Death Awareness As A Path To Joy with Korona of Omnia Mirari

Death is the one certainty we all share, yet most of us are trained to avoid it until it forces a reckoning. We want a different relationship with mortality, one that doesn’t glamorize darkness but uses death awareness to sharpen what’s real, tender, and worth living for.

We’re joined by Korona, founder of Omnia Mirari and an end-of-life doula, to talk about “remembering home,” the fear beneath the fear, and why impermanence can feel so threatening in modern culture. We dig into what happens when a society removes death from everyday life, how fear makes us easier to control, and why reclaiming autonomy often starts with facing the unknown. Along the way, we connect death awareness to joy and embodiment, including the practice of staying aligned with love even when life gets messy. 

We also preview Beyond the Veil (July 25 to 26 in New City, New York), an immersive gathering rooted in ritual, grief literacy, and spiritual inquiry. We explore why ceremony does what conversation can’t, how communal grieving creates real medicine, and what “dying awake” means through near-death experiences, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the idea that we carry frequency, not possessions. Korona shares a simple 30-day journaling practice to track what feels expansive and contractive so you can live with more clarity right now. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share this with a friend who avoids the hard topics, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What’s one belief about death you’re ready to question today?

Resources:

Beyond the Veil Immersion (July 25-26) 

Follow Korona on IG: @omnia.mirari

Three Korona Truths

1. The moment you stop running from death, it stops chasing you.
2. Find the teacher in the threshold.
3. What we carry beyond this life is our frequency.

Journaling Practice: Expansion & Contraction

For 30 days, reflect on these three prompts each day:

• What felt expansive today?
• What felt contractive today?
• What insight did I receive today?

At the end of the 30 days, review your entries and notice the patterns:
 What raises your frequency? What lowers it? What makes you feel more alive, connected, open, and fully yourself?

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Korona

Elena Box 0:00

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast. This is your friend, Elena Box, and I am so really pumped, jazzed to be joined by my friend orona. Welcome, Korona.

Speaker 0:18

Hi, I'm really glad to be here. I'm so happy you're here.

Elena Box 0:22

So to give our listener a little bit of context about you, Korona is the founder of Omnia Morari, and she is an end-of-life doula, an educator and guide whose work explores mortality not as something to fear, but as a pathway into deeper presence, reverence, and conscious living. Her work weaves together death awareness, ritual, grief, literacy, spirituality, and transformational experiences that invite people into a little more intimate of a relationship with impermanence. So we're gonna be speaking about Beyond the Veil, which I'm really pumped for, which is an immersive gathering centered around mortality awareness, transformation, ritual, and what it means to live more fully in the face of impermanence. So I'm gonna be one of the guest facilitators this summer, which I'm also super, super jazzed about. And I'm really excited to weave in this conversation through both of our lenses and to explore how death awareness can actually deepen our capacity for joy and embodiment and aliveness. So if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that this is like my absolute jam. And so I'm so happy that you're here to come on the show. And my first question for all of my guests joining is can you just land us in letting us know where are you joining us from?

Speaker 1:43

I'm in New York, specifically Beacon, New York, which is the Hudson Valley.

Elena Box 1:48

Beautiful.

Speaker 1:49

Which is yeah, it's like about an hour and a half from New York City.

Elena Box 1:54

Gorgeous area. And it's also fairly close to where we will be for Beyond the Vale. So can you tell us a little bit about where we're going to be for this immersive gathering?

Speaker 2:06

Yeah, so Beyond the Vale is in New City, New York, which is very close to Nyack, like 10-minute drive, and about 40 minutes from sort of midtown of New York City. And it's this really, really beautiful 50-acre

Beyond The Veil And The Land

Speaker 2:25

site with a waterfall at the entrance, meandering streams, a big pond, forested trails, and a lot of different areas that can serve as amphitheaters and what are they called? Pavilions. So it's a very much an outdoor experience surrounded by a very beautiful and sacred site. So it's it's a lot of what we will talk about is not just death, but returning to the earth, like one of our other facilitators. That's her niche. So it's it's really important to be able to connect to the earth. And we're bringing in indigenous elders and shamans that are also gonna, you know, bless the four directions and light a sacred fire and really connect with the land before we even start anything.

Elena Box 3:18

Which is so huge. And what a blessing to be a part of this gathering that is going to be really, really potent. And uh, so if you're listening and you are, if you're on Long Island, if you're in upstate New York, if you're in the city, if you're in anywhere in the surrounding area, I highly recommend it. We will be there July 25th through the 26th. It's a little overnight, and all of the details will be in the show notes. And we're gonna be talking all about it. So we're gonna get right into the name of the game, what we're what we're talking about today, which is really this whole world of death in the most fun way. We're like, we're death nerds, we're jamming out about death, which is so my first question, and this is something we were actually, I think, chatting about on one of our group calls with the other facilitators, which is what first initiated you into this work? And when were you first really invited into this relationship with death?

Speaker 4:18

Yeah. This is what I get asked most frequently. People always ask, how did you first get into this? And I just

