Amy: [00:00:00] A lot of people get nostalgic around death. You know, all must be said or forgiven on the deathbed, but it's not. It's really not. Not everybody becomes this wise, forgiving sage of a human on their deathbed. Often people become even more of themselves in their dying. The narcissist isn't always going to have this moment of enlightened compassion moments before they die.

Catherine: Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life because while you may not be ready to die, at least you can be prepared.

Don't be caught dead. Acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognizes their connection to land, sea, and [00:01:00] community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.

Today I'm speaking with Amy Firth. Amy is an interfaith minister, a funeral director, and a spiritual counselor. Born and raised on Dara and Gandara country. She has recently returned to the Blue Mountains with her partner and young daughter after two decades of living and working abroad. Amy spent 12 years in London where she completed a two year interfaith ministry training with the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation, and studied for four years with the Tree Rancher Sanger at London Buddhist Center.

Did I get that right? Amy 

Amy: Tree Ratner. 

Catherine: Very close Tree Ratner. There you go. Thank you. Drawn to end of life [00:02:00] care and funeral work through a series of poignant personal bereavements. Amy is passionate about doing death differently. She brings a calm and passionate presence to those navigating grief, believing deeply in the importance of having someone unflinchingly by your side during heart searing loss.

She sees it as a profound privilege to be entrusted with such sacred work when she's not crafting ceremonies filled with meaning and magic. Amy can be found making music, working with Regional Arts Australia, chopping kindling that's very practical of you doing Pilates, wild swimming, or chasing after her five-year-old.

Thank you so much for being with me, Amy. 

Amy: Oh, thank you Catherine. I'm so happy to be here with you. 

Catherine: So that is quite the, the journey you've been on that we've just gone through. Tell me, [00:03:00] tell me about London. Like, and, and what drew you to, you know, joining the, the interfaith ministry training there? Mm. 

Amy: Oh gosh.

There's so many ways I could come into that question. I guess on one hand, like so many young Aussies who hit that rite of passage era in their early twenties, yeah. I, I hit that stage when I was, I'd been to uni and had been living in Sydney for a couple of years and, and, you know, it was newly heartbroken and grabbed my best friend and my guitar and we were like, let's get outta here one way ticket to, to Europe.

And yeah, I, I did that sort of what felt very much like a, yeah, a rite of passage to go and live abroad and explore and adventure and get into mischief. I'm that classic case of, of one year, somehow 10 into 12 years, and by the time I, I left London Peak Pandemic in 2020 with [00:04:00] my wife and now five month old i'd, I'd spent a third of my life living in the uk.

And again, it was sort of one of those I can look back and really connect the dots on how that happened. And definitely a big part of that was my, was my sort of stumbling upon the one Spirit interfaith Foundation. To answer your question again, Catherine, the key answer really how did I end up at, at doing an interfaith ministry training, I guess is, is a much bigger, sort of, more profound question.

And again, I think I can, I can look back and join the dots and really see how I got there. And I think like so many of us that are drawn to. This type of work, really working at the coal face of suffering, being alongside others in their grief, in their bereavement, being with people at [00:05:00] their end of life and supporting those who are, yeah, finding a way forward through their grief.

I can really see that I landed here as a, as a post-traumatic growth response to a number of really poignant bereavements in my own life, and a lot of that really. Culminated in a particular timeframe where, yeah, 20 sort of 13, I'd been through about two or three years of, of significant loss and it, it was sort of bookended by the death of my Nan.

And my Nan is a very important part of this story because she was actually one of the first women ordained in the Uniting Church of Australia. And she actually, you know, grew up in Edinburgh with my grandfather. They were 10 pound palms, caught the ship to Australia in the mid fifties. And, and so began a phenomenal story for both of [00:06:00] them really, where my, they, you know, they raised three young children and were living the idyllic life of the 1960s on Sydney's Northern Beaches and.

I mean, yeah, it's another huge story. Could be an entire podcast series unto itself. But she found herself called to ministry, which was so radical and unheard of at the time. Yeah. And my grandfather ended up also playing the very unusual role of the minister's husband. And both of them lived a phenomenal life of service, which took them way out to regional Australia, living out in Narromine and trainee and way out past Dubbo.

And you know, this very charismatic Scottish woman leading these congregations of farmers and you know, just salt of the earth. Oh, I dunno if you can hear the kookaburras singing out my window as I tell you this now. That's [00:07:00] beautiful. So, yeah, all that to say that I, I grew up with a, a grandmother who was a phenomenal spiritual leader and the role that she, I got to sort of witness and observe, even though the sort of Christianity faith didn't hugely resonate in me, particularly as I explored and sort of discovered my own queerness and didn't really know where I belonged within that sort of faith path.

