The Door Between the Worlds: Grief, Myth & the Healing Journey

In this episode, we step into the liminal—where the visible and invisible meet, and where loss becomes a portal to something mysteriously alive.

We explore the story of Tess Lynch, a woman whose life is fractured by unimaginable grief when her husband and young son are taken in a sudden accident. A gifted shamanic healer, Tess has helped countless others navigate their pain. But when it comes to her own, the path forward feels impossible.

Set against the windswept backdrop of coastal Rhode Island, Tess's journey unfolds alongside Owen, a single father to an autistic child, and Olivia, a caregiver to her father with dementia. All three are walking with grief—some freshly raw, others silently enduring. Yet through each thread, the realm of spirit is never far.

Inspired by the Celtic mythic landscape and infused with the teachings of ancient wisdom, this novel—born from the heart and mind of Jane Burns, shamanic practitioner and teacher—invites us to reflect on how the seen and unseen collaborate in our healing.

Together, we explore how love endures beyond the veil, and how even in darkness, we are never truly alone.

Learn more about Jane's work at journeystothesoul.com

Transcript

Mary Louder, DO Well, welcome everybody to the Doctor Mary Louder podcast. I have a very special guest today, Jane Burns. Jane is, she's a shaman, and she wrote a wonderful book, a couple books, but the most recent one that she's written is called The Hungry Sea. And we're going to talk about this book and how it is, as a novel, it is ripe for our time, our culture, the things we need as humans, what our soul needs and how we can, really learn from this wonderful book, and have insight into our life and the life of our loved ones. So welcome, Jane, to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here.

Jane Burns Thank you so much, Mary. I'm glad I'm here, too.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. It was, I'm very excited to have you come on. Because when I started reading your book, I was just completely captured from the first page, and I found it a very complex book to read because of how the stories were written. But then the simplicity was in there too, and I just thought the facets of the topic we're going to talk about regarding this book and what the book goes into is absolutely, absolutely needed for our time. And so I'm not going to give I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag yet on this one. So but before we get to your book, if you could share with us a little bit about your journey as a shaman, how you even were attracted to that, how that or it attracted you, or what your journey was to get to where you are at this point.

Jane Burns I always answer this question a different way.

Mary Louder, DO Good, good.

Jane Burns I don't know what that means. I came in from many different directions. Yeah, certainly many different influences. You know, I grew up raised I was raised Catholic, and I was very fortunate to have two very, very devout parents, particularly my father. My father's commitment to his spiritual path was a huge, you know, huge had a huge impact on me. He was kind of one of those people that had a huge impact everywhere he went. But, he, you know, I lapsed away from that when I was a teenager. But, you know, my, my interest in spiritual matters really never went away. I just had at that point, I just had more questions than I had answers or a path or, you know, a direction. And then my father died when I was twenty six. And, you know, it was like the first major death, you know, that I had experienced. And I began to work my way through grief and begin to become familiar with that process, much as I really would rather not have. And what really grabbed me at that point in time was the question, where is he? You know, what happened to him is, is our is our relationship still ongoing? Do we still have a relationship or is that over? Because he's gone. And I remember the world in my relationship with the world was so impacted because it didn't have him in it. And it was a different place, you know, that I was now living in. And I was going through, you know, an adjustment with that. So that was raising questions, you know, in, in my mind as well. And I think around that time I started, you know, just this little thing that I would do just to kind of make myself feel better. I would talk to him like on the on my way home from work. I was living in New York City and walking home from work, and I would like just start talking to him. And sometimes I would hear him answer me and say something, you know? And I just thought, well, this is just a game I play, you know, to make myself feel better and to keep our relationship going. But he's really, you know, left the left the building. And then one day after, you know, maybe, I don't know, three to six months of this kind of, you know, this ongoing conversation, I Just kind of noticed this one day. I was like, he he's telling me things. What I'm hearing from him aren't things that I know. So they couldn't be coming from me. And so that was intriguing. And then after that, I really did believe, you know, that I was speaking to him and and it got me really interested in books on channeling. And, you know, I started reading about Edgar Cayce and reincarnation and all kinds of things, you know, just really couldn't get couldn't get enough of it, you know. And, you know, I mean, I've explored all kinds of things numerology, astrology, you know, tarot cards, you name it. You know, it was all very, very interesting to me to, to explore.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns And I kind of got really snagged in the whole reincarnation thing. That was fascinating to me. And did a lot of work in past life regression in my thirties and kind of went from there still, you know very much interested in, in spiritual matters, reading spiritual books but not really finding a firm path necessarily. I did a little bit of channeling. For a while I was doing medical, medical, intuitive stuff. And, at one point I, when I was channeling, I had this message that came through that said something like, you know, we have this great news. You know, you're going to have this huge experience, this great change that's going to happen in your life. And I was a little wary. And I saw I said, oh, like it's not going to disrupt like my marriage, my home, my children, you know. No, no, no, it's not, you know. And so I was like, oh, okay. And then this was maybe like three days later, I got a call from a test that I had had that I had cancer.

