The Cole Memo

In this episode, I speak to Abby Lutz – a Death Doula. We discuss human composting, how green burials are revolutionizing the funeral industry, and of course: the topic of death itself. Abby makes the case that these practices are changing the way we think about death and the environment.

I met Abby in an incubator that was hosted by Dennis from mycopreneur.com/.

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The auto-generated transcript is available below.

hello and welcome in this episode I’ll be speaking about a growing media that
I’ve never heard of before if you’re not sure what a growing Media or medium is
let me throw out a few examples soil paraly coconut choir so it’s it’s what
you grow in right and we’re all familiar with we’re all familiar with growing mediums I believe the growing medium
we’ll be talking about today is human remains this is the c memo I’m your host
Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format to
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best friend today is June 25th
2024 okay so Abby I met you I just got to give a shout out to I think somebody
we both know Dennis uh from the MCO printer podcast that’s how we ultimately got connected so shout out to Dennis
yeah for sure and uh Abby why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself well to
me and my audience since this is our first time chatting um I’m Abby um I’ve
been um nursing for like 18 years 20ish
with um like School included um I am also um a death Dua um which is probably
much more in my Wheelhouse in Lane now um and then I just sort
of like to learn about things and do things and explore like everything that
it is you know out there so follow interests hell yeah and I’m Googling it
right now death Doula is that somebody like guides you yeah it looks like it yeah yeah cool kind a good like frame of
reference is like a birthing Doula it’s sort of like the non-medical aspects
natural holistic spiritual whatever of birthing is kind of the same thing for the end of life
very cool that is a wow I bet that is quite the job because I
mean yeah I don’t know what frame of mind I’m going to be at the end of my life uh but to know that somebody like
you might be there to support support you know somebody like me that that’s crazy to think you know crazy good I
should clarify yeah yeah yeah like hopefully I mean it’ll it’ll catch on I did um hospice nursing for a little bit
and that was just sort of I thought that was going to be like my Niche and my my thing and and nursing and the sort of
the chasm between like what you know I would want my death to look like and
what we provide and like our medical you know establishment is it’s very wide so
yeah well it’s hting oh sorry what’ you say I it was just a big learning curve
there like it was really just like shine a light on how far we are from honestly
where we used to be you know yeah yeah yeah interesting I’ve never really
thought about that like so are you saying like what you mean by that is that like typically in our societies we
would have a figure like you’re describing and that maybe in the last like hundred years or so maybe that’s
kind of fell out of tradition yeah no it actually um really sort of like sort of
took like it’s solid Forum as it is today like the death industrial complex during
the um just because like you know like soldiers from the north are going to the South and they’re dying and like
the Protestant ethos of the time was that you had to see the dead body was you know you need to so they’re you know
carting their dead soldiers up and down you know on trains and the conductor’s like no no more rotting bodies on my
corpse so that’s when like EMB bombing came about um they actually used like Arsenic and sawdust predominantly like
back then which was okay but they just like kind of stuff the you know Center parts of the body that really rot
and then ship them off but then like after the war’s over all these people are like oh well I’m an embalmer now
this is what I do this is how I make my money so it was sort of that like shifting people into thinking that’s
what we need and that’s where sort of our fear of the dead body and fear of the dead and sort of this like the
capitalist model of death really sort of to form and you know like America’s like
the big you know the biggest like proponent of that but like for all of
time before that you know you had death was a community thing and you took care
of we took care care of our dead in our homes and it was generally women that you know did these things and waking the
body and cleansing the body and you know preparing it afterwards and you go back all the different cultures have different you know death rights and we
and atle knew how to care for our dead but now it’s become a service that we’re selling to you as if you didn’t already
know how to do this yeah and I was just about to ask you to kind of break down the death industrial complex but you
kind of just did there anything had though yeah yeah yeah so like I mean it’s now like we’re really just selling
our dead bodies back to each other like oh Grandpa died now he’s immediately unsafe so you got to call in all these
agencies and andal the body and then you have to stay away from it and keep it on ice and you know what I mean like you
have to put it in a $50,000 I mean that’s not always $50,000 but a super expensive steel you know whatever casket
and then put in the ground and it just sort of like factors out into
everything yeah and you know I’m not I don’t want to get I mean if you’d like to add to this I’m not saying you can’t
add to what I’m about to say I just realized that this what I’m about to say could be a podcast in and of itself so
maybe we keep it surface level but I really think that as humans we’re almost getting in the
way of our own deaths by throwing ourselves in caskets or
tombs and I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m not a huge believer in what
anybody has described as the afterlife however it’s not that I don’t believe
things wouldn’t go on if they could and what I mean by that is it’s widely acknowledged in science that energy is
neither created nor destroyed so like ideally if I died I’d just like fall in a field and i’ decompose there and I
guess what I’m saying is I would live on like other living beings would consume my energy because it’s not lost but I