Remembering Home And Finding The Calling

Speaker 4:35

I just can't help to laugh because the short answer is since I can remember, since the moment that I was born, since my first memory. So the longer answer is I was born remembering. And a lot of my work is bringing people towards a remembering, and that's because of my origin story. And what I had remembered was not just a place, it wasn't a past life, it wasn't a story, it was a sense of beingness, and that beingness was just pure, ineffable love and this absolute bliss state, that state of being. And I could clearly feel that I had been there and then I had come into here. There was a very clear threshold that I happened to remember. And it the problem with that is as a child, it's really hard to integrate something like that. It's like going on a plant medicine journey, you know, it's like you go in this miraculous, you have this miraculous experience, you have this peak state, but then you have to integrate it into your life. And as a child, that's really hard to do because you're just confused. I was confused. I didn't know what was going on. All I know is I was suddenly in this very dense state. So, you know, for instance, when the news was on, it felt very low frequency to me. Actually, I would tell my parents, I think we're manipulated. The TV. Yeah, the TV is manipulating us. It just I had this feeling. And it's all because I would tap back into what I called home. So I would, my parents would fight and I would start like crying, saying to my parents, I just want to go back home. Like, why do I have to be here? And that caused so much distress for my parents because they didn't understand it. They would say, you know, what do you mean? You don't know anything other than this, this place in Brooklyn. We've never moved anywhere else. I'd be like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Before Brooklyn, before I came into this experience. And they interpreted that as me being suicidal. And once I realized how much trauma that was causing them, I then masked up and I stopped talking about it. But it's been with me my whole life. It especially gets amplified when I'm going through struggle. I can kind of tap into it. And I found that with everything in life, with for everyone. It's it's these hard experiences that often can push us past our limits. So it's sort of like that with me. It's like I get pushed so far that I can touch home. Um, and then fast forward, I again was gatekeeping. I wouldn't even open up about this in my romantic relationships when with people that I would normally share everything with. I think I was scared because I felt so unseen and I and I was so judged and I was so misunderstood that I thought everyone will just always misunderstand me if I even try to talk about it. But I got to this point where I started reading a lot of Ram Das, and at one point he started talking about home. And it was the verbiage in itself that was jarring in a good way, where it was like, oh my gosh, he gets it. He knows home. Yeah. I'm not alone. I'm suddenly not alone in this experience. And then I kept reading more and more. And then there was this one passage in one of his books where he talked about sitting with people that are dying. And that's when it came to me that I had the thought, what if I remember for a reason? And you know, I'm I'm living my life now in a way that I don't believe in coincidences. Everything is placed in our paths for a reason, usually for our higher good if we know how to navigate that. So I thought, okay, what's the reason? And maybe it is to sit with people that are dying, how Ram Das did, because I don't have a fear of death. I never have. And I believe that the energy that you hold in in a container where the veil is so thin, it gets really felt. It creates an atmosphere in the room. And I felt like maybe if I sit with these people, I can create that atmosphere of peace and acceptance, and maybe even start opening up about this. And my plan wasn't to open up about home, but it just naturally started happening with patients. I started as a volunteer and it started coming up, and I started noticing that not only did it open up a dialogue and a conversation, but it did offer them, they would hang on to my words. Yeah. And I thought, okay, this is this is significant. This could actually help people. And that's really where it is now. And I'm at this point now where, you know, it's it's a calling. It's not so much as like something I want to do. It feels like something I've just been asked to do from my birth. It's it almost feels like like, okay, you're gonna remember just a little bit, just enough for you to step into this role.

Elena Box 10:25

Huge. Huge. It's such a gift. And I can imagine that must have been really tough to navigate as a little one. Um and I've met a few people who have who were born remembering and who also did not speak about it for a very long time because they didn't want to seem like they were crazy or this or that. And, you know, something you answered one of the questions that I was gonna ask, which was really, you know, have you ever had a fear of death? And you and you said no, which is which is amazing because I feel, you know, so many people do have a fear of death, which is gosh, even just talking about what we do with people, which I imagine you have a similar experience, is people have a lot of fear around it. And so my next question really is you know, what do you think people are truly longing for underneath their fear of death? It's a big question.

Speaker 11:17

That is a really big question. Well, I think the fear of death is simply due to the act of forgetting. And I think what people are longing for underneath that fear of death is remembering their true nature. Just just remembering what has been forgotten. Um, I think that death is also like a longing for

What Fear Of Death Reveals

Speaker 11:45

a reunion, a longing to return home to ourselves, to each other, and also to that, like that mystery, that unknown. I think also the unknown is really scary for people. Some people have a hard time just throwing themselves into the abyss and just trusting that they're gonna land on the bed of feathers. There's this like Terrence McKenna quote. I almost want to look it up right now, but it basically says that like just throw yourself into the abyss and know that you land on a bed of feathers. Yeah.

Elena Box 12:17

Ooh, but it's so scary. It brings to mind thalassophobia, you know, the fear of like depths. Like if somebody said to me, Hey, we're gonna bring you out into the middle of the ocean and all you got to do is jump off and just float. Ooh, I can do all the meditation, all of it in, but I my goodness, that would be very edgy for me. It is that it's the fear of the deep abyss, it's the fear of the unknown. And I feel like many people have that for sure.

Speaker 12:47

That's so interesting because I am the one that goes out as a kid. I used to swim out all the way to the like as far as I can go in the ocean to the people you could barely see the people, and then I would just float and I would imagine the vastness and I would imagine all the sea creatures and everything, and it would be such a thrill, but at the same time be really peaceful for me. So I think that says a lot about me that I kind of like those experiences, and I think also the fact that I don't have a fear of death. I've noticed like throughout my life, I I love like action sports. I love like I don't I don't want to go to the gym to rock climb. I want to go a steep rock edge that feels a little edgy and dangerous. It's like I like pushing those boundaries and bringing up fear within myself because it's the act of then dissolving the fear as it comes up that's really the rush for me. It's not the fear itself, it's like the confidence that I can overcome it.

Elena Box 13:51

Yes. Yes. It's so huge. It's like doing that one big scary thing that you're so afraid to do. So maybe one day, maybe one day I'll get to go and I'll flow. But you're exactly right. It is that process of overcoming the fears. I remember when I did my vision quest, which actually you're gonna be going into Vision Quest right before Beyond the Veil. So she's gonna be fresh. She's gonna be very fresh, ladies and gentlemen. But when I went in, I remember there the first night I would, there was just huge fear because the land that we were on, there were, of course, there were bears. We're we're in the middle of the woods. And so, and of course, but you know it's so funny, and and I and I don't often share this, but hey, everybody listening to the podcast, but my spirit animal is a bear. So ironically, here I am laying in bed at night, so afraid that the bears are gonna come and eat me. And then I'm also like, well, if the bears, if the bears come to eat me, so it is, you know, and and and it's just coming into that acceptance, but I had to go through all of these layers and levels of fears. And then coming into that acceptance after that first night, I was like, nothing could stop me. Like I'll I could be out here forever, no problem. Huge.