Mary Louder, DO Um.

Jane Burns And so I knew instantly. I mean, the first thing that came to my mind was this is what they were talking about. So it framed it very, very differently than how that experience is normally framed. And the second thing that happened that is very hard for me to totally explain why this was so important, but as I was sort of holding the phone and like, you know, the voice of this woman giving me this news was kind of still reverberating. I heard the squeal of the of the school bus brakes, and I turned and looked outside the dining room window behind me and saw my son, my nine, my then nine year old son stepping down from the bus. And it was like this tableau that just sort of hit me, and it almost was saying to me. this is an ordinary thing. Don't treat it as something extraordinary. And I tried to take that approach. And, and, and it helped me to discern my path through cancer. Because when the protocol that was handed to me by, you know, the surgeon and the oncologist, you know, when they delivered their protocol, I was like, no, that's too extreme. You know, it's going to disrupt my life too much. I'm not doing that. And I really felt very, very strongly, if I do that, it'll kill me. And I believe that to this day. And so I had surgery, but I did no chemo and I did no radiation. And I went on my way. And my family was like very supportive. My brothers and sisters, my mother and father had both passed by that time. And so it was an experience that then deepened what I was already doing and what I was already investigating it, because now I had a reason to go deep.

Mary Louder, DO Right?

Jane Burns One of the things I realized immediately was like the part of me that usually solves problems and does research and figures out what to do is not going to help me through this. You know, I'm going to have to go elsewhere. And, and that's really when I began to sort of journey. I mean, I wasn't journeying in the, in the traditional shamanic journey way. I was really doing it really more through meditation. And I was meditating with a spirit guide who then gave me my power animal. And it kind of went from there. And that was all part of my experience post cancer diagnosis. That was thirty years ago. So, you know, I mean, it keeps you open. See, because then even though the experience is kind of in the rear view mirror, it's not really in the rear view mirror because, you know, you, you know, I would find that every time I would, I would wake up at night and I would be like, oh, what if it comes back again and everything? I would also realize that, sort of happening at the same time was the fact that I had drifted away from my spiritual practice as soon as I came back to my spiritual practice. Things would even out, and I really it felt like a lifesaver. It felt like my rescue. And so but, you know, I mean, that was the gift of of the cancer, is that it? It really pushed me down the path that I needed to go on. Typically we say that kind of thing is, is, you know, a shamanic initiation.

Mary Louder, DO Right.

Jane Burns You know, and it it it brings you to death's door. I mean, I wasn't, you know, hanging, you know, um, you know, on life support or anything, but, but because it is a life death experience and because it, it threatens impending death, it it puts you on that threshold between life and death. And that has remained a fascination for me. Continuing on, I think it's a flavor of my work, and I do a lot of work with the dead and, you know, communicating with those who have passed over and ancestral work and so on and so forth. And so it's part of the reason why the subject of death also comes up in, in the book.

Mary Louder, DO Yes.

Jane Burns And the and the resulting grief that comes with that in the in the dark night of the soul, which was sort of my second shamanic initiation that I went through about thirteen years ago. And, and that's what made me want to write this book.

Mary Louder, DO Wow. That long ago.

