Katina Jones on Embracing Grief, Spirituality, and End-of-Life Care

Katina Jones, known as the Purple Priestess, is a reverend with a deep love for the color purple, which she sees as a symbol of spirituality and healing. Everything changed after her mother passed away from ovarian cancer in 1988. At just 22, she had no guidebook on how to navigate such a loss. This left her searching for meaning and understanding.

To reconnect with her mother, she wrote a letter expressing her fear of not knowing where she had gone. That night, she had a vivid visitation dream—everything bathed in white except for the daiquiris they shared, just like on her 21st birthday. Though silent, the dream carried deep emotion, reassuring her that her mother was at peace. This experience shaped her belief in spiritual connections.

Years later, while working as a journalist, she attended a psychic fair and met Reverend Patricia, a psychic medium. That encounter deepened her journey into metaphysical studies. Over time, she received more signs, including dreams urging her to be present for those at the end of life. Despite the challenge of balancing work and raising children, she eventually trained as a hospice volunteer, dedicating over 100 hours to supporting patients and their families.

Last year, she launched the Purple Priestess, combining years of spiritual studies and personal experiences to help others navigate death and healing. Her mission is to be an advocate, guiding people through the process so they don’t have to face it alone. She believes everyone can honor their loved ones in their own way—whether through a dedicated space in their home, a simple remembrance rock, or personal rituals. There are no rules when it comes to grief and remembrance.

https://www.thepurplepriestess.com/

Lulu.com bookstore

https://www.foreverandaday.biz/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Katina: That night I had a beautiful visitation dream. We sat together and we had this entire conversation. Very deep, beautiful conversation, but it was all from the heart. There were no words exchanged. What she was telling me was, I'm in a safe place now and I feel good and I'm in my best form, so I don't want you to be unhappy.

[00:00:23] Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end-of-life coach here on my show. I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects.

[00:00:42] I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true. In this episode, Katina Jones joins the podcast to share her unexpected journey into spiritual work. After the death of her mother to ovarian cancer when she was just 22, she had no guidebook on how to navigate such profound loss, and she found herself searching for meaning and understanding.

[00:01:07] A powerful visitation dream brought her comfort, reassuring her that her mother was at peace. This experience led her to explore metaphysical studies and end-of-life care, shaping her path in ways she never anticipated. Now, through her business, The Purple Priestess, she combines spirituality and advocacy to help others navigate death and grief.

[00:01:28] Join us as we explore her transformative journey, the importance of honoring loved ones in personal ways, and how conversations about death can bring both healing and connection. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome Katina to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to hearing all about you.

[00:01:49] Can you just start us off though with a little bit of information, who you are, where you come from originally, anything like that that you want to 

[00:01:55] Katina: share with us? Hi, Jill. Thanks for inviting me to be on your show. I'm really pleased to be here. I'm Katina Jones and I'm a reverend. I have a nickname, the Purple Priestess, mainly because I like purple a lot.

[00:02:08] And it's a very spiritual color and it's very healing and it's really what I like to wear almost all the time. But on the side of how I got here and what I do, first of all, I came at this from a really strange standpoint because I was trained as a writer. I've been a journalist, I've been an advertising copywriter, I've done all kinds of video campaigns and things like that.

[00:02:35] At one point in my life when my kids were young, I got the calling to go to hospice and become a volunteer. And that happened a couple years after my mother had passed away. My mother passed away in 1988 from ovarian cancer, and it was a long two years. It was really a rough I know you know because you were a caregiver for your grandmother.

[00:02:56] It isn't an easy thing and when you're 22, 24 years old, that's how old I was at the time. There wasn't a handbook in the 80s for doing this. I didn't know what I was doing. We had put her on hospice and the first time she crashed, my dad called the ambulance and the hospital came. As soon as you do that, you get kicked off hospice.

[00:03:17] So I didn't know that they were going to put her through the things. that she eventually went through in her dying process. And I remember just how horrible it felt to be in that room after she had passed. They came out and told my aunt and I, we were standing outside. My dad had gone home. to get a break and we had to call him to come back in because her blood pressure was dropping.

[00:03:42] And I was young and I didn't understand the process. I had nobody to really guide me through it and tell me what to expect. I didn't even know she was dying at that moment until they came out and said, I'm sorry, she's passed away. And I was like, what? Then I went into the room and I remember my first instinct was to pound on her chest to make her breathe again.