would live on in a way that I don’t even know how to put into words
right now and I don’t even think we would really perceive it the same way because it would be so many different life forms living off of us but do you
get my not even high yet but do you get my kind of yeah no I totally get I mean and that probably is like a a whole I
could probably talk for days on end about that um but there’s a lot of I mean you look at the like ancient
Egyptian like their burial practices and they had all these certain things to continue for you know the afterlife and
so one of my like favorite like rituals is the Tibetan Sky burials yes um and
like please explain that before you um so like they’ll and it’s actually a
felony in this country so nobody go just do it do don’t do it yeah but yeah but
so like what the like the like in the Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies they’ll essentially they’ll take the
dead body and they’ll put it on a sacred land like on a sacred mountain and the ceremony is sort of watching like the
vultures and and you know Birds of Prey like like uh come down and and they they
eat the body so there’s a couple of pieces to that is one is it’s sort of honoring that like transfer of that
energy that transmutation and that return to the Earth from when you came but also and like sort of one of my
things that I love about it is if you’re watching that ceremony as you watch it your response
to that to watching those birds eat the you know eat your person or the or whatever that really shows your own um
sort of feelings about death which I think are super like that’s a super like all these people that want to be like
psychedelic guys or healers or whatever it’s being uncomfortable with someone
else’s discomfort and you know what I mean and that’s really your own discomfort about
it and so I think that like especially like as people are navigating you know all these highs and lows and valleys and
things you have to have a certain level of being able to just sit with their
discomfort and let them have their discomfort you know and not try to take it and really just shows how you’re
gonna show up for those times so yeah it’s super cool I think it’s super cool
I think we’re gonna have to podcast just about the afterlife sometimes oh yeah yeah I have studied like to study death
in and of itself and the afterlife is really a study of Consciousness um and expl exploring that and yes to me if if
you sort of Imagine or believe on any level if you know that Consciousness is
it remains it’s it’s an energy form and it remains unbroken then then this is the dream does that make sense like this
is not the reality if that’s where you’re going to spend you know more time all of eternity then this is the dream
and so you wake up for this so like I sort of you death more as like a graduation or a a return to you know to
wholeness or whatever then you know your death here yes it’s maybe the death of this physical body but then it
definitely goes you know that that energy that continues on and there’s a bunch of like the esoterics you know the
solar body and and the light body and like all these different things about trans and yeah I think the um like it’s
a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation practice called Power it’s like a death meditation and it’s essentially the
practice of transference and transferring your Consciousness and it’s sort of a tant like tantric kind of
thing where like it’s knowing when and how like to channel your energies and
when to like sort of transfer that Consciousness into like something other than this
physical existence yeah yeah dude it is really cool and uh
we’re I definitely going to have to podcast with you about that because it sounds like just me being high I was on
on to something that I didn’t even know was already established you know the the idea that the study of the afterlife is
the study of Consciousness because that’s kind of what I was saying I was like Consciousness continues but maybe not in a way that we can elaborate or
even dis you know describe at this point or even understand when we’re experiencing it you know right but I
mean I think there’s ways to sort of touch that like a I mean quite a lot of ways to see you just can get out of your
body for a while um and the more you do it the sort of more like and that’s sort
of the practice of meditation I think is is getting you know out of this physical
and recognizing that you are more than your physical body and just that sort of practice the more you do it and there’s
so many ways to get out of your body um that the more you do it you know the
more it just becomes sort of a known to you that this this is not you know a
finite existence yeah yeah well so for all
those reasons that’s why I had to invite you on if I could just cut to the chase
I heard some of what you were saying in Dennis’s uh incubator and if you recall
when you were done speaking I was like Abby I have to have you on the podcast to talk about that like I felt weird
about like jumping in but I was like I needed you to know that like I need to hear more of it and and let me just try
to recap of what I heard and then I want to give you the floor so that you can correct me cuz I’ll probably explain it a little bit wrong cuz not only am I
high now but I was high then um you were describing using human remains as as a
growing medium um that not necessarily so like what um kind of doing like two paths
with that so um and and like you and it kind of speaks to like the return you know to
the Earth from where you came and that like sort of like cycling of the energy some of the new um more eco-friendly
green body disposition options that are coming about are sort of amazing and
sort of like you know I’m you know doing the death Doula thing and then like got
kind of interested in like where you know the whole psychedelics thing was going and when I moved to Denver I put
up um when I got certified as a death Dua which I’ve been doing the work of that for 20 years but uh one of the
local funeral homes here kind of reached out and they do um human composting it’s
they call it like teration um they do in this particular one they do like water cremation green burials
and they also do like you know they work with other people and do fire cremations and stuff um but just so what what you