Jane Burns Yeah. Because that was really what was so powerful, for me was that was that experience of dark night. It was miserable to go through and very, very disorienting because you completely lose your bearings and you lose every single thing that you ever relied on to get you out of whatever you were in. Yeah, you're really, really out to sea without without oars. And, and I wanted to write about that, and I wanted to examine different kinds of grief that people have. But, you know, I, I am really committed to story and storytelling. I've loved stories all my life. I've always felt that stories had much more impact on me than if I read a non-fiction book about something. You're using a different part of your brain. You're receiving it a different way. You're actually part of the story because, you know, when you're reading you, you step into the character's shoes. And in a way, the things that happen in the book are happening to you. And so it has much, much more impact. And so I felt that's what I wanted to do if I was going to write a book about death and grief and dark night, it was going to be a novel.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. Yes. I think that that's really good because, you know, the what's been in the current understanding, even up till somewhat now, is the five stages of grief, You know, and how really what's happening is that never was meant to be linear, never was meant to be, actual in terms of this is, you know, you could you could have a demarcation of what, you know, section. You're in what stage. And my personal experience with grief is that it's all happening at once, you know, on high volume. And you, you know, all of a sudden you're one, you feel like okay, this and then you feel that and then you feel and there's literally there are no boundaries and there is no there is no, I couldn't find the end of the grief or the depth of the grief. It seemed bottomless and it seemed endless.

Jane Burns and I, and I think it's meant to. It brings you to places that otherwise would not be investigated.

Mary Louder, DO Yes. That is. Yes.

Jane Burns That that is what I knew and recognized about this. You know, dark night of the soul that I went through, which, you know, after a while, you realize, oh, this isn't about the precipitating event that ended, you know, ended me here. That's just the horse it rode in on. I'm. I'm down here for very different reasons. You know, I'm. I'm plumbing the depths of my of my history. And I went, you know, way back into childhood and things that had happened to me that had been forgotten and needed to be resurrected and needed to be healed and worked on. And I wouldn't have ended up there.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. Otherwise, had it not been for the Dark night. Yeah, right. And it's interesting because people certainly choose to not do that.

Jane Burns Mhm.

Mary Louder, DO And it makes a very interesting split because that often occurs in families where some people, you know, approach it in the very depths that you're discussing grief and loss, and then sometimes they just it's just like another day.

Jane Burns What happens in marriages? Yes. How many marriages split after the loss of a child?

Mary Louder, DO Yes.

Jane Burns Because the parents are grieving in totally different ways. They can't relate to each other anymore. And they're angry at the other person because they're not processing it in the same way they are. And so they feel deserted. Twice. Deserted by the child and deserted by the spouse.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns So, um. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a fascinating journey, and it's it's really it's a universal journey.

Mary Louder, DO It is.

Jane Burns I feel very, very alone. And in many ways, you people avoid you because they don't want to get in there with you. And so it does feel very alone, but it's it's also it has this interesting universal quality. I remember at one stage and I had been, you know, in dark night for a while. I was there for probably five or more years. And, um, and I was I felt like I was, I was just sort of slogging through all this morass of, of, of grief and, you know, and I felt like, okay, I'm just I need to metabolize this. And I thought, you know, I don't even feel like all this is mine. It felt like collective grief. And so I think that's another thing that happens, is that you descend onto a level where all grief lives and any grief that hasn't been processed and metabolized and really needs to be. I mean, a lot of, people who study grief say that, you know, the reason why we have so many of the social problems that we have is unmetabolized grief.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm. Yeah.

Jane Burns You know, whether it's the, you know, drug problems or political problems or, you know, the problem with the medical system, whatever, you know, that it, it really has to do with this concerted effort to just, you know, push grief away, box it up, pretend it's not there, and just move on down the line, which never works. And the system all backs up, you know?

Mary Louder, DO Exactly.

Jane Burns But I remember feeling that very you know, I was like, this can't be all mine, you know, like. And I thought it just sort of amused by the idea that my helping spirits were like, well, she's down there anyway. I was like.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah, let's just give her a few extra things to do. Yeah. Yeah. Keep her metabolizing. All right, so let's go to the book. Because in the Hungry Sea, we have some very interesting characters. And, the character that starts right off on the one of the front pages is Declan. So could you read about our introduction to Declan? Sure. And, the excerpt that I've chosen and just. We'll go from there.

