The Ode To Joy Podcast

Shaina Garfield: From Chronic Lyme To Death Education Through Ritual

• Elena Box

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Death can be one of the clearest teachers we have—but only if we stop treating it like a distant problem.

In this episode, I’m joined by ritualist and death educator Shaina Garfield, founder of Leaves With You and one of the co-facilitators of the Beyond the Veil Retreat, to talk about green burial, grief, and the surprisingly life-giving practice of planning a sacred return to Earth.

We begin with Shaina’s nonlinear path into this work: being diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease in college, discovering holistic healing, and following a design question that led her to create her first macrame coffin. Shaina shares why handweaving a biodegradable coffin can become so much more than an environmentally conscious funeral option—it can be a communal ritual in which every knot holds prayers, beauty, love, and memory.

From there, we explore Shaina’s deeply personal essay, The Return to My Earth, and the moment she realized that healing was not about transcending or escaping her body. It was about coming home to it.

We talk about letting go of the lives we thought we would have, learning to hold gratitude and longing at the same time, and recognizing when the search for healing becomes another way of searching for something wrong with us.

Shaina shares how plant medicine ceremony has served as a form of threshold training, why the real ceremony begins after the ceremony, and why integration and physical action matter more than continually chasing the next cure, treatment, or spiritual breakthrough. She also offers guidance for anyone curious about connecting with guides, ritual, and the unseen—even if plant medicine is not part of their path.

And because this is the Ode to Joy podcast, we make space for the joy woven through it all: dance breaks, trees, water, gardens, laughter, daily acts of offering, and the practices that help us stay openhearted while living with pain and uncertainty.

If you are curious about death-positive living, end-of-life planning, ritual, chronic illness, green burial, or what it means to return fully to your body and the Earth, this conversation offers both grounding and permission.

Subscribe to the podcast, share this episode with someone who may need it, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Three Shaina Truths

1. The equation of becoming requires both giving away and receiving.

Whenever we cross a threshold and become a new version of ourselves, something must be released. Letting go creates the space into which the next chapter can arrive.

2. Medicine is not necessarily a cure—it can be a key.

No teacher, ceremony, treatment, or spiritual practice can walk the path for us. The key may open something, but we are still responsible for building the door, walking through it, and integrating what we have learned into our everyday lives.

3. Our death can become our final offering to the Earth.

Preparing for our sacred return is not only about deciding what happens after we die. It asks us to consider what we are cultivating within our bodies, our relationships, and our lives right now.

Standout Quotes from Shaina

“It’s important to witness what is witnessing you, because what we’re seeking is also seeking us.”

“The equation of becoming means having to give away in order to receive.”

“The ceremony is great, but it’s really the integration and the action that make it real.”

“Plant medicine is not a cure—it’s a key. I’m the one who has to build the door and walk through it.”

“Death is a key to experiencing more joy.”

“We’re looking at our death only to inform our life here today.”

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
 —Friedrich Nietzsche

Journaling Prompts

  1. What am I being invited to give away so that I can receive what is trying to enter my life?
  2. Where has my desire to heal, grow, or improve quietly become a search for something wrong with me?
  3. What would it mean for me to return to my Earth—to my body, my needs, my limits, and the physical reality of my life?
  4. If I knew I were going to die tomorrow, what would feel complete—and what would I wish I had tended to more lovingly?
  5. How might I treat one ordinary act today—washing the dishes, preparing food, walking outside, or caring for my body—as an offering?
  6. What expectations about my life, my body, or the person I thought I would become am I ready to grieve and release?
  7. What would my own sacred return to Earth look and feel like? What does imagining it teach me about how I want to live now?
  8. Where is life already inviting me into the dance—and what keeps me from joining it?

Resources Mentioned

In This Episode

  • Chronic illness as an initiation into healing, death work, and the Earth
  • Shaina’s journey from industrial designer to ritualist and death educator
  • Creating biodegradable macrame coffins
  • Weaving prayers, memories, and love into a burial vessel
  • Returning to the body after years of spiritual exploration
  • When the healing journey becomes another form of self-rejection
  • Holding gratitude for the present while maintaining a vision for the future
  • The equation of becoming
  • Life as a series of thresholds
  • Plant medicine, responsibility, lineage, and discernment
  • Why integration matters more than chasing spiritual experiences
  • Connecting with guides and the unseen
  • Learning to live with death rather than treating it as a distant problem
  • Dance as prayer, embodiment, and connection to creation
  • Green burial as a physical and spiritual offering
  • Using death to inform how we live today
  • Shaina’s offering at Beyond the Veil

Connect with Shaina

Shaina Garfield is a ritualist, death educator, designer, and founder of Leaves With You. Her work helps people reconnect with death, grief, ceremony, and the natural world through ritual containers, death education, green burial exploration, and biodegradable macrame coffins.

At the Beyond the Veil Retreat, Shaina will facilitate The Sacred Return to Earth, an exploration of green burial, the spiritual dimensions of decomposition, and how envisioning our return to the Earth can transform the way we live today.

Support the show

Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
Follow on IG @elenabox

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Elena Box

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast. This is your friend Elena Box coming back with another wonderful guest. Today I have the honor of inviting on my friend Shaina Garfield to the show. Welcome, Shaina.

Speaker

Thank you.

Elena Box

I'm so happy to have you here. She is one of the co-facilitators for the Beyond the Veil retreat that we have coming up here in really just a few weeks, July 25th through 26th, up in New City, New York. We'll be talking a lot more about it, but just to give you a little bit of background, we are going to be diving into some deep conversation today. And I always like to land our listener in and invite them into this conversation by letting them know where are you joining us from, Shaina?

Speaker

I'm joining from Mohawk Territory in Woodstock, New York.

Elena Box

Yay! It's such a cute, cute, cute area. And you recently moved there from Brooklyn, right?

Speaker

I moved back. Yes. I was up here for many years. My family's from here, so feels like I came home.