[00:04:02] My second instinct was to stop breathing myself. I had to tell myself to breathe. It was a really weird sensation. It was very strange. And I remember after I finally calmed down a little bit and started to accept what was happening, I remember feeling her spirit kind of hovering over her body, about three feet over her body.

[00:04:23] No idea what that meant until way later in my metaphysical studies that that is what happens and she was still in the room and she was able to hear because they're able to hear for up to three hours after they pass. I remember turning to my aunt and saying, is that it? Is this it? This can't be it. This can't be all that I had with my mother, you know, it's just over in a second and, and gone forever.

[00:04:47] I mean, it just didn't seem right. I struggled for the first few days after her death, not knowing where she was for the first time in my life. I wrote her a letter. I said, I'm really struggling with this for the first time in my life. I have no idea where you are. And that's terrifying to me. And that night I had a beautiful visitation dream.

[00:05:08] Where we were, it was like my 21st birthday when we had gone out to have a daiquiri together. Everything was white in this dream except for the daiquiris. And we sat together and we had this entire conversation. Very deep, beautiful conversation. But it was all from the heart. There were no words exchanged.

[00:05:28] And I thought, Well, that was weird. I don't know how to explain that. At that time, I didn't know that was a real visitation. That's exactly what it was. But what she was telling me was, I'm in a safe place now, and I feel good, and I'm in my best form, so I don't want you to be unhappy. I just want you to be happy going forward, and I want you to know I'm always here, and we can always talk like this.

[00:05:53] You just have to believe that you can do that. A couple years later, I was a journalist, young journalist, working in Cincinnati at a newspaper, and I had to go to a psychic fair, and I met a woman there named Reverend Patricia. I had never met her from Indiana. She did psychometry, and I gave her my mother's wedding ring that I had a habit of wearing at that time, even though I wasn't married.

[00:06:14] She immediately connected with my mom and had messages. I went in there as a skeptic, but the first thing she said to me was, who's Helen? And that was my mom. I thought, well, that's a really good guess. Then she wanted me to talk to somebody named Janet. At first, I was very confused about that. I didn't know what that meant, but I later found out that was my birth mother.

[00:06:31] My mother wanted me to connect with my birth mother because she knew that would be healing. A couple years later, that actually happened. And at that moment, I was like, Oh, there's Janet. Wow. You know, so maybe this stuff's not a crack. But the Reverend Patricia told me at that time, she said, You're called to do this.

[00:06:47] You are called to be with people on this path. And I didn't believe that. But a few years later, I started having dreams and a lot more meditation experiences. Epiphanies. And then I started having the dreams that were the calling, that were saying, you are the person that we want at the foot of the bed.

[00:07:05] You are the person, we're calling you to do this kind of work. We need you to be strong. You've had a lot of initiations in the corporate world, you know, and everywhere else. And we want you to go to hospice. And when the universe puts these demands on you, or requests is the better word, they always want you to put up first.

[00:07:25] So they were saying, well, we need you to leave your job, do freelance work at home, and do this right now because you're needed, and we need you to be trained in this. But we want you to go to the hospice. Imagine telling my husband this. I had two little kids at home at that time. We later had four. So it was quite a thing to say.

[00:07:45] By the way, the universe wants me to leave and do this. I have to put up first by signing on to do the hospice work. But they're going to bring me business. And they did, you know, I mean, it came through. But the hospice calling was so special and wonderful. And it was such an incredible experience. Because I know you have hospice experience.

[00:08:06] You know what I'm talking about. You have the most real conversations with people. There's no time for the other stuff. It's the most refreshing thing in the world, in a way, because You're having a real conversation with a real human being about things that matter the most, like love, the care that they have for their family in the end, and what they want.

[00:08:27] And it's hard for them to articulate some of those things to their family, because their family is like, Oh, don't talk like that. You're not going to die. They'll say that up until minutes before, you know, we're not going to die. Don't worry. you know, we're all going to die. I got called to that, did the hospice volunteer work, and put in more than 100 hours.

[00:08:44] Then we adopted two kids from China that both had cleft palates, so I had to take time off to do their surgeries and help them grow up. And after everybody grew up and got out of the house, I had told the universe I promised I would come back. I promised I would circle back. So last year, I got the calling, okay, It's time.