Jane Burns Okay. Declan. I left the world on a brilliant spring day. The light was so high that afternoon, the sky so fierce and blue. I wonder now if it was already calling to me as I gazed up into it through the window of the car. My father was not himself that day. I watched him as he drove, holding a private conversation with himself. I noticed how dark he looked against the light from the window. I was saying to him, dad, are you okay, dad? In my hand I was still clutching the action figure he had just purchased for me. My father was looking across the car to me, trying to formulate an answer. He kept looking and then it happened. My mother is a remarkable woman. A boy's love and innocence, you might say. But even now, even from this high perch, I still see her that way. I watch her as she wrestles under the stiff grip of her grief. I keep my quiet vigil, awaiting the arrival of the part of her that knows where I am and how she can find me. The old ones say this is what humans do when a death occurs. They look for the one who is responsible. Sometimes their gaze falls on others. Sometimes it falls on themselves. They become troubled by regret and anger, frustrated by the plodding movement of time as it marches steadily away from what once was. Sometimes everything they know about themselves has to be lost and swept away before they can see where they really are and who they really are. Death can do that, they say. It is meant to do that. Death is not a giving up, but more like a giving away. It's not an end, really, but a continuation. I am holding on to a hope that someday my mother will recognize this and no longer feel robbed of my unlived life. Death, for me, felt as ordinary as breathing. It did not feel complicated or unfair, and no more aberrant or unnatural than the instinct of birds to migrate that day. In the midst of that loud and splintering moment, as I looked around at my ongoing life, death was just the simple next breath, the next sublime lift off a deep and peaceful knowing settled within me. Come on, dad, I said. It's time for us to go.

Mary Louder, DO I think the thing that struck me in that opening dialogue, that opening scene, was how the that component is the heart of the book. What happens to Declan and the domino effect and the facets of that, the action figure, the dad, the fact that it was a car, the fact that how it happened and nobody knows why, and the fact that the mom had unresolved feelings towards her husband. And yet it was Declan in the middle of it who just goes, okay, like onto the next thing.

Jane Burns Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO That. Honestly totally undid me from page three and four for the rest of the book, and I couldn't wait to see how all the characters that came in, the facets, the depth, the things they struggled with, and what it revealed in their anguish that went beyond grief, and really finding where the how they even attempted to get to the bottom of it.

Jane Burns Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO And, you know, I lost both my parents within a four month period. One we my father, we knew my father was going to pass. He had an illness. My mother's was suddenly and without explanation. And then there were medical issues that they did, things she didn't actually provide permission for or informed consent. And as her daughter and as a physician. I had to navigate that. And that nearly took me out. And it took me five years to recover from that. So seeing a book like this and literally the unpacked boxes. Is your life literally on hold in so many places and spaces, and yet you didn't know how to put left foot in front of right foot on most days?

Jane Burns Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think she describes that to the character of the mother who's. Yes, yes, describes that very thing to her. A man who's becoming her friend. He comes to remodel her house. Yeah. And he almost can't stop himself. He sort of regrets asking the question, but he's like, how do you how do you do that? Like, how do you survive that? And she sort of describes that where she says, you know, something like, you know, it's, you know, I'm going through the motions, I'm taking clothes out of the dryer. I'm leaning over the dairy case at the, you know, at the at the grocery store, you know, and all of a sudden it like, hits me and it's like, what are you doing? Why aren't you running after him? Why aren't you saving him? Why aren't you rescuing him? Bringing him back? You know, it's like. But it's it's like you're being driven to do the impossible and you can't let it go. You know? You can't do it, but you can't let it go.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns So I mean Yeah, it. And it's. Grief is an amazing teacher. I mean, I you know, David White says grief is its own cure. And I think that that is extremely true. You have to get in there with both feet. You have to let it be what it's going to be. Tell you what it has to tell you, teach you what it has to teach you and accept it on its terms, which are harsh.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. It is.

Jane Burns And yet what you're going through is so ordinary, it feels extraordinary, but it's not. And I think that's one of the things, one of the contradictions that is fascinating to me about, about death is death is so natural and death is so ordinary. Yeah. It doesn't seem that way to us at all. No. And for someone going through it like Declan, he's. That's kind of what he's conveying. It was just the next breath. It was just the next moment, you know? And was as natural as the instinct of birds to migrate. You know, it's we're it's within us.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns That program, how to die. We've lost, I think a lot of in this culture, our connection to it. I mean, I think that the ancients were more in tune with that, you know, that that internal information of how to die and followed their instincts, intentionally followed their instincts to make a good death, as they said.

Mary Louder, DO Right.

Jane Burns And we've lost that. Yeah. Because our instinct now, what we're kind of told is to look the other way, to avoid it, to get through it as quickly as possible, as cleanly as possible, with his dry of an eye as we possibly can muster, you know, and we praise people for being stoic and for not grieving. Yeah, it's not the old way.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. And even just.