Speaker 15:02

Yeah. And that's that's an act of surrender. And in a vision quest, you have your humble, you have your prayer ties that are protecting you. So it's also coming into trust, trusting your humble, trusting all the prayers that you put around and trusting great spirits gonna protect you. And that's sort of like what religion is is trusting in God, trusting that everything serves to further, and just surrendering to all the experiences that come your way, including death.

Elena Box 15:34

Including the big one, the bad one, including the big one. So good, it's so good. Okay, so we're gonna shift the conversation into death awareness as a portal into life. Okay, because yeah, I mean, this is it's the ultimate gift, really, is bringing it into our lives. So here's a here's a big question, and uh here's another big one. Why do you think our culture is so uncomfortable with impermanence?

Speaker 16:05

I think it boils down to the fact that sometimes we don't feel safe in this world. And when we don't feel safe, we tend to cling usually to the things that just cannot be held. And I think people sort of move through life carrying this like underlying existential insecurity that they that they're not even conscious of. It's like what happens when everything familiar starts

Why Impermanence Feels So Hard

Speaker 16:35

to fall away, and there's very little space for people to be able to really sit with the mystery of things like endings. And I think we're we're doing a lot of distracting ourselves and like numbing ourselves, consuming too much, overworking too much, and and a lot of avoidance. Like, I think we avoid a lot of conversations, not just about death, but like about aging. Like we're we're in this state where we feel like we need to become immortal beings and we must look like we're 30 for the rest of our lives, and not really accepting even that part of death is the process towards it. But this this nature of impermanence is absolutely everywhere around us, and it's it's not viewed as negative at all. Like the leaves fall, the seasons change, we intentionally burn trees down so that they can regenerate and bring new life. And our ancestors like understood this so very well, and they and they brought death into our into their ceremonies, into their rituals, they transgressed that veil and went into that liminal space and felt it personally. Um, and I think we've lost that a little bit. I think brushing things under the carpet is not good for us. And it's time that we take the blindfold off, you know?

Elena Box 18:08

Majorly. And this is it just it comes back to beyond the veil. So what what what comes up as I'm listening to you is I think so many of us are very afraid also to to even just look and to listen and to be with the mystery. And so if you're listening, my friend, dear listener, and this is kind of uh ringing some bells for you, it might be a good opportunity because I think sitting with people who have sat and been in deep relationship with death is one of the biggest gifts that we can give ourselves to start to understand it as well and and chew on it for ourselves. So yeah.

Speaker 4 18:47

Absolutely.

Elena Box 18:49

My God, it's gonna be, yeah, I can't wait. So here's here's the next question. What this is a big one, also. I mean, every single one on this list is like a great question.

Speaker 4 18:59

So what is a big question? Every single one is like, oh, no pressure. We should ask me what my favorite colors at some point just to lighten it up. Lighten it up, lighten it up.

Elena Box 19:11

What's your thoughts on cream and mushroom soup? So, okay, so here's here's a good one. So, do you think people are more afraid of death or of fully living?

Speaker 19:23

Oh, yeah. Yeah. This question, I don't really I can't say it's one or the other. I I think that they're connected. So I'm I'm currently putting together a virtual course and it has all these separate modules. And one of them is the benefits of death awareness and how we can, there's actually three stages, and it's based on this research study, and how we can now how we can move through these stages through practices in our lives. But what's interesting about the study is that they gathered participants and they imposed these like conversations about their own mortality and then created these structured reflections and exercises. And what they found is that when people start thinking about their mortality, it actually improves their lives. It's almost as if you the moment you stop running from death, it stops chasing you. So that's what I mean by they're connected. It's not I don't think it's that either someone's afraid of more afraid of dying or more afraid of living. You you you need to be able to, I think by navigating death, you're able to live more fully. Like that's

Joy As Practice And Embodied Love

Speaker 20:55

the end product of it.

Elena Box 20:57

Yes. And that's like every time we're trying to explain, at least me trying to explain this work, I'm like, come on in, the water's warm. You're gonna feel really good afterwards, I promise. So I mean, that leads me. I mean, this is this is a really big one, which is like, what has death awareness taught you personally about joy in your own life and bringing that in for your for your own experience and yeah, I it comes back to my origin story actually, full circle.

Speaker 21:28

Because when I was a child, I wasn't that kind of kid that was just in awe of everything and felt uh running around joyously. I I was kind of a closed off from the outside, must might might seem like sad child. And it it was a process for me to get to where I am, which is in a state of joy. And it was, it was, it's as if I Okay, my process of death awareness, the way it looked as I've been growing into it, is what I recognize is that I need to live a life that mirrors what I remember. So that was my integration aspect of the journey. So for me, joy is coming back to home. Like that's how I tap into it. I used to just like want to literally go there, but now I don't literally want to go there. I love my life. I find so much joy around it. People that know me tell me that I'm very effervescent and super easily excitable. And I am. Like I wasn't like that before, but I could just get excited over the silliest little thing because I've come into this embodiment of what I remember as opposed to it just being a memory.

unknown 22:55

Wow.

Speaker 22:55

Wow. If it makes any sense.

Elena Box 22:57

Yeah, it does. It actually does. To me, it just reminds me, and something I was talking about in the last season of this show was talking all about becoming an athlete of joy. So sort of training ourselves to return back to that center, almost like the true north, or that kind of like, how do we come back? Because that that cord, that connection that really lives within all of us, it's it's always there. And you can always come back to it. Even on the darkest and gloomiest of days, you can come back to that joy cord, that like truth within all of us.

