameron But oh yeah, um I mean they they do listen to a lot of music at the Morgue. There's not much else to do while you're working your hands are busy. You know you can't do the crossword. 01:03:42.26 Cameron Um, yeah, they are specifically performed by a trained specialist known as a pathologist who's done training specifically for this kind of procedure and they're assisted by a medical technician who helps them take samples run machinery handle dangerous chemicals. All the kinds of things that come along with you know. 01:04:00.79 Cameron Any regular surgical procedure The only difference is the ah subject has already moved on um, generally this involves an extremely thorough external examination. So again, if that's something you would not be comfortable with with someone looking at. To be Frank the underside of your junk. Ah maybe let your loved ones know that unless it's really urgent. You don't want to have an autopsy because it is every nook and crevice every cranny every mole will be accounted for they have ah they have a check sheet and a little sketch of the human body to put any. 01:04:38.90 Cameron Possible distinguishing features on um and after the external examination there is usually the collection of tissue samples from every organ for study and in some cases the removal entirely of certain organs if they need particular. Ah, attention paid to them the way this is done just to again be clears is usually an incision just below the sternum which then opens up down across the stomach from which it's pretty easy to access everything. That's not in your head. Um, yeah, again literally Elbow deep. 01:05:16.96 Cameron Yeah, in some cases because you don't want to break bones and things you want to leave the body as pristine as possible while still having to get up in all of it and take your samples. Um, as far as the timeline this whole procedure will take usually 1 to 3 hours 01:05:36.75 Cameron Perform It's not a particularly long procedure because you don't have to worry about things like Anesthesia or anything like that. Um, you just have to worry about being respectful and maintaining the general integrity of the person you're working on. Um that. 01:05:54.32 Cameron Then after that actual procedure if a full study of the brain and internal organs is needed a lot of the times they will check out your brain which does involve taking the whole thing out. Um it can take 3 to six weeks to complete the actual studies. In particular the brain on its own takes a full three weeks to process because it is incredibly fragile and is one of the first things to begin falling apart as soon as you die because it needs it needs that blood supply without it. It just kind of mushes pretty quickly to be Frank again. Sorry if that's too Frank for anyone. 01:06:30.46 Cameron Um, ah during the time you have the body preserved to the best ability of the laboratory and aligning as close to the family's wishes as you can, but after a few weeks just keeping it cold doesn't always do it. So if they want it as complete as possible. Embalming can be done as Well. At this point just to literally maintain it long enough for all the disparate bits to come back from Labs Ah and at the end depending on the family's wishes any removed organs are either. 01:07:05.62 Cameron Replaced within the body disposed of by the hospital or laboratory or kept for scientific study and educational purposes which is actually also really important. Um, you can't teach someone to operate on a spleen safely. Um, without a real spleen that is not attached to someone at the moment one day hopefully we can sort of bypass all that but it is sort of the best way for people to learn without risking someone's real life. Um, and that's all at the consent of next of kin and the deceased themselves of course. 01:07:41.79 Cameron Um, and yeah, the body is sealed up and sutured up and prepared to the best ability of the attendance at which point it can be shipped off for a funeral service where a Mortician will actually take on the work of beautifying. The body itself if you're going to have an open casket or just preparing it for whatever disposal Method. You've chosen which feels like a really blunt way to say that? 01:08:07.91 Jala Well I mean you got to do something with it. You know so. 01:08:15.22 Cameron Um, and the only thing that doesn't go back in are the specific tissue samples. These are usually small like coreings of each organ just to check genetic makeup specific muscle fibers and other cell walls and stuff like that and it is it was the bit of the the excursion to the Morgue that I liked the most. Um, because it was really fascinating to me because I am that terribly morbid person when it comes to this exact subject and it was also the point where several other people fainted because you open this little door to what looks like a janitor's closet and it is like a I want to say a twenty foot deep ten foot tall room. That is floor- to ceilingil filled with glass jars each like tiny little glass jars each with a little bit of person in them all properly labeled and sealed and stored obviously but it is sort of a sense of scale to what goes on it's. 01:09:06.39 Jala And what's great is that like I just again in in the dramatic movie in my head I just see them open up this door and like for some reason the rest of them The you know Morga is like dark but then like they open this door and it's bright. 01:09:23.59 Jala And then as the door opens slowly peeled back The light starts hitting your face and it zooms in on your Joyous expression as your eyes begin to twinkle in the big smile happens and then you hear all this like oh and then thudding and then you turn around and everybody else is on the floor like that's. 01:09:30.24 Cameron Yeah, yeah, um, it was It was really cool. That's honestly not too far off because someone fell on me. 01:09:43.51 Jala That's how it happens you. 01:09:49.60 Cameron Um, so I was standing someone standing next to me and just slumped directly onto my shoulder'm like okay I have talked to you exactly once at a lecture they're they're stand up straight I Hope you're conscious and they were fine. It's just different things are confronting for different people. 01:09:50.65 Jala Ah, oh wow. 01:10:08.89 Cameron You know, like other people were maybe a bit more ah freaked out when you went into the actual Morgue itself and one of the attendants hastily pushed us out of the room because they had forgotten to cover the body of a murder victim they had in the back corner which we were legally not allowed to be looking at at that time. Um, yeah. 01:10:28.71 Cameron People who work in a Morgue have utmost respect for them. They definitely 100% all do their best to be respectful of your body and all its contents therein. It is a workplace they are overworked. There are always going to be little slipups of 1 kind or another. 01:10:47.66 Cameron Just sort of have to accept that they'll do their best to attend to your wishes and the wishes of your family but it's a workplace some some stupid teenager is going to slip and fall into your body or someone's accidentally going to see your dead body or someone's going to faintend at the sight of half of your kidney in ah in a jar. It's life. 01:11:06.14 Jala Ah, yeah, C'est La Mort. 01:11:07.10 Cameron And death actually um, C'est La Mort, C'est La Vie, say them more? Um, yeah, and then the the actual results of the Autopsy if you're eager to know what happened with your loved 1 Um, you'll get preliminary results within a few days. 01:11:26.31 Cameron Um, because they can just tell you the general state of the person who died but a full full report on the state of all the organs and any other health conditions or genetic conditions can take 6 to twelve weeks to be filed which is a definitely a very long time to wait I know but um. You'll probably be organizing a funeral in that time. So it might not be your highest priority I guess um, ah the results of which can either be sent to a family doctor who you can make an appointment with and they'll go through the results with you and sort of help you disseminate them throughout family or other loved ones to let people. 01:12:04.67 Cameron Know what was going on or in some cases you can sort of have an appointment made directly with the pathologist who performed the Autopsy ah, and I'm not going to say don't do this because I would I would never dare to tell someone how to how to deal with the the death of a loved one. 01:12:23.99 Cameron Um, consider that this person is extremely busy and they they will take that appointment most likely. Ah but it's not. It's not necessarily usually usually for the exact person who did the procedure to tell you what they found like you can trust. 01:12:43.19 Cameron Your doctor to give you the accurate accurate results from it. They're not. They're not going to hoodwink you about what happened to someone who is already dead in like ninety nine Point Nine nine percent of cases I don't know you can ever fully trust anyone so that point zero one and is there. Um. 01:12:56.95 Jala Yeah, yeah, there's always that one one weird case that somebody has but you know well I mean like they don't have any right? Well I mean they don't have any like ah reason to try to. 01:13:04.00 Cameron Yeah, yeah, it turns out there were actually three muskrats and a trench coat. Um, yeah, yeah, exact unless they were the killer. 01:13:05.68 Desiree Yeah. 01:13:11.85 Jala Hide that from you, you know? so like here you are so writing a murder mystery for us. Ok so. 01:13:21.53 Cameron Yeah, exactly yeah it is the best person to be um, but yeah that that's the general process and I hope that sort of laid it out relatively neatly? Um, yeah, it's not something to be afraid of um if you don't want someone to look at you that intimately guess what just make your wishes node. 01:13:27.10 Jala Yeah, isn't it. 01:13:41.18 Cameron And as long as your death is not the active result of a crime they probably won't do any of that to you You can peacefully have your body laid to rest in whichever way you choose without someone checking the inside of your stomach lining for arsenic or whatever. Ah, yeah, it's it's it's fine. This is. 01:14:01.20 Cameron Mostly at the consent of the people who are directly involved with it. Um, and it's yeah, it's not something to be afraid of it's if it helps think of it as a normal surgical procedure. It's just after someone's died people get surgery all the time people get autopsies all the time. It's just part of the way we process death in our current. 01:14:18.68 Jala Yeah, yeah, so from Autopsy Bill we move on to body processing so you've got yeah, we've got embalming so in the us at the very least. 01:14:20.48 Cameron Way of society. Yeah yeah, oh nice traditional. 01:14:37.28 Jala It is not legally required to embalm a body but in the current funeral system funeral homes are private businesses and so if they say that you can't have a viewing unless the body is embalmed then you will have to embalm it because they have the right to say that so again like finding a funeral home that. 01:14:56.85 Jala Actually aligns with your ah you know values and everything is very important So also ah embalming is required if you are moving the body from state to state in most cases. So like you do have to consider that as well. 01:15:14.40 Jala So embalming is a process by which decomposition is temporarily halted and the body is preserved expressly for viewing purposes. This doesn't do anything else. All it does is just make the body. Ah I I don't know if I would say appealing to look at but like um. 01:15:31.97 Cameron No, it's not a pile of rotting matter. 01:15:32.31 Jala At least less. Yeah, at least a little bit less upsetting to look at maybe I don't know it just kind of depends upon any number of things. Um, so as we mentioned as we mentioned the embalming chemicals are very very toxic. 