Jane Burns Wailing and keening.

Mary Louder, DO Yes. And just the concept of anti-aging, longevity defying death. Good luck with that. How's that working? You might as well defy gravity, right? It's just inevitable. It's a law of the universe.

Jane Burns Mhm.

Mary Louder, DO And people ask me often as a physician, you know. Are you good. And I go, well one hundred percent of my patients die. I said just eventually and hopefully not from anything I've done. But I'm saying, you know, I am not I have no, no sights on the fact that people are going to live forever. And it's the, you know, the idea of the quality, what a person's journey is, the choices they make, and how they reconcile themselves. And when you are in, you know, and I remember every hour with my mother every hour. And the things she said and the things she needed and the things she wanted, and literally I had to undo the system to get her her wishes.

Jane Burns Mhm.

Mary Louder, DO And knowing the system being trained in the system, in that facility, in that building in that city, in the same hospital I was born in, was not lost on me.

Jane Burns Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO What I was literally trying to help her achieve, getting her off the planet was the hardest thing I've ever done.

Jane Burns Well, it wasn't allowing you to be her daughter.

Mary Louder, DO Right.

Jane Burns It was forcing you into. I mean, yes, that's your that's your life path and that's your expertise. And it's good that you had that and that influence in your back pocket to help her, but it robs you of the experience of just being there as her daughter. Yeah. And just being there with your mother.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns And, you know, and that's unfortunate. I mean, I think that being at a deathbed is such a gift and such a sacred, sacred place and time, you know, and and, you know, I, I have clients who have said to me, how come I'm always the one who ends up at the deathbed? You know, like it's a privilege. You're there because you're you're meant to be there.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns You know, you you came in with that idea that this was a role that you wanted to play. And there are people who carry that archetype of the of the gatekeeper. You know, they're midwifing people either out of life into death or, you know, you know, into life or through tragedy or over the threshold of their life, through the many passages that, um, that are part of our, of our life process and whatever that is. It's a very powerful role to play, you know, where you're you are helping someone to navigate that.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm. Yeah. So when you, you know, the characters reflect the many faces of loss and the grief, the caregiving isolation, their identity shifted throughout the, the book as well. As you yourself as a shamanic practitioner, how do you hold space for that in that kind of complex healing. And what would you offer to someone walking through their own dark night who feels literally unmoored?

Jane Burns You know, I think that it's helpful for someone who is in that process to speak to someone who has been through that process, because I didn't encounter anybody when I was in mine, and no one seemed to understand where I was coming from and kept thinking, you know, like, oh, you know, you'll you'll get over this, you know, or they didn't know how to relate. And they were getting impatient with me because I couldn't seem to work my way out of where I was. And so I think that just to say to someone in some manner of speaking, I know where you are, and I know that you will get out. And I know that when you do get out, as hard as it is right now, it will be so rewarding. Just stay with it. Be alert. Be awake. You know. Face it head on. Because anything that you bury and skirt away, it's just going to rear its head somewhere else, you know? It's just, you know, as my mother would say, you know, get it and get it over with, you know?

Mary Louder, DO Right.

Jane Burns And, and that's, I think, the best policy. It's hard. It's really hard. But it's such a good teacher. I mean, I don't, I really don't. Having been through that, I don't regret it at all. If I had it to do over again, I'd be like, yep, sign me up. Sign me up for that. Because the rewards are incredible. Yeah. You garner the insight that you garner. Garner the increased power, sense of self.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns My work became so much deeper, so much more powerful, and I was able to to navigate that. I was able to handle it because it's like I had I had been in those waters. I swam in those waters.

Mary Louder, DO Right.

Jane Burns And so it's the other thing about, you know, as I said, it's I consider it another initiation in my, in my work. I, I'm not put off by anything that anybody brings me. I don't, I don't go like, oh my God, what am I going to do about this person. I don't feel that way.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns And it's not because I mean I think it's just. It's that I see these kinds of experiences as part of the collective human experience. And that's my territory. Right. And so I go oh here's another experience.

Mary Louder, DO Right.

Jane Burns You know let's let's unpack this and see what's in there where that fits in. And so if anything, it's made my work not only deeper, but more fascinating. Yeah, I'm fascinated by the human condition.