Speaker 23:28

And that joy for me is very related to embodying love as well. Because we we all find joy in love. But for me, the process of coming into embodiment of joy, I had to realize that it's not about giving love, it's not about receiving love, it's literally becoming it to the extent that it's radiating out of you. And like to your point, even when shit goes bad, right? And someone betrays me or really hurts me, to be able to stay in that balance and stay in that frequency of love is not as easy as it sounds, but once you can do it, it's transformational because the person who let's say you have conflict with, it really sort of breaks down their defenses, it shocks them, and you're able to sort of navigate that relationship a little bit more, or even if it's dead completely, that's okay too, because you kind of walk away feeling like I stayed true to myself, and this person was not able to knock me out, I'm still here. And like, oh, I thought about this actually yesterday because I have a friend who is Christian and we were talking about his Christianity, and I thought, you know, Jesus says, love your enemy. And I had this idea. Did he say that so that people can know to protect their own energetic state so that they stay in alignment with love? Like forgive your enemy, not about the enemy, it's about yourself, it's about taking care of yourself, staying in that alignment.

Elena Box 25:20

I love that. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's that's how I always interpreted that as you know, what what's coming up as I'm listening is to be unshakable and to be unfuckwithable. But in that sense of you're just embodying love and it just becomes like a beautiful armor in a sense, like a permeable armor in a way. Oh, yes. That's I mean, it drives my husband a little bit crazy, but how I drive is, you know, anybody who wants to cut me off, I go, you go right ahead, sweetheart. You got somewhere to be. And, you know, it's I bless your heart. I bless your heart. You know, I don't know what they've got going on. And and it's not about me anyway. So all I can do is just reflect, love, and and and send it their way. So before I move on to our next section, because we got a lot to cover here, and we're you're already sharing so much just absolute truth and wisdom. It's such a joy. I know our listener is also really enjoying this, but before we move on, something that you touched on, which this is really one of my favorite topics, is really about remembering how cultures across the world have interpreted death and also brought death into our lives. And so the question is what do you think our modern culture loses when we remove death from everyday life?

Speaker 26:44

Yeah, I think about this a lot actually. I think that we relinquish control to others instead of becoming fully autonomous. And this kind of flows well with what we were just talking about, too. Because I think when we're disconnected from death, we become more easily controlled by fear, but not just fear of death, but just fear in general. Like a culture

When Death Leaves Daily Life

Speaker 27:10

that is terrified in any way is actually easier to manipulate. I was I was dating a hypnotherapist and he learned a lot about how to, I don't know how, but manipulate and control minds and things. And is that a red flag? I don't know.

Elena Box 27:31

Such a manipulator.

Speaker 27:40

How fear then allows control. So people become more dependent on these external systems and that tell them how to live, how to heal, and how to die. Like we're literally seeing that. We can't, it's so hard to be autonomous now. It's so hard to be out of the system. Yeah, it's concerning. And I think we also in that way lose trust in ourselves. Like we need to really become clear with what matters to us as individuals and really live courageously based on our truth and make decisions out of our inner knowing, that inner gnosis that with these workshops and events that I put together, it's really about coming to your truth. It's not about anything that I say. I actually tell people at the beginning of my workshops, everything I tell you, feel free to throw it away. Yeah. But whatever little spark ignites in your heart, keep that. Yeah, hold on to that. And that's where the magic really is.

Elena Box 28:50

Yeah, I agree. I always I wrote that in my book, and I and I try to remind people on the podcast as well. It's like, take what works, leave what doesn't. It's not like a prescription that's gonna fit every single person, and we all have to navigate it and find it on our own. Yeah, it's a big one. It's a really, really big one. Huge, huge, huge, huge. So we're gonna move to this next section that I have, which is all about the in-between spaces or threshold work, which I'm I'm really loving that sort of terminology. And the death and dying space is really, you know, aside from birth, it's like it's it's the ultimate threshold. So I'm really curious. This is a really broad question. So I'm gonna lay it on you, and you can feel free to take it whichever way you want to go, which is what do thresholds teach us?

Speaker 29:48

Surrender is the big one, right? It trust and surrender. I would say it's those two

Thresholds Teach Trust And Surrender

Speaker 29:55

things. Because when you're met at that threshold moment, it's when you feel either fear or discomfort arise, the invitation is really to like soften around it, like really breathe into it and and allow your spirit to expand. So it's really an opportunity to evolve and to grow. That's the whole reason threshold moments even exist, whether it's in a psychedelic journey and you have to get through that moment right before your peak state where your heart becomes elevated. And once you get through it, that's when the magic happens. All the little deaths, once you're able to, if you lose a job, you lose your identity, you're like, oh my gosh, what is who am I now? That's that's the threshold moment of then being able to discover who you really are and dip and and and let go of your sort of conditioned programming and step into something greater. It's really, it's really an opportunity for evolution.

Elena Box 31:06

Yeah, huge. And something that I was sort of reminded of as you were speaking before is as we're going through these threshold moments, to me, it's so important to I think remember our humanity in all of it. And I think so often people sort of clench up and they go, Oh, you know, I have to control this. How do I control this? How do I, and they're in that moment of resistance. And and it can be as simple as like, you know, putting your hand on somebody's shoulder and just breathing and allowing, as you said, you know, allowing yourself and the other person to sort of expand into the state and and allow all that is to be. It's such a gift when when that happens, when you can really release all of those, oh my goodness, that that impulse to control and to surrender, you know. Ooh, it ain't easy, but it's beautiful when it happens. And it reminds me of birth, which is the biggest piece of advice that this elder midwife, Sister Morningstar, shout out to Sister Morningstar. She said, She basically told me before I gave birth, she was like, You're going to reach a moment where you think you cannot go on. And you're gonna, she was like, You're gonna really think like, you know, this is it. I'm dying, I'm dead, or whatever it is, you know, this is I can't do this anymore. And she says, and you're gonna break through that. And sure enough, it happened. And it was that same really threshold moment where I had to surrender into this kind of next level, as you said. And it's such a gift when we allow ourselves to embrace that and bring in that, that, that human touch, which can really be even like just breath and breathing into what's happening there.