01:15:49.25 Jala Ah, and the embalming also does not make the corpse quote unquote safe as the dead body isn't contagious to begin with you're not going to catch whatever you know, killed this person. So usually I mean there are some cases. But yeah, yeah, especially if you go face planting for anyway. 01:15:55.89 Cameron Um, yeah, well usually a little asterisk on there some cases. 01:16:06.64 Cameron Oh no, that that body was thoroughly embalmed at that point I was more at risk of swallowing formaldehyde than getting a rare disease. Yeah. 01:16:08.51 Jala Okay, so there's also something that I learned about from the death in the afternoon podcast called extreme embalming. So I don't know if you have this thing over there cameron called body worlds but we have body worlds in the US. 01:16:23.70 Cameron So Triple s style. Oh so So the most frustrating part of my course apart from the statistics which really really sucked I can't emphasize that enough. Um. 01:16:28.42 Jala Do you know about that. 01:16:39.74 Cameron Only unit I had to do twice. Um I am so envious of the stuff that goes on in the Us with regards to bodies because you guys have all the cool stuff going on. Um, we don't We don't have body exhibits to the best of my knowledge and you guys also have stuff like the body farm. 01:16:58.14 Cameron Which was of particular interest to that course of study. Obviously um yeah, we don't have this and I wish we did because I don't want to be embalmed but I kind of might swing for it if I could have myself like posed in the middle of doing something for the restfinity. It. 01:17:12.18 Jala Ah, well and that that is exactly what extreme embalming is so like think of body Worlds exhibit which is it's ah, an exhibit that goes through it tours around Science museums where they take all the skin and everything off of all the identifying stuff off of a body and you just see the muscles and such. 01:17:29.77 Jala And then those embalmed bodies are then put into like posed in different ways doing different stuff like sitting around the table playing poker or you know playing golf or whatever and then like but it's like showing you the different parts of the bodies. They also have stuff like cross sections that show you. 01:17:49.31 Jala Um, the way that different diseases look or the way that you know adipose Tissue looks ah as opposed to muscle and this that and the other um I have a wild story about this So I attended a funeral the same day that I also took a friend who was visiting to the body World's exhibit. 01:18:08.50 Jala So I went to a funeral ah for a good friend's father who I I knew for like 15 years or so and I did find there and then I went to the body worlds exhibit. 01:18:20.60 Jala And then I happened to see the cross section I was fine in the the body Worlds exhibit until I saw the cross section of the brain that showed Alzheimer's and my grandmother was still alive but had Alzheimer's at that point and I got real depressed So like. 01:18:35.92 Jala Understand that if you go to the body Worlds exhibit and you know somebody who has a condition you will probably you like I can't say that you will but you you are likely to feel some feels about it like I had even gone to a funeral and I was okay, but then it was just that particular thing with somebody that I knew that are currently had a condition that just like depress. 01:18:41.21 Cameron Yeah, it can be confronting. 01:18:55.84 Jala Hell out at me and I was upset. Um it can be. It can be but ah extreme embalming though is actually a way of basically what they do is they embalm the body they dress it in the clothes you know, ah that you would wear in life and. 01:19:10.75 Jala Then they pose it like if you are a gamer they will put you in your gaming chair with your playstation and like literally put it in a Tableau and then everybody comes yeah. 01:19:15.19 Cameron Yeah in tune me with my PS 5 01:19:21.39 Jala Everybody comes to to view the body doing the things that they did in life or doing things that they wished they could do and they make a tableau out of it and that's. 01:19:27.87 Cameron Ah, yeah, your one chance to beat them at Super Mario Super smash sorry they can't fight back. 01:19:35.68 Jala So so that is the thing that exists. Um, so yeah, like to you like I heard a again I heard um a podcast episode about this but I'm sure if you googled extreme embalming. You could find instances in places that do that. 01:19:47.96 Cameron Ah, yeah, we definitely don't have that to the best of my knowledge I kind of wish we did. It would be awesome. Um, at university we did have a crosss sectionctions room which because we shared space with the veterinary studies course was very interesting because it was you had a cross-section of a man and then suspended from the ceiling on y you had a like fifteen foot long crosssection of a horse. 01:20:16.78 Cameron Just sort of hanging in the air directly over all the study desks which was always weird to look at um, ah good times starting to realize I had a lot of desensitization over the course of that study. That was where I normally studied as in that room. 01:20:32.87 Jala Ok well there you go. so Desiree what about cremation. 01:20:44.46 Desiree So cremation like I mentioned earlier. The body is entirely reduced to non-organic material. So it's a bunch of Ash and then there are bone fragments and those bone fragments are then run through. Ah, contraption call I think it's a cremulator um to sort of pulverize and them and get them down to that same ashy type of composition so you get cre remains back from a pet or family member. You know it's it's just going to look like a bunch of ash. It's not going have fragments of. 01:21:22.47 Desiree Big bones and pieces in there. Um some problems with cremation. So so energy use is a huge one for every single person's individual cremation as much energy as a five hundred mile car trip is used. To cremate that one person i' and assuming that's a normal just standard CCreamation mercury can also be emitted. So think about you know the fillings in your teeth stuff like that. Um, yeah, like those things will be emitted. Um. 01:21:44.33 Cameron So. Yeah, if you ate a lot of tuna. 01:22:00.39 Desiree Big pieces of medical equipment. So if you have ah um, like a thing put in your hip, a metal bar something like that those will not be cremated. Those will sort of be taken. They will be apparent once everything else has been turned to Ash and they will be taken out. Um. 01:22:02.43 Cameron Pacemaker, yeah. 01:22:19.76 Desiree That doesn't necessarily contribute to the environmental piece but things like fillings. Yes. 01:22:23.39 Jala I will say I will say if somebody has a pacemaker. It's very important to disclose that information because that can explode in in the thing when they're doing the green nation. So that's important because they actually have to take that part out. Ah, first. 01:22:24.33 Cameron And yes in the furnace. Yeah. 01:22:35.13 Desiree So yes, definitely don't want to do that. 01:22:41.29 Cameron Yeah, go out with a bang. Um, no, don't cause trouble after you talk maybe maybe a little trouble. Yeah, well. 01:22:47.57 Desiree I mean not that kind of trouble first but a little trouble not like property damage trouble. Um, so cremation is for years. What I thought I was going to do because of coral reef and that's how you get turned into bits for coral reef. Um, but then I learned about. 01:23:07.56 Desiree Aquamation which you get that same type of material back. It's just that same sort of ashiness. But there's 20 to 30% more of the ash that you get back and unlike cremation those remains. 01:23:24.48 Desiree Are partially organic so it is still part of that person or animal. Um, there is still some energy that is used for that process. But it's since you're using incredibly heated water versus fire. 01:23:42.58 Desiree It's not emitting those same toxic chemicals. So the things like the fillings those are going to come out rather they are being burnt up so they won't go back into the environment in the same way. Um, and so it will also leaves behind some of those bone. 01:24:01.89 Desiree Fragments that they'll be run through the curmy later in the same way. Um, it is only legal in 5 or 6 states in the us right now which thankfully is one of the states that I live in in Kansas so I can be aquiated I think if. 01:24:20.95 Desiree I don't know I haven't looked too much into if there's a facility here right now but it is legal here and really um so Caitlin also has a fascinating video on the very first cremation that happened in the us and all of the nonsense that went into that which was really interesting to watch. 01:24:40.56 Desiree Aquamation is kind of going through that now like people got desensitized to cremation they became okay with it now they hear this new word and they're scared. It's It's the same thing but you do water instead of fire. But there's this rhetoric of oh you're flushing grandma down the toilet. 01:24:58.12 Desiree No, that's nonsense. 01:25:00.88 Cameron Yeah, yeah, um I was actually watching a little bit of ask a mortician before we recorded and ah I think it might have been part of the same video but it talked about how in Hawaii one of the traditional. Ah. Body disposal methods that really feels too cut and dry as a way to say it the traditional cultural ways of dealing with the body was to essentially cremate them underneath the fire on the beach and you would have the bones left over stripped and bleached essentially and aquimation. 01:25:33.71 Cameron Can if you don't run them through the cremulator leave similar remains. So it was seen as a ah sort of a continuation of that tradition if you do it in Hawaii which I thought was very interesting sort of ah a modernization of a more traditional method of. 01:25:49.65 Desiree Yes I remember that episode because Kaitlyn is from Hawaii and so that I really like that as well because it is that you're still able to stay true to your cultural heritage. 01:26:06.70 Desiree Versus you know, burning a corpse on the beach maybe isn't so great for whatever could go into the water supply things like that. So aquamation is that nice middle ground where you can still have your cultural ritual of getting those full pieces of the bones back if that's what's important to you. 01:26:22.20 Jala Yeah, but what I learned is that there's a thing called Cryomation I didn't know this was a thing. Ok I know I was like I was looking at him like I I didn't. 01:26:25.64 Desiree And then yes. 01:26:30.78 Cameron Yeah I added this into the notes secretly. Um because I I was looking up back or made and this came up. Yeah, yeah. 01:26:38.46 Jala I didn't write this so I just learned this information. So Cameron tell us what cryomation is. 01:26:46.88 Cameron So croromation is the newer hotter younger version of acquamation. Apparently um, so new and young. It's basically not happening anywhere except a few nordic countries and instead of yeah instead of cremation being incinerating the body and. 01:26:56.22 Jala That tracks. 01:27:04.52 Cameron Acquamation being washing boiling the body away cryomation is freezing the body. Um, all all the same concept. Are you use Liquid Nitrogen Yeah 01:27:10.27 Jala Um, Earth come on. Yeah, it's sorry I Just yeah I just felt like I needed to throw that in there but our earth is the next one when we do green burial anyway. So continue. 01:27:23.90 Cameron All the elements combined. Um, yeah yeah, cap captain planet. But in the Grim Reaper outfit. Um, yeah, yeah, the mullet. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, got to have positivity in this death Posio here. So that's it. Um yes. 01:27:25.30 Jala Where's captain now. Anyway, Ok Bye Oh God That's the mullet the mullet. Okay sorry sorry. 01:27:39.32 Jala Right? right? Okay, so sorry, cryomation very important. 