use with human composting is um Alfalfa and wood chips
and straw which if you you know watch fantastic fungi or something you’ll see
like those are like preferred fungal you know growing mediums and so then like
the sort of I was I really think if anybody hasn’t watched the midnight gospel 100% you should but I think that
was a lot of the Inception a couple year like maybe a year or so before I moved to Denver I would watch that and it’s
the last episode with his mom and she lays down on a you know bed and her you know she dies and then these mushrooms
spring up I was like Oh and it just kind of all those pieces came together um and then to sort of experience like the um
ancestral transmission of knowledge that sort of I think you know our energy and our Consciousness isn’t just you know
like our finite experiences here but even like in our DNA I think is included like the is encoded the entire history
of humans in the universe and everything and that’s really all just sort of
information which doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical thing but to grow
mushrooms with sort of the you know the composted remains of a person um I think
you will see like a a connection like a reconnection or that there was never a
lack of connection between you and your you know your person um and just sort of
like you’ll really really understand I think it connects you to see that this
is you know not the fin that existence we think it is um they don’t theyve
they’ve done testing and they say there’s actually know like human DNA in the compost but for me like I and I
probably choose to believe this but I I do I feel like it’s true is that the essence of the person I think can
continues on um in there uh and then the water pration um it’s like you get like
sort of two things from that but you get a liquid and it’s like like a liquid Essence and like the remains from one
person can fertilize a 600 Acre Farm for a year and so another like sort of piece
of this was I I was working in ICU and some of the nurses I’d work with TPM
it’s like total parental nutrition it’s IV nutrition for people who can’t take food you know do their GI track but they
would feed it to their plants you know their succulents especially and I was like hm like the same things that feed
us will nourish you know our plants and the fungal Kingdom and all these things and sort of putting all these pieces
together and the you know complex human composting teration it’s really a carbon
sequestration thing like it you return a thousand pounds of carbon to the Earth
for every person who’s composted which is huge it’s really the only like carbon
negative um like end of life disposition because it’s you know where
I think people get very like in the whole eco-friendly them they get kind of like we just need to eliminate carbon
but we’re carbon based life forms so it’s having the right relationship to it it’s returning it to the Earth that’s
important so that’s why I love you know human composting and the green burials the natural barriers just basically you
can put your you know be buried in an organic shroud or nothing or sort of we have like baskets made out of different
woods and you’re essentially just put into the ground and the whole process of that is kind of different too um because
you have like there when you don’t put the whole big you know Steel Basket in
you actually just bury people like four feet deep not six feet because that’s where the bacteria and stuff actually
lives in the soil to do do the de de composition so I there’s just so many
different reasons why it’s so amazing to do these things um and then I also want
to so I heard I was I don’t remember it was like a year ago or so but there’s like indigenous cultures that will put
and you know Hillbillies too they put seeds in their mouths before grow plants
and it’s kind of like a road mapap for you know that plant or whatever it is you’re growing to provide you with
optimal benefits and so that’s kind of why I’m thinking like Target your own
medicine use your own DNA like maybe you could grow some you know mushrooms with
your blood or a hair sample or something and then just sort of like really pour
some fire like ignite that like those healing mechanisms that are in there kind of like a um a do-it-yourself
crisper kind of thing like you know what I mean like Gene editing and whatever but not necessarily A you know a
lab so yeah that’s uh that’s pretty crazy um I I didn’t understand thank you
for clarifying one probably important part which is that maybe important to
some maybe not important to us uh but still a a point nonetheless that there
was apparently no DNA in the compost I didn’t real I figured it was just like
not yeah I I get the like soilent green have you might be too young for that but like the soilent green is made of people
like it’s not you’re not necessarily eating people and I mean if you get like
we fertilize our food with manure that’s for sure got stuff you know what I mean
and we’re I mean they build Farm they put farmland and buildings on top of
ancient burial sites that we have no idea so I think but there’s a lot of sort
of people get kind of grossed out by that idea like oh you’re gonna eat people but there’s not actually any
human DNA that remains in the compost but I do believe it carries that that
sort of energetic signature of that person yeah um and it’s only one of the
things I think you mentioned in the the incubator with uh Dennis uh from the the micro printer podcast another shout out
for him uh was that it’s only legal in certain States maybe these maybe certain
forms of uh what’ you call it different methods of burial or something there’s a
yeah so um the human composting specifically or teration it I think last
year was seven states and now like this year already five more states have
legalized I think Arizona Maryland I I know those are that have legalized it this year but uh like
Washington and Colorado or again those are some of the first this Le New York
um I think California but in Arizona now I think is super cool and to be clear
they just legalized these two forms of uh what are you even call like human
comp like teration is sort of like the term like the industry term for human composting and that’s what they have
sort of legalized in the funeral industry in the country is that that particular form I think green burials