Elena Box

Yeah, a nice little homecoming. Beautiful. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. So to give our listeners some information about you, Shaina, Shaina is one of, like I said, our incredible facilitators for Beyond the Veil. She is a ritualist, a death educator, and founder of Leaves With You, where she helps people reconnect with death, grief, and the natural world through ceremony, community, and hands-on practices like weaving biodegradable willow caskets, which is just awesome. Her work beautifully bridges the practical and the sacred, inviting us to remember that death is not separate from life, but woven into it. And in her recent essay, The Return to My Earth, she shares her journey of living with chronic illness and the profound realization that healing wasn't about transcending the body, but returning home to it. And the link to that amazing essay is in the show notes. I highly recommend you take a listen, take a take a read, dear listener. And I'm just so excited to have you on the show, Shaina. Let's get into it, gal. Ah, so gosh, there's obviously so many avenues that we can go down. And it's so much fun to have someone like you on the show because it's like there's so many little click click match, much little connections about your journey and my journey. And so there's so many places that we can go into. And I'm gonna open it up by really bringing it into the beginning, the beginning of the journey. So when you this is a big one. I feel like all the questions I have, it's like, no pressure, but this is a big one. So when you look back on your life, what first drew you toward working with death, grief, ritual, and the earth?

Speaker

Yes, big question. It's a big one. Like, what was your initiation into this world? And it's interesting because whenever I talk about this, I like to preface that it feels so nonlinear.

Shaina’s Path Into Death Work

Speaker

Because in hindsight, there were so many clues before you know the real downloads actually came in. However, there were two things that happened when I was in college. I became very ill with chronic Lyme disease and my sophomore year of college. And through that, I, you know, entered into a very deep healing journey. Immediately found myself in more of the holistic world, which opened up the earth to me, really, and realizing how much my healing was connected to the earth's healing. And so that that natural connection formed from that. And also, I studied industrial design. And so I'm a designer, and you know, trying to come up with different products and services and ideas to help humans and the earth. And so my journey with Lyme very much informed a lot of the projects that I was doing in college. First, you know, addressing designing products to help disabled and ill people like myself. Then it led me to my senior year where I designed my first Leaves With You coffin. And that inquiry actually began as how what product can I create to help humans remember that we are nature? Because in my studies in college and then with my journey with Lyme, that became so important to me. And so I didn't set out to work with death. And it's very, you know, funny looking in hindsight, like how the coffin came to be what the solution was, you know. And so that's why I say it's nonlinear, because looking back, you know, I, you know, I can tell that so many of my guides were working with me at that time that I didn't know existed. And so much of what my soul's purpose was was unfolding at that time. And so the the coffin was that solution where they're they're macrame coffins, so they're woven with macrame.

Elena Box

Oh, I'm did I did I get it wrong? Are they ever willow?

Speaker

They're never willow.

Elena Box

They're never willow. They're never willow. They're never willow. Listener, she got it wrong. I'm so sorry. They're macrame.

Speaker

They're macrame, and so they're different than what people think of the willow coffins caskets. So this is a macrame where the intention of it at the time and still today is that it becomes a ritual through weaving and tying the knots. We're weaving our prayers and our beauty and our love into these pieces that are returning to the earth. And so through that, you know, we're creating this connection to where we're returning home to burial. And so that's how I got started. And from there, many things happened.

Elena Box

Wow. Wow. Wow. I see now you've written me a little note in the comments. They're not willow caskets, they're macrame, which is such a great word. This just leads me into so many different, I guess, places of inquiry. And I think the first thing that comes up is now I imagine you, I imagine you would have been surrounded by really interesting people just in college. And so perhaps this would have been like, yeah, totally cool, whatever. She's, you know, she's waving a casket.

Building A Macrame Coffin In College

Elena Box

Was there anything about sort of like your experience as a young woman at that time that I don't know how to describe the question, other than you know, your peers, was anybody, was it, was it, was an interesting kind of like needly experience for you to even present this to your peers and to your professors? And was there kind of like a bit of confrontation that came up with the people who received it?

Speaker

Yeah, no, I love this question, and it's always really good to reflect back on it because the answer is yes. I did get some confrontation. And there was kind of the two boats. There were the people that were super supportive, and then there were others that yeah, thought I was crazy, including my professor for this class that I was doing it for. And, you know, he was not very kind to me actually about this and tried to convince me not to do it. And, you know, I said, sorry, like I'm like, I'm in college, you know, this is the time to explore. I'm not going to conform to this capitalistic product world. I'm trying to tackle these big issues and these concepts. And so I said I'm sticking with it. And I did, and it really obviously paid off in many ways because it was the opening of the door to my purpose in this life. And also the other people that recognized what I was doing supported that. And I got to, after graduation, travel the world exhibiting this coffin as one of the like global recent grads. So I went to Cape Town, Africa. I went to the Netherlands to Dutch Design Week. I went to Dubai Design Week, and then in New York Design Week as well, and got to exhibit and talk about it. And so I was recognized for this piece that I did.

Elena Box

So the people who get it get it, and the people who don't I can imagine. Eventually, maybe, maybe once they meet their death, they're gonna be like, gosh, and that girl, she had the casket. Oh, what a brilliant idea. I mean, there's something that is so confronting when you actually even to lay down in a casket. I remember during my Death Doula training, we we worked with the cardboard caskets and we, you know, decorated them. And to even get inside of one can be very, very confronting. And it and it it is this reminder, of course, that we will all leave our earthly bodies. And also, then it is this invitation to return to the earth, which is also very confronting because we so often do everything that we can to forget that we actually are a part of the earth.

Speaker

It's kind of funny. Actually, mine is very comfortable.

Elena Box

Yeah.

Speaker

Oh, good news. It was funny. Like in college when I was making it, you know, we're staying up like all hours of the night trying to get our projects done. And like I would take naps and it, and like other every, you know, throughout the years when people lay on it, it's actually very comfortable. And a part of it is this like the macrame is on top of the body, and it sort of feels like this weighted blanket, which we know helps with you know, being calm and reducing anxiety. And so it's actually kind of interesting how there is a comfort to mine for someone that's living. And it's always been a peculiar aspect to me of like, okay, well, if it's comfortable for the living, how then you know this can support knowing that, like, wow, like, you know, either I'm returning or my loved ones like returning in this piece that's lovely and comfortable to be in, even though obviously a dead person can't physically feel that, you know, that that emotional idea is is is nice.