Mary Louder, DO Yes.

Jane Burns I just absolutely. It's it it just, I don't know. It's my passion.

Mary Louder, DO I think that really comes through in all the different characters that come through the book, because all of a sudden, we're deep into their flaws and their their triumphs. We're deep into the things that contrast them. And I thought, I thought, how did this was me thinking, how did she figure out how to write that? So, you know, and you put a challenge somewhat in the book, which I've accepted is why aren't there more shamanic practitioners writing books? You know, and and I'm like, okay, I, I accept that challenge. You know, in terms of a novel, I've never written a novel or never written anything? Or so explain. I mean, did you actually journey and then end up writing part of the book, or was it, you know, did it? How did it come through or did it? Was it just because you have English in your in writing, in your background for your degree? Yeah. Degrees. And so I mean you're, you're you're trained you're not a slouch.

Jane Burns Well you know I mean I've wanted to be a writer since I was like eight or nine years old. Yeah. The first time I was given the assignment in school to write something creative, you know, write like a little paragraph about something. I was like, I love this. Yeah, I'm doing this. And so, you know, I think that you have to love it. You have to have that passion about it. That's the one thing, you know, in school, what we learned was, you know, you figure out the plot and you figure out all the characters and you do character sketches of all of them, and you figure out what's going to happen in every chapter. Oh my God, don't do that. No.

Mary Louder, DO That's what stopped me. Frequently I'm like, oh, seriously? Oh, what are all these note cards?

Jane Burns You know what I like when I'm writing is I like to be to feel like I'm hearing the story for the first time. I'm the one who gets to hear it first. You know that I'm a listener more than I'm a writer. I'm just, like, taking dictation. And, I love that idea. It. You know, it's exciting to me, like, when a when a character, when I have to introduce a character, I just kind of like, go like, well, okay, who are you? What do you have to say? I just let them evolve on the page, right? And I don't sit there and go like, well, I need him to say this or I need him. I never do that because the characters themselves are wiser than I am. They know themselves more than I do.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns So, you know, and and then it's an interesting kind of thing because you, you then become sort of charmed by them, you know, and fascinated by them. And isn't that a better position for a writer to be in than to be in a position of knowing, like, I know who this person is. And I'm now going to explain to you, my audience, who this person is. It's not that way. When I write, I just and and characters always surprise me. I mean, when I write about, I write about the priest who is her birth father. She finds out, you know, three quarters of the way through the book or somewhere in there. That her birth father is a priest that her mother had a relationship with. And even though the parameters of that are not really they don't. You know, the book doesn't really go into, like, what really happened. The mother refuses to speak about it, and she's kind of like both the when she meets the priest, he knows who she is, she knows who he is. But they don't admit to one another that they know who the other is, and they proceed to have this conversation. And honestly, when she goes to the church where he's saying mass to meet him, I had no idea what he was going to be like. I thought he could be arrogant. I don't know, I just have to see who he's meant to be.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns And so he just comes out of the sacristy and and away we go. And he floored me. That character? Yeah. And in a, in an odd way, he kind of saves her.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns Not real directly or anything, but he, she's caught in her guilt because she feels that she should have kept a better eye on her husband. Her husband. The, the reason why there's a car accident is because her husband was drinking and he had a drinking problem. He had been dry for a while, and he had started drinking again. And she wasn't on the up and up. She wasn't looking for the signals and paying attention. So she feels like she was, you know, sleeping on the job. And it was, you know, she lost her boy as a result. So she has this terrible guilt. And the priest says to her, I'll take it. Yeah. Guilt. Guilt and I are old friends.

Mary Louder, DO You know, I was like, I was bawling.

Jane Burns And it's where you realize that he he had regrets. He had he had a dark night that he went through.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns You know, and, so, I mean, in answer to your question, I don't always know.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns I think that's the best way. You know, I have a loose idea, like, okay, I want, like, I knew I wanted an Olivia character. I didn't even I mean, when she when I had to write a chapter about her, I didn't even know. Like, where, where would where do I bring her in.

Mary Louder, DO Mhm.

Jane Burns Here she is at a, you know, care facility visiting her father who has advanced stages of Alzheimer's. I mean I did not know that before I started that chapter. So when you, when you approach the writing in that way, it surprises you in a wonderful way. It puts you in a different position. You know, you're just kind of steering it a little bit. Yeah, just kind of nudging it here and nudging it there and it just goes. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm sort of exaggerating. I'm making it sound like it just like flows. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily because sometimes it runs aground and you're like sort of like what?