are probably a lot more widely available but the thing is is the only state in
the country that you have to embal a body is Alabama and that’s only if you
want to transport the body across state lines so like as long as you yeah as long as you and that’s just if you’re
transporting the body across state lines so as long as you don’t die in Alabama you can already have be composted I um a
friend of mine that lives in Arizona I had them like talk to the funeral home and it’s actually cheaper to do um it’s
cheaper than most regular traditional funerals to do human composting and with
transportation to like transport your body to the facilities in the states where it’s legal and then you know return those
things it’s still more economical than a traditional burial and
stuff is which speaks to the capitalist model of death there’s yeah aside from like maybe like
they I think um the Catholic faith has a lot of like push back for it they think
it’s not respectful to the body um I respect that opinion but mine is very
different I think it’s of utmost respect to benefit the Earth upon your exit from
it um but that’s you know I think like logically there’s not really
reasons not to do these things it’s really just like your emotions about it or you know what your sort of program
thoughts about sure what end of life should be that are like the really the only reasons not to do it right I’m
curious uh just because you know I’ve seen it in the form of several different Industries like with the Cannabis
industry in Illinois they’ve lobbied against things like hom grow which you’d think like if weed’s legal shouldn’t you
be able to grow it at home home and if if weed’s legal and you’re licensed to sell it shouldn’t you be at the front of the line and and you know arguing for
those things I’ve seen it take form in different Industries though like with hemp now um there’s sort of like an
interest from the alcohol industry to keep things the way they are or to make certain carve outs for them um and I
guess what I’m asking is because this is an industry the funeral industry and do you like I’m just
curious since you’re kind of tapped in is there any like kind of L like what does that look like do you get
kind of want I’m asking first of all yeah no there’s actually trouble asking it there’s been um some of the stronger
push back to these Greener you know newer options have been from like the
grandfather funeral industry you know that’s developed over the last 100 years because it sort of takes away from that
but I look at like I saying like earlier today like if you look at all of these systems as organisms right and organisms
primary goal is to survive and in order to survive an organism needs a food source so in essence like whatever that
organism feeds off of which would be whatever keeps that industry going whatever feeds that industry is going to
be what it’s going to protect and what it’s going to need and so you can kind of strip away like a whole conspiracy
like dark Outlook you know like oh the shape-shifting reptilians are controlling this and say okay no like
the funeral industry just wants to survive so if we want to have the funeral industry surv survive but also
have these options available what can we feed what other alternative food source
can we give to this or find some cooperation instead of competition between these systems it’s kind of same
thing like our Health Care system is meant to keep you sick a dating app is meant to keep you swiping because that’s
what keeps those things going but definitely and it’s funny that you’re in Illinois I think it was a maybe a
senator from Illinois with the whole like eating people thing that she was there was like a senator or
congresswoman from I pretty sure Illinois who had like a huge thing about
that with the you know human composing it’s actually not um in Washington state
it’s legal to grow things for human consumption with human compost remains
um everywhere else it’s not they worry about heavy metals um but I think with
sort of the realization of all the poisons that are everywhere and just to keep yourself you know clean and healthy
as possible is probably the best way to do that I don’t think that will probably stay around forever um but it was and also in
Illinois I think there was I think there was a big push I think they sent a like ceas and assist letter to a death Dua
because they’re trying to make death duas in some places be like a certified
regulated Thing by like a central governing body yeah which will be entirely a money racket and a false of
security mhm um like having been in you know healthcare for 20 years pretty everybody I’ve worked with
has been you know licensed credentialed regulated and we still have people that
kill patients on purpose and do terrible things so I think we’ve like lost our
own sense of agency and discernment for other things and we let that go to you know those outside agencies and then we
think we need those things and that’s just that false sense of security is sometimes more dangerous than just
figuring things out for yourself I think yeah that’s interesting and um yeah I
just did a little bit of Googling and yeah I could I’m seeing different results of of uh human composting in
Illinois I’ll just say folks look it up yourself I’m not exactly sure where it stands today but I am seeing at least
this article and what’s funny is that since we were talking about cannabis it was a bill sponsored by state representative Kelly Cassidy she was the
lead sponsor on cannabis legalization so um as of this report it was narrowly
approved by the house but whether it passed the Senate and got signed into law I’m not sure yet so that’s what I
want you to look up folks uh but to your point look at this in Illinois the Catholic Church among others voiced its
opposition saying human composting does not afford enough dignity for the dead um us Catholic Bishops issued a
statement so yeah to your point sounds like that even happened in Illinois um and I guess what I what I
kind of to clarify where I was coming from I really appreciate how you approached that question and uh just to
kind of explain my side of it um because I I agree with you when you look at it
the way you described it where it’s like people are just going to protect their interests you’re absolutely right when I