01:27:43.73 Cameron Primation you use in a similar process to cremation or acclimation. But you use Liquid Nitrogen instead of fire or an alkali solution of water and you freezedry the body and then you can use vibrations or a cremulator to reduce it to a fine powder. 01:28:01.59 Jala It's like what happens to astronaut ice cream because you never get a whole piece of that stuff got so that's there you go everybody turn yourself into astronaut ice cream in Norway. So. 01:28:02.63 Cameron Um, no, it dusts itself immediately? 01:28:17.17 Cameron It supposedly so I say supposedly because the only information on the carbon footprint I could find came from the website of a company that is promoting investing in this particular form of ah body disposal apparently has a carbon footprint roughly 30% that of a standarded cremation which is not bad. 01:28:36.37 Cameron Um, because again, you're not actively burning off organic compounds into the air that kind of thing but it is currently not in super wide use. It was recently under consideration in the united kingdom but has not yet caught on legally speaking. Over there. So it's sort of restricted to? yeah um I mean you would imagine Norway would come up with yeah, just get the body as cold as possible and then dry it out and then then shake it into little pieces. Um, which apparently because they are again also organic. But. 01:29:14.20 Cameron Just completely dried out and incredibly fine more or less dissolve away over time. Um on their own with no intervention from anything. They just get eaten by Microbes and Bacteria which is touted as a way to save space because. 01:29:31.48 Cameron After a set period of time. It is guaranteed that wherever these remains are stored will be empty. So if it's not on an urn on your shelf if you store it in a burial facility that space can be made available for a new set of remains at some point. Yeah, pretty much. 01:29:45.57 Jala Um, it is Astronaut ice cream for the microbes. 01:29:50.92 Cameron I Bet they love it all the nutrition none of the moisture. Oh yeah, just a little tree really small. 01:29:52.30 Jala Probably is well I mean like it's It's so much nutrition for them right? So like it is. It's like oh boy, this is the best ever. It's a treat. So. 01:30:08.99 Jala Well microbes are small so this might be like you know the the mountain sized piece of of food that they've been waiting for you know. 01:30:10.64 Cameron Oh God Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's like when they hand the little corn cob to steart little and he just holds it in both arms like it's the size of a small of the small car or something. It's like yes, thank you, You have fed me. 01:30:30.49 Cameron Right? Tell tell me about Green burial, earth. 01:30:31.20 Jala So moving right along earth. Okay, so ah in green burial a hole is dug and the shrouded unebalmed body is placed inside and buried. Usually this is shallower than six feet I think if I recall correctly, it's something like three feet is better because. 01:30:41.10 Cameron Button. Okay, yeah. 01:30:50.28 Jala Of the oxygenation of the dirt at that level makes it ah process you know like decompose faster and so it's better to put it a little bit higher up closer to the surface. So. 01:31:02.61 Cameron So yeah, yeah, that's why you don't bury them that shallow if you're killing someone because that puts off heat which is how you find a buried body random knowledge. Go. 01:31:11.18 Desiree Good to know. 01:31:12.51 Jala So there. But so so so ah, conservation Burial is a green burial that also involves the cost to pay for the land acquisition in order to restore that spot to its natural state. 01:31:26.80 Jala So when you opt for a conservation burial. You are not allowing land development on the spot where your corpse rests so it can be rewilded so that would be like if ah, you know I Dave and I go and decide that we're going to do conservation burial because we can't be aquimated or ah cryomated or whatever. 01:31:42.63 Cameron Yeah, arrowmated this. It'll happen. 01:31:46.29 Jala Ah, at least not right now. Yeah, ah since we can't do those things we could go get ourselves buried at a conservation burial facility. 01:31:58.73 Jala Ah, and then rewild so that way quail and other little critters can run around on the rewilded area that used to be where our body was and you know like naturally as you decompose and you know stuff gets to work that. Also. 01:32:16.18 Jala Means that you are like restoring the earth and giving you know nutrients and stuff back to the soil um part of what they do when they do a green burial is like um they will not just put like a compostable coffin but you know if they do a coffin Sometimes they don't Sometimes it's just a shrouded body. Um, but like. 01:32:35.62 Jala They also will put clothes on that are like biodegradable clothes that also have like um spores for fungi and things like that to help speed up that process of decomposition as well. So there's also on that note. 01:32:52.89 Jala Natural organic reduction aka human composting which is like the newest thing in America anyway, the biggest thing in America that is currently being fought for and advocated for by the order of the good death. 01:33:07.00 Jala And it is the practice of using naturally occurring microbes to speed up the process of decomposition. So a body can be used to restore the land to a fertile state. This is currently only legal in a few states and as you might imagine because ah this is potentially like. 01:33:23.76 Jala Now you're compost. So and people are like somebody's going to start selling that compost wholesale to people and then the bodies are going to be in somebody's backyard or whatever like there. There are places where this is allowable. You can also have that compost put into like. 01:33:40.15 Jala Specifically like I think there's 1 1 place that does like a ah forest reforestation project and you could have your compost be put there to help rewild this particular area's Forest and everything. So I mean like. 01:33:45.93 Cameron Oh. Yeah, that would be nice. 01:33:54.28 Jala It's not necessarily yes now now you're decomposed and then now you will be you know ah helping the crops grow somewhere. No, it's not yeah yeah, so. 01:34:00.48 Cameron Yeah, with 2 steps off soil and green over here. 01:34:08.48 Jala Those are the main ways of body processing. So um, for me I am most interested in the conservation burial in my area because human composting is not allowed nor is aquamation. So that's how I would like to go I'm just putting that out there legally okay. 01:34:21.86 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a binding contract. What is this isn't March a fifteenth there. We go? Yeah I really like I really like the conservation burial. 01:34:27.31 Jala At this time. So yeah, it's on record somewhere. 01:34:41.40 Cameron Um, it's partly because it's the closest to like that sky burial idea I really liked where literally don't even dig hole just throw me out there. Um, but you know yeah, it's nice to think of your body returning to the Earth from whence We aim as it were and. 01:34:58.54 Cameron It's sort of that purpose after death like um, as de already mentioned you don't have a particular religious outlook on death and I'm happy to say I'm also atheist when it comes to this? um I don't think much is going to happen to me spiritually after all of this. 01:35:15.77 Cameron But it would be nice to know in my final moments that my body is not going to be like a plastic block six feet underground or eternity for someone to dig up in 500 years and go wow. It's incredible. How society let him survive with his non-working eye and his bad legs and all this other stuff that's wrong with him. 01:35:34.66 Cameron It'd be much nicer to become a tree or feed a little family of Dingo pups and just dig me up. 01:35:36.39 Jala Right. 01:35:40.34 Desiree Well see that is why the coral Reef idea appeals to me because as death positive as I am the idea of being eaten also makes me uneasy and. 01:35:55.27 Cameron No, that's fair, That's natural. 01:35:58.59 Desiree Like you can have both right? You can be death positive and also be like ooh I don't want to be eaten by things and yet there are ways to still contribute to that conservation piece to that natural piece while also not being eaten. 01:36:12.90 Jala Yeah, there are so many different ways to go like so you know it's just about finding what is right? And what is comfortable for you and you know just like finding facilities or whatever that um, you know you can work with towards that end. So also I will say about. 01:36:32.82 Jala Will say about green burial conservation burial. Um, they are also much cheaper than a traditional burial. You don't have the embalming or any of that You don't have to buy the the big coffin or anything like that. So so it is a lot cheaper. So. 01:36:34.12 Cameron And yeah or the casket. Yeah God Just that. 01:36:52.27 Cameron If you've got to live in a capitalist system. You might as well refuse to put as much money into it as possible. 01:36:57.20 Desiree And if cost is a thing depending on where you live if you have if you happen to live near a university that has a body disposition um thing where they study the bodies. 01:37:09.96 Desiree Is something my dad has looked into he wants his body to be donated to the university he lives at they keep the remains for about a year to do whatever they need to do and then they return the crenated ashes to the family and then they have an annual ceremony at this particular university to say. Thank you. 01:37:14.53 Cameron Yes, yes. 01:37:29.68 Desiree Friends and family can come and just sort of have that moment of yep, we all donated our loved ones to this very important cause of studying medical things. It's not entirely free as my dad build it because you do still have to pay to have the body transported from wherever it died to the facility and. 01:37:49.90 Desiree Timelines and things like that so he did not do as much research as I have but now I'm way more prepared to deal with his inevitable death and actually know how to make those wishes happen. No yes. 01:37:59.43 Jala And you know having? yeah well and then two unless it's cameron. Ah, anyways, so anyway anyway anyway, um so ah, yeah, having those. 01:38:00.57 Cameron Yeah, he'll be in good hands unless just me, don't worry I'm not start I'm not studying Kansas don't worry. Yeah. 01:38:17.60 Jala Plans ahead of time and doing this research ahead of time is super important because in the moment that you are are grappling with the the fact that the death has occurred. You do not the last thing you want to do is to have to try to sort it all out right. 01:38:35.57 Jala If all of this stuff is already organized. You already know the plan you already know the facility you have all of that I mean there are a lot of places where you can pay in advance and already have that taken care of before you pass then to have all of that done and lined up just makes it so much less of a. 01:38:52.84 Jala Burden on the people who are left behind who are grieving you you know? So so yeah, and ah, there are I found a couple of weird ways that people are memorialized like on the internet and I just wanted to share these these things before we kind of move on to the topic of death anxiety and grief. So. 01:38:56.11 Cameron Yeah, yeah, definitely. 01:39:12.81 Jala Ah, social media-wise um it it was only more recent because it was a a long time where it was like Facebook you could just have Facebook friends but they're dead you know and oh boy um, and like that that's been a thing you know where it's like oh it feels so weird to come back there but they've made it to where you can have. 01:39:20.44 Desiree Okay, yep. 01:39:21.94 Cameron Oh yeah, had a few of those. It's weird. 