Speaker 32:50

So um I also think it's you have to see these threshold moments. I call them, I call them catalysts. Like I do some life coaching and spiritual coaching, and I don't call them like bad experiences or struggles. I just call them catalysts because it's quite literally what it is. It's a catalyst for growth. And you really have to find the teacher within that realm. I think that's incredibly important. I'm gonna share a story. Last year, I woke up one day and my half of my face was paralyzed. My left side turns I went into the ER, it turns out I had Bell's palsy. And like talk about like I like crumbling of identity because I had realized that so much of my identity is tied to my face and what I look like. I felt like a monster, I couldn't go outside, I isolated, and you know, I spent a week being super depressed, and then

Find The Teacher In Hard Moments

Speaker 33:55

I remembered, okay, it's time. Let's find the teacher. And just that moment, if everyone could just remember to just look for the teacher, I think so much would be resolved so much faster. And so when I looked for the teacher, I thought, okay, I need to do some journaling. So on the first day that I started finding the teacher, I journaled. Um, I forgive myself for blank because, and then I added a lot of compassion to myself, just free-flow writing like crazy. And it was wild the things that would come up because there were things I didn't even really think about. And then I noticed a pattern. I woke up the next day, and some of my face started to be able to move just a little bit, like there was a little bit of progress. So I took that as an invitation to go even further. So then the next day it was journaling. The pattern I noticed was it had to do a lot with my family. So I started to say, I forgive my mom for because added compassion. And that was healing in of itself. Next day I woke up, a little bit more of my face came back a lot. So I kept going. And then my third step was action plan. It was like, okay, how do I, what do I do moving forward in my life to be able to heal all these things? Heal my self-loathing, however, it was showing up, heal my disconnection or that feeling of being unseen by my parents. And and it wasn't even that I had to put it to action. It was just putting the action plan together on a piece of paper. And I woke up and then my face was a little better. Doctors told me that it usually takes for a healthy individual for Bell's palsy to clear up in three months. Mine cleared up in a month. But what's even crazier is I had a workshop scheduled, and everyone in my life told me an in-person event four hours long with like three different facilitators, a mini version basically of this Beyond the Veil event. Everyone in my life told me, including my Buddhist teacher, cancel it. You could always do it some other time. Like you need to be able, this is this is a big topic. Like, you need to be able to show up. And I thought about it and I said, No, I feel like, again, I looked for the teacher. Always look for the teacher. I said, what would my higher self teacher say to this? And it was like, maybe I'm being tested, maybe, maybe I'm being pushed to see like how dedicated am I into this path that I'm walking into. And also coming to realization that my identity isn't my face. And when I really want to get down to the bottom of it, my identity is really beyond my human form. It's it's what I remember. So stop being so attached to it. This is this comes into like the topic of impermanence, you know? It's just like once I was able to let go of that, not only my the Bell's palsy healed the week of my event, like two days before, it was 100% gone. That's amazing almost overnight. It really was, it was like the universe being like, Yep, told you so. I kind of believe that if I canceled my event, maybe I would have had the Bell's palsy for longer. Wow. Because like, how is it that it cleared up right before? It's because I made this dedication to it that even if you wheel me or in a wheelchair, I will be there no matter what. I'm gonna show up in my life.

Elena Box 37:51

Huge. That is a beautiful story. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It just, it just goes to show, you know, when we're presented with difficult life experiences, it is all about finding the teacher. And I, and I've noticed, you know, certain people, I like working with people who are ready to find the teacher. I'm like, all right. And they're like, okay, yeah, I think I see the teacher. And, you know, but certain people refuse to find the teacher and they refuse and they sort of stay stuck in this kind of like holding pattern of staying in the trauma and staying in the pain and staying in the loss. I mean, especially even when it comes to grief. You know, we look at Queen Victoria, she was just like a lifelong widow. And and, you know, I think when you refuse to find the teacher, and I call it a sort of like a strange gift, especially when it comes to death and dying. As we were speaking about before, there's so much that opens up to you and so many lessons and so many tools. That how cool is that that you were able to move through that in such a freaking badass way. Amazing. And it and it just also goes to show like the power that each of us actually has within to create change within our lives, and and that there's really always magic all around us. There really is. Oh my goodness. Oh, there's so much to get into with you. It's Josie, it's Josie. You heard it here first. So, oh my goodness. Okay, because I do want to get to dying awake, but I think first I would love to touch on the importance of ritual, because as we're leading up into Beyond the Veil, this is a huge part of what we're going to be offering the community. And to you, dear listener, if you're joining us. So, okay. So the question that I have for you, again, it's a big one. It's a WAPA, no pressure. What this is a big one. Oh my gosh. What do ceremonies offer that conversation alone cannot?

Bell’s Palsy And Identity Release

Elena Box 40:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 40:08

Well, conversation engages the mind, right? Where we're attacking our brain neurons, they're firing, we're listening, we're using all like our senses through our intellectualizing. But I think the what ceremonies do is it really engages your whole being, where these teachings then can become visceral and understood more through like your heart neurons. Your heart and your gut both have neurons. And I actually remember reading somewhere that your heart sends messages to your brain more frequently than your brain ever sends it to the heart. Interesting. Right? Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? Fascinating. So if you can like really embody teachings through your heart center and through your gut, then I think I think that's where a lot of wisdom comes from. It's it's not from it's not from your intellect. And so that's why, like during Beyond the Veil, we're gonna have a sunset shamanic breath and sound journey that you will be facilitating along with Haya, our other facilitator. And the whole reason for that is because that's gonna be right after dinner. Before dinner, there's gonna be a lot of workshops. So it's more about teaching. So you're gonna absorb the teachings, and then through the shamanic journey is when you can really embody them. And then with the assistance of our beautiful facilitators, then try to navigate that threshold and look beyond the veil yourself and really tap into it and understand maybe you know what lies beyond for you, what the afterlife means to you, who you are in your truest nature, and shed this sort of materialistic, logical, pragmatic kind of mindset and really just feel into the topic of death awareness. Yeah.

Elena Box 42:23

It's so it's huge. It's so beautiful. I keep getting full body chills just listening. And also to remember that in this specific offering that we'll be that we'll be taking a part of and and facilitating, it's in such a sacred and safe space. And so all of you is welcome there. And I mean, just even thinking about all of the prayers that are going to be going into even setting up the space. And so it's sort of like what better time to do this work than than now, than what we're gonna be offering here at Beyond the Veil. Because you get you get the best of both worlds in a sense, because you get to do all of the logical, you know, uh, the workshops, learning, and then you actually get to go into the experience of it. So what a beautiful offering.