Elena Box

Yeah, I mean, it's I always found it so interesting, you know, when you see the caskets that are like really plush, you know, and it's like silk, and I'm like, uh, you know, it's not totally necessary, but always it looks good, you know, but it's comfortable. So I'm gonna skip this this question that I have and we're gonna return to it. And we're gonna be talking about letting go, which is like the whole theme of the season. But because it's come up this idea of returning to the earth. So, gosh, there's so I'm just so excited to dive into this. So, so in your recent Substack essay, you talk about returning to your earth, which I just love the phrasing of that. So, can you just tell us a bit about what that phrase means to you and and what brought you to that realization?

Speaker

Yeah, well, this the Substack essay was a very big piece for me to write. It was, I I've written about my healing journey a few times,

Returning To Your Earth Through Healing

Speaker

but this one felt like the most vulnerable. And it really is an integration from years of work that I've been doing, particularly a lot of different ceremony work, including with plant medicine. And, you know, it's I like I loved the phrase too, returning to my earth, because of course my death work is all about returning to the earth. My workshop at Beyond the Veil is called the Sacred Return to Earth. And so it feels like an integration of what my offerings are and what my purpose is about, and then yeah, integrating that into myself and my own path and like who I am, and specifically what it means for me is so much of, you know, I've been on this healing journey for 11 years. And so in that time, it's taken, you know, many different turns and phases and explorations, which I'm all grateful for every chapter of them. And so the last couple of years have been focused more on my mind and my spirit and my heart, where I've, you know, wanting to been wanting to fortify my consciousness, been working on my relationship to the pain, to the illness, and how I think about it, how I feel about it, how I speak about it. Because it felt like previously to that, there was, you know, resistance. And I said, well, if I if I have resistance in my emotions and my thoughts, then I'm not gonna be able to fully embark upon the physical healing. And so what this return to my earth is really about is yeah, coming back to the body, coming back into understanding that for my spirit to be as full and radiant as it is, that work is honored through this body. And that this, you know, we're in this vessel in a in this life for a reason. And so, particularly for me, that means returning to some more like physical treatments and taking care of my body more. You know, it's meditation and prayer and all that is so beautiful, but it's also followed up with the action and you know what it means to take care of the lymphatic drainage system and support the bones and things like that. And so I'm very excited for what this next chapter is for me. And it is very deep and very emotional at the same time. But yeah, it feels good to be integrating the earth in new ways.

Elena Box

Wow. So this it leads beautifully into this next question, which which really is about the healing journey. And it just makes so much sense, of course, that you do what you do and you're on this path. Because I think so many of us who who offer this kind of work have had to go through so many of these deep initiations and long. I mean, you 11 years. It ain't nothing a blanket. Like that's that's a minute.

When Healing Becomes Another Hunt

Elena Box

And and and and so the healing journey, of course, there's so many layers to it. And of course, you know, I find especially in the beginning of a healing journey, it's it's sort of like you have to kind of get to the things that are kind of glaringly obvious, and and you have to kind of unpack it layer by layer and go, okay, so this part and this part, and then more becomes clear and more becomes clear. And what I've noticed, and and I'm curious to hear from your perspective, sort of like in the in the spiritual healing world is I find perhaps some people get caught up in this chase for the healing, for, for constantly, you know, looking for the next thing. And it's almost like, you know, finding that next shiny object. And well, if I just go and I I drink more medicine or something else like that, then I'll finally reach this kind of state of being healed, fully healed, which I always think that we're just on this journey and things will constantly be unfolding. And so, but I remember reading in in your Substack that you that you said it had be could that healing had become another way of searching for something that was wrong with you. And sort of, you know, how did you recognize that shift? Like what was it? Was there like a big aha moment which you do write about in in the Substack? And I'd love to hear more about that for you and perhaps for our listener who may have been on a similar journey of like that trying to kind of it's almost like feeding and feeding a hungry ghost of just being like, okay, but there's more and there's more. I'd love to hear more about that moment for you.

Speaker

Yeah. I feel that, you know, where I'm at in my understanding of it all, and you know, I fully acknowledge that, you know, what I say here today, what I wrote about, like you said, I'll probably have a deeper understanding and a deeper layer in another time. So I speak to what I understand today in that humble way, is for me the importance of being able to hold polarities in at the same time, at the same weight. And so, like, for example, in death, you know, it's like I fully surrendered to my death and you know, looking forward to that return to earth and my return to home at the same time as fully loving my life and wanting to be here as well for as long as possible. And both of those are true. And I think that that then is a part of my journey as well, of coming into that integration of all the work I've done of like I fully love my life. Like, I really do. I love who I've become, I love what I'm creating, I love how I spend my time. I'm so grateful for what how for everything I've worked very hard for. And and being in that like full gratitude and acceptance, and at the same time also holding a vision for how I continue want, continuously want to see my healing take place and that that vision of that, you know, in this lifetime I can live pain-free and I my joints can heal. And and so I think holding those is very important for me at the same time. Because if I get too attached to the future and the vision, then I'm out of balance with what's present here. And if I get too attached to the present and what's here, then I, you know, don't have that inspiration for what I'm working towards and what I wake up every day to do. So yeah, it's kind of how I've seen it now.

Elena Box

Deep, deep and wise words. It's reminding me of the lyric. What is it? The Joni Mitchell song, like I see it from both sides now. What is that song? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker

Not coming to me at this moment. That's okay. That's weird, but yes, yeah.

Elena Box

So I'm curious. So I'm gonna bring it back to the topic of letting go. And of course, it just it's it makes so much sense for really the best conversations is is about the art of letting go and and especially in the work that we do with people who are end of life and and those who are still here on their earth walk. And I'm curious because I mean, you did speak a bit about this also in your substack, but I'm curious about what letting

Letting Go With Chronic Illness

Elena Box

go has has meant to you, especially in the past, as you were very young when you were diagnosed with the the chronic Lyme. And perhaps you can talk a little bit about I mean, that's a lot, that's a that's a big thing to to come up against at a young age. And what did letting go mean to you then? And what does it mean to you today, and and how has it changed over the years?