01:39:32.61 Jala A memorial page instead after they have passed away rather than just being kind of like phantoms on the internet. Um, and that's good. Um I know that I lost a friend who committed suicide. Um, many years ago and this was way back in the era of myspace and. 01:39:34.92 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:39:51.83 Jala Had not been his myspace friend because we just didn't interact on the internet. We knew each other face-to-face so you know like I didn't really interact with myspace much. Um, so like I found his myspace page after the fact and it felt so weird and surreal to be able to go back to that myspace page for like. 01:40:09.64 Jala So long after he had committed suicide. It was just really, you know, kind of overwhelming and weird and so it's good that social media is now or at least Facebook among social media has you know finally accommodated for that and I don't know when that took effect probably some time ago. 01:40:28.40 Jala But you can make a memorial page out of the page for somebody who has passed like my all all of my grandparents are now gone. Um and my one of my grandmothers was on Facebook and like I still see her. 01:40:42.51 Jala Pop up every once in a while and it's just the wildest thing and and nobody turned that into a memorial page. So it's still like again one of those little phantoms haunting the internet. Um, right like you know, ah except those. 01:40:43.82 Cameron New. Yeah, no yeah, ah we weren't thinking about that when we built the internet really. 01:40:59.62 Jala People who were like we're going to upload this dead Squirrel's consciousness into the internet does anybody remember that that was like way back when Aol was a thing boy. Yes, so the amount of speculative fiction about that exactly is just unquantifiable I think. 01:41:03.33 Cameron Yeah, oh man. 01:41:17.99 Desiree Let's all of this like memorial pages and whatnot. That's why part of your death planning for your own death needs to be making sure someone has your passwords because that's something that we don't necessarily think about but some of those pages. Um I. 01:41:35.24 Desiree Known people who've passed who can't have it converted to a memorial page because they didn't have an immediate next of kin who knew the passwords who could do those things so then you are faced with those like oh this was your memory from a year ago 01:41:49.63 Desiree And you don't want to see that but you can't turn it into a memorial page because Facebook won't let you access it so you know doing your loved ones that gift of also removing future trauma by making sure they have your access to your social media so they can. Turn them off or memorialize them or do whatever they need to do in that space as well. 01:42:09.85 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah, if I die please delete my Facebook account I don't want it to exist. 01:42:18.18 Jala Well, there was this ah 1 one case that I heard about actually on the death in the afternoon podcast I know this is like the episode of me referring to something else again. Kind of like when we were doing the. 01:42:27.68 Cameron Um, it's good content. M. 01:42:28.93 Jala When we were doing the disability. The first disability episode disability and ableism. We were just like name dropping bad attitudes podcast left in right because Laura is amazing. Everybody needs to go listen to that show but either way ah on anyway on the um death in the afternoon podcast I heard about. 01:42:46.93 Jala Speaking speak memory was like a chatbot made in memory of a guy named Roman who was like an entrepreneur and an Ai a Ai guy and basically a good friend of his once he passed away. 01:43:03.27 Jala Ended up taking um an ai bot and teaching it off of all of his social media posts to become a chat bot of him so you can still download this thing and it you can still chat with Roman and um. 01:43:20.83 Jala Yeah, although like the answers that I get back when I I actually downloaded it and tried it but the answers I got back didn't make any sense So like it's probably not being kept up and you know outdated at this point but you know somebody made a chat bot ah based off of your social media or this guy's social media and that's kind of like relevant to. 01:43:35.51 Cameron God Oh yeah. 01:43:39.22 Jala The Ai chat or Ai bots now that are just populating all of this fan art and stuff. Um, you know artworks from individual people fan art from people you know and then just stealing that artwork to be able to churn out Ai art and. 01:43:54.88 Jala Things like that and it's like that's a real weird thing that now we have to grapple with where like people can make phantoms of us a I chat Bots out of us after we die. Wow. 01:44:05.24 Cameron Yeah, yeah I know I said I I won't exist on after death in any spiritual or conscious sense I've changed my mind if you do this to me anyone who's listening I will come back and haunt you I don't want this. Let me be dead. 01:44:17.78 Jala Yeah, right, right? comforting or something. Yeah. 01:44:23.89 Cameron I'm sure for some I'm sure for some people something like this is a part of the grieving process and comforting the idea of any member of my family or any of my other loved ones having gone through the whole ordeal of having to deal with me die. 01:44:39.75 Cameron And then someone sends them a link and it overs up like hi I'm Cameron I want to do a podcast about werewolls and I I don't want to imagine that ever happening so because I feel like that would both be they would either take it really well or they would take it really badly. 01:44:56.88 Cameron And either way I don't want them to do that. Let me let me be dead. Please. 01:44:58.40 Jala Right? right? And there there is um on because I this is a podcast of me referencing podcasts on the Lavar Burton reads ah podcast. He did an episode sometime back. Um. 01:45:13.69 Jala Where he read a story called the regression test by Wole Talabi and it is a very very good story in which an Ai was created off of this. 01:45:28.64 Jala Lady's mom who happened to be like a super top-tier scientist and so like the regression test in the story involves the daughter going and talking to the ai to see if it still sounded like her mom or if the Ai had evolved too far away from being. 01:45:47.20 Jala The mom and so like it talks about that experience of kind of interacting with a thing that is simultaneously kind of you know, kind of sort of sounds like the person but is absolutely not that person and then like you know talking about that subject. So I'll try to um, put a link to that in and the show notes for folks. 01:46:06.36 Jala So yeah, so that's that's some weird stuff to think about when it comes to um you know your own passing other people's passing and you know things to consider. 01:46:13.66 Cameron Yeah, maintain the rights to your image and or any performances you have done please. So. 01:46:24.70 Desiree I mean there are other interesting ways to be memorialized. There are tons of things you can do with cremines and stuff like that make them into diamonds whatnot. There's also a company called save my ink where you can request a kit. 01:46:41.62 Desiree And have your tattoo cut off and then it is preserved for your family if that would be a memorial item that they would like to have they could um. 01:46:49.78 Cameron Oh man I could totally do that? Yeah yeah, yeah, write someone I'll have to write a book about the Tantan All the tiger before I die. 01:46:50.10 Jala And then they could turn it into a book and then desiree can write a dissertation about it. So anyway. 01:47:04.19 Cameron And then we combined it in the ah in the skin for my left arm and des Ray can take care of it. 01:47:08.30 Jala Um, yes, that'll be amazing. 01:47:13.32 Jala So yeah now now it's about time for us to actually tackle some of the real hard stuff that you know and and we have a lot of stuff to talk about with this so talking about death anxiety so death anxiety that's something that I think. 01:47:29.66 Jala Literally every single person has I don't I don't think that it's very common for it like if you somehow have no anxiety about dying then um I I want to see inside your head because like Wow that that's got to be a very unique place right. 01:47:31.89 Cameron Yeah, yeah. 01:47:48.84 Jala So this kind of anxiety of course can be caused by somebody's fear of the great unknown. Um, we have like a big need to know I would even say that especially now in our internet age we have have this feeling of entitlement like we are supposed to know we have to know everything. 01:47:50.61 Cameron Definitely. 01:48:08.29 Jala Like So if you don't know you know like that you know don't know what's going to happen exactly with death and dying and all of that and what happens to you after if you have a concern about that then that becomes a source of panic right? So you know. 01:48:27.73 Jala Like especially if you have feelings of oh there's some kind of life after death. You know oh am I going to be judged I don't want to be judged just like the character in my story that I wrote um you know or other things but then too this anxiety can be like a morbid dread of death itself. The actual physical. 01:48:47.30 Jala Part of it. Perhaps um, but there's also the dread of the presumed nothingness that comes with death like if you aren't somebody who believes in life after death. Then what you're afraid of at that point could be. 01:49:03.51 Jala Be afraid that your ambitions your goals your projects are suddenly at an end and aren't ever going to happen. This could also be fear of no longer being able to have any experiences because you're not there anymore you know, um. 01:49:19.67 Jala Just like that the concept of of Buddhist Nirvana is not something that everybody is into you know, like the the being and non-being you know? So um. 01:49:32.59 Jala That's something that people grapple with and I'm just going to kind of rattle off a couple more of these things and then we can kind of stop and talk about it and see you know say what? what is most of a concern for each of us. Um, people also fear death because of the grief that it causes to their loved ones. 01:49:38.49 Desiree Sure. 01:49:51.80 Jala So um, that can be worrying about your dependence like if you happen to have children or if you have a spouse or what have you other dependents in your life or other people that are very close to you that you know maybe are emotionally fragile or you know that rely on you directly. And if you passed then you're worried about that. Um,, there's also of course the worry about how painful is it. You know what happens right? as you're dying and then. 01:50:22.76 Jala You know what happens right? after death as well and again like learning we've already learned by the time you are hearing this in the episode. You have heard what happens after the body has already you know all the life has gone out of the body. What happens at that point but um, like what happens in the last moments like those are. 01:50:41.83 Jala Things that like you can look into and learn about and kind of asswage some of those fears although like how that feels that's like a whole different thing to kind of grapple with so most of these. 01:50:58.39 Jala Items that I've just listed were yet again from ah Caitlin's Youtube ask a mortician she had an episode about like fear of death and you know like different I guess popular or most common ah fears that people have about death. 01:51:15.52 Jala And what she recommended in that video is to really stop and think about those and consider what are the ones that really affect you the most and then you know you can kind of troubleshoot from there but you need to first kind of pin down. What is it that gives you this anxiety in the first place you know and and not like ah of course. 01:51:34.62 Jala Everybody has all of these to an extent but which of these legitimately instills specific fear in you. 01:51:43.22 Desiree Yeah, oh sure. Um, so I mean having died once it doesn't you know I don't remember that part of me wishes I did um I could. 01:51:44.54 Cameron Yeah, ah do you want to go first Desiree. 