kind of brought up the kind of conspiracy Aura the smoke if you will um what I was referring to is like you know
I’ve received and this is just in the case of Illinois like proof that some of these cannabis companies hired PR
companies to like purposefully spread misinformation
about these hemp products and that’s where I it’s like I wish they were
engaging like in good faith and saying like we just don’t want you to get a license but what they’re going to say is
oh the children and they like make things up so I was curious like is there anything like that from the funeral
industry where it’s like you know you have Catholic Bishops voicing their oppos opposition because they don’t think it affords enough dignity but are
there any like just like like look like misinformation like have you ever seen anything like that like I don’t mean to
make it about just that but I’m just curious there’s got to be some talking points that aren’t made in good faith on
these topics you know I mean I have seen um I think it was a site out of the UK um talking about
they were calling it teration also that just wasn’t really spoton with a lot of
the information and I sort of come at everything with a bit of like
skepticism now in the in the news and media like okay what’s what’s the real angle here like where is this and so
it’s just sort of circling back to that like your trusting yourself and your own discernment and being able to like you
know even think for yourself but yeah I think there’s been then there’s been
some misinformation I think that it’s sort of like it’s a very new thing um it’s a
very old thing honestly for us to return you know our bodies to the Earth and do these things but it’s a very new thing
to allow to be legal and it’s like a whole new sort of sector of the industry
so yeah I think as it gets bigger and bigger which I I really think it will um
I think there will be a lot more misinformation um I’ve actually
seen quite a few um death workers and death duas talking about you know human
composting and and these things that are really don’t have a lot of experience
with it and really don’t understand what it is and what it’s doing um a lot like I’ve talked to B like a bunch of people
I don’t remember who who if it was you or not but there were a couple of sort
of similar things that came out um like the whole like uh people were talking about being a tree and it was the
capsule of Mundy which was never actually a product and what it was is they wanted to put people in these pods
kind of like in a fetal position but they were is what the image was but it was actually fire cremation ashes and
that’s sort of one of my things is fire cremation ashes usually kill whatever you’re trying to grow with them because
they’re not ph balanced so you know like you know you have a funeral you have your ashes your person’s died and now
you want to you know have a you know memory tree you know Memorial tree for them well now your Memorial tree is
gonna die too you know what I mean because because we don’t sort of educate people so that was sort of like a not
and good F I think that was a good idea and their hearts were maybe in the right place but it wasn’t actually how things
work um I think um was so like one of the like I’ve used
a lot of the compost in house plants and things like that and another like the
moisture content and the contents of these things are very different so I had a couple of house plants get mold in
them you know what I mean with just compost which it it kind of looks like M mulch so you’re like what’s this going
to be um so I think that’s you know something that needs to be talked about
and that’s kind of where I’m coming friend with my thing is I want to like solidify and teach the process to where
if you do want to use these these mediums to grow you know cannabis or mushrooms or whatever it is do it where
you’re not wasting you know what I mean like your person because and it actually takes a very little bit like when you do
human composting you get like three wheelbarrow fulls or a truck bed full of
the compost so it’s a lot um and what we don’t you know what families don’t want
return you can actually donate to conservation burial land which is a whole another thing and also amazing um and then I’ve
also heard so just like exactly how to do it and so that you know it is done
with respect and intention and you know little bit of you know maybe ceremony and and gratitude um and then another
thing I heard people talk about mushroom suits all the time that actually wasn’t too much of a thing either I think it
was a good idea but they were basically doing like suits made like grown out of mycelium to then like grow stuff out of
that doesn’t tend to work so good either I don’t think that was actually a thing there’s one cool thing a guy in the
Netherlands that um I think I’ve mentioned this but they have like the loop living cocoons and that’s we’re not
gr mushrooms in it but it’s made the coffin itself is made from mycelium so
it like it’s the completely biodegrad in like 45 days or something like that
don’t quote me but that is pretty cool but there’s a lot of different things like
mushrooms are amazing and you know like the things that the melium can do and I
think that you know we just really really starting to scratch the surface on all these
things yeah well said yeah mushrooms really are amazing and I don’t I’m not just making a consumption joke I mean uh
we just some of the things we know about them and I’m looking to make sure that
folks can find this if you want to check out an epod episode people that are listening where I actually spoke to um
drct her name is Dr Carla Gage uh she’s an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University and one of the
conversations we talk about uh is how M mushrooms through their mycelial Network
can communicate with plants and like they can help each other like if if a
plant is low on like I’m just going to throw out things that probably don’t actually have any relevance here but
nitrogen and potassium then the mushrooms can be like yo we got you on that and vice versa you know if the
mushrooms are not doing great and the trees can can supply I I’ve heard that we’ve observed that so folks want to see
that just really quick the co memo.com guest index again the interview with Dr