Speaker

Yeah, wow, that question actually is making me a little emotional. Yeah, letting go has been the walk, you know, of first, you know, being 19 years old and having your whole body fall apart, and you know, that feeling of like, am I facing death? And in that time, having to let go of like everything I thought life was, you know, every all the expectations that I have, what I thought, you know, my fun 20s going to college in Brooklyn and living it up, and you know, all of that. Like just had to go out the window. And and it wasn't my first experience with really having to let go. I definitely went through a lot in my teenage years as well, with some, you know, I I had five concussions and had to let go of soccer, which was my entire life, like literally my whole life, and it disappeared overnight and had a lot of fine family dynamics that, you know, it's like all of these things contributed to actually the Lyme. And so, yeah, there, you know, there's I can see in hindsight how my soul changed. chose to go through so many initiations of letting go to prepare me to support other people in that as well. And I think it's really beautiful because when we think about death, you know, we're often focused on like, you know, that last breath and like letting go of that, whether it's your own attachment to your life or your like your attachment to a family or friend. But my life has really informed all the other aspects of letting go, like letting go of relationships, letting go of my health, letting go of how I thought life could go, letting go of what I think it means to even today be in a 31-year-old body and you know not be able to open a jar sometimes. So I think it's it's really I'm really grateful for all the different perspectives I've got on letting go. And I think that for me it's it is the work because so much of grief and anxiety and you know all of all of the more challenging experiences and emotions of life, you know, it's all very natural because we're human and we're meant to feel all of these things. And also the when like we experience the sadness and the anger and the confusion and all of these things and it becomes unhealthy, it's because it's for me related to an attachment. And so you know that work of being able to let go of things easily trusting that when we like give it back to the creator and to creation that we're creating space for something new to come in is everything. Because when we're entering this path of becoming and what that looks like uniquely for every single person, like the equation of becoming means having to give away in order to receive like no matter what your life is like that is part of the equation. And so I'm very grateful for all the experiences I've had that have I guess you know I I still have work to do. I always joke I'm not enlightened yet I can tell every time I have like oh shoot I don't want to let go of that like okay I guess I still have some work to do but I would say I've gotten pretty good at it too.

Elena Box

Wow such beautiful nuggets of wisdom I can't wait for those sound bites later the equation it's so true and I love how how beautifully you put it and what a gift it is that you are this person in this 31 year old body who just lives has this lived wisdom within you and while I know it I can't imagine it has been easy it sounds like you have found ways to navigate and find when you come up against these new oh you had a good word for it. I don't want to call it a blockage or a challenge. It's a what how did you call it what was the word you used? What did I use? Experience with something better but I will find it later as I go through the transcript but it's sort of like I'm so curious about how we come up against it's sort of like when we come to these these threshold moments it's sort of like what I was talking about with Beth Clayton in last week's episode is when we come up against as if we were superheroes, which who says we're not but like when we're when we're ready to like you know reach that next stage that next iteration of self and when we're met with I could say even like resistance, you know, when you feel that you're about to become the next 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 version of yourself and there is this invitation and it really is like the hero's journey and I love nerding out you know about with Joseph Campbell about it. It's how can we accept that invitation and what are the tools that we use to invite ourselves into conversation with that invitation and how do we come up against our own resistance towards those invitations? It's like, you know, anytime the hero is met with like you have been chosen you must take this you must go on this journey. And the hero's always like not me you got the wrong guy. It's not me. And so that's what I'm really curious about is like how do we develop as you've been talking about this sort of skill of going into these initiations. And it's gonna be different every time and there's going to be prickly spiky bits as we you know kind of go through the bramble

Plant Medicine As Threshold Training

Elena Box

and and the bushes and the thorns but you know sort of like if there was an equation for this, what would that look like? And and I'm curious for you, you know, something that you've been sharing about is is your experience in plant medicine ceremony. And so I'm I'm sort of curious is that has that been a part of your equation for going through these experiences and and what has that taught you what what have these rituals and ceremonies taught you that that you couldn't have learned in any other way yeah I would say my work with plant medicine has been very beautiful as a death doula because as you mentioned the thresholds for me a doula is someone that just tends to the thresholds of life and so when you have a birth doula they're tending to that birth threshold.

Speaker

When you have a death doula they're tending to that death threshold but life is a series of threshold moments and so being a doula is like that training to be able to show up for that in a very sacred way in a very like you know how do we make this maybe even painful moment as beautiful as possible and and safe as possible as well and and in that way help whoever whatever kind of threshold it is get that person that soul to the other side in a good way you know and and so that training that you know that I've been through and that is who I am then showing up to the plant medicine almost just like oh I'm just you know this medicine is and and and the you know the ceremony people and the guardians and and now myself is also a guardian like they're just helping us through that threshold. And it's a that like a being there for a night or a day or however it's structured is a moment of doulaying our souls to a new place. And so that experience of often having to let go of something in the ceremony to then you know always hopefully arrive in the morning to something very beautiful gives you an example of how then to live your life and it's so important to you know not be attached to the ceremony itself because the first training that we get is that the ceremony happens after the ceremony right and the ceremony is great but it's really the integration and the action that makes it real so be for me that trained me on how to allow myself to die so that I can rebirth myself and also gaining that trust in myself and creator and my family and you know all the spirits plant whether it's the plant spirits the seen the unseen that I say wow like I have so much support so that every time a part of me needs to die like I I have that full faith and trust that I'm going to be reborn and so that that's for me what plant medicine has is taught me I think you know in a summary so much and why I love it so much as a doula for me now plants also is just my way of prayer. And so even if I am not my intention is not to let go of something in a ceremony knowing that there is so much alchemy that can take place I go there to pray and seeing and then and and having that faith and trust because I know what it's done for me. I know what it's done for my relatives and I know what it's doing for the world so let's go pray there and be in that beautiful vibration.