[00:09:04] And so I started putting together the purple priestess and the offerings for that. In the meantime, I had so many metaphysical studies that I had amassed over the years and all of this body of knowledge from different experiences. And what I had found out was even though I had given up the hospice volunteer work, I was still a hospice volunteer.

[00:09:23] The whole world was my hospice. I would be sitting on a plane and somebody would sit next to me and be crying and say, I just lost somebody. And I'm like, yep, we were supposed to sit together, but that's just the way it is. And once they call you, they don't let you go. So that's really how I came to it.

[00:09:38] And over this past year, especially since March or April of last year, I really started going forward more with this and really putting the word out. It's a challenge because a lot of people. are afraid to talk about death. Being death positive is like, what? You like death? No, but we can be positive about it, about the experience of it, about the sacredness of it.

[00:10:00] Yeah. And it's as sacred as birth. Yes. And that's why we're duelists. You know, because we can be doulas on the way in, and doulas on the way out. And that's the beauty of it, I think. Yeah, definitely. 

[00:10:14] Jill: I love it. Do you call yourself a death doula now? What is your main title that you 

[00:10:19] Katina: associate with? My main title is grief alchemist.

[00:10:23] Because I spend a lot more time working on the grief aspect, I do grief release meditations in a salt cave. We do a lot of healing work that way, where we honor our grief, give it space. And put it up on an altar for a little bit and then bring it back down. I'm teaching people how to manage it that way because I think a lot of times people feel like it's out of control and that they don't have control over it and it just comes and goes.

[00:10:49] It's a roller coaster out of control. I try to teach them there mindfulness. That you can curate it, or you can take care of it and honor it because it is sacred and your tears are sacred. It's almost like making it into a devotional practice like the Buddhists do, and honoring everything that still is.

[00:11:09] When the Buddhists look at death, they see you everywhere. Now you're part of everything, everywhere, and that, I love that. Because, to see people as finite, and to see a spirit as finite, is to me an extreme disservice. We are so much more than our bodies, and what I love to say is our bodies are loners.

[00:11:31] This is a loner here. Every time something happens with my body, I'm like, that's okay, it's a loner. You know, it's a shell. And the thing that's inside it is eternal. And that's the thing that people need to be reminded of. And I love spooky season. This is my favorite time of year. But the thing I want to say about it is that I feel like we do an extreme disservice in our society, in our culture, because we make death scary.

[00:11:55] We make it like it's this horrible thing that's going to happen. And it's looming over you at all times. And it can be one of the most beautiful experiences. Spiritually, that you can ever have with a person, because first of all, there's no greater intimacy than that, than being at the door with them. And that's an honor to be there.

[00:12:15] There are things that you can do to continue the conversation. And I love to use that phrase in what I do with people, because I think continuing your conversations is the most important thing you can do in your grief healing, so that you can work through issues of the things that weren't said. You can heal things.

[00:12:33] My father and I had a very complicated relationship when he was alive on the Earth. He was a stoic Greek man. He didn't like to share his feelings too often. He found that very difficult. After he crossed over, the very first thing I heard from him was, he was so excited because he knew I could hear him.

[00:12:49] He told everybody over there that if anybody could hear him, it would be me. And I love that. I cracked up when I heard that because I was like, yeah, that's Very true. Over the years, we've had very deep conversations about his childhood, things he didn't tell me when he was alive that helped me to understand better where he was coming from and helped me to almost like put my arms around him and say, it's okay.

[00:13:13] You know, it's okay. I forgive you and I love you and I'm sorry that happened to you. Now I understand you and we're good. So, it's a good thing. The best part of this job is that I'm never alone. There's always somebody talking to me or somebody around or somebody riding shotgun in the car. The only time I really have alone time is when I'm sleeping or when I ask for it if I'm meditating and I say, okay, I'm creating a little boundary here.

[00:13:38] I need to have a little quiet time. They're very respectful of that. When they know you are called to this kind of work and have that frequency and it's on a lot, they will tune in and they'll always be on the radio station. That's also a wonderful thing because I, I give my daughter messages from her father who passed away last year, cause he loves to chat.

[00:13:59] We're good friends now, cause he's over there. He knows I can hear him. He showed me exactly how he went so that she wouldn't worry that it was. traumatic in any way. He, he told me how cool it was, what he saw and experienced, and that he didn't get it at first. It was almost like Google Earth. He kept going up higher.