Carla Gage is the one you’re going to want to check out folks but yeah thank you for bringing that up because
anything to add I guess because yeah I obviously went for the easy mushrooms are amazing joke but I underlined it
with what what I actually meant by that which is like some of the crazy things any other things to add I guess yeah I
mean it is like that’s so amazing like the real science like they are you know they are at the beginning at the end of
life they’re you know they’re there the things that don’t benefit us benefit them you know what I mean and so it’s
such a wonderful symbiotic relationship if we could you know really is like sort
of cultivate that relationship know I mean I think we could do some really
really cool things but yeah the science with it is amazing and when you get you know if you look at that they can you
know the the myum can you know communicate with the trees and the other plants and then also they make music and
if you really get into like they’re communicating with all these other things I would think it’d be a natural
you know progression of thought that they could communicate with us and do you know what I mean and there’s a
there’s a show oh was I think it was on the Netflix it’s like the future of like there are already doing studies with
like encoding information into DNA and plants and all these different things like a sort of storage of information so
it’s the future is like there’s so much crazy possibility if they start looking
at these things and I think just if we understand what int like our view of
intelligence and Consciousness both needs to shift because that that to me
that’s a conscious thing is you know that the fungal Kingdom and the celium
is helping the plants because they know they exist together and that’s that’s to me like the natural intelligence that we
need to sort of bring back and incorporate into our lives yeah yeah you got my mind going
like my celal network like all over the place because yeah it’s just like it’s
so crazy to think about one of the things I was thinking when you said like you know can they communicate with us
like obviously people can laugh at me for saying this but I just can’t help but wonder if like you know like me
communicating with you like some of the things you’ve said has made me feel a certain type of way maybe the same can
be said the other way and then I’m sure maybe even our listeners have had some aha moments so like th that’s the result
of just communication and I’m just saying that when I consume mushrooms sometimes I have a lot of aha moments I
feel certain types of ways um and I just can’t help but wonder is that
communication you know I like I don’t know if you ever like see Terence McKenna he’s G to be like you know
mushrooms are an an ancient technology a communication technology like I mean
it’s not these aren’t really new ideas we’re just recirculating them now and I
think yeah every I think it definitely is like a form of communication and it’s part of the mycelial network you know
what I mean I don’t let’s if you want to get into quantum physics in the non locality of it you don’t even have to be
like physically connected for those things to happen so yeah I think
it’s pretty much definitely for me a communication yeah well so I’m curious
real quick just a joke that I noted I thought it was funny I’ve never heard anybody say legalize it especially in
this context so we can move past that it’s just you know what I mean like uh
like usually legalize it is in the context of like drugs and I guess you know we’ve we
actually have a stat Lish the point that death is just it’s not the end of Consciousness necessarily so but I was
trying to make a silly joke in terms of like usually yeah when you think you’re like legalize it man you’re not like
like I don’t even know what the mood would be it would be like a solemn like Le I’m not even doing the prey thing but for some reason I am Legalize It you
know like it’s a dign it’s a dignified way to yeah anyways that joke didn’t
land I sometimes you know but yeah like I I I think but it’s kind of it’s kind
of crazy like these things it’s almost like death is being is is illegal for us
you know what I mean it’s as if our own exploring our own Consciousness is
illegal and I think sort of death is at the the core of that I think of um the
same reason you know there’s so much fear propagated with psychedelics it’s
the same reason they try to scare you away from watching a total solar eclipse which if you’ve never SE is absolutely
the most amazing that is the most psychedelic experience it
is so Consciousness shifting in and of itself just to witness a full total
solar eclipse in totality it’s amazing but death is the same way and they keep
us those fears of those things and fears of Shifting our perception keep us
compliant they keep us sort of death me it’s sort of what keeps you trapped in you know this Matrix and worrying about
all these like physical things and these physical problems that don’t really matter but it keeps that sort of it
keeps that organism going because we are essentially the battery for this entire
ecosystem you know the the the Matrix I guess if you will but yeah yeah oh yeah
I and I actually got the opportunity to see a solar uh complete solar eclipse this year uh and like I drove down to
like Kentucky or something for some reason I don’t know I well I say for some reason I wanted it was the only
place that I could find that was like aund like definitely no visibility
issues there was like a bunch of clouds that came in at the last second and I come to find out the place that I was
going to go to in Southern Illinois would have just been fine but I’m still glad I went to where I was cuz it was
the the skies were clear I was was actually in Missouri I remember that because I remember being like oh yeah
good weed is still legal because I was smoking while I was watching the eclipse and yeah you you hit it right on the
head it was one of the most psychedelic experience I’ve had without you know being on psychedelics per se so yeah
yeah no I was I was like hardcore just to experience that it you know Sober by
itself and it was amazing but it was I went to the Texas Eclipse festival and it was such a such an example of what
happened you’ve got I think there were like 40 or 50,000 people there and the day of the eclipse like weeks before