Speaker 43:10

And so this embodiment, a lot of people think that means like coming into your body and grounding, but embodiment also involves the spirit. So it also means diving into that vastness. And that's what I mean by these like the shamanic journeys and the rituals and the ceremonies, is it is still a form of embodiment, but not the way people typically think about it, not the way that maybe the wellness industry sometimes frames it. It's it's more expansive than it is grounding, but it is also grounding. And we'll have grounding ceremonies specifically where we bring in cacao and we bring in grandfather tobacco. We'll have a hape ceremony, which is an incredibly what I love about hope is why. I'm so excited we're bringing it into this container is because it's both grounding and expansive at the same time.

Elena Box 44:07

It's like we love a bit of hape. So, our listener, if you haven't ever heard of hape, it is a ceremonial tobacco snuff. You might you might call it a snuff that will be administered by beautiful practitioners. And so you can take a look more about it online. And again, everything's gonna be in the show notes. So, but yeah, it's that's what's so amazing about what we're putting together here, is that every single participant is going to be so held in their experience. And so we're not gonna blast you open and then be like, all right, you're good to go. No, we're gonna make sure you come back into your body fully feet on the ground. I'm in the morning, I'm gonna be teaching a yoga class. And so this is it's a wonderful opportunity for people to come together in community and do this work. So that actually leads me to this next question, which is really kind of bringing in death awareness and grief into speaking about the community and why ritual and ceremony is so important. And the question is, and it's it's it's kind of hearkening back to what we were speaking about before, which is what do you think modern culture has lost when it comes to communal grieving?

Speaker 45:22

Interesting. What it has lost in communal grieving.

Elena Box 45:28

Well, I think when it comes, like what have we lost because we're not grieving communally? You know, what we're gonna be doing in this is we're gonna be bringing all of the aspects of grief and talking about death. And I'm sure many people who are perhaps going through losing a loved one or perhaps even contemplating their own death, you know, it there's grief that comes up. And I think in the past, in within many different cultures, there was really ways to grieve together. You know, I was just in Ireland, and something I'd love to learn more about is their keening ritual, where women would literally come and wail, and and there were certain songs that they would sing. And I was like, well, this is basically what we do. This is what I do. And it it's so instinctual. And so when you do it, when you get into that, it's there's like a remembrance that that comes about. And I think it's something that we don't have right now. When when's the last time you went to a funeral and and people were really allowed to to wail? And and not allowed, but you know, that's where I think that's what I mean by what do you think modern culture has lost when it comes to communal grieving? Because we don't really have these ways of navigating that together that to me feel meaningful, if that makes sense.

Speaker 46:40

Yeah. Oh, I gosh, I completely relate to that. Yeah. Well, I yeah, I think it like the whamling, it gives an opportunity to be seen fully, like witnessed for all of it, to be completely vulnerable. You know, I think there's a lot of people that have trouble with vulnerability, but when you're in a community and everyone is vulnerable together, it's almost like you get permission to be able to step into that because you're all doing it together, you know. And then there's the Ram Das quote, you know, we're all just walking each other home.

Speaker 1 47:18

Yeah.

Speaker 47:19

Like we are walking each other home. No one should be doing this alone. And it really starts with the moment we take our first breath. So to be able to grieve in communion is just so powerful. And also in like in an event like this, when you can hear

Why Ritual Changes Everything

Speaker 47:40

someone sharing about an experience and it resonates with your own experience, that's medicine. That is such, at least for me, that is has always been so powerful. Because like we talk about like the sound healing and and these journeys, but it's like that raw emotional connection with someone is so beautiful. And also in this world of AI that we're living in, I don't know about you, but I can no longer trust anything that I see.

Speaker 4 48:18

Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 48:21

So, like, but what can you trust? Personal experiences, these communities, like you can trust that when you look someone in the eye and you feel into their depths of their soul, and you're like, Yes, you get me. And sometimes you don't even need to say anything, you just you just get it. And what I've noticed in my workshops and events is that at the end of it, it's a family. You walk away with a family because you're so bonded over the topic, over the grief, over the vulnerability that that is something that we can that AI can never take away from us, ever.

Elena Box 49:03

That's absolutely right. Oh my God. Yeah. I I sense our listener also nodding their head along with us because it's so, I mean, how many of us are just kind of starved at this point? And how many times? I have to tell you, I keep coming across these like fake AI Instagram profiles of these like fake influencers. And there was one that was shared by a friend of mine, and I really think that she didn't realize it was AI. And it's this page of a grandmother giving elder advice. And you know what? It's good advice too. I went to the comment section, everybody was like, Oh, you're my favorite. This is so good. I really needed to hear this. Da-da-da. And how crazy is it that now we are getting our advice from a fake elder rather than sitting with actual elder?

Speaker 49:52

Yeah.

Elena Box 49:53

So yeah.

Speaker 49:55

Not the same. Yeah. And also, like the fake elder, that's gonna go one ear out the other because then you're scrolling to the next post about some cute cat. It's not gonna ever stick. But these like in-person connections, that's what sticks, and then the wisdom is curated for you, even if it's in a group setting. What most shamans and elders do is they don't prepare for anything, they feel the energy of the group and navigate based on energy. You can't get that.

Elena Box 50:30

That's right. That's right. Yep, that's absolutely right, and so beautifully said. So, yeah, something to look forward to at Beyond the Veil as well. So, I want to lead us into because we're we're getting we're nearing the end of this wonderful discussion. And I know this is a huge and juicy topic for you, but I want to talk about dying awake. And so this might be a new idea for our listener. So I would love for you to lead us into the conversation by letting us know what dying awake means to you.