I could definitely see as I stepped more into my twenties and, you know, the freedom of being in London and Europe was a, played a huge part in that. But I definitely. Her sudden death and having really had a front row seat to her phenomenal life of service meant that when I was sort of, yeah, mid to late twenties, I found myself at her bedside in her final moments, [00:08:00] and I experienced this, what can only be described as a, a mystical experience that I've never truly been able to put words around.

But I, as I prayed her out of this life, something was extinguished in her and ignited in me, and I returned to London with a phenomenal sense of wanting to be of service. As a queer Buddhist woman, I didn't know what that looked like for me. And that's when I came upon the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation, which attracted a lot of people with a very similar story to me.

People who really shared that sense of wanting to serve, wanting to felt, people who felt passionate about ceremony, but perhaps felt a bit betrayed by established religion, or weren't really sure where their [00:09:00] gifts could really manifest. And yes. So that in a nutshell, Catherine, is how I ended up doing an interfaith seminary training in London.

Mm. And 

Catherine: tell me, what did you learn through that process? You'd obviously come from a very structured formula, formalized religion, and then. It sounds like you found your tribe in, in the interfaith community. Mm-hmm. Tell me how does it differ from like, a, a, a normal, normal, I can't say the word normal because that's not the case, but it's just a more traditional, you know, religion.

Can you talk me through the differences? 

Amy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I guess first and foremost, the, the history of the organization is really interesting in that the, the One Spirit Alliance was founded in the US and it, it sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke, but it, there was a, a Priester and a mom and a rabbi who [00:10:00] met and sat down to have a conversation about what they could do to.

Prevent something like the Holocaust happening ever again. And out of those conversations grew a movement of bringing together, I guess, what you'd call your sort of more traditional faith paths. And, and I guess it's important as well to note that there's a couple of different ways you can interpret the word interfaith or interfaith.

And it can mean established religions working alongside each other, very peacefully devoted to, and acknowledging, you know, perhaps their own shared sense of the divine mystery. There's another way, I guess too, into the world of interfaith, and that is very much about honoring the sacred in all things, in all belief systems and offering, being of service to people of all faiths and none simply because.[00:11:00] 

There's a shared human experience that we're all having. And for me personally, at the end of the day, I believe everybody is worthy of being loved and being honored. And so there's a lot of different ways into this work, and therefore every cohort of the seminary attracts people from very different paths.

But what is phenomenal about the training itself and the curriculum has continued to evolve even in the 10 years since I was ordained. But what is phenomenal in that first year of the training, at the time you spent each month. Really diving into sort of your main traditional faith paths of the world.

And of course you could only ever skim the surface when it comes to academic learning about these big religions of the world. But there was something about, it wasn't ever just about the [00:12:00] higher learning, it was actually about a deeper understanding and doing the work to explore your own inner beliefs about this particular faith path and really doing the work to get curious about what are those barriers that exist within you when it comes to this particular religion or this particular faith.

And so you could imagine is you're spending one month in Buddhism, you're spending the next month moving into Christianity, you are spending the next month moving into Islam, and within these months you are really invited to not just sort of learn. Read the texts and under get a sense of their sacred literature and things.

But your, the invitation was to really immerse yourself in the spiritual practice of these faith paths. So for example, when we were doing Islam, we were invited to pray five times a day, but we didn't have to [00:13:00] stop and try and, you know, mimic or try on praying the way Muslims pray. We were invited to pray the way we pray, but what deepens in our experience, how does our understanding of their devotion change when we step into the rituals and customs that uphold all these different faiths?

So, and similarly, when we were doing Judaism for the month, it was all about the rituals around food. Friday night, Shabbats and bringing people together. And again, it was sort of. Not borrowing from, but really stepping into to have a direct experience of all these different protocols and practices and rituals so that we could truly, again, get curious inwardly about what were, what were the beliefs that we carried about this particular faith?

And if we took the time to pause and really hold them up to the light [00:14:00] and examine them and think, is this true? Or where did I learn this? That was such a huge part of the journey. So that's sort of a main thread of the first year. And then in the second year, you are really invited to travel the biography of your own life, and you shift.

Somewhat away from studying the world faiths and more into traveling through the biography of your life, exploring all those different thresholds through ceremony. So again, it, it sort of began through writing a baby blessing ceremony for yourself. What was the ceremony that you would have wanted to receive when you entered the world?

And in order to know that you have to really square up to your true experience of what was it like when you entered the world? What were you born into? What did you arrive into? What is that first blueprint experience that your human body has when it landed [00:15:00] earth side through the mother? So again, like there was, there were weeks and weeks and weeks at of a time sort of exploring these huge different portals throughout life and putting ceremony around it, where then you as the minister.

To offer and hold these ceremonies with other people playing all these different parts of you. So it sort of enmeshed itself into a bit of constellation work as well. But you'd have someone playing tiny baby Catherine. You'd have someone playing your mother, or your father, or your parent, or your godmother or your grandmother or you'd, you'd actually then have this direct experience of ministering to yourself, to your life in the field with with your peers.

And we did that the whole way through our life. From baby blessing, rites of passage around adolescence, moving into relationship blessings, moving into divorce, ceremonies moving into end of life and funerals, riding your [00:16:00] own funeral, riding your own eulogy, and performing those ceremonies for each other.

Oh, it's actually really beautiful to travel with you back through these memories, Catherine. And it's yeah, a, a phenomenal, a phenomenal syllabus and curriculum that that is, that is crafted so phenomenally around honoring the truth of life. 

Catherine: It's really interesting, as you are, you are saying this, Amy. For me, it reminds me there's a lot of research now about the power of reminiscence and, and that role that it, that it can play and, but not many people are ever in a position where they have this self-reflection.

They can actually revisit and create ritual around something that at the time may not have been a pleasant experience for them. Was there some things that [00:17:00] you found, or do you mind sharing some of the things that you found challenging during those different life stages that you were, you were, you were revisiting, and, and then what did you find that, firstly, what was challenging?

And then secondly, how did you move through that to overcome those challenges? 

Amy: Mm, beautiful question. I often talk about the experience of this training of it's, it's like holding a high pressure water hose to your life and watching everything be blasted away except what is true. And that is an exquisite and excruciating experience, and particularly for myself, but also, you know, you can imagine doing this training in the uk.

There was something about my [00:18:00] particular cohort we, we called ourselves the year of the queer. There were so many LGBTQI plus people in our cohort, many of whom were Irish. And you can understand particularly why this training would attract so many wounded Catholics who had such a sense of. Their connection to the sacred, to the divine, but had been told their entire life that there was not a place for them.

And so if I circle back to that experience about exploring birth, for many of my peers and my friends exploring their own birth and their own arrival into this world was excruciating because they were the child of a pregnancy out of wedlock. And the shame that came with that being separated from their mother, being sent away, you know, anything that sort of [00:19:00] brings up that deep sense of separation and really deeply impacts anyone's experience of their sense of safety and belonging in the world, particularly around birth, when that's our first taste of life.

That really leaves a mark that can skew the way someone grows throughout their life. For myself, I, I can remember so clearly the day the class performed a, a rite of passage ceremony for adolescent Amy. And what was so phenomenal about that ceremony was I got to bring my grandmothers back from the dead, both of whom had died.

But in this ceremony, I brought them back to life and I had my mom and my aunties and I basically in this phenomenal ceremonial place, you know, between the worlds, it felt like I [00:20:00] was able to minister to and also receive this ceremony of really blessing this teenage version of myself and that. It may sound so simple, but it, it was so profoundly healing.

When I can look back and see the actual 14, 15-year-old version of myself who was so, I was so loved, you know, I know. I was so loved. I, I'm one of these profoundly lucky people that was born into love and have never doubted it and, and have a deeply anchoring experience of what it means to be loved unconditionally by my family.

I know that is true, and it's also true that I think because I was the kid that felt things so deeply and was unsure about my own [00:21:00] sexuality and. Was definitely sort of that intuitive empath kid who was feeling so much and taking on so much that Yeah, my teenage years got quite dark and I got quite lost in that for a long time.

And so this, this ceremony, this opportunity to. From the place of sort of 20 years later, look back onto this teenage self and think, you know, we're, we're gonna make it kid like it's gonna be okay. And, and, you know, we're gonna celebrate all of these things that terrify you about yourself right now, are actually the things that you're gonna give to the world as your greatest gifts and, oh, make what makes me emotional?

Just thinking about it now, actually. Oh, don't worry. You, you've, 

Catherine: you've made me get teary. Don't you worry. No, just, just speaking about it, because I think that, you know, we don't often get the opportunity to look at, at our life like that. But [00:22:00] also it seems to be that you could reframe it too. Yes. Exactly 

Amy: right, Catherine.

Catherine: So what is it, when you look back now and you think of your teenage years after you've gone through that ritual and experience that you reframed it, how do you reflect now? Has it changed how you 

Amy: reflect on that time? It does because like any ceremony, when it's done right with intention and it, it transforms and so.

I have a sort of competing inner memory of that time now, and I have the truth of that lived experience that was my 14-year-old self. But I also have the version of me that has been witnessed and has been acknowledged and has been blessed through this ceremony that we held. And it, it, I can't convey to you how real it felt in the [00:23:00] ceremony, even though I was playing myself.

You know, I think I was sort of early thirties at the time and my friend was playing, you know, young teenage me and I had, you know, other peers playing the grandmothers. And the experience of that too, of sort of ministering that to myself, but also having the experience of receiving it is, is something that I can't ever truly articulate, but it.

It's also in the crafting of it, you know, there's a very, it's a very clear reason why we have to craft these ceremonies for ourselves to really go as deeply as we can into the truth of that experience. And I think too, I mean, I'm just realizing as I say this to you now, it's, it's such a big part of why any ceremony, whether it's a funeral or a wedding, or a baby blessing, it's why the truth is so important in any [00:24:00] ceremony.

I think we find that as such a uncomfortable place sometimes, particularly around grief, rituals, and end of life rituals, when there may be very competing opinions on the truth. And let's say dad has died and there's four kids, and each of those four kids have a very different experience of their dad.

And so there's four versions of the truth. And then the dad has his version of the truth and the wife has her version of the truth. And it's, it's such a masterful job to find a way to craft a ceremony that honors everyone's truth and feels true. And I think we know that too. It's, it's always, for me, a real barometer of what makes.

A ceremony. Feel safe or feel right, or feel joyous or feel, you [00:25:00] know, transforming in some way. You can feel when there's something stuck in the field in a ceremony that's not being said, and as ex excruciating as it might be, to find a way for all of these competing things to, to, yeah. Have their moment.

Yeah. Finding a way to allow the truth to be present. I'm continuing to learn and be shown just how essential this is in our ceremonies. 

Catherine: How do you navigate that, Amy, you know, you, you've written in, in relation to estrangement and that adds a another layer of complexity, a along the line of what you've already said with the fact that we each have our own truth and our own interaction with that person.

So there's so many different elements that you are, you are dealing with. When you work with a family [00:26:00] who has had a loved one die. How do you, how do you balance that? How do you work out where, where the right truth is that you, you tell during that process? 

Amy: Mm. I'm actually very passionate about this area, Catherine and I, I know I'm allowed to swear a little bit on your podcast, but my shorthand for this is funerals for assholes.

How do we hold funerals for assholes? Are they deserving? What do they deserve? How do we honor them? How do we honor the complexity of, of these relationships that sometimes can be incredibly toxic and incredibly harmful? And I know for me, and again, this was very much the way that we were taught to hold ceremony, and it's been something that continues to really deepen my work.

And the way that I work, particularly with funerals, is I always see it as I have two clients. I have the [00:27:00] person that has died and I have the people left behind. And finding a way to craft a ceremony that meets the needs of both of those clients to me, I think is, that is almost our only job. Of course, it's not always easy when you might have sweet, old Nana who's deeply religious and Catholic and wants the full mass funeral, and she's got three kids who are completely ostracized by the church and it's completely foreign and harmful to them.

And how do you then craft a ceremony that meets everybody's needs? It's hard. But again, this is where so much of the work is about getting curious and really being alongside people in their truth, what is true for you? And often, I, you know, the, the nana will make it very clear that she wants the big mass funeral, and we may do [00:28:00] that and honor her wishes, and there may be a separate something with the children in their backyard or around their kitchen table.

And we create an additional space alongside for them to speak their truth or to say what they have to say or simply to reflect, I guess, on, on what is true for them. And I think it's, again, like I've, I learned this so deeply and clearly from Zenith Virago, who I know probably comes up in most of your episodes here, but who sort of is, you know, the ultimate elder queen of Compassionate death care in Australia.

And of course I trained with her like so many of us did. And what I find so refreshing in Zenith's approach is, is very much allowing. The truth to be a part of this work. And a lot of people can get quite nostalgic around death and [00:29:00] dying, you know, all must be said or forgiven on the deathbed, you know, but it's, it's not, it's really not.

And not everybody becomes this wise, forgiving sage of a human on their deathbed. Often people become even more of themselves in their dying. And so the narcissist isn't always going to have this moment of enlightened compassion and perspective moments before they die. Zenith has phenomenal examples, you know, where the, the, the grownup children abroad can't get home for the dying father.

So they put the phone next to his head and they're gonna have their sweet final words. And, and what transpires actually is really important, truth telling where it's not all. I love you. Thank you so much for everything you did. It's a matter of saying, I will never forgive you again. That's a really [00:30:00] uncomfortable place.

But we can't kind of constantly assume that death is going to be the place where everything is forgiven. And I think if we are going to try and invite any kind of radical healing in relationships or within families, when it comes to that threshold of death, the healing will always be in the truth and allowing people to be in their truth.

Again, not always easy, not always pleasant, but we are not in this field of work because it's pleasant. Those of us that are here are because we have a very healthy relationship with discomfort and sometimes there's also real healing in discomfort

Catherine: and a lot of the time in families, children are [00:31:00] involved. And how have you seen when this is done? Well, when children are children's voices are at the table? Mm 

Amy: Oh, it's so important. I think this work continues to show me time and time again. It's, it's something that I weave into almost every funeral that I hold.

That this isn't a pompous or formal occasion. This moment belongs to you. Be real, be here. Move your body. Take your shoes off, loosen your tie. Sit on the ground, come closer, move away wherever you need to be. This is what I find is so important, and it's definitely the thread that I carry throughout the whole experience when I'm alongside a family from the very first time I meet them, I don't ever want anyone to feel like there's a way they have to be with me because the funeral directors at their table table, and I'm always very quick [00:32:00] to disarm that from people.

This is their experience, it's their grief, and my only job is to be alongside them and, and help them navigate that and understand their, their options and their choices. And so, particularly when you have children in the mix around the table. This feels even more true because so often kids are like, we know just the most sort of joyous, inquisitive creatures who can also be so profoundly accurate at, at reading a room and understanding what's going on.

And I think they're very good at observers, aren't they? They really are. Yeah. And, and so I think it's always important to. I think the only harm we can do with kids around death and dying is to exclude them and to not take the time to be alongside them in their experience of it as well. [00:33:00] And there's definite things that we can do to ensure they feel included.

And I've seen a number of places do this really well. I know life rights here down at Hurstville, whenever they're holding a viewing for a family, they'll always create a little sort of cubby house nook behind the lounges for the kids to be able to come and play and retreat and be in and out as much as they need.

I've seen this work at a number of funerals where, you know, we, we might have a, a cardboard coffin and we have all pens and paints. And again, people might initially balk at that idea. And you don't want children anywhere near the coffin and Oh, how grim, or, oh, how, but it, it's always the children leading the way and we realize there is some part in our adolescence or whatever that point is where the kids learn to be afraid.

Through what our grownups are teaching them and if we can actually all return to this place of, you know, remembering it wasn't that long ago when we used to really do this for each other [00:34:00] in our home, in our communities. And so this again is such a big part of my calling is, is of the work I'm trying to do here in my Blue Mountains community is to really help our families remember how to be alongside each other when it comes to death and death care.

And the kids always do it so beautifully. And again, I think so much of, I think we can all think back to the first funeral we attended and what made it scary. If it was scary for me, I remember being 11 and being at my, my grandfather's funeral and. It was probably all the questions of not knowing and seeing coffin for the first time, which was his and which end was his and all.

I know my parents and my family were doing the best they could with what they had. But again, I'm different now, obviously, working in this field and having a five-year-old myself. And again, it's in these [00:35:00] conversations that we can have with our kids now. Yeah. We're always having little funeral ceremonies for the lizard or the butterfly or the, something that we find in the garden.

And yeah, every time we drive past a cemetery, my daughter's like, oh, there's mama's office. I'm like, yeah, that's my office, babe. 

Catherine: So, yeah, I think our family, our family used to always say, dead center of town. 

Amy: Mm. That's what, that's what my 

Catherine: father always used to say. So there you go. There's a, that's I, I think I am.

I think I like mama's office better. That's great. 

Amy: Mm. Yeah. But again, I always, it's so important, you know, bigger picture, zooming out, so much of this work, your work included, is to get people to square up to the fact that death is a part of life. And if that is. True. Then there's ways that we can weave it through our life.

And a part of that is, you know, also in the way that we tend to our dying and tend to our dead. And I take [00:36:00] my tiny daughter ever since she was tiny, you know, to the graves of our beloveds, and we bring flowers and I show her how important it is that we tend to, and, you know, sit with and be alongside and how important it is to remember and to keep those stories alive.

And you know, we always bring incense and candles and the simple ways of just putting meaning and ritual around, you know, essentially what are our love stories and the people that make this life important. And it's particularly important to ensure that our kids have support alongside doing that. 

Catherine: And with your work in the Blue Mountains community, you run the, the monthly death cafes.

What has been, you know, you mentioned the word curious quite a few times. What have, have people been curious about when they come along to the, the death [00:37:00] cafes? What do you find that they ask questions about? 

Amy: Mm. I can't tell you how much I love reflecting on this question, Catherine, because I, I've grown to love these death cafe spaces so much, and mostly because of it is because of the, the deep listening that it enables for me in our community and also in a way to then also think about what are the other needs or offerings that need to emerge through what is coming out of these death cafe conversations.

Because whilst they are always different. Every gathering, every constellation of the people who show up, they all bring such a beautiful, profound, you know, the sort of terrain of the conversation changes so deeply depending on who's there and what they're bringing. But I have done it enough now to really identify there are certain themes that continue to [00:38:00] emerge sometimes around really specific things like voluntary assisted dying, sometimes around more around.

What I do see time and time again every month without fail is this sort of homeless grief overhang from COVID and how there's still and will continue to be until we find a place to put it down together. Just how much grief people are still carrying from that time. All the funerals. We didn't get to attend our loved ones who died alone, our loved ones who died locked away from us on the other side of the world because of all the border closures.

There's, there's so many stories that still emerge every month of the grief that we haven't been able to tend to together or sort of put anywhere. I feel like everyone's sort of, you know, as soon as they [00:39:00] offer it and they bring it to the table, it's like they're kind of holding it in their hands in front of me with this face of like, I know I've just gotta carry this around forever and I dunno where to, I can't find out where I'm meant to physically put it down.

And again, that's a beautiful analogy for that is so much of what a grief ritual is. That is why I'm so passionate about why. Funerals are so important and, yeah, I won't get started on, you know, the recent trends towards direct formation, and I know there's value in it, and for some people it's a financial, you know, so many, there's so many reasons why people may, may have to walk that path.

And it's still so important with or without a celebrant just doing this for each other to find the most simple ways of coming together around a meal or around a candle or around. Sitting somewhere in nature or just simply being alongside each other and [00:40:00] witnessing the truth of what has happened, what has changed, what has transformed in you in your life since this person has died?

And I see, yeah, again, so this is what then activates in me, this sense of, gosh, this is a real need in our community, and what does this look like and what do we need to put around this? And is it a sort of community grief ritual or is it a really specific COVID grief ritual? Or what language or what form do we put around it?

What do people truly need? What is the need that's emerging here? And again, all deep listening through these conversations, I just find. Heartbreaking and so beautiful and nourishing, and it, it genuinely, it genuinely motivates me to, to continue to find what are those really simple ways that we can show up for each other.

Pet [00:41:00] grief is another big one that comes up every month. So many people don't feel like they can truly own the enormity of their grief around pet loss. And, and it comes up so often at a death cafe and it just takes one person and then the next person chimes in on me too. And I've never really been able to talk and I haven't been sure on my Me too.

Me too, me too. So again, it's, it's, it's all these. That's so much the beauty of a death cafe as well. You know, there's so many ways the conversation can go. There's so many different directions. Sometimes people come and just the coming and being there is enough. They won't say a word for other people.

They come armed with a million questions really specific about this and that and the other thing. And for some people it's simply for that moment, someone will say something and they'll go, oh my God, me too. Oh, and I never knew I was even allowed to feel like that or to think like that, or to say those words.

[00:42:00] And so again, there's, there's little miracles and little moments of, of beauty and connection happening in these little gatherings that are, are happening all through the Blue Mountains all through the world. Uh, and again, it it, when you zoom out, it, it can just be that simple. We gather in a bookshop around, you know, hot chocolate and.

Cups of tea. Tea and my mom bakes a cake, bless her. And, and you know, I light a candle just for the sort of ambience and, and transition into sort of, you know, sacred space. Whatever words or language people wanna use, and just giving people the space to be with their questions, be with their truth, their grief, their misery, all of it.

Mm-hmm. 

Catherine: Do you think that is what people need permission to do? Is, [00:43:00] is take my, their time When, when someone has died, you know, is it allowing yourself time? You know, you've spoken about how you've seen. This transition from generations where they've come from a very organized, structured, traditional religion and there is a, a ritual around and a process around how you, you go through that grieving process and that ritual around that ceremony.

Then to now this, this shift in generation to sometimes not wanting to align with one particular religion or, or faith. And then is it allowing us to then find something for ourselves to have that time for ritual regardless of whether it's our pet, regardless of whether we had a good relationship with that [00:44:00] person who's died.

Is it allowing ourselves to, to say it's okay to do that? 

Amy: Mm. It's a beautiful way of putting it, Catherine, and I think. I think, I mean that feels deeply true for me what you're saying. And I think so many people may not really know where to begin with that or, or where to find that or how, and I think that's why people see to Death Cafe and it peaks their interest.

And so many people arrive at these gatherings, pooled and led by their grief big time. And so there's something in that too, that, that, again, when I get curious about what, what is the deeper need emerging in our community, it's definitely to do with how that, that sort of longing and that ache for having somewhere safe and beautiful to bring their grief, to bring their heartbreak, [00:45:00] to bring their story.