[00:14:18] It was so interesting because he looked down. It was across the street from where he had been. He was sitting in a barn and he was having a cigar and a beer and he felt this cold rush up his arm and he felt like, well, that was weird. You know, I wonder if the beer did that. And then he thought he passed out.

[00:14:35] And then. He saw the creek across the street first. Then he started seeing more from higher and higher, and he said it was the most interesting and cool thing. At some point he realized when he was probably 10, 000 feet up that, oh wow, I might be dead. And it didn't hurt, and it wasn't traumatic at all.

[00:14:53] That was very important for his sister to hear, because she had a difficult time with it. It was a very sudden loss. People need to know those kinds of things if we can share them. People need to be educated more about death. I feel like that should be in high school. We should be having discussions about what it is.

[00:15:10] It's almost like we're afraid if we tell them we're going to become the travel agent for it. And we're going to want to do it. I don't think that's the way this works. I think It might deter some people from doing things that would bring about death. I feel like they would respect it more as a sacred and natural process.

[00:15:29] Too often we do things with humans that we wouldn't do with our pets. We don't want to have our pets going through all of their organs shutting down systematically, but in a hospital situation we're totally fine with that because we don't want the person to die even though they're going to die. So we inadvertently put them through these terrible processes.

[00:15:50] I think we're getting somewhat better about it. I think that people are starting to understand hospice, but it's taken, what, 50 years? 

[00:15:58] Jill: Hospice started in the 70s. Close to 50 

[00:16:00] Katina: years. Yeah. And to me, that's a crazy thing because I still have relatives. And people I know who have a level of ignorance about it and think that, you know, because they heard from somebody else that hospice gives you morphine and they make you die.

[00:16:16] It drives me crazy. I went through that with my aunt and it was unbelievable. Luckily we were able to keep her on the hospice program. But wow, it was a battle. It was a battle for a little while. It was because the other people involved didn't understand. I feel like what people need to know is that hospice eases that transition, but they educate you.

[00:16:38] They give you everything you need. They're terrific in support. I love hospice. Hospice hasn't figured out how to work with doulas yet. 

[00:16:48] Jill: I'd say that's accurate. In almost all cases, I've not met. Hospices and doulas anybody that's really been like, oh, yeah, we work together. It's not happening yet 

[00:16:57] Katina: We love what you do and we respect what you do, but our volunteers do that for free and i'm like yes But they do it at the times that they can do it Yeah, and they can sign up when they're available and it's all done in a different format than what we do, and it's regulated, and that means that there are, there's documentation, there's all kinds of levels of bureaucracy involved in it as well, and what we do is more on a pastoral level.

[00:17:26] That was one reason I definitely got ordained, because I thought, I want to make this commitment. 

[00:17:32] Jill: Yeah. 

[00:17:32] Katina: I knew that much of what I do is going to be on a spirit level. I'm more of a spirit doctor. I'm more of that person who comes in and says, I'm here to support you through this process and your family through this process.

[00:17:47] I'm here to answer any of the questions that you have about this or to talk about it or just to listen. I've been with atheists, Baptists, different belief systems. The beauty of that is I always learn something new, but it's also that you can meet people where they are and really have an effect and an impact the most important critical time of their life.

[00:18:12] Jill: No, it's so much of what you're saying. It's all stuff I find myself saying as well on a guest on somebody else's podcast or just out talking to people. That is. A sacred experience and the trauma and the fear and all the things that people experience can be lessened if we could prepare ourselves a little bit better, if we could all kind of get okay with the fact that death is a natural part of living.

[00:18:41] And not trying to extend life at all costs by doing all these extreme measures. I think it is getting better. I think it will get better. Partially because of people like us that show up. Definitely. We're doing this work. I know so many people think When I say that I'm okay with death or that I'm death positive, it doesn't mean that I want it to happen anytime soon for me or my husband or God forbid, my children.

[00:19:09] It just means that I understand it is a normal, natural part of a human's life cycle. Being okay with it does not mean that I'm going to bring it to me any faster. I'm not calling it in, you know, it's not a death No, it's not a death wish. We should be teaching children better about death, and about grief, and about the realities of it, and how to work with it.