Speaker 51:06

Yeah, so I I sort of call it my little dying awake movement because it's creating a perspective shift. Um, and with the intention that it it it changes the zeitgeist in our society. I, since I've been a kid, have really been into theology. So I'm very well versed in, especially in the cosmologies of the afterlife through all different cultures, around different timelines. I'm obsessed with listening to near-death experience accounts because that also was part of my process of really coming out of my shell and being able to talk about my experience. And through all of that, I have found that a repeating pattern that souls tend to, after death, move into this sort of transitional liminal space, as I call it. Liminal is defined as a realm where one thing ended, but the next thing has not yet been revealed. That's that definition. And it's almost like a holding field where our consciousness is no longer anchored to our physical body, but it hasn't merged with what I call source light. So when you listen to a lot of near-death experience accounts, people reach this beautiful source light, loving, blissful energy, and then they get the choice to come back into their body or merge with it, right? Anyone who's merged has never come back to tell the story. And there's certain texts, like the Tibetan Book of the Dead, that really talks about the soul leaving the body and then navigating with the liminal space called the Bardo. And then at the end of the Bardo, you're met with the Dharmakaya, which is this big luminous light, just hasn't how near-death experiencers describe it. But what's really significant about that text and so many other texts, so this is another module in the virtual course that I'm putting together where I don't just talk about the cosmologies, but I find the parallels between all of them. And once you start seeing the patterns, you create this larger picture of what we as humans have evolved into believing that our truth is. And it's interesting because it's a it over centuries, different timelines, all of it, they all kind of converge to the same truth. And part of that truth is that the aim is to die in a high frequency state. Because what you experience and what you navigate in that liminal space before merging with God, or whatever you want to call it, is very much shaped by the way you've lived and by the frequency that you embodied through life and at that moment of death. And so it's quite literally the energetic state that we embody at that critical moment during after at our last breath and after our last breath. And it just carries us through. And this is very significant because of my own dual experiences and watching people navigate that final sacred chapter. Like the way they navigate it is very much determined by how they lived their lives. There's a direct correlation and there's this spectrum of experience. So on one end, it's like people move through with grace, like vulnerability is so deep and surrender is so full. And it I've witnessed actual miracles. I wish there was time for that story, but maybe some other time. And it's

Communal Grief In An AI World

Speaker 54:55

just a really it's really beautiful to witness. And on the other side of the spectrum are people who have just been in denial their entire lives and they really, really cling very desperately. And it often results in like existential crises. So my mission became instead of being a doula for people wherever meeting them, wherever they are, how can we do the work now to get people to move towards that sacred side? And that means taking death awareness and bringing it into our spiritual journey. And that that's a lot of the intent for not just dying awake, but for the event. And that's why I talk about like remembering being so crucial and really posing the question of like what do we carry into that moment and beyond? Because we're not taking anything material. So what do we take with us? And the answer is your frequency, right? Like Tesla said, if you want to discover the secrets of the universe, simply think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. Like those three things make up the entire universe. Yeah. And they're completely invisible, right? So like every every thought you have, every action, every desire, it has a corresponding rate of vibration and like sort of like octaves moving up a scale. And it's really important to us for us to start moving up that octave because it matters. It's it's really important for people to recognize that death isn't the end and that there is stuff that we carry over, you know? And I think it also some of the fear of death is is due to separation. And once we recognize that there is a part of us that can never be separate, then there's a peace that comes through us with that. And there's there's this analogy that I like to tell people because at least for me, I think it's a really great way of taking a concept and making it a bit more real. Tuning forks, right? Have you ever seen the video of someone striking a tuning fork and then the sound moving into the other tuning fork? Yes.

Elena Box 57:22

Yes.

Speaker 57:22

So imagine, right, that you're a tuning fork and then like your higher self beyond the veil is another tuning fork. Strike one, and then that same resonance hits the other tuning fork and it vibrates. And in that way, it matters. It that's the stuff you take over, that frequency. But then imagine you place another tuning fork. So one starts to sort of die out, the other one's still ringing, you place a new one, the new one starts ringing, the previous one dies out, place another one, that one starts ringing. You can literally do this till infinity, and the sound will never die as long as you keep placing a new tuning fork into the line. And in that way, that's how I like to sort of imagine infinity, because that the law of conservation of energy, I think it's called, that energy can't be created nor destroyed. It just moves. And that's that act of moving. So it's really. So I'm gonna have a dying awake workshop at the event, and it's about that. So I bring in cosmology, I bring in Tibetan Book of the Dead, Egyptian Book of the Dead, stories, I bring in consciousness research to like really drive the point home, some exercises and really inviting the audience to elevate their frequency through some guidance. So we can start to feel what it's like to be in this high frequency state.

Elena Box 58:51

Yes, let's tune our forks together. I love it. Can you give us, can you give our listener just perhaps one like simple exercise or something ritual that they can do and practice to get them into this and to get their tuning forks vibrating?

Speaker 59:13

Yeah, I I do a lot of exercises with people through my coaching. I a lot of journaling prompts and reflection exercises.

Elena Box 59:21

You could offer a journaling prompt if that, because I usually offer that in the episode. So whatever feels great.

Speaker 59:27

Uh I have a few that are coming into my mind right now. I'm gonna pick the one that I do myself. Okay, perfect. Um every day, at least for 30 days, just write what felt expansive that day and what felt contractive. And I also add a third prompt of any kind of insight that I might have picked up that day. And after the 30 days, then you will review all your entries. And you know they're short. It's just those prompts. And you start to find a pattern within them. So you start to understand what really brought down your frequency, what made you feel contractive. You'll start to notice what elevates it. So, for instance, when I first started it, I realized how significant what I ate was when it comes to my energetic state. Because every time I seemed consistently to say that I felt lethargic and dense after like eating a pizza or something, you know? So at the end of the month, I was able to understand, okay, I need to, I need to work on my diet clearly. And then when I look at what felt expansive, you know, a lot of it was just conversations with people and connecting with people and recognizing, you know, I need to devote a little bit more time to check in with my friends, to build community, and to do all these things that feel so good for me and make me feel really expansive and make me feel like I'm like fully living my life. And it's such a simple exercise, but I promise you, dear listener, it will yield insane results. There's this unseen and brings it to the scene realm, and then you can actually work with it in that way.