01:51:55.84 Cameron Yeah, ah you could write so many books I mean? Yeah yeah, always a possibility but just we'll just edit that bit out. Um, yeah. 01:51:56.79 Jala Right. 01:52:01.20 Desiree I mean I still could and just say I remembered Um, but. 01:52:06.30 Desiree Ah, yeah I you know so so to me it I don't know it doesn't feel scary personally and also the way I think about it. 01:52:11.25 Jala Dropping a marker for Dave. Okay. 01:52:22.92 Desiree I Don't know what existence was like before I was here I would love to believe reincarnation is a thing but I don't know that it is so to me I didn't exist before and after I die it'll be that same return to nothingness. 01:52:31.53 Cameron Yeah. 01:52:39.23 Desiree Which I get how that can be scary, but for me, that's kind of a okay I can finally be at peace I can stop worrying about writing this frickin dissertation I can stop worrying about you know, having to make sure the phone bill gets paid or all these things all of those worries are gone So to me that's a relief. 01:52:58.95 Desiree I Also don't have children. So I don't particularly care about a legacy of any kind. Um, yeah I like to believe in that you live on in other people's memories and other people's stories and there are uses of my existence like I've written a thesis that's published out on proquest. 01:53:18.87 Desiree There is a story in there about death. Um, it's called Death's cue and it's essentially about death going and visiting people in their final moments to like kind of pull them and send them on to wherever they go next and it's looking at well what would happen to death when death experiences its own death. Um. 01:53:38.84 Desiree And so to speak to the pain piece part of that 1 of the people that death visits is a woman who is living in I don't remember if it was hiroshima or Nagasaki which one I saw it in but 1 of those cities right before the bomb fell and death went and took her before she would have experienced. Pain of dying from the atomic bomb so that pain piece that is really a legitimate fear. Um, yeah I think a lot of hospitals and things do a lot to pump you full of all the morphine and all the drugs. Especially if. Like in my Grandma's case they assured me she was in no pain even though she was starving to death because she was pumped full of all the good drugs they called them so a legitimate fear. Definitely you know I try to not borrow trouble as my lovely husband would say. 01:54:35.13 Desiree Um, so I try not to think about that pain because that as again would not be anything I can control the one piece about this that does give me personally a lot of anxiety is what becomes of my dependence which are all covered in fur. Um, and. 01:54:54.20 Desiree I am very lucky to live in Kansas because out at Kansas State University in manhattan they have an amazing veterinary program but they also have a program where you can set aside some portion of your final will or your money I think it's $23000 per animal. 01:55:12.70 Desiree Which seems like a lot but what that does is guarantee foster care and medical care and feeding for the entire duration of the life of your animal. So I currently have a 3 year old cat if John and I both died tomorrow and I had that fun set up for her. 01:55:30.14 Desiree That could potentially be twenty plus years of care for her. Um, so I find a lot of comfort in knowing that I can make sure I'm providing for my animals and giving them the best possible life and they're not going to end up in a shelter. 01:55:48.28 Desiree Not going to be reliant upon someone else that I know taking them I could set up that and so that's really the only piece that gives me personal anxiety is just making sure that they are cared for. 01:56:02.30 Jala Um, right right? So do you want to go next cameron. Okay. 01:56:04.85 Cameron So yeah, who yeah, um, yeah, honestly, remarkably similar. Um, the the biggest fear about dying for me beyond the the primal. 01:56:21.17 Cameron Gut Reaction fear which I'm sure most people have experienced some point you realized something happened that was incredibly dangerous and you probably almost died and your stomach just immediately completely falls out of your body and you go fuck I nearly just and you go wait? No but I'm fine that that momentarily like the true primal fear. 01:56:40.86 Cameron That's normal. That's completely instinctive I have no control over that. Um, it's mostly the the people I love and who love me hopefully um, ah like I do not want to die before my wife. 01:56:58.89 Cameron Because I I don't want to put her through that the the difficult part of this is that she feels the exact same way and so we have cleverly staged things so that she is several years older than me and we both will reach the rough ah the rough estimate of lifespan for our demographics at exactly the same time. So hopefully that'll work out perfectly. 01:57:18.70 Cameron Um, totally intentional. Um, but yeah, that is that is the biggest part of the fear of death for me is definitely I don't want to cause grief essentially for the people I love Um, just. 01:57:37.86 Cameron And I know like there's no controlling that part of it Obviously like they're going to. They're going to have a reaction to how I die and when I die no matter what I do about it but part of the death positivity thing is hopefully making that easier on them. Um, you know like just. 01:57:50.95 Jala Yeah, and having yeah having those conversations you know before there's any threat of actual death is really important because you can't mitigate. Somebody's grief but you can kind of head off some of the. 01:58:10.64 Jala Fear parts of it at the past by having those conversations and kind of working through all of that and kind of um I'll I'll go into more and more of my reasoning and thought on that in a minute I don't want to stop you in the middle of your thoughts. 01:58:26.87 Cameron Yeah, no, no, no, that's okay, yeah, yeah, that's that's really the big one and mo a sorry I've got an interruption mostly it is just Aaron like my my blood relatives will be fine. Um. 01:58:44.57 Cameron They've got. They've got other people. Um, but Aaron and I are well one would hope are very close. Obviously we just got married. But yeah, we're very close. We're very I don't want to say emotionally dependent but we it's it's that. 01:59:00.70 Cameron Emotionally open relationship where we rely on each other to comfort each other when things are rough and it's difficult to think about her going through literally one of the the heaviest possible stages of grieving without me there to help her through it obviously. 01:59:18.55 Cameron It would necessitate that I would not be there so she's got to go first. Um and apart from that as my momentary interruption a few seconds ago indicated. Ah, it's also the animal's side of things. Um I know probably won't be. 01:59:37.60 Cameron Lizzie particularly who just tried to bite me while I was talking about death. Um, but there there will be at least 1 dependent animal and I'm not worried necessarily about their care. We all er and I both have. Lovely family and friends who are close enough to be family. You know that that sort of chosen found family kind of deal who would without a doubt even if we didn't end up providing for it in a specific sense would take any pet in. But. 02:00:12.32 Cameron Have been mortally wounded by my state's government attempts to Curb drunk driving because the most affecting ad I have ever seen is just pictures and short videos of a dog or a cat looking out a window and followed by the text of. 02:00:29.80 Cameron Will never know why you didn't come home and that really fucked me up forever is like well I yeah yeah I like I was never going to drunk drive in the first place. But thank you for instilling this deep-seated fear inside of me that the the cat will be fine. 02:00:31.37 Jala Oh no, no the Hachiko complex. Oh no. 02:00:48.68 Cameron No matter what the cat will live the rest of their life long and happy and biting people who annoy them? Um, but but there will be a definite period where the cat is very confused and very unhappy and won't understand what happened at all because. 02:01:06.57 Cameron I will go out one day and I will just never come back and I hate that Um, which does almost sort of loop into as humans we have divorced ourselves from the the process of dealing with a body like I don't know that it would be better to have me. 02:01:26.31 Cameron Come home and have like a vigil for a couple of days and the cat could come and sniff my dead body and be like Wow he's gone I don't know if that's better, but it might be nice. Um. 02:01:37.38 Jala I've I've definitely seen videos where it's like um, you know they they have like the animal. Um, they have like 2 animals and the what the mate has died and then like they just need the time with the the you know corpse or whatever to just like. 02:01:44.80 Cameron Yeah, yeah, the body. Yeah. 02:01:53.59 Jala Process What's going on and that really does seem to help them and you know they do go like a grieving process of their own but like they need to actually see you know the body to register that something. 02:01:59.50 Cameron Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah, like ah when I was younger we had both a dog and a cat. Um, both now passed on but the dog passed away first. 02:02:16.54 Cameron And they the dog liked the cat to a degree. The dog was mostly afraid of the cat the cat despised the dog with all of her soul she was that was that was the object of her hatred in this world and when the dog 1 died one day when the dog did. 02:02:34.67 Cameron Left and never came back that light of hatred went out in her heart and it was legitimately distressing to see her standing at the back door staring out into the backyard waiting for the dog to come up so she could hiss at her and like bat at her and yell at her through the screen door and stuff and. 02:02:54.20 Cameron That that was like a three month process of the cat not understanding that the dog was not going to come back and that she had effectively won that years long argument and I don't think she was satisfied with how it panned out. Um, and ah it might have been nice if they could have you know. 02:03:11.77 Cameron Again, how they interact and understand what has happened Um, she did really mellow out after that she was always because she she was We found a cat on the side of the road when we were driving out in like a wine wine Wine Farm Territory Wine Farm Wine vineyard. 02:03:28.56 Jala Um, vineyard. 02:03:31.33 Cameron Unk territory. That's the words. Um and took her in so she was a little spicy feral kitten and she sort of maintained that all through life up until about 13 years of age when the dog passed away and then she sort of just mellowed out into a slightly less spicy cat. Um. She allowed people other than me and my dad to pick her up and touch her. Um, she stopped chasing. People's feet in the morning and legitimately biting them and stuff like that and yeah it was it was ah that they do have a real internal emotional life. Don't you yeah I'm talking about you. She just turned around and gave me a look. Um. 02:04:09.91 Cameron And yeah, that that is the second greatest fear is ah the the grief of my loved ones that cannot understand possibly they would never be able to understand what had actually happened because we can't communicate that to them and. 02:04:25.37 Cameron It would just be one day Dad never came home I'm like well I don't have a kid but at least a human child would be able to understand the concept or be explained later on the cat is just never going to get it and think I ran off somewhere or something. Um and I'll be back to the good old days of just her and mom won't it. Yeah, you'd love. Ah, oh. 02:04:28.83 Jala Yeah, her. 02:04:43.65 Jala Ah, yeah, but set this up when you're talking about death and then she got a bite but. 02:04:45.35 Cameron She loves me mostly? Um, yeah yeah, so we're not talking about death and she gets trumpy. Um, yeah, and then and then pain and I'm not particularly afraid of what comes next because it is literally nothing and it's in particular, it's nothing that I won't experience either. 