they’re like nobody travel there’s no driving you have to stay put on Eclipse day the morning of eclipse day they
canceled the entire Festival told everybody to leave some there’s going to be huge horrible things happening and to
vacate so everybody starts scrambling screaming they’re like packing up and trying to get out of there ruining like
like the festival was cancelled and they’re like gonna miss the I think tons of people missed it I was walking around
I was like you guys this is what they’re doing they’re controlling you through fear and nothing’s gonna happen just
chill out and we’ll have our own party here and watch the clip finally people did and just like I said nothing bad
happened it rained the next day but that is it like there was absolutely nothing
it was that sort of like governmental fear control tactic and it was just such a an amazing example of they’re like oh
we’re really afraid all these hippies are going to you know sit here and watch the eclipse together and some crazy
stuff is going to happen so yeah I could see myself being like like almost
getting lost in the shuffle and if like somebody like you was there was like bro bro just stay here the eclipse is still
gonna happen I’d be like good [ _ ] point like I’m just gonna stay right here like [ _ ] them yeah like like Clos
like kosie I think was like the sunset performer that day like that was but chlo’s not here but guess what like the
real reason we came here should have been if it wasn’t to witness this
amazing spectacle of nature this once in a lifetime thing which was four minutes
and 20 seconds long by the way which [ _ ] yeah yeah and I just laid there and it was the coolest thing like the girl I would ended up camping like the girls next to me I just go by myself so I didn’t know anybody but the girls next to me I had a couple of pouch couches and they already packed everything up I was like here go like so I threw them out a pouch couch and I sat on one and like we just laid there together these girls had bond with for a couple days the girl right beside me like as soon as totality started she starts bursting into tears she’s just like weeping and insane and I’m just like sitting there watching freaking plasma dance around the Moon with my naked eye and I was like this that’s probably I think like I’m already planning like possibly Iceland in 2026 and definitely Egypt in 2027 to go see more that’s probably the most addictive thing I’ve ever experienced is to see that yeah I could see how you could quickly become an eclipse Chaser After experiencing that oh my God no like since then like so that was an April and then like when the northern like with all the solar flares the northern lights are going all crazy so I was like Devil’s Tower with the northern lights so I went and did that and then I was like and then um I think two nights ago the full moon we had a lunar sand still which is sort of an optical illusion but like based on the like patterns of the Moon it appears that the moon doesn’t move and so it’s only 18 and a half years I mean I don’t it’s like nobody’s paying attention but like the cosmos are going nuts right now dud just so crazy well I think it’s unfortunate because like you know I don’t know that it’s a this is an interesting conversation here because I’ve seen a lot of cities start to um install the lights that what are they called dark sky lights so that they don’t pollute the so they don’t light pollute um I fortunately live in a very remote area but you know it’s like you think about these people that live in cities and like I love cities I’m not talking [ _ ]
about cities I’m just saying you’re missing out because of the light pollution if you come out and see the stars like sometimes it’s crazy I lived
in a city for a while um and you forget like there’s a whole
other world out there like they and it really I think helps with the perception of what’s going on when you when you
look up and not only see satellites stars and galaxies but occasionally a
Plane full of people flying over like who’s in that plane you know what are they doing right now where are they
going yeah I lived in Tucson for a while and I lived way out in the middle of the desert so there’s like nothing the skies
I mean you know all crazy stuff happens in the desert so like just to sit out there and watch the skies at night it’s
just it’s amazing and if you look you know like at the different constellations and the stories behind
the constellations the entirety of our human existence all our stories are also written in the stars you know what I
mean so if you go through that too and then there and you think about like
we’re changing like humans and human history is changing and also those stars are changing there’s new ones and they
burn out and it’s just sort of crazy it’s like almost like it’s our recorded history also so yeah I definitely
recommend stargazing yeah and the last thing I’ll say on this before I get us back to the
topic before we close out is uh you know I heard somebody describe it they went to like I think it was a a mountain in
Hawaii or something that you can go to where there’s like an observatory or something like that and you can see the
sky really well and the way they described it was almost like it looked like a windshield and then that’s when
they reminded themselves like we’re just on a [ __ ] rock shooting through space it basically is our windshield like yeah
it’s and when you think about it that way it’s like yeah it totally is our windshield
yeah I love that so much yeah well anyways uh one of the things you said
that I know that I can just Google but since you mentioned it I figure I might as well ask you what is a green bu bur
burial I can’t even say it uh I’m guessing it’s just another type of uh yeah burial thank you I don’t know why
yeah it’s basically where you just like you wouldn’t embalm the body because of the chemicals that that can put into the
Earth go you just bury them it’s it’s a little bit more shallow of a grave
because that’s where right the four feet instead of the six feet yeah four feet instead of the six feet and you just use
so like you kind of have your CH we have some they almost look like wicker baskets but they’re not exactly wicker
baskets but shaped like coffins that have you know Lids we have some that are just very shallow baskets on the bottom