Mary Louder, DO Did you get lost in the process because you've got like one part of a page about one person, another part of page about another person. You know, I found that because I had to kind of find my way back at the beginning a few times, like, okay, wait a minute, who's who here? You know, did you find that writing in when you were writing it or just you just kept flowing and. Well, it would be.

Jane Burns No. I mean, interestingly, Declan was not a character in the beginning.

Mary Louder, DO Oh. Okay.

Jane Burns And the Celtic stories that are in there now were not there in the beginning.

Mary Louder, DO Okay.

Jane Burns That idea came to me one, one day. I was I was actually teaching a writing workshop.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns And everybody went off to, to write. And so I thought, well, I guess I better go off right. Yeah. And so I was sitting there writing and I, and I just, I got just this idea. I was like, Declan needs to be in this book. Yeah. And and I knew I had already known that she told him these stories and that they would be referenced. But I didn't realize at that point that he would be a character, and he would retell the stories and that they would be counterpoint with what was going on.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns In, in in the book. Yeah. And, you know, it's it's a great use of the stories, which I love, the Celtic stories. Mhm. And I think it, it really highlights them in a way that puts them front and center, puts them right in modern day and makes them applicable to what's going on right now.

Mary Louder, DO Yes.

Jane Burns I think a lot of people read myths and they sort of feel like, oh, this is really ancient. And it's.

Mary Louder, DO Like fairy tales, you know, it's this was their.

Jane Burns Story, but it's so weird and like, you know, but they're so rich, in what they reveal about our humanness, our our failures, you know, our joys, our, you know, and and also what incredible creatures we are. Human beings.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. And and I could I have to say, I couldn't help but just kind of chuckle at Chase's parents because they just kind of bickered and did this and that. And I'm like, okay, here's the pedantic part. Yeah, get on with it, folks. I mean, it was just so everyday and ordinary and so exactly what happens and exactly how parents of that age and generation would act. It was just like, totally get this. It was like, oh, again, you know, I'm not talking to him. I'm how how did you get to, you know, and I have had parents show up on my doorstep uninvited in similar situations. I'm like, I'm like, get the fuck out of here. What are you doing in my house?

Jane Burns Yeah. So characters are. They're amusing. You know, you can't help but love Grant. He's. He's a bumbling fool, and yet you just feel for him. You're just. He's he's just such a sad sack in some ways. You know, he drives her crazy, you know, because he's sort of clinging to her and everything. And.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah.

Jane Burns I don't know. Anyway.

Mary Louder, DO Now, you know, so looking at some of the ways and things people that you've studied with in traditions it's, you know. So first of all, I fully am endorsing this book. People need to go buy this. So where can they get this book? Because it's a read for us for now, because we are in collective grief about so many issues and we need to pull up our bootstraps, and we need to face some things in order to go forward as a yeah, I'm going to say as a nature, a nation, as a culture, as a people, as humans, you know, in all so many levels. So I really think, you know, I think one of the things the book did was just open up so many areas that a person could explore at different times, and everybody will have been touched by some of some part of the characters in their in their life at any stage that they're in. There's something for everybody for sure. So where where can they get this?

Jane Burns Where can they, on Amazon? okay. And it's also on Barnes. Barnes and Noble.

Mary Louder, DO Okay. The Hungry Sea. So everybody go get this boom, see. There it is. Alright. And so I think that I think that that's just super, super important. I want to touch before we bring closure to this, a little bit about shamanic work and a couple of questions that people are going to have, because I just hear them rattling around in my own head. So is shamanism a religion?

Jane Burns No, I don't see it that way. I see it as a as a spiritual practice. I mean, religion has such baggage.

Mary Louder, DO It does. That's why I'm bringing, that's why the question.