02:05:04.80 Cameron So it's not like in the endless Void thinking about it. It's like no the brain will turn off. It will be nothing nothing to experience. Not even an experience of nothingness which sounds nice. Honestly, Um, but if that's preceded by like a really short sharp impact and. 02:05:24.81 Cameron Lots of gushing feelings and looking down and going. Oh that's not right? Um I would not enjoy that personally um I'm going to do my best to avoid a violent or accidental death. But yeah I don't I Just don't want it to hurt I'm not too fussed by the idea of ceasing to exist beyond the effect on people around me. 02:05:43.50 Cameron And Beyond if it'll hurt on the way and if I pass in hospital or hospice I will be as you said full of the good drugs. Um, so I'm probably okay on that end. Ah, and yeah, Voluntary Euthanasia is a go. So if I have some. 02:06:00.50 Cameron Intractable terminal and incredibly painful illness I know I have an out there at least to sort of you know humanely and respectfully take my ticket off instead of having to suffer on the way out when I can just say well we know this isn't going to be fixed. So. 02:06:18.26 Cameron I'm gonna leave I'm really sorry I'm going first. Ah, it would be worse if I stayed for the like the next three months to a year so yeah punch my ticket. Um, yeah, pretty much um, that's about it in terms of what's really confronting. 02:06:25.40 Jala Right right. 02:06:32.64 Jala So it's yeah so so for me I would say that when I was younger the biggest fear that I had was the idea of all of my goals. My projects and all of that just not being. 02:06:51.30 Jala Done I can't finish them I really was like a very very industrious and constantly creative thing creating things and so the idea of never having the capacity to finish. Um. 02:07:04.79 Jala You know was really affecting to me like I was writing a very very long story and I told my then husband this was the the guy I was with before Dave and um I had told him you know like look you know all about this story. You also write. 02:07:23.80 Jala I Want you to continue this story if I die you know, ah that kind of thing because that was such a big concern for me. Um I kind of think that I I've let go of that a little bit and kind of come to terms with things being left undone. Um. 02:07:39.42 Jala Because I've also kind of in this this will eventually be like a 2024 jolohans place episode but I want to talk about um like evolving out of projects that you've worked on and like how as you grow and change as a person. It's okay to drop a project that you were working on when it no longer suits. 02:07:57.82 Jala You know who you are anymore and doesn't represent accurately reflect accurately like where you are in your life. Um, and so that's the thing that I've I've kind of sat with a lot and thought about because again I'm you know, kind of a type a personality I Want to finish things I am very industrious. 02:08:15.58 Jala I Want to see things through but sometimes it is okay to just let it go and in the case of me passing if I passed away like it would be neat for somebody to continue on with something that I was in the middle of working on I would love that because then it's. 02:08:32.10 Jala A way for me to continue on and for them to kind of interact with and kind of like work through that grief of me not being there through reading my words or or looking at my work and then you know like adding their own voice to it and making it ours. You know like that's. 02:08:50.60 Jala Fantastic I actually am fine with that. You know like you know that that would be the highest compliment they could pay and also it would probably help them through the grieving process I would imagine. So um, you know to have some aspect of me still involved in something that they're doing. 02:09:09.40 Jala So so there's that ah and then other than that I'm really mostly just worried about like I know my sister and her side of the family and all of that like they would all be okay, um. And all of that. But really I would worry about Dave you know, not because I don't think that Dave would be able to handle it but like it would suck really bad. You know and like you know you don't want that for anybody that you love and if I pass away right now. Poo bear would never know what happened to me. 02:09:30.54 Cameron Yeah, no, no yeah, that would be very sad. 02:09:30.88 Desiree Point ahead. Yeah. 02:09:41.71 Jala Our dog our shnoodle and she is adorable. She she has such separation anxiety if we leave the house for like an hour. She's at the door waiting for us so like in that case they would have to bring my body home and and have like a vigil at home for like a day or 2 before shipping me off for my um conservation burial. 02:10:01.10 Jala So you know like they would have to so that she could see the body and understand what was going on. But um, you know like I don't have a worry about somebody taking care of her. Um, you know my parents are still here. Davis still here. 02:10:15.82 Jala There are other family members that also love dogs that would be able to take her in if needed. So you know like I know that she would have good care one way or the other. So I'm not really worried about her. So yeah, ah mostly it's just those those 2 things. Um because for me like. 02:10:35.69 Jala I've suffered so much pain at different points in my life through accidents and chronic conditions and things like that that like I'm not really actually worried too much about that unless it's like exceptionally prolonged for some reason but um. 02:10:52.22 Jala And when it comes to like the times like there was a point where I was in a weird car incident I was driving in the slow lane I was driving over a bridge I had a little tiny Volkswagen bug and the wind picked up my car and this was in the middle of. 02:11:11.21 Jala Um, like some rain and stuff and I was going under the speed limit I was in the slow lane but like it picked up my car because it was on a bridge and it was very lightweight and it spun it across all the lanes of traffic and as I was spinning out across all the lanes of traffic on this freeway. There were. 02:11:29.66 Jala Headlights oncoming and I was looking at them through the mirror you know through the windshield looking at them going if if they are at you know any faster they will hit me head on and I will probably die you like this this car is gonna crunch and I'm going to be gone. 02:11:47.89 Jala You know and I just felt nothing I just saw it I didn't scream I just stared at it and was like huh I could die right now and then my car slammed into the divider wall between the sides of traffic and nobody stopped and. 02:12:01.61 Cameron So yeah, so. 02:12:05.32 Jala It took me a minute to make sure that I wasn't going to blow up or something like the gas tank hadn't been hit or anything and it didn't so you know I got out I looked at my car and was like okay and thank God Nobody hit me but I did drive to work from there. 02:12:23.42 Cameron Oh boy, oh. 02:12:24.24 Jala And I went to work until the whiplash set in and there was no way for me to get home other than myself driving myself. So my boss sent me home and I had to drive myself home like that and I went home I curled up in my bed and I cried and I was just alone and I cried and that was. 02:12:36.29 Cameron Ah, hell yeah yeah. 02:12:43.24 Jala How that was but um so I've I've had those kinds of brushes of death brushes with death I've been nearly drowned before I almost fell out of a roller coaster at one point at Disney world. Um. 02:12:50.80 Cameron Yeah, Wow. Yeah. 02:12:57.70 Jala My mom was holding on to me and screaming because that was a thing like she was the only thing keeping me in the cart that was she never went on another roller coaster. Um, so like I yeah I I've had some experiences. Um I've had to face some some situations. Let's say. 02:13:02.36 Cameron No, that's fair. 02:13:08.62 Desiree Is me. 02:13:14.55 Jala Aside from like the chronic stuff. So um, you know like I'm not worried so much about that end of it I'm you know it's It's just more like the the kind of what are people going to do when I'm gone. How can I. 02:13:31.87 Jala You know somehow make it a little bit easier for them. You know in some way and again talking about it is really important. Um and 2 how you think about death and what happens after you die really influences how much anxiety that you've got. 02:13:50.93 Jala So that's part of what the order of good deaths. Advocacy is all about it's trying to help you like meet you where you are and kind of help you through um and finding you know, like ways to grapple with those feelings that you've got. 02:14:08.84 Jala And there's also um, the order of the good death partnered with another company or individual or whatnot to create a course called Mortal which is on overcoming the fear of death and I will put that link in the show notes for folks. 02:14:25.98 Jala Um, so there is actually like a course you can take to give you like vocabulary and knowledge to kind of help you work through those feelings so because they they can be completely paralyzing. So. 02:14:44.34 Jala Yeah, so end-of-life planning as I already said that's another way that you can kind of work through that death anxiety by um, you know if you set everything up in advance. You make it as easy as you can for the people that you love. 02:14:56.87 Jala And then you know you have your plan in place and everybody's on the same page you have your legal documents. You have a backup copy somewhere you know everything is is set as best as you can. You're doing all that you can you know and you can kind of rest assured that you've done that much. So. 02:15:15.50 Jala Death avoidance is kind of the M O Of Western Society and that can dramatically heighten death anxiety because people just don't know the details about the process of dying body processing and so on and that's kind of what we're doing. We're trying to educate about that and you know the problem with that is that. That means that we have an absolute terror when it comes to death and that keeps everybody just like squeamish about it. So you know. 02:15:41.15 Desiree Well and so even like you can do all the planning in the world and I love to and I absolutely will and yet all of the planning getting everything perfect everything right? still doesn't in many ways lessen the grief. 02:15:59.94 Desiree Folks experience and that is also okay and that's part of death positivity as well is accepting all those feelings and accepting that that grieving process being death positive isn't about not having to grieve. It's about being able to accept. 02:16:19.15 Desiree What grieving is and move through it like any other process. 02:16:21.51 Jala Yeah, you have to find a healthy way to process your grief and you know that that kind of leads us to the last little segment of this show. So. 02:16:33.80 Jala You know, ah Grief is a natural response to loss that people have and you don't just grieve people who pass away you grieve a lost opportunity you grieve you know like some situation at work. Whatever like in and not only that. But it's also very very individualistic. So like you know there are. 02:16:51.60 Jala Different articles. You can read about like the stages of grief and things like that but like not every person goes through every stage of grief. They don't necessarily go through them in a particular order and they may completely bypass all of that you know and like have a completely different response that isn't. 02:17:10.67 Jala You know, part of the quote unquote normal analyze version right? So and it's really important to know that there is no right or wrong way to grieve unless you are doing something that is harmful to yourself or others. So. 02:17:13.16 Desiree Yeah. 02:17:21.49 Desiree And the ways that you experience and process grief are sometimes not within your control. So for example I have a fanasia so I literally cannot make a picture in my head at all. 02:17:41.32 Desiree So seeing pictures of my pets that have passed is really triggering for me because it's like seeing a fresh. Oh yep there they are all over again. But at the same time having Anasia means that I don't. 02:17:52.52 Cameron Yeah, yeah. 02:17:58.65 Desiree Relive trauma the same way as people who can literally play a movie in their heads. So I can sort of control How and when I'm exposed to things that would trigger me and that's just something about my physiology that I think is almost a superpower in helping me process. 