Elena Box

Yeah so I want to speak to our listener who is probably perhaps you know they've heard of the plant medicines they've been oh yeah these kids are going out for these ceremonies and the plant medicines but maybe they're like I don't know if that's me. I don't know if this is something that I want to explore perhaps there's even a fear there. I'm curious and not to say like yes go ahead

Finding Guides Without Plant Medicine

Elena Box

you know because I think there's so much preparation that goes into actually going into ceremony for sure I suppose the question that I have for you is how might someone who's not quite ready to go into a plant medicine ceremony but is so curious and wants to develop a connection with their guides and with the unseen how can they begin to find little tools and find little ways if they're not quite ready and maybe they're just curious and maybe they want to find a way to sort of taste the other side and taste the unseen and what little practices and they don't have to be little they could be big could be like a 40 day you know you go and sit in there and under a tree, you know, kind of a thing. I'm curious how you might recommend that someone begins to open themselves up to this world and and even just something that you mentioned the beginning that I that I caught on to was how when you first were diagnosed with the chronic Lyme is that you you said that you were kind of unaware that there were guides with you and then later they came through. So it's I'm I guess I want to speak to the person who is so curious and wants to know that they have this whole crew but is perhaps unsure of how to begin to connect if that makes sense. Big question.

Speaker

Yeah well the first thing I want to say is not everything is for everyone. And so you know plant medicine has been a part of my journey but it might not necessarily be a part of someone else's and there's so many different kinds of plants out there as well. And so not ever, yeah, it's not one size fit all and also in this time that plant medicine is becoming more common and know about and practiced, it for me just feels important to speak to like the responsibility that we have to the path as well and you know honoring the origins and honoring the indigenous people where these alters have come from is very important and not to take advantage of it. And what we've already discussed about is not to see this plant medicine as the as the cure and not to you know put it up on this pedestal either because for me it's not a cure it's a key and when it becomes a key that's like well I'm the one that has to build the door and walk through it. And so I think that in itself creates a better relationship to it than you know what some people in this world maybe are doing. And so just wanted to say that. Yeah thank you yeah you know I I think for me it's like when you put something out into the universe the universe like find it will take care of you. And so if you're seek one of my teachers says so often like it's important to witness what is witnessing you because what we're seeking is also seeking us. And so if someone has that inquiry of wanting to learn something if they continue to cultivate that in their mind and their hearts and their energy it's most likely going to find them as well like I didn't I haven't really sought out full like directly you know like Googled or things like that of like how do I get to this path it sort of just like shows up for me and like that's how I'm so grateful all of my amazing teachers have sort of showed up for me like that. And so it's also like the trust in that timing of like just keep keep that cure keep feeding that curiosity and and it will come through in the way that it's meant to yeah but I you know there's so many lineages out there as well. And you know I live on Turtle Island and so I live you know I'm sure many of the people listening do as well and so the north and the south of these lands have these medicines. And so you know even if our ancestors aren't from these lands are we were born here and so I know that's why we have a connection but we there's so many different lineages out there. And it's been very beautiful for me to practice other ones as well and to experience like oh wow like I can go to this kind of practice and this kind of ceremony that might be two hours and still also experience the full beauty and alchemization of what an eight hour plant medicine ceremony brings me. And so I think it's yeah there's there's so many paths and you know finding you know follow like social media is very beautiful because it allows us to discover different opportunities and getting involved with local communities and just like talking about it to people is really important because it's like that to me is how you find it where you're just like I'm really you know feeling this and I really want to like address it and I really want to like learn more about it. And then that person says oh I know this person and then they say great and next thing you know you're walking through a door.

Elena Box

Yeah you're walking through the door and that's a big step too which which is worth acknowledging is especially when you're sort of new on the path I'll speak for myself you know it can be kind of nerve-wracking to walk through the door and sit in ceremony and be perhaps with these practices who that are very new and sort of wondering like is it okay is it okay that I'm here is it is this all right you know but I think it's so important to just take that step and take that leap of faith and put yourself in these situations that yeah at first you might not know exactly how to behave and how you know how it all goes but you learn as you go and and as you said you you start to find the people who who you resonate with and I think that that's also a super important thing is is for our listener who is perhaps really curious do do your research and notice how you feel when you see a certain teacher speak. How do you how do you feel in your body? How does their voice actually you know penetrate you does this feel like someone that you you know want to sit and and and learn from and be with because I think discernment is is very very important especially when when doing these this type of work especially is is finding trustworthy practitioners as well.

Speaker

Yeah discernment's definitely very important I'm I work with people based a lot of recommendations as well you know I don't just go like find someone and go work with them. And so that's very important and and I one thing I wanted to say too is you know as a as a non-Indigenous person to Turtle Island and then as someone that's also practicing and studying many lineages that are not connected to my current ancestors of this life I think that the most important thing is for someone to be in their heart, you know, and so even when we we go embark on a new kind of path, a new ceremony, a new altar, you know, coming in with that pure heart is what is the most important and the and rec and what is recognized and you know with a genuine curiosity and a genuine you know commitment to uplifting the whole web of life. And so you know when we come in with an extractive mind like I'm gonna go study with this person, I'm gonna go sit in this ceremony, I'm gonna go to this retreat just because I want to go learn and then like go do it for myself like that's extractive and you know that will be taken care of in some form or another whether it's from the physical people or karma or God but when we come with our open heart of like wow I'm like really just like humbly here to learn because I can see so much beauty and and that is offered here and I want to both receive from my own healing and to also give back and the upliftment of this continuation of this altar like that's what continues for those doors to open.