Jane Burns You know, and and, you know, dogma hanging off of it and requirements, you know, you have to do this. You have to do that rules and, you know, commandments and all that kind of stuff. It's structured, it's inflexible. It generally doesn't change very much as time goes on. Religion. Shamanism is incredibly adaptable. It is, you know, considered to be by some, you know, one hundred thousand years old. And, it has adapted with the changing of humanity, the changing of history, of time, of place, of requirement. There's nothing that you can't do with shamanism. I always say that it's incredibly creative and adaptable. And because of that, I think that it it has the lack of that kind of tight boundary that religion seems to have. This is what it is. This is who we are. This is what we believe. And, you know, Shamanism doesn't require that, you know? I mean, I think that there are certain things about, you know, a belief in that everything has a soul and a belief in the interconnectedness of all things. It's a very animistic practice. but it also. I think invites into our lives. The other world, the spirit world in a way that, you know, and this is another thing about religion is that oftentimes in, in religions, even though, you know, supposedly this is a spiritual practice, there's always like someone standing in between, you know, you and the divine, shall we say. You know that you have to work through a priest. It's the priest who is accessing your forgiveness for your sins or, you know, your, you know, the host of your communion, you know, service or whatever. And, and that's not the case, with shamanism. It's, everyone is encouraged to develop their own relationship with it, their own relationship with their helping spirits that will guide them through life. Protect them, inform them, advise them, you know, share their their wisdom with, with you. And that's, why I don't think it it's exactly what I would call a religion and what we how we term religion.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. And the fact that if we, you know, conceive and think that it's been around for a hundred thousand years, it predates so many things.

Jane Burns Yes, it is the mother of all spiritual practices and all healing modalities.

Mary Louder, DO Right? And if we have different continents, we see different expressions of the same sense of belief, all called shamanism.

Jane Burns Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO Indigenous, Celtic, you know, etc. different types that just, core shamanism, you know, just different ways we've adapted even in our day and age, the practices and the teachings. I think at the core is, always a sense of connection to spirit and to self, a sense of integrity. You know, that you're in service to not only others, but a sense of a calling that you feel. And it it's not to be taken on ill advisedly or without consideration, because there are some rigors to it in a way of, you know, holding good boundaries and keeping integrity within working with folks, not getting in over your head, not practicing medicine without a license, you know, in a variety of things that that we see all the time in the name of, you know, spiritual healing and healing. Mhm. And anything that maligns others in order for you to lift yourself up as the healer, I would like run the other way as fast as I could, even if I was limping, you know.

Jane Burns So that's why I like the word practitioner and that's what I use. I don't use the word healer. Yeah, someone wants to call me that, or someone wants to call me a shaman. That's fine, but I'm not going to call myself that. I'm a shamanic practitioner. Yeah, I still feel like I'm learning. I learn something new every day.

Mary Louder, DO Yes.

Jane Burns And, and that's the way it should be. I don't put myself forward, you know, as like, oh, I, I got this down, I know everything. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it really is, shamanism is a way of life. It's not something that you that you do on a Sunday, you know, it's it's a way of seeing things. It's a way of being in the world. It's a way of relating not just to people, but to nature, to the land, you know, to your helping spirits. And, it's, you know, a living and breathing thing, which is the other reason why why I like it, you know. It feels the most natural to me of all the things that I've studied, you know, heavily studied numerology. And you know, past life regression. Medical intuitive. Spiritual counseling. I mean, I did lots and lots of different things, and I would get bored because I would come out the other side of it and I would sort of feel like, okay, I've been there, done that. You know what's next? And, you know, I kind of fell into shamanism, you know, almost thirty years ago. And I have not been bored yet. Far from it. I get more and more fascinated by it as time goes on. So, it seems to be the path for me.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah, well, I agree then, the word practitioner, because it's also the practice of medicine, you know, and I practice every day to gain more knowledge and insight and understanding. And, so that's exactly how I feel as well. So, yeah, it's a good thing. Well, thank you, Jane, for sharing some of your afternoon with us and with our listeners. It's been a pleasure to, hear and understand and be exposed to your new book and for folks to rush into grief. I mean, rush out and get it right away. And know that, I think the book can open up a lot of things that a person could explore in such a positive way, and even reassure them that what they're feeling is actually true and real. So thank you very much for being with us.

Jane Burns Thank you very much for inviting me and for your interest in my book. I totally, totally appreciate it.

Mary Louder, DO Yeah. Great. All right. Well, folks, it's time to rate and review the podcast, and you know how it goes. We want good rates and reviews so we can get more exposure. And if you don't feel you can give a good rate and review, then just ignore everything I'm saying. So we'll be back next time with some more guests and continuing on in, having good conversations. So thank you everybody for being with us today and have a great day.