[00:19:34] And we also need to teach most adults that though, I suppose. I think we do. Maybe some of those adults 

[00:19:39] Katina: need to start with the kids books first, so they can see it better at 36, 000 foot level. before they dive in more. Because I think we're still trapped in some of the old patterns. People think that there are seven stages of grief, you know, like Kubler Ross said, and that they come in order, and you go through one, then you go to the next, and it's like you pass through each one and get a certificate, right?

[00:20:02] It's not like that at all. They're shocked. and dismayed when they figure that out because they feel completely derailed. We have to teach people that there are different ways of looking at it. Maybe bring in things from other cultures. The Mexicans have that beautiful Day of the Dead ceremony. There's so many wonderful practices.

[00:20:19] The Greek Orthodox Church has the 40 day memorial to celebrate the release of the soul. That's a new one to me. I didn't know that. It's beautiful because up until that point, you're in the Bardo, you know, you're in that In between stage where you're adjusting and doing your life review or whatever you're doing in that stage, determining where you're going next, or what you're going to do next, or planning for the next adventure, right?

[00:20:42] And speaking of planning, that's another thing that I help people with because I feel like there are a lot of people who put off the planning piece and don't want to have anything written down or anything there. Oh, my kids will know what to do. No, they will not. And they will have to reach out to other people.

[00:20:59] You don't know who those people will be and how valid their thoughts might be. Might be just one of their buddies saying, man, you just do this and you do that. Or maybe somebody saying you have to spend a whole lot of money getting an advisor. It's kind of our job to look out for our kids in that respect and at least put down the parameters of what we would want.

[00:21:18] Like, in my case, I had a little fun with it because I said to my kids, and it's in my will, it's written in there, that after they take what they want from the house, That they must have a Katina Z. Jones end of life clearance sale. And it must say that. There must be a banner. And it'll be like my last garage sale in my honor, right?

[00:21:38] Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to make it a little bit fun and entertaining because I don't want it to be a drag. And I also have a playlist, you know. Hmm. So, uh, my favorite songs and stuff that I would like. And I think the funeral industry is going to be the thing that changes. things for us more because they are starting to get with the program that people want something different.

[00:22:01] They don't want this maudlin, Victorian, heavy black funeral where everybody's wearing black and they walk in and they're somber. I think more people are asking to do a celebration of life. 

[00:22:13] Jill: Yeah. 

[00:22:14] Katina: And they're calling it that, so they're learning the vernacular for it, which is great. I think that paradigm shift is going to be the thing that tips the scale for us as doulas, because as people seek to have different types of ceremonies, they seek different types of people to help them get there.

[00:22:31] And Maybe to do the ceremony. I'll be doing one next weekend that I'm really looking forward to. This is a woman who had a cancer surgery, you know, up on her skull. And she always wore these big bows. So there'll be bows at the tables, remembrance rocks with markers with sharpies. And it's going to be just a beautiful ceremony honoring everything that this woman was, but the simplicity and beauty of who she was.

[00:22:57] I'm going to be wearing a little sequined bow tie. 

[00:22:59] Jill: I love it. And the celebrations of life are, and I don't know if it's just a human thing, if it's the culture that we're in now, we're so focused on negative all the time. And that doesn't mean that we don't feel our grief, that we don't honor our grief and the sadness and the loss, right?

[00:23:16] Like we do need to do that. But then celebrating the person's life, celebrating the joy and the happiness that they brought to us, the fun things, you know, the bows and leaving behind the rocks and writing things on them. Those are things that we can have both. We should have both. You know, I think of the funerals that I've always gone to growing up.

[00:23:38] There's not a lot of necessarily joy behind them. And in a lot of cases now, they're almost just kind of like big party in a way where we get to see people we don't see anymore. Right? Like, we joked a little bit about how For a while, we would only see family at weddings. Now we're only seeing family at funerals because most of us are already married or our kids are too young to be getting married.

[00:24:01] So now we're on to the funeral phase where that's the only time we see each other is at funerals. So like, you go to the funeral and then you catch up with family and then we all say we should get together and then 

[00:24:11] Katina: we never 

[00:24:11] Jill: do. 

[00:24:11] Katina: I grew up in a Greek family and in the Greek church. Everybody would be screaming and crying and there'd be histrionics and all that going on when I was younger with my grandparents.