and then you can also just be buried in a shroud um so and it’s kind of there’s a whole other level of like just like a
personal connection that happens like I’ve been able to help families lower
their person you know into the ground so it’s kind of kind of amazing and then
they get to like in those situations it’s not it’s it’s just a very different
experience than our traditional burials and our traditional funerals are it’s so much more personal and I think it’s I
think it’s absolutely beautiful when you watch someone’s son like physically put them into the ground or someone’s wife
put the first you know bits of you know dirt back over them it’s just a like
really moving experience so yeah but green burial is basically just not
embalming the body and putting organic biodegradable things with the body into
the ground in a more shallow way because it takes I think it takes about 50 years for our like regular caskets and stuff
to decompose right and this can happen in like two months you know if you do it
without no I’m sorry I didn’t mean to cut you off okay fine I was just gonna say is this legal in all states you said
um I’m not sure all states but I think and it’s and it’s kind of specific to so
like there will only be certain like cemeteries or burial plots that want to do it um just because of the different
like regulations and things I will say I mean if you want to bury grandma in your backyard that can also be an option um
in some places they just kind of you tell you know call I think the sheriff or somebody comes out with then they Mark the body with G on a with GPS on
the system so like if a dog you know or some kind of other Wildlife digs something up nobody’s going to get in
trouble for murder but just kind of let them know but that is possible in some places and there’s actually some tax
incentives to do that um that they don’t want you to know about so can talk about
those later but yeah there’s so many I think it just really all Wells down to
we have so many more options than we think we do yeah and I think that power
like that that freedom of choice is probably one of the most empowering
things you can when you realize that you really do have choices and you can really choose whatever you want you know
somehow I think that’s a big I think what I maybe mixed up thank you for clarifying though that yeah we’ll we’ll
have to Google that see if green burials are where they’re legal at and such but I think what I was mixing up is I didn’t
know what you said earlier uh which is that um you said Alabama or something
was the only state where it’s like required to uh to EMB if you’re taking
it out of state I I don’t know why but I was under the impression that like big what what it’s like you got big
Pharma do you call him big death like what the what do you call it anyways the the death industrial complex as you said
earlier I was under the impression for some reason that like everywhere it was required to get in balmed and I was like
that’s so messed up that that’s I don’t know where I heard that but that I was under that impression so I learned that um one of the like the Jewish like their
sort of Customs are to not embal a body so it’s not and it’s for Alabama it’s
only if you want to cross state lines that you’re actually required to do it so yeah and bombing is in my opinion in
no way shape or form necessary anywhere at any time just don’t die in Alabama
yeah don’t l i don’t hang out there I was gonna say you won’t find me dead in
Alabama so yeah anyways Um well hey uh I really enjoyed uh my time with you today
and I know that uh there’s much more we could have got into too so maybe that’s an opportunity to reconnect uh but I
just wanted to thank you for your time today yeah no thanks it was really fun yeah cool I was about to ask you did you
enjoy your time today so oh for sure I mean I can talk about death and Consciousness at nauseum like it’s is I
love it can I ask you that before you go if it’s if it’s something you could put in a bottle what got you fascinated in
this topic maybe that’s a good not no to end on um well I did have my own like near-death experience when I was like 19
um and I don’t think it really like solidified at the time and then I have just sort of and then like becoming a
nurse I wanted to be like the flight nurse and the trauma nurse that saved everybody and I did that um but then it
was like pointed out to me from other people like you’re really like with the end of life like really good with that
and I think just sort of I’ve explored pretty much any altered state of
consciousness that you can think of I’ve explored that whether advertently in
like whether it was on purpose or not so like I mean I’ve always been kind of I would have and I didn’t you know know
what was happening when I’m a kid or you know 10 years ago before you know Le
lucid dreaming and stuff was cool but I would you know I was lucid dreamer I would like spontaneously have like
astral Productions so like I study a bunch of that and just different you know all kinds of different things just
trying to figure out where we really are like are we just in this Meats suit cuz
this didn’t really always feel like home you know what I mean so yeah just sort of probably like the near-death
experience and experiencing all the different kinds of Altered States really just gives me like
sort of like a like just like a knowing like this is not this is not
it you know this is not all there is yeah well um yeah on that note uh I
keep having cheesy Segways but that’s not the all there is to this conversation I hope to sit back down
with you Abby um that one landed Cole that was good good deal good deal that hey all right I feel good closing out
this podcast now so thanks for chatting yeah thank you and I guess I usually ask
uh and I can make sure to add it to the show notes but do you like do you want people to connect with you online do you
have like a website or anything you want to plug or I mean I’m on LinkedIn all the time so like you can just find me on
there and then I’m working on as I get my materials and processes finished all
work on websites and things like that so yeah rock all right well folks I hope
you found as much value in this conversation as I did um we’ll see you on the next episode of the Cole memo
Abby take care bye Cole bye