Elena Box

So beautifully said and also a very very important aspect of all of this work because it is something that is a question that arises so often at least in the work that I do as a white woman for sure in in in in this sphere and yes as you said there's many avenues and many lineages that you can study with and I would agree it's it's about the intention of your heart and and allowing yourself to be a student and allowing yourself to learn and and to be a be a beginner really have the beginner mind and treating treating this work with reverence is really most important. Yeah but it's it's big and it's it's easy I think for those who are perhaps on the outside of it to sort of look at it and just go, oh well it's you know it's appropriation, it's this and that and it's but how would they know unless they were actually in your own heart and I think that's what it comes down to is what is the intention of your heart, which is what you shared so beautifully. So thank you for putting words to that experience. It's big it's big we're we're doing we're doing it and so oh goodness I have so many other good questions here that we that um I want to get into with you oh my goodness so okay oh goodness okay so we're gonna go into the joy we're gonna go into since it is the O to Joy podcast we're gonna go into that J O Y because it's what feels really really

Joy Practices That Keep You Open

Elena Box

potent really important right now to to talk about which is which is which is joy. And so I'm so curious for you having spent so much time you know exploring grief and and death and transformation, where are you finding joy these days? Because I think it's such an important aspect especially of of the work that we do is and perhaps at least for me there is this misconception that because I work with death and I work with these endings, you know that everything's very doom and gloom and like God that's depressing who invited this light of the party you know whereas I think the joy is is actually so important.

Speaker

And so I'm curious for you where are your where are you finding joy these days and what what are your sort of like outlets for sparking joy within your life yeah it's so funny I feel like I'm on the never ending what is it record of no like I love my life very happy I promise I promise is death doesn't death means that you know death has showed me that but as actually more and more people are also understanding that that is also true that that is like the death is that key to experiencing more joy as well and yeah I mean specifically for me I would say that I generally live joy in like almost everything I do and you know just because it's present right now like this morning I woke up in a lot of pain and I didn't sleep well and I was not definitely in my joy but you know speaking to what we spoke to earlier about attachment I feel Like I allow myself to just fully be in that moment because I know that it's gonna pass and that I will return to the joy like I'm having right now. You know, if you had seen me 10 hours ago, I would not be like this, right? But that's okay because that's life. And so, you know, be being back in Woodstock has been such a pleasure for me because after having a little hiatus in Brooklyn and loving that life as well, yeah, being back with the trees and being back with the waters is very incredible that even when I'm working and focused and you know doing maybe more of the mundane that being in this environment for me allows those moments of joy to always be present. And so currently very enjoying my garden and being in the waters a lot right now. Yeah. And I mean, I'm a student of of this path. I'm, you know, I'm a practitioner and I'm a scholar, and that brings me a lot of joy to be in these, you know, whether heavy or esoteric topics and experiences, it what is absolutely lights me up. And so I love to go deeper into that. And if that means that, you know, I'm going to experience another initiation because life is a series of initiations, and that initiation is going to be challenging, I'm like, okay, bring it on because it don't it keeps getting better.

Elena Box

Yeah, yeah. What what Shana version are you on at this point? Do you reckon?

Speaker

Answer that question. How many days have I lived? Because you can say every single day that every single day, no. Oh my goodness. Yeah, definitely a lot of versions. Yeah, yeah.

Elena Box

Yeah. Just update updating the operating system, as they say.

Speaker

Yes. I also have a job in tech, and so I do love talking about like spirituality and you know, this path through that lens of like, yeah, I'm just gotta do some debugging so I can write a new code.

Elena Box

Yeah, it's so true. I love that.

Speaker

Yeah, I really like that. You know, I think the other thing talking about that is like this joy for me has been integrating every aspect of myself, you know, where you know, I I have a job and and I have this other passion work that is my life's purpose, and I have infinite amount of interest, and I have this illness, and I have to, you know, do laundry and clean the dishes and clean the house and do all these things and pay the bills. And so it's like in my 20s, I was like fractioning off all of that and seeing how it was felt all separate. And then, like in the later half of my 20s, and where I'm at now, is like, no, it's all me and it's all this one life. And and so if it's all together, then there more means that can be joy in all of it.

Elena Box

So yeah, still gotta chop wood and carry water, so you might as well, you know, have a smile on your face as much as possible. And even if you're not like beaming with joy every single moment of the day, is is finding these little touchstones, these little sort of woven threads of joy throughout and and noticing what a blessing so much of of the lives that we live or offers and has, and it's all it's all part of it, is like what a joy it is that I get to wash the dishes, fold the laundry. And yeah, we're we're potty training right now. So I do a lot of pee-pee pee pee panty laundry. It's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, more than you'd think. But it's so important, I think, to to have a sense of humor about it all and and also not to take ourselves too seriously and remember to laugh. And something that you mentioned, and I kind of don't really want to give it away because I want our listener to read your substack, but I'll just say sort of inviting in the dance of life, and it's something that you wrote about and spoke about so beautifully.

Speaker

Yes, dance is so important to me, and uh, you know, I I do go to different kinds of dances, both like ecstatic dance and more like devotional ceremony type of dances, and it's for it's the one of the biggest ways that I connect to spirit. Um for me is you know, one of the gifts of being in a human body because it's a language of the divine and the natural realms and the human body, like all together. And so yeah, dance is super important. I I take dance breaks all the time. I'm always dancing, and yeah, I would love to continue that path for sure, because I can feel that it's it's a place I want to be.

Elena Box

It's so it's so important. It really, really is. There's that great quote that I'm not remembering right now, but it's oh, do you know what it do you know what it is where it's like what's the day that you haven't danced or something like that? I'm gonna find the quote and I'm gonna put it in the show notes. It's like oh gosh, okay. I'm not even gonna try because the quote itself is really great, but it's essentially saying or encouraging you to to dance every day and just even a little bit, even if it's a little head bob, you know, getting getting a little bit of motion in the ocean. Dance breaks are important. Huge, huge, huge.

Speaker

It helps so much understanding that all of creation is dancing as well. And you know, like Rumi, who he says like he started whirling because he realized that everything in creation was whirling and he wanted to be in that movement with creation. And and so being in the movement, like moving with the wind and and igniting our sweat and our passion like the fire, and you know, being in flow like the water, like we are moving with everything around us, and that's why dance is so powerful for me, because it connects me to everything, which then only connects me back to myself.