Elena Box 1:01:13

Wow, that is huge. I'm excited to try this. So, for our listener, I'm gonna put this in the show notes so you can go and check it out and try it out. 30 days, let's do it together. My gosh, it's beautiful. There's so much that we could go into, even more speaking about even the dying

Dying Awake And The Frequency You Carry

Elena Box 1:01:30

the wake. But the truth is we're out of time. So we we gotta we gotta wrap it up. I know, but the truth is we are gonna be talking more about this at Beyond the Veil. So for our listener, please come. We would love to see you there. I would love to ask you a question about Beyond the Veil, just to wrap up our conversation. And that there's there's a couple of juicy ones we have here, but I'll choose this one. I like this one. Here we go. What makes Beyond the Veil different from a traditional wellness gathering?

Speaker 1:02:12

Well, I think it's the container, first of all, itself is very safe, very intentional. And we're inviting you to shed your human identity and really step into that liminal space. And in that, we're just we're gonna honor you exactly as you are with wherever you are in your process. You know, whether you're on a healing journey, whether you're going through grief currently or not, whether you just have like an inkling of curiosity, like what is this work? Or if you're in the space of doula work, if you're a psychopom and and really want to find tools to be able to bring into your practice, I find that usually within my workshops, people in the death space get a lot out of it. There was one event where a participant started crying and while I was speaking, and I noticed it, I clocked it, but I didn't know if it was like a triggering thing or if it was out of just emotion, overwhelm, or he came up to me afterwards and he told me that he works at hospice and he's understood that there's a need to open up the dialogue and the conversation around death awareness. So he's been trying to do that, but he said he has never thought about it through a spiritual lens. And when I was talking, it cracked him open and made him realize like what's actually needed that he didn't recognize to bring in. And we've kept in touch since then. And he's brought it into his practice, into hospice, and it's been really, really powerful. A lot of feedback I get is this is what makes it very different than a wellness event. People tell me every time, every single time, someone comes up and says, Wow, I did not know I needed this. Like I had no clue that this was supposed to be part of my journey. And that's what makes it a little more difficult to navigate as a producer because the wellness industry is already so well established. And when you bring something like this, there's there's no box to put it in. Yeah. So people just don't know. They just don't know that they need this. And I that's my intention for the event. I want people to walk away feeling that exact feeling, is okay, this is something that's that should be part of my life. And by not bringing it in, it's a form of bypassing. Yeah.

Elena Box 1:05:06

So that leads me to my next question, which is what conversations do you hope people continue after the experience ends?

Speaker 1:05:15

I would, well, I would love for there to just be conversations to begin with. In fact, they would even be bringing bringing it into their conversations, you know, it's just as simple as that. Opening up the dialogue within your family and within your friends. Or if you've experienced grief in your life and then someone else, you know, someone else who's who's gone through that, to be able to reach out to them and say, you know, oh, I went to this event and I had a few insights. Let's talk about this.

Speaker 2 1:05:50

Yeah.

Speaker 1:05:51

Just opening up that dialogue. On the opposite side of that, bringing it into their spiritual journey. So bringing It into your meditation and in those moments in between two thoughts, like tap into that silence and like tap into that eternal now and really whatever came through the event, like really feel into that and understand what's opening up inside. What is this? Look at it, observe it, feel into it. The Buddhists have this meditation on death called Maranasati meditation. And their meditation halls are often lined with skulls. And it seems so dark, but it's actually the skulls are there so that there is a kind constant reminder for them while they're meditating on in permanence that we will die because through that meditation you get to a form of liberation. It's very liberating. So I guess maybe that answers it. I want, I want people to start bringing in that feeling of feeling liberated through something like this.

Elena Box 1:07:09

Huge, huge, huge, huge. I have to say this retreat. I'm sorry, the this immersion, because it really is an immersion, it is what I wish I had when I first began my relationship with death.

Speaker 1:07:23

Me too. Every time I do this, I always say, I'm just gonna do what I wanted, what I feel like I would have needed. Yeah. Exactly.

Elena Box 1:07:35

Oh my goodness. So for our listener, all the details will be in the show notes. So please check it out if you need a ride. We are working on some ride shares. So we it's definitely possible wherever you are, we will get you to join us for Beyond the Veil. And yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1:07:53

I do want to add something there. Um, it is a two-day, but people are welcome to just come in for the Saturday. That's the majority of the programming. Then and then they they're free to camp out on the site. And the next day is a lot about rebirth and integration. So we're really encouraging people to come for the second day, but we also understand that life is lifing and you might not be able to come for both days. So don't let the two-day aspect suede you from coming. Just join us for for however long you can.

Elena Box 1:08:27

Yes. Beautifully said. Beautifully said. So for our listeners who feel called to work more deeply with you, where can they find you?

Speaker 1:08:37

Omniamorari.com. I'm assuming you're gonna link that in the show notes.

Elena Box 1:08:42

Yes, all the links are in the show notes, yes.

Speaker 1:08:45

Instagram, which is omnia.morari. And yeah, if you go to the website, uh join the newsletter, and that way it's the best way to keep in uh keep in touch with all the different events and the workshops and the offerings, or when I release this virtual course that's gonna be very in-depth. Like you could be the first to know when it launches. Um yeah.

Elena Box 1:09:12

That sounds awesome. I'm also very excited for the virtual course. That's a beautiful offering. So, all right, my friend, it's been such a pleasure to have you on. And I will be seeing you, Korona, very soon. We're gonna be going to check out the grounds here in a couple of weeks to do a little tour and start to really see everything coming to life. So we'll be sharing on social media more about that journey of all of us coming together. So I'm really pumped.

Daily Journaling Prompt And Invitation

Elena Box 1:09:40

Yeah. So yeah, thank you for coming on. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:09:44

Thank you. So much love to you and the audience.

Elena Box 1:09:48

Yes, yes. Okay, my listener, this has been another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast.