You’re Going to Die: The Podcast

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Dr. Aditi Sethi, hospice & palliative care physician, end-of-life doula, & musician, talking about her work as Founder & Executive Director of the Center for Conscious Living & Dying, the dying of Ethan Sisser captured in the documentary The Last Ecstatic Days, & how Aditi’s life journey has led to her work & being in the world. ad...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with singer-songwriter Adrienne Shamszad, crying & laughing their way through a conversation about living a life worth dying for, music as a way forward in the darkness of mental health struggles & existential crises, & honoring our ancestral lineage in song. adrienne’s website: https://adrienneshamszad.com/ ig: https://www.instagram.com/aidishams/...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with New York Times best-selling illustrator & graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton, talking about her book “How to Say Goodbye: The Wisdom of Hospice Caregivers,” combining drawings from her artist’s residency inside The Zen Hospice Project Guest House, with words of hospice caregivers she interviewed, including a list of The Five Things to help us say go...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with return guests & friends BJ Miller & Ladybird Morgan, talking about their work in the world, together with Mettle Health, & Mettle Health’s Annual Convening happening in Nevada City, CA on August, 17th 2023, an event meant for everyone who will be touched by the subject of aging, illness, death, & grief... mettle health annual convening’s w...

Join host Ned Buskirk, in conversation with Alua Arthur - Death Doula, Ordained Minister, Recovering Lawyer, Perpetual Seeker of Nothing to be Found & Founder of Going with Grace - while they talk about death activism, the touchstone of nihilism, & being in the question marks of dying. This interview originally aired February 4th, 2021. alua arthur’s ig: https://www.instagram.com/going_wit...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Laura Sullivan Cassidy, writer/editor, creative consultant/coach, artist/experience maker, & grief/death/funeral care worker, talking about the personal experience of death when your profession is deathwork, using “Griefmapping” for navigating loss, & our necessary responsibility more than ever for community care with grief/death/dying. laura sull...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Mara June of MOTHERWORT + ROSE, educator, facilitator, community weaver, writer, caregiver, death doula, & community herbalist, talking about the value of approaching death before we’re in the midst of it, their work with our herbal allies, especially MOTHERWORT + ROSE, & how important it is to remember death, like birth, is not meant for any of u...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with psychotherapist, writer, & soul activist Francis Weller, talking about the saturation of sorrow we’re faced with in these times - the Long Dark - & how we might trust, befriend, & accompany our grief with slow encounters, to return with medicine for our community, as we more wholly & fully re-enter LIFE.   francis weller’s website: https:/...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with the Venerable Robina Courtin, a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelugpa tradition & lineage of Lama Thubten Yeshe & Lama Zopa Rinpoche, talking about one of Buddhism’s first truths, death & impermanence, & the life-deepening lessons from our incarcerated community. ven. robina courtin’s website: https://robinacourtin.com/ ig: https://...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with poet & activist Andrea Gibson, in laughter & tears on the chemo-brain railroad, talking about the record skipping parts of our lives’, the poetry of cancer, chronic disease, & panic attacks, & what it means to consider what’s available when faced with the hardest parts of being mortal. andrea gibson’s website: https://andreagibson.org/ boo...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with music, film, & content producer Richie Reseda, freed from prison in 2018, talking about how our culture is built around grief / loss / death / dying / mortality & how it serves capitalism more than it serves us, & how abolition is connected to our relationship with grief & dying. richie reseda @ Question Culture: https://www.questioncultur...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with therapist, grief expert, & author Claire Bidwell Smith, talking about those of us who walk with a different awareness in the wake of loss, practicing expansion while living in the midst of the unknown, & using writing as a form of healing. claire bidwell smith’s website: https://clairebidwellsmith.com/ ig: https://www.instagram.com/clairebidwellsm...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Abigail Bengson, one half of the composing / performing / grief-working & dumb joke-writing, award-winning duo The Bengsons, talking about dissolving ravenously into the awe-filled urgent enoughness of loving & grieving LIFE. the bengsons’ website: https://www.bengsons.com/ patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thebengsons ig: https://www.instagram.com...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Alica Forneret, educator, speaker, & consultant dedicated to creating new spaces for people to explore grief & grieving, talking about her mother’s death & how this loss led to her work with PAUSE, an organization focused on supporting Communities of Color through grief & end of life. alica forneret’s website: https://alicaforneret.co/ ig:...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, talking about her father’s death, how we can tend to relationships with our dead, “grief as a window” to what’s possible, & the ways we can heal collective grief with restorative justice. To listen to an UNEDITED version of this conversation with Ani DiFranco become a podcast patron now: https://www.patreon.com/YG2D ani...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with neuroscientist poet Brian Isett & storytelling artist Claudia Biçen, as they talk about their new book The Forgotten Teachers, where ideas from the field of evolutionary biology are fused with poetic prose, brought to life by intricate & dreamlike watercolor illustrations, describing the evolution of life on Earth. the forgotten teachers’ kickstar...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with death doula & therapist caroline lee., as they talk about the potentially complicated emotional experience of pregnancy, the story that led to caroline’s work in the world, & ABANDONMENT ISSUES! caroline lee’s website: https://www.agencyindying.com/ ig: https://www.instagram.com/howcarolinecarolines/ death work ig: https://www.instagram.com/death....

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with American songwriters Liam Robinson & Jean Rohe, as they talk about the medicine of music, & the story of life, love, & loss that led to their new album “Into the Night,” out May 26th, 2023 on Righteous Babe Records. Robinson & Rohe’s website: https://www.robinsonandrohe.com/ ig: https://www.instagram.com/robinsonandrohe/ facebook: https://...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with singer, rapper, & writer Dessa, as they talk about what it means to lead a moral life as an atheist, the kindness-potential of mortality, & how the hardest times of our life may inspire a life of generous heartfelt engagement with others. Dessa’s website: https://www.dessawander.com/ ig: https://www.instagram.com/dessa/ twitter: https://twitter.co...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with creative energy healer Jenna Bowers, aka The Way Witch, as they talk about the life-changing deaths of her nephew & father, the ways death can propel life forward, death & ancestor rituals & practices, & her work crossing over our ghosts who need it. Jenna Bowers/The Way Witch’s website: https://www.thewaywitch.com/ ig: https://www.instagr...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with novelist & television writer Shanthi Sekaran, as they talk about her new book Boomi's Boombox, how she went about tackling the issue of grief for a fictional 12-year old, & her secondhand experience of death/grief, mostly in story form, from her own mother. Shanthi Sekaran’s website: https://www.shanthisekaran.com/ ig: https://www.instagram.com/sh...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with artist & musician Karima Walker, as they talk about the hypnotizing death of her mother, the difficulties/complications of being in a potentially necessary changing relationship with our dead, & making art in the wake of loss. Karima Walker’s website: https://www.karimawalker.com/ bandcamp: https://karimawalker.bandcamp.com/music ig: https://www.i...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Báyò Akómoláfé, father to Alethea & Kyah, grateful life-partner to Ije, son & brother, widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, & author, as they talk about his father’s death when Báyò was 15 years old, what it would take to dissolve the wall that death brought between them,...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with The Death Empath - Jess Reis Mendivil, an Ancestral Death Doula, Shadow Empath, Grief Guide, & Life Coach, talking about being “in the sad,” the dark, the shadows, efficiently moving through it all by creatively alchemizing Grief, Death, & Loss of Self, & how integrating death & shadow helps garner kinder, softer, humans that are in awe of...

Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with Amanda Yates Garcia, writer, witch, & the Oracle of Los Angeles, talking about the “underworlds” we must endure, what it means to come back from that dark with a burning torch to share with others who need that light, & the story of her becoming a witch [available in her book INITIATED: MEMOIR OF A WITCH]. Amanda Yates Garcia’ website: https://www...