02:18:17.70 Desiree Grief and bad things. But folks who don't have that have to be aware of the types of things that can trigger them and that it's not in their control. Always. 02:18:29.14 Cameron Yeah. 02:18:29.85 Jala Um, yeah, yeah I mean like even just something like the dates like birth date death date you know anniversaries or whatever any of that stuff. 02:18:40.96 Jala All of that is going to inevitably come up after somebody's passed away and you have to be like prepared and advance and even if you are like bracing yourself and everything what and I say prepared I mean like understand that these things are going to occur understand that you need to. 02:18:58.71 Jala Identify what is going to trigger you if you don't already know like you know, be prepared for some unfortunate painful work trying to figure that out. But once you know once you have those triggers in mind avoid them at all costs on the days that you need to avoid them. You know or. 02:19:17.50 Jala How it However, it needs to be so you can you know, keep from kind of re-traumatizing yourself. So yeah, yeah. 02:19:26.80 Desiree As much as you can. Um so like John's mom would have a calendar of everyone's birthdays but she would also write their death dates on there and then would be miserable the whole month and it was like you're just doing this sort of self-flagellation of. Intentionally hurting yourself by writing that date down so you have to see it over and over again. So if you know that like that's a behavior that's harmful to you being self-aware enough to say I you know can acknowledge the day I don't need to write it down every single year on a brand new calendar. Um. 02:20:02.56 Desiree And I don't do that but things like my Grandma's birthday is the day before my birthday. So my birthday after her death kind of became tainted in a well I can't celebrate with my best friend anymore and it took time to process and get through that. 02:20:07.59 Cameron Yeah, yeah. 02:20:16.17 Jala Um, you know, no so. There are some things that you can do when you are grieving first and foremost you need to acknowledge that you have grief you are feeling grief and sometimes having the word for that. Ah, sounds like that's an easy thing but it really isn't like in my case I I always always. 02:20:42.21 Jala Will feel feels and not know what's going on until I put a word to it and I won't have like I will I will know somewhere what's going on but at the same time until I put a word on it I can't focus on it to actually take any steps to do anything about it. 02:20:46.41 Cameron Yeah. 02:20:59.80 Jala And so for me like it takes that talking portion to assemble things in my brain and provide that vocabulary to my brain so that I can you know then look at what's going on in real terms. So like acknowledge your pain and some of that is putting that label on there. 02:21:18.92 Jala You know and then accepting that grief can trigger all different kinds of emotions like including things that you're not expecting you know like you suddenly have some intense anger that comes out for one or another you know reason that you can't even quantify because this person has passed. 02:21:37.45 Jala Or whatever you know like you will or maybe you there are so cases where people will just start laughing because you know just things happen. You know the way that your body processes The trauma is not something that should anybody should even try to dictate to you that is. 02:21:56.60 Jala Hundred percent individualistic and you need to like let whatever it is happen happen so that you can process it if you try to stop it what you're going to do is bottle it up and make it worse and that's just like I understand if you have like crippling. 02:22:12.83 Jala Grief to the point that you can't function but you need to go to work and you have to do a certain amount of botling but you also need to find like outlets that you can have that are healthy outlets. Um, safe people to talk to or whatever um face to face if possible. You know if you can handle that and um. 02:22:31.61 Jala You know, support yourself by taking care of yourself physically and also learning the differences between what grief looks like and what depression looks like they often go hand in hand but they do not always go hand in hand. Understand the difference between the 2 and understand how to tackle the 2 different things. 02:22:50.68 Desiree And some of the emotions you experience might be positive. It might be a sense of relief. Especially if the person went through a prolonged painful experience prior to dying. 02:23:07.67 Desiree It's okay to feel those positive feelings too. If you believe in a life after death and you believe they're truly somewhere better. That's okay to be happy about that. 02:23:17.33 Cameron Um, just yeah or even if you just acknowledge that they're no longer in pain at least? yeah. 02:23:21.37 Desiree Okay. 02:23:24.64 Jala Um, yeah, yeah, and um, physically some of the different symptoms of grief would be like Insomnia Fatigue Nausea lowered immunity aches and pains. These are. 02:23:37.20 Jala Things that happen because of just like the trauma and the grief that you're experiencing and you know like granted these things also happen when you have anxiety and some other things I mean because Grief is is in a lot of ways a form of anxiety you know like a lot of these things are very very similar. There's overlap right? so. 02:23:41.64 Cameron Yeah. 02:23:56.58 Jala You know, um, and of course like there's also different types of ways that your emotions can play out of course Disbelief Anger Sadness Guilt fear Apathy Numbness Irritability Withdrawal loneliness. 02:24:14.81 Jala Loss of a sense of meaning or difficulty concentrating. You know all of these things will happen when you are grieving for whatever you're grieving, not necessarily a person but like in general and that numbness that apathy like you know, a lot of times when bad things happen I don't. 02:24:25.00 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:24:32.25 Jala Have like an emotional reaction knee jerk like at first I'm just thinking about it and I'm just mentally processing it and the emotions don't come until later and I'm just sitting with it and going huh this thing happened and I'm I'm analyzing that. 02:24:48.50 Jala And so like it seems to a lot of people. They're like oh are you? Okay and I'm like no I'm okay, right now like later I might not be but I I have no idea when those emotions are going to hit me you know? Um, so like I'm I'm aware that that's part of how I respond when things happen like. 02:25:05.57 Jala If somebody passes away I may or may not ah actually you know react initially I just had a friend pass away recently she was somebody who I did rocking events with and stuff like that and she passed away and then. 02:25:24.87 Jala You know at first I was like she's passed. Okay, ah Wow And then you know I I cried a little bit but it wasn't like a full flood. You know you? you know the difference between like a cathartic cry. 02:25:39.52 Jala Versus just like you squeeze out a few tears and then you kind of move on like I haven't it hasn't 100% hit me yet I haven't had that good cathartic cry. Ah, and she's passed away like what two two weeks ago so um you know like I have it hasn't hit me I don't know when it's going to hit me. 02:25:57.68 Jala But like I am also thinking about her a lot and you know I've gone on runs since then gotten back to the trail and I think about you know times that I was on events with her and things like that and I'm still like I'm processing it still mentally like the emotional part hasn't hit me yet and that's fine like that's just how I. 02:26:17.45 Jala React to it. You know so. 02:26:21.66 Desiree Well and that's different from like anticipatory grief like you were noting the different types of grieving especially if someone has a long prolonged illness or they're getting old um out there. 02:26:35.13 Desiree Almost twenty one year old cat we had to make the decision to say goodbye to him a few weeks ago and we were basically grieving him for the whole last year of his life knowing a lot of cats don't live to be 20 and he's had a stroke and he has a heart murmur and he has dementia but he was still. 02:26:54.00 Desiree Ah, the core garfield until the very very last when he wasn't and so like I haven't everyone's been asking me are you okay, are you? Okay well yes because I've been going through the grieving process for a year and 02:27:09.60 Desiree You know that happens with family members who particularly like Alzheimer's or cancer some of these more prolonged things you might not feel a whole lot right after they die because you've been feeling all those things for such a long time in anticipation of that moment. 02:27:25.63 Jala Yeah, and in the case of Alzheimer's like with my grandmother she didn't she lost who I was a long time before her body passed away and we we all had to come to this realization that the dementia had taken her away from us. 02:27:42.51 Jala Before her body caught up to the fact that she was gone and so ah, you know that was a very hard thing to do to just watch her kind of spiral down and to you know, just come to grips with the fact that even though this is the same face in the same voice like she doesn't know who I am. 02:28:02.46 Jala And she doesn't really know who she is and she's not the person that she was you know that person is already gone even if the body's still alive So when she did finally pass. Yes, there was a different kind of grief at that time. But also we had been struggling with the grief of. 02:28:19.92 Jala You know her decline for so long. 02:28:21.48 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:28:26.34 Jala So there's also um, disenfranchised grief. So that's when your loss is devalued which happens a lot in our society devalued stigmatized or cannot be openly mourned like it feels like yeah we do have some some. 02:28:30.42 Cameron Yes. Yeah. 02:28:42.10 Jala Companies not even every company in the US has like a bereavement period. But it's like two weeks and then you're expected to be over it and like by the end of a month after it happened you sure as shit shouldn't be talking about it or crying at at work about it. You know and that kind of thing and that's just it's not. 02:29:02.25 Jala Accepted and it's not that like grief is not given room to be in society and you know at large and that is to our detriment. You know, like there are other cultures in the world and I'm sure we're going to do in 2024 because I'm booked for the rest of this year but like. 02:29:20.25 Cameron Yeah, yeah. 02:29:21.35 Jala We're going to do another episode on death later and it will be talking about like different cultures. Um, and how they incorporate death into their life in such a way that they are able to grieve as society openly and honor their dead openly and. 02:29:40.52 Jala Process The you know what's going on. Um, you know before it happens so that it's not so jarring when it does because if you avoid something entirely and then suddenly you have to confront it then it's much more jarring than if you have been you know. 02:29:58.76 Jala Slowly but surely just kind of like um you know, incorporating a little bit of information about that into your day like over time. So. 02:30:06.55 Desiree For sure and the devalued piece really resonates with me with pets because a lot of people don't understand and I've read articles on the fact that losing a pet can be more painful. 