So often a death cafe or a sort of grief ritual space might be the first and only time this person has had the chance to speak their story. And it can be really delicate to, you know, they sort of get hooked on the, the, there's an adrenaline that happens when they start speaking that story and it's the first time they've ever told it, and they get really into detail.

And then it's sort of, and the whole room kind of gets pulled into this story, and it's a very delicate dance to sort of then pull everyone back into this space and gently help this person down off their story in a way that sort of, if they don't have these other support structures in their life or other relationships where they can be held and listened to, they're always gonna burst through in these opportunities.

So how do we help craft more of these? How do we help people understand that they can do this for themselves and each other? This is another [00:46:00] big part of my work that I'm so passionate about, and I, I get a bit tangled up in it because of course, I don't want to put myself out of work. I don't want to in any way diminish.

The importance of training in becoming a celebrant or someone who holds ceremony. And I think particularly around funerals, it's so important that you receive the funeral of someone you love rather than hold it yourself, you know, depending on how close you are. And I deeply believe that we can do this for ourselves and for each other.

And so I'm also passionate about what are the, what do people need in order to feel equipped to do this for each other, to do this for themselves? Is it resources? Is it like a template structure? Is it playlists of music? Is it reams of readings or poems? Or, you know, what is, what are the sort of ingredients that people feel are [00:47:00] missing in order for them to show up for each other in a way that allows them to be deeply witnessed and held throughout all the big thresholds of life, not just around death.

Imagine if maybe as well as, or maybe instead of a, a bridal shower and instead of all sitting around drinking out of little penis straws, we had a beautiful blessing way ceremony crafted by the bridesmaids or the mothers of the bride or whatever. You know, you could imagine all these different points in life that, that we sort of try and put shape and formation around, but we're sort of missing the, the moment of that deeper nourishing, the really turning over of the soil to sort of allow those moments to have the full nutrients or the full sort of, yeah, beauty and, and healing that's on offer.

I'm particularly [00:48:00] passionate around these ceremonies for the queer community. Things like renaming ceremonies for our trans community. There's so many different ways that we can. Do this for each other, and it's almost like people need to maybe have one single experience of what a really positive, affirming, well held ceremony can look like.

And that might be a funeral or that might be a wedding, or it might be a miscarriage ritual. All of these things are so available to us. You don't need a minister, you don't need a celebrant. You just need someone who is willing to sit alongside you and witness you in this moment, this huge moment where there's such a clear before and after.

And it might be a joyous thing like the birth of a baby. It [00:49:00] might be a devastating thing like the loss of a baby. Whatever. It happens our life, our human experience is made up of all of these moments and it's like we've forgotten how to truly be alongside and draw a sort of circle of closeness around this of just to look someone square in the eyes and be like, I am here with you.

I see you. This is fucking huge and I'm right here. It's that simple. 

Catherine: I love the fact that you, you mentioned then that

it's there as a person. When you attend a funeral, you are to receive that experience instead of having to hold that space. I really love that because [00:50:00] it means that. I don't have to keep it together. That's what that means to me. When I hear, heard you say that, I'm like, wow, that's right. It's creating that space where I can, you know, take my shoes off.

You know, when you were saying that earlier, I'm like, wow, that is something that I would really like to do, do at a funeral, is take my shoes off or just feel comfortable or sit on the floor, you know, and, and to feel that that's something that I can relax into is something really beautiful that I think that, you know, you really evoked some really beautiful images in in my head when you, when you talk through that.

Amy: Isn't it wild that we've come so far, so quickly that we've sort of forgotten that it can be like that? [00:51:00] This sort of very traditional Victorian funeral experience and, and this, this was the very, very first funeral I held. I was still living in London. I completed my training and it was a huge east end funeral, horse drawn carriages guy in the top with the pole sort of processing out the front and this whole sort of.

Thing was moving towards me, and I was having this total out of body experience watching this unfold. Just like I've never seen anything like what I feel like I'm in Oliver Twist, like this is so beyond my cultural familiarity of funeral and then realizing they're all coming towards me and I'm like, shit, I've gotta get in my body.

I'm, I've gotta hold this funeral. Like what am I doing? And in that moment, something dropped in ever so briefly, and it planted a question in me and all it said was, I wonder what it will feel [00:52:00] like when I'm home doing this in the Blue Mountains for my community. And that question had always stayed in me.

And the more and more funerals I ended up doing in London, you know, to the best of my ability and through the generosity of these families. But there was always sort of this extra cultural bridge that we had to sort of get over in order for me to truly meet them where they were. And. And again, I, I, I was probably, I never really understood the enormity of whatever that kind of sense was until I returned home to Australia and until I started doing this work here in the Blue Mountains where I grew up.