[00:24:21] But then later it started to get to be a little more, but it still was, you know, they have a great big luncheon. It's like a festival in a way because there's all this stuff that goes with it. I found that the hardest time is probably for the families about 10 to 15 days after the funeral. And that's when it gets quiet, they have time alone with their thoughts, and that's when the grief really starts to come in.

[00:24:47] Because everybody who was helping is gone, all the food train stuff is gone. So all of a sudden you are faced with this, and now you have to deal with it. And a lot of times that's the loneliest. And that's when people need our services, at least with grief coaching. They need that the most at that point because they need to know what is the direction, what is the plan, how do I get through this?

[00:25:11] And we are getting better about that. There are a lot more books on grief than there used to be. And that's really hopeful. And there's more books on Alua Arthur's book about being a doula. Beautiful book. So, I think it's coming. I think we're on the cusp of it. And as we get to aging a little bit more, and our kids become young adults who have to think about this, as we age and transition, I do think there'll be a lot of call for doing different types of things.

[00:25:41] They don't want all of that. Modeling stuff. They don't want the Victorian method. Speaking of Victorians, they used to lay somebody out literally on the living room table and bring people into the parlor, you know, and do this in the home and prepare the body in the home even. We are seeing a lot more green burials and a lot more home funerals.

[00:26:02] It's starting to come up. Yeah. And I think that's a good thing. When you go to a funeral home after somebody's passed, they talk to you sensitively at first, collect all the information. Then all of a sudden they open the showroom and it's like, you're going to buy a brand new car, you know, and they show you a 10, 000 casket and you just kind of go, is that really what this person would have wanted?

[00:26:21] But you're in a vulnerable spot. So, having an advocate with you in that moment can also be helpful. Having somebody to say, you know, that's not exactly what this person was about. Spend more on the celebration of life and the people that are going to be there. Giving them options, giving them different ways of looking at things and saying, you know, there isn't just one way to do this anymore.

[00:26:43] You have the freedom to write it yourself, create it yourself. I know people who have written their own obituaries. I don't think I would go that far, even though I'm a writer. Although I do have preferences of things I would like said, but they can get that off the resume, I guess. One of my favorite things to do really is I do tea and solace chats, Zoom chats with clients who are going through.

[00:27:05] So what we do is we make ourselves a cup of tea and we sit together on Zoom, just like this. And we just talk. For an hour about what's going on, checking in, how is, how is the grief going? How is the process going if it's a doula client? This time it's just for the caregiver or the person in recovery from grief.

[00:27:25] Anything that comes up we address and try to create a plan. How can we look at this differently? Where is the transformation in this piece? Where is the growth? possibility. Looking for those little gems in the process can go a long way toward helping people heal. It's our job to look through everything and find those glimmers of hope for them.

[00:27:46] Jill: Oh, I love that. And I love to work with people around grief as well. And I didn't expect it. It wasn't, you know, when I did my death rule of training, I did not expect that so much grief would come my way as far as opportunities to work with people and how much I would actually really enjoy working in that space.

[00:28:08] It's a beautiful space to be with people and to, like you mentioned earlier, you know, that's the thing. I've always been one of those people. I don't like gossip. I don't like chit chat. I don't like Sitting around talking. I'll talk politics because you kind of have to sometimes but like I don't like sitting around talking about tv shows.

[00:28:28] I don't even watch tv. I always felt out of place when I would go out with people because I didn't want to talk about anything that they wanted to talk about. 

[00:28:38] Katina: I don't want to watch Who Wants to Marry My Stepmother or anything like that. And with people who are going through this process, you have the most real conversations about things.

[00:28:47] There's just no BS. It's so wonderful and beautiful to have a conversation heart to heart with somebody like that and really be down in the trenches of it, but also still find the humor in some things. Be able to laugh at a few things and just relief some, you know, the relief that they need, the comic relief, I guess.

[00:29:06] You know, I'm pretty good at providing that too. I think it's important. It's such a heavy discussion, you know, the whole death thing, but it also is so beautiful because we get as much out of it as they do. When I'm done talking to somebody with the tea and solas, we hang up and I'm like, thank you. You know, I have such gratitude for that conversation because it helps me to be a better human.

[00:29:32] It really does. Yeah. 

[00:29:35] Jill: Yeah, it has changed my life and the way that I show up in the world doing this work. And it has given me the opportunity to connect on such an intimate level with so many people that I would not have had this opportunity for. And I know sometimes people are like, Oh, but isn't it sad?