02:30:21.85 Desiree Then losing even a parent, especially you know once you're an adult you haven't lived with your parent for a long time. Maybe they're in a different state but your pet is dependent on you. You see it every day all day every day if you work from home and that loss can be so much more impactful and yet a lot of companies. Okay, you want to use your vacation time. Sure I've seen things about companies starting to incorporate that idea of being able to take bereavement time for pet losses as well. Um. University I work for only gives you up to six days and that's even for a human loss. So I I don't know that I'll be getting pet bereavement leave anytime but I hope others do because I think it is really important. You know I still at Garfield past several weeks ago and still processing. How. 02:31:12.52 Desiree Quiet The house is without him take a lot. But. 02:31:14.57 Jala Very vocal. Ah folks yeah folks can go back and listen to some of the episodes where desiree and John were on ah mdm. 02:31:24.14 Jala You know monster dear monster and on those special guest episodes. You will hear guests special guest Garfield as well because Garfield ah let his opinions be known all the time. So so for sure and. 02:31:40.27 Jala That's that's part of the whole stigma around pet death anymore is like ah pets are treated as part of the family until like they pass and then like they're not really given um you know like a good death like the in There's this this whole debate in largely in Christian circles about oh well animals don't have souls so you know this like denying your pet the um yeah afterlife that you see for yourself. And like for a lot of people that comes into conflict with what they feel because there can't be a wonderful saccharine afterlife of heaven without these you know beloved pets that you spent your life with these animal companions that were part of your family and. 02:32:30.47 Cameron Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, it recalls to me a somewhat famous headstone on the internet for a cat. Um, which either of you might have seen before it was um, he was only a cat. 02:32:47.51 Cameron In Quotation marks but he was human enough to be a great comfort in hours of loneliness and pain. Which yeah they they are family and. 02:32:55.68 Jala Well and you have different stories throughout history of when they have uncovered burial sites and people have been buried with their animals. Their loved animals. You know, like the companionship between. 02:33:13.77 Jala People and their animals you know, goes back forever. You know as long as people have been burying people that we still have remains for you know and and can dig up and look at you know that we have definitely ah had those animals close to us and close to our hearts and so. 02:33:33.32 Jala You know that is a part of grief that is also not given any room you know? So but then there's also the concept of complicated grief. That's basically when most of the time it's when a loved one has passed away and that ends up leaving you stuck in a state of bereavement. 02:33:53.35 Jala So um, that's where you basically can't accept that they're gone and you search for them in familiar places you have extreme longing and sometimes you just feel like you know you have no will to live anymore because this person is gone and that pain. 02:34:11.50 Jala May never completely disappear but it should ease up over time Even if you are experiencing it but that is kind of like the danger zone of the griefs because if you can't accept and process everything then that can ah you know potentially become you know, harmful to you in the long run. 02:34:30.21 Jala So you know that's really an important thing to recognize within yourself like how are you processing this grief and do you have a healthy outlet for this. Are you able to take care of yourself as you grieve or have somebody else there to help you you know take care of yourself. 02:34:48.20 Desiree Take your yourself to express your. 02:34:49.63 Jala Trying to express your feelings face How you're feeling. Um you know trying to maintain your hobbies and interests when and how you can um you know again looking after your physical health. 02:35:03.24 Jala Making sure that you eat properly and all of that. All of that is just super critical. 02:35:08.70 Desiree Right? And that's so much of what you promote is this idea of self-reflection and so like selfrefle selfreflection on Gender Identity selfflection on Sexuality or all of those things. 02:35:24.95 Desiree Art can also be mimicked and done with thinking about death reflecting on death and how you're processing it and being in tune with what you need in that time to get through this and acknowledging when or if you hit that wall where you're like Nope this is not. Normal for me. This is something that I cannot get past without seeking professional guidance and accepting that that is also okay. 02:35:49.82 Jala Um, yeah, yeah, absolutely because again, there's has talked about on other episodes. Mental Health is something that has a big stigma you know carries a big stigma here in the US in various other places as well. 02:36:03.86 Cameron Yeah. 02:36:06.98 Jala And so like that continues to be hard for a lot of folks, especially depending upon what generation you're from So definitely something to keep in mind and to kind of like um also that's something you know that you can also look into ahead of time. Ah the order of the good death has. 02:36:24.90 Jala Resources on their website about Grief counseling and different places that you can go to to look into that to have that accessible and ready for you So like should you find yourself in a situation needing some kind of you know, counseling or um, you know like grief circle or something like that. 02:36:43.96 Jala There are resources out there for you. So for sure and I guess I shouldn't have put that at the end of the episode where it feels like super Debbie Downer ah ah ok well um 02:36:58.78 Jala Yeah I think that kind of covers like the intro to death Positivity is best ah we can do I think really the big takeaways from my perspective are going to be like just educate yourself and prepare yourself in advance. Um with your advanced directives about what you want done. 02:37:17.15 Jala Talk to your loved ones about what they want done if you need guidance on how to talk to loved ones about that again, the order of the good death is good place to look. They have all different kinds of resources for everything you can imagine related to the subject. So I would say check them out. 02:37:31.69 Cameron Yeah, absolutely. So. 02:37:34.74 Desiree For sure so wrap up thoughts for me. Are you know, doing that self-reflective work like jealous said of what you want and. 02:37:35.27 Jala So desiree wrap up thoughts. 02:37:48.68 Desiree Maybe that's a good starting point to get comfortable thinking about what you would want to then be able to have those conversations with your loved 1 Also understanding death is coming for all of us. You know whether we want it to or not no matter how prepared we are or not and just doing the best. 02:38:07.40 Desiree That we can to cope with that inevitability in as positive of a way as possible. 02:38:15.26 Jala Yep yep, cameron How about you final thoughts. 02:38:16.79 Cameron Yeah, yeah, yeah, ah this has been very fun and very eyeopening which is good. Um, yeah, um, yeah primarily ah death Positivity is about educating yourself and preparing yourself. So. 02:38:34.60 Cameron Don't just listen to this episode. Go read up on things. Go listen to was it was a deaf in the afternoon. What was the name of that yes I got it I got a thing right? hundred percent listen stuff in the afternoon, go watch asking moretician find other. 02:38:40.89 Jala Yes, it was correct I only said it like 7 times. So ah. 02:38:53.37 Cameron Varied sources as well. If you'd like um yeah like I vastly attribute the fact that I'm not too worried about all the physical parts of death because I spent time learning about how that happens and what that's like and seeing Firsthand sometimes a little too close to comfort. 02:39:07.65 Jala And day I diving face first and motor boating. No anyway sorry I've I've telled your story a little bit there. 02:39:13.15 Cameron Yeah, yeah, ah yeah, seeing seeing things feel sad. Yeah, it's not. It's not too far off as maybe maybe like a half foot above the Mark. Um, yeah, um, it's. 02:39:33.20 Cameron That I credit that education and those experiences with a lot of my ah comfortableness with this kind of discussion. Um, and you know there are areas where I could be more positive about death as well. So. 02:39:50.72 Cameron Always always a ah work to improve thineself. Um, yeah I Hope you'll enjoy listening and learn something because I definitely did very very interested in acquimation now. Um, it's super cool. Super cool idea and all the different mats that are coming for us. Apparently. 02:40:02.65 Jala Right? ah. 02:40:08.70 Jala Yeah, like I want the captain planet one whichever the one is where where he's He's coming for you with the mullet I want that one so and you know they're all. 02:40:21.74 Jala And more environmentally well not not the crimp cremation but like all the other ones. But then then again like Wheeler was an asshole anyway. So like it's fine. Um, yeah, um, but anyway they're better for the planet anyway. So it is kind of a captain planet effect except for the fire guy. Don't like him. 02:40:27.30 Cameron No ah, better than embalming. 02:40:35.79 Cameron Yeah, yeah, with our powers combined we can lessen Lessen carbon emissions. 02:40:41.45 Jala Yeah, shut up wheeler anyway, why do I know that name anyway I know my tea heart 1 nobody wants anyway, okay okay okay I'm done with that. So um. 02:40:57.77 Jala Yeah, on the internet can people find you desiree if you are to be found or do you want to plug something. Do you can do? whatever. 02:41:03.80 Desiree Oh um, if I am to be found. It's probably most actively on Twitter for whatever reason. Um, and there I am at DNeyens that's DNEYENS not terribly active there but probably the most. 02:41:18.50 Jala Yeah, and Cameron how about you. 02:41:22.15 Cameron Yeah, you can also primarily find me on the Twitter um, where you can look at pictures of my cat and hear the odd snippet about the confusing nature of australian politics and weather. 02:41:38.42 Cameron That's at night underscore twitten that's night without the k I do not wear armor specifically um or if you just want to see the endless mill of internet content that I like you can go visit Tumblr and find swarby blog and I'll be there reblogging things and not posting anything myself. 02:41:57.15 Cameron Which is the correct way to interface with that platform for me. 02:41:58.17 Jala And you can also listen to Cameron's dulcet tones on monster dear monster which is at monsterdeer.monster so there's that and of course I can be found on the internet anywhere I may be located at Jalachan including. 02:42:16.97 Jala Jalachan dot place where you found this episode and all the other ones so that is all for now folks until next time take care of yourself and remember to smile as the um captain planet in the grim Rapaper Outfit comes to say hi to you. 02:42:20.74 Cameron No. 02:42:34.80 Desiree Ah. 02:42:36.10 Jala Okay, bye now. 02:42:36.35 Cameron Bye. 02:42:38.60 Desiree Bye bye. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]