And the very first funeral I did once moving home was exactly that. It was a backyard funeral on a beautiful property surrounded by the gum trees in Hazelbrooke. The war tiles were out, the cockatoos were screeching, the kookaburras were singing and. I had this sort of [00:53:00] full moment from that experience in London 10 years ago of like, oh, this is what it feels like.

There's no bridge to cross, there's no cultural sort of divide. And even, and it's something about being back on home ground. And yes, every family is different and you know, I've had the privilege of supporting some First Nations families with their, sorry, business. And obviously even with that there is cultural divide and, and a huge amount of cultural protocol to, to learn and listen and respect and, and just the privilege of being entrusted to walk alongside this family.

But there's something about being on your home ground, doing this work. It just sort of. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm, I've gone on a tangent, but coming back to your initial question, Catherine, is, is exactly that we be, I think because of the big traditional, Victorian patriarchal industry that funerals and [00:54:00] ceremonies have become, particularly in the West, we've, we've really lost touch with what a ceremony should be and it absolutely should be a place of coming together.

You know, we don't have to look far afield to see where people are doing this so well, the Maori are doing it. So well always have, and even particularly, I'm thinking of this First Nations family I supported recently, and there were two parts to that ceremony. One took part in the church and the other took part at the burial and something the.

I dunno how to even put this into words, but the ceremony taking place in the church building felt restricted compared to the experience of how they truly held each other and their experience when they were on their country at the graveside. And I had a moment of [00:55:00] standing back and just witnessing the burial process at the graveyard and I thought, oh, this is the ceremony.

All of that hours back at the church, that was something else. But like this is the ceremony and you can feel it the more you work in this world and this work. And you know, I think it's that same feeling we talked about before. We've, whether you are attending a ceremony as a guest or you're someone who works in this field, it is a feeling you can feel when something feels.

True. I keep learning on that word, but Yeah. And when it feels true, 

Catherine: it's so funny because that's exactly the word that I was going to come back to and, and it feels like we've done a full circle while we've been talking about, is that there's always this level of curiosity, but it comes back to the fact that it, it's coming back to the truth, isn't it?

That's it. 

Amy: Yep. That's it. It's as [00:56:00] simple and as difficult as that because that too is a really edgy question. And you could say, ultimately that's at the, the ultimate question, at the truth of every death cafe or at every grief ritual, or at every funeral even, it's sort of how, how willing are you to square up to the truth of your life and truly embrace that?

There is an impermanence on all of our time here and. You know, it's sort of what's on the other side of your panic or your fear or your inability to, you know, really look towards that or to sort of peek into what's on the other side of my discomfort around that. And it's, it's, I don't wanna, you know, belittle it.

It's, it's an incredibly difficult thing to do and we're all born into our own conditioning and different [00:57:00] limitations around that. So I, I really deeply honor how excruciating it is to do the work of living your truth or embracing your truth, or, you know, squaring up to the truth of life. Whatever that looks like for you.

And for some of us, it's a life's work. It's never something we'll master. It's something that we live into every day and continue to explore in the ways that we show up in our relationships and in our work and with our kids. I think that's all we can do really. 

Catherine: And what has your, your role as a spiritual counselor, how, what do you see in that space?

Are people looking for an answer to, to why we are here and, and what does our life mean? Like are people still searching for that nowadays? Those are conversations that you have. 

Amy: Mm, [00:58:00] I feel more of the conversations I find myself having in that specific hat of, of spiritual counselor actually resonates so deeply with all the questions we've just been through.

It's so often someone doing the inner work of trying to understand and dismantle the barriers they have built within themselves to to love to. Piece to. And so often the, the, the work of being alongside someone in that inquiry is really about holding a, a place of deep, non-judgmental love. And again, it's, that can be such a foreign and scary experience for some people.

And particularly when [00:59:00] people are at end of life or, you know, a lot of those big questions come screaming to the surface when we realize that, you know, we've got more life behind us than ahead of us. Or, you know, someone's received a life limiting diagnosis and you know, they're counting down the weeks or the days, or someone is eligible for VAD and you're alongside.

This family knowing that this person has three more sleeps before the doctor comes. And I mean, we're really talking about the wild edges of life. And it's, it's, I use the word edgy a lot. It's, it's deeply edgy. And again, it's so much then down to what is our own relationship with impermanence, with the truth of life, with [01:00:00] the discomfort of ultimately no one really knowing what all this is about and what's gonna happen.

How do we carry that, that question inside us and does it, does it close us down or does it open us up to life? And so often I find that spiritual counseling. A place for people to ask the questions or to go to the places in themselves that they've maybe never had the courage to go before or perhaps have never really wanted to or been able to.

And I, you know, I think we're all incredibly complex creatures and we all have these locked doors within ourselves that, you