Elena Box

So casual, yes, of course. We are just a part of the earth, the earth is constantly communicating with us. The earth, I mean, of course, everything around us is constantly moving and it is inviting us into the dance, even in how the wind blows, as you said, or the river the with the the river flows, it's all in movement. And I'll speak for myself is sometimes when I'm really getting too caught up in my in my thinking brain and the mind, I I forget that because I'm thinking, oh, you gotta, you know, put put what is it, put your nose to the groundstone and and head down, just get through it and how many missed opportunities they are there are when not open and not not, I want to say almost like permeable to to this flow of life. And to remind you that you are all, that we are all actually just a part of it. And it's as you said, it's what a gift that you've given yourself to be back with the trees because it's nice. The concrete is great, but the concrete is a little quiet, you know.

Speaker

It doesn't have to be clubs, no opportunities to dance in the concrete, but yeah, that's true. I I've been joking with my friends, like my backyard is the new club. So dance with the trees, it's pretty good too. Um, but yeah, I mean the dance is a huge part of yeah, coming back into my earth and coming back into earth in general. You know, I'm a Virgo rising, I love to think. And it's both one of my strengths and my weaknesses sometimes. And so being in that movement is very, very important. Yeah.

Elena Box

Huge. Virgo here, also married to a Virgo. So we we love a good, we love to think too much to a false. I just love thinking. Oh, let me find the solution. We love it, but it's so important to just come into the to the feeling body and and to release the mind and the thinking mind. It's very, very important. We need it for the sanity. Wow. Okay, I'm trying to remember because there were a few other questions that aren't on my list that I really wanted to like ask you. And I don't even know. So there's this one that I want to close on, and then oh, wait a minute. Okay, I have two more. Maybe, maybe three. Okay. I'm really curious for you. Something that came up as I was watching your reel today, which I'm also gonna link in the show notes because it's fantastic. A plus on the reel. Whoever did the direction, like, great, great job. And it's interesting for me, even in working in this world of death and grief, is you'd think I'd sort of be at this place where I'm like, yep,

Making Peace With Decomposition

Elena Box

no problem. Bury me in the earth, all of this, like let me be eaten and taken over as nourishment for the earth. But I have to say, I still have a bit of resistance towards it, which is really interesting. And that's sort of like something that I'm I'm having a little inquiry about. And I know that when the time actually comes, I'm not gonna mind. I'm not gonna, I'm not, I don't, I know that I really won't mind. But I think for you, the question that I have is as you, and we're kind of bringing it back to like the beginning of the conversation, is as you embarked on this journey of creating your own coffin, was that something that you came up against for yourself? Is this sort of fear, or not fear? I don't even know if that's the right word for it, but sort of this like, oh my God, and really, because then once you know what happens as the body decomposes, it's like, and then that's gonna happen, and that's am I okay with it? That's so I know it's like kind of a silly question, but there, but maybe not, you know, there's so many layers and levels to it. Is how did you come up against that for yourself? And perhaps how did you come to peace with that for yourself? And have you? It seems like you have big one, big one.

Speaker

Yeah. When I think about my death and my end of life ceremony and my burial, I'm like, dang, I would love to be alive because I really want to be there because it's gonna be really good. You know, I've planned the whole thing and I'm continuously planning it as I evolve, envisioning it. And, you know, I'm very, I don't know if the word excited is the right word, but I'm very honored and my heart gets very full, like thinking about fully decomposing and being eaten by worms and all of that. Like I'm super down, like let's go. And so, and you know, part of my practice with death is fairly regularly, you know, coming into that reflection of like, okay, if I die tomorrow, will I be okay? And that helps me reflect on what I've been doing and where I'm going. And so for me at this point in my life, like I am, I am pretty good. Like, I rarely don't answer that question, no. Like, I'm pretty like, yeah, I'll be okay if I die tomorrow. Like where the other stuff comes in is than when it's not about me.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker

And like, and so you know, that's when it's like, well, if I die tomorrow, my mom's still living, you know, and like, gosh, I don't want to like have to for her to go through that. Or, you know, it's it's all the other stuff. It's all like who's gonna have to grieve, you know, because I'm very blessed that I'm loved in this life, you know, and and you know, what are all like the things that are gonna have to be taken care of and the you know, the not fun, not glorious and beautiful parts of death. So that's what you know impacts me. And so, like with that, you know, I just saw my mom yesterday and I'm like, okay, good, you know, because I love her a lot and I want to keep that relationship alive, you know, so that I can feel really good about like the love that we have, even if one of us goes. And so for me, yeah, it's it's a lot of that continuous reflection, and that's what helps me stay really open to where life will go, which I mean, hopefully, I feel like I'm gonna be here until I'm like 110, but you know, I would love to be.

Elena Box

But great. I feel like you'd really do so well as like a hundred and ten-year-old.

Speaker

You know, right? You'd be very I always joke, like I'm already have the experience of being in that kind of body, so I'm like, I'm good. And I think for me also like being so sick, you know, I I say humbly because you know, you do another podcast with my spirit after I die, and you can ask like how I actually did handle death, you know, because I can say, like, I think I'll be okay. I think I'll be fine with the, you know, deteriorating of my body and whatever else is gonna come up, the pain. Who's to say? Haven't been this day.

Elena Box

So I'll catch back. I'll I'll check back in with you, maybe. Or we'll be up there together, like, hey, did you see that worm go through my eye socket? I don't know. Whoa. I always say I wish that, you know, my my my children and my grandchildren could just keep my skull to, you know, put on the mantelpiece and or or not even just on the mantelpiece, you know, use it as a as a sacred object and ceremony. That would be the dream. But it's the getting there to just the bear skull that I'm like, whoa, you know.

Speaker

Yeah, not really allowed in this country, but you know, it's it's not that bad. I do it with animals.

Elena Box

So I know, yeah, it's true. I mean, and why can't we then why can't we? I know I do that is what I think about.

Speaker

It's really beautiful because you bring up a thing for me of like there's there's so many like ancient practices that I really fully love that maybe like aren't allowed to be done today. And so I'm in this like very joyful exploration of like what does it mean to actually do these kinds of rituals in today's world and still connect to our ancestral past and things like that. So it's it's fun to think about recreating for what works in this timeline.