[00:29:54] Oh yeah, sometimes it is sad, but I've learned there was times in my life when I did avoid sadness. Right? Again, I think we're taught to avoid big emotions. We're taught to avoid this. Exactly. We don't go there. But male, I'm like, what's wrong with being sad? What's wrong with feeling some sadness? We can't feel joy if we don't feel sadness.

[00:30:18] Sometimes when I'm talking with people, if they share a story, especially if somebody's had a child die, a little difficult, right? There's times when I talk with somebody, they've had a child die. I will feel Extreme sadness at that, but that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. Feeling that sadness is not gonna make it happen to my children any more than avoiding it is gonna keep my children safe.

[00:30:41] I like to be able to show up in this space and just connect with people and talk to people and get to know people on such a deep, intimate level that I don't tend to find. When I'm just out. But of course now I wear my t shirts, right? Yes. As you said, it is hard to make a living at this right now. Well, it's a challenge.

[00:31:04] You've got to do other things too. Correct. You have to do other things too. And so I've been trying, I have lots of different work that I do part time. One of the things that I've been trying to do, this actually also allows me to, I used to be a pastry chef. That's my career that I'm leaving behind. I used to love to decorate cakes.

[00:31:21] I was really good at it. It brings out a lot of artistic stuff. And so I kind of designed my shirts like I would a cake, which has been a lot of fun. And so now I wear shirts that when I go out into public, it starts conversations with people. Cause like you said, sometimes people just will gravitate to me anyway.

[00:31:41] All of a sudden I'm having a conversation and they start to tell me things. I'm like, Oh, well. Lucky for you. I'm a death doula. This is my guard. Exactly. This is what I do anyway. But having a shirt on encourages people to come up to me now and talk to me about something that is, it's just more real. It's more real.

[00:32:02] I feel a deeper connection to people. I feel less. Avoidance where a lot of times I just don't want to be sucked into drama or like the worst ones to me is when you go somewhere and it's a bunch of couples that then it's like the men go one way, the women go the other way. And then the women just want to complain about their husbands.

[00:32:22] I am not here for that. I'm not here for that. I just, not my thing. So now I'm like, you want to talk about dad? Yeah, 

[00:32:30] Katina: let's talk about dad. Because you have cool stories to share. Some of the experiences that we've had. You know, I know you've had these because you can't not have them when you're doing this work.

[00:32:40] It's amazing when you tell people these stories and it can change their life just to hear that one story because maybe they were terrified their whole life about death and you just changed something and flipped it on its head and they were like, I never thought of it that way. This is pretty interesting.

[00:32:56] And so then they're less afraid and they're less afraid for their relatives that are going through that. Yes. And I have my purple priestess magnets and my logo and stuff. So I see like these people, I love it when I see like these construction guys looking at my car trying to figure out what the hell I do.

[00:33:13] You know? They'll ask me, they'll turn to me and they'll be like, what is that? And they go, I don't know. That's really cool. You know, it is interesting. And there are people who do want to have that conversation. They just aren't sure how to have it. And so that's why I think the death cafes are a great idea.

[00:33:29] I can't do one here in the mountains because it's hard to get people to come from different areas of the mountains to a library to talk about death. You know, I almost have to do that virtually, I think. And I'm looking at doing that more that way. Now that you mentioned those t shirts, I was thinking about, I have a bunch of t shirts, like I have one I just got from Five Below that's got the Glam Reaper on it.

[00:33:50] I wear that sometimes. But you gotta have a little bit of cheekiness about it to get the attention to start the conversation. 

[00:33:56] Jill: And people are looking for, and I think they don't know that people are out there willing to have the conversation. They need to know it's okay. Exactly, they need to know it's okay, and best compliment that I've gotten.

[00:34:09] I do classes for my local library, I do classes like in the community, and the best compliment that I've gotten from podcast guests. Or podcasts that I've been on, or people that have come to my classes, is when somebody says that the way that I talk about death, talking to me about death, is It's easy, I make it gentle, I make it easy, it's not heavy, it's not overwhelming, it's not sad, it's not depressing, it's just a normal conversation about something that when people try to have the conversation, it gets shut down.

[00:34:42] Oh, I don't want to talk about that. Oh, that's depressing. Oh, that's morbid. Oh, we don't need to worry about that now. And so afraid to talk to people about it. And then there's people like us that show up and they're like, let's talk about it. Let's talk about that, 

[00:34:55] Katina: you know, right? Yes. But we're ambassadors.

[00:34:59] We're not travel agents. We're ambassadors. You know, what we're trying to do is be advocates for people so that they better understand the process and aren't afraid of it. They're not alone because they have us, but they're also not alone because they still have the spirits of those people. Some beliefs don't support that.

[00:35:17] They say when it's over, it's over. And I say, okay, if that's the way you need it to be, that's fine. Find other ways to remember them and honor them in your house. You know, make a little space. That is just that corner for that person. Or it can be a very small thing. Even the remembrance rock, you can just have one of those if that's all you want.

[00:35:35] It doesn't matter. There are no rules. You make the rules. I think that's the best part. For decades, well actually centuries, we've been told there's only one or two or three ways to do this. And you must follow the ritual, and you must do this, and you must do that. You don't have to do that. If you're devoutly religious and that means something to you, then you do that.

[00:35:54] And if it meant something to that person, you honor that. But there are also ways to weave in elements of normalness and reality and, humanity and just the everyday stuff. I think that's what's great about it. I tell my kids all the time, I'll tell them, you know what, I updated my will and I want this in there and I want to tell you about this.

[00:36:12] And they're like, okay, mom, thanks. Good morning. Whose mother does this? 

[00:36:17] Jill: And my kids too. It's so normal to talk about death and dying in our house. That it's just normal for them, and I think it's important, but of course then there are also the weirdos that go to school. It's like, let's talk about this thing, and all the kids are like, oh gosh, I don't want to talk about it.

[00:36:34] I know, like, oh 

[00:36:35] Katina: no, 

[00:36:36] Jill: we're afraid. We are almost out of time. Can you just tell us if people want to reach you, if they want to work with you, what's the best places to find you? 

[00:36:46] Katina: Probably thepurplepriestess. com is the best place to find me. That's my website. I have everything on there that I do, and It's probably the best way to find me.

[00:36:58] I do readings at a metaphysical store called Forever in a Day. I also do metaphysical readings for people over Zoom and phone. If they want to book a session, they can go there to foreverinaday. biz. But other than that I look forward to continuing this work and I love partnering with people like you. I love that we have this community of people that have been called to this because it's a very sacred and unique calling.

[00:37:24] It's not the easiest thing in the world. And I just wanted to add too, I signed up for the master's degree in social work so that I could maybe even go into palliative care. I'm one of those people. It's never too late. I'm 60. I just turned 60 in July and I'm a grad student again. 

[00:37:41] Jill: That's amazing. I work with a lot of palliative care social workers when I volunteer two different hospitals in New Jersey.

[00:37:48] So I work closely with palliative care social workers and they're amazing. They're great. Amazing. Amazing. So I aspire to be one. Well, you're doing the steps you need to take to get there, which is wonderful. Thank you. 

[00:37:59] Katina: Thank you for your work. I love your beautiful apparel and all your offerings. I'm very impressed with what you're doing and I hope we stay in touch.

[00:38:07] Jill: Yeah. And I'll put all your links in the show notes too, so people can easily find you. Awesome. But I appreciate you taking the time today. This was beautiful. Thank you. Bye. In my next episode, Jessica Fine shares her deeply personal journey through loss, grief, and resilience. Having lost two sisters, and most recently her teenage daughter Dahlia, who passed away one week after her 17th birthday, Jessica's life has been profoundly shaped by death.

[00:38:36] She highlights the often overlooked grief of siblings, who not only lose a lifelong companion, but also witness their parents suffering, often feeling invisible in their own pain. Jessica also explores the concept of ambiguous grief. Shaped by Dahlia's degenerative illness and how it redefined their family's experience of loss over time.

[00:38:57] She discusses the strain grief places on relationships and the different ways she and her husband process their sorrow. This powerful conversation offers deep insights into the complexities of grief. and how we can better show up for those mourning in different ways. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting.

[00:39:18] Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show.

[00:39:34] Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free. Whether your donation is large or small, every amount is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can. You can find a link in the show notes. To subscribe to the paid monthly subscription as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one time contribution.

[00:39:55] Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of seeing death clearly.