Elena Box

Yes, and what's legal here in the United States, too. My gosh. I mean, listen, if I could do a sky burial, somehow that feels like fun for me. But my second close option would be because the only place that it's legal to burn a body on a pyre, I believe, is in Colorado. So I guess the closest second I have is cremation, perhaps, or or any kind of thing where you have my remains sort of like in a powder form. And then to get those, there's like those things that you throw into fires that when you throw it into the fire, it creates like a like a color in the fire. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's it's pretty cool. So I want to mix it in with all of my remains, and then all of my loved ones gather around a huge, you know, bonfire, and everybody takes a handful of me mixed in with this cool color-changing stuff and tells a story, perhaps, sings a song, does an interpretive dance, whatever you want, and then throws it into the fire.

Speaker

Love that.

Elena Box

That's like my version of let's bring in the old wisdom into the new, and a little bit of I don't know if you remember the the show Are You Afraid of the Dark from the 90s, but that's how they like told scary stories around a campfire, and then they would throw something into the fire and would go, pew.

Speaker

I love that.

Elena Box

So that's what I want. Thank you.

Speaker

Thanks for listening. I'm gonna note it, note it down. Note it down. I have a like a library of all everyone's like last wishes in my life. It's so important. Yeah.

Elena Box

And we have to be having these conversations. I mean, how else is anybody gonna know that I also want like a parade, you know, New Orleans style down the street, if I'm also there, you know, in whatever capacity, in a great outfit, could take pictures with my dead body. I mean, fantastic. This is what would be good for me. Put it in the notebook. All right, we have to wrap it up, but I do want to ask you this final question. And it's also a big one, but no pressure. Just give us a nice little, you know, a little taste. When people join us at Beyond the Veil, July 25th through 26th, the day passes are also available. What are you hoping they will experience through your work and through what you're offering? And what do you hope they carry home afterward?

Speaker

I mean, everything we've talked about in this podcast is incredibly related to it all. And so

Beyond The Veil And Green Burial

Speaker

for me, my workshop, my main workshop is the sacred return to earth. And what I hope people are able to experience is opening a deeper connection to our home that we come from and will return to, and opening that conversation of what is my sacred return to earth look like. And of course, related to this whole conversation to my most recent subscrib essay, we're looking at our death only to inform our life here today. And so that is what I hope people walk away with with, you know, okay, like I would really be interested in growing into a tree. I would really be interested in being thrown in the fire and having all this like beautiful color be sparked, you know. And so it's like, well, what does that mean for who I am today? And inform our life, because for me that's what the beauty of this death work is about. And you know, there's then the other side of it is yes, there are a lot of laws in the United States, but there's also a lot of misconceptions. And so a part of the workshop is, you know, really going into green burial and understanding it from the you know, physical logistics side, but then taking it that step further, which is where my like biggest and most exciting and joyful exploration is of this time, is the spiritual side of green burial as well, and what it means to actually like participate in that alchemical moment with the earth. So very excited to yeah, have everyone like weave our wisdom into our understanding of the earth's processes and the elements, both in in it well, in every realm that they exist, and how that's a part of our return. And the last thing is really for me, what my life has become is a life of offering. And so I see my life as an offering, I see how everything I do is an offering. And when I say what I mean by that is giving a part of my heart and spirit to creation and something bigger than myself and giving that gratitude back to creation. And so, in all the studies that I've learned, it's being in that practice of offerings of, you know, I make an offering of tobacco or song or my hair before I pick a flower. You know, every time I go to a body of water, I might sing it a song or something to give gratitude to this water, this beautiful clean water before I drink from it or swim in it. And so, like, even when I'm washing dishes, you know, it's like every single aspect of our life is an offering. And for me, that has been one of the biggest gifts to my life in being able to expand myself to seeing the beauty of everything around me all the time. And so, green burial for me, or just death in itself, is that offering. And so when I imagine myself bear, you know, being buried into the earth, it's like this is the final offering, this is the big one. My body is the offering. And what does that really mean? You know, because what's in my body? Like, if we know that water contains memory, then my waters are decomposing into the earth, then what memories do I want in my waters? Well, I'm hoping that it's full of love because I want that water to go back into the earth. And so once again, it's like, what is that practice of looking at our death to inform our life? And that's kind of, yeah, everything workshop's gonna be.

Elena Box

Gosh, I mean, this is the workshop it sounds like I also need, and I'm so pumped that I get to be there for it because I mean, what a beautiful way of looking at it. And there's so many avenues about this that as you just shared, I'm realizing I haven't even fully uncovered all of these layers. And so what a gift, what a joy! I'm so excited to to be your student and sit with you and also hold this beautiful space for everybody who's who's going to be there. And I know it's going to be really just an absolute epic, epic time that we'll be spending together. So, that being said, to wrap it up already, is there anything else you'd like to share? Anything upcoming that you would like our listener to listener to know about? And where can they find you?

Speaker

Yes. Well, obviously, upcoming is in two weeks, hit beyond the veil. I'm also offering a grief retreat in the fall in Woodstock in October. And yeah, we we didn't get too much into my offerings with grief, but that is well, we did essentially. I like to create ritual containers to process our

Upcoming Grief Retreat And Closing

Speaker

grief. And so that will be happening in October. There's a lot of things cooking up in my heart right now. So more to un more to unfold, and the way to find out about that is mostly through my Instagram, which is Leaves WithYou. And that's yeah, that's a good way to connect with me.

Elena Box

Beautiful. And our listener, you can check out everything is in the show notes. I have the link to her Instagram, her Substack, and her website. And of course, Beyond the Veil, which you're coming, right, listener? You're gonna be there. And if it's not you who's coming, listener, send this to somebody who you feel is going to resonate with this work because we have a couple more spots available for those who are ready to dive in and go beyond the veil. Yeah. All right, Shaina, thank you so much for coming on and chatting today. It's been such a joy. And to our listener, thank you so much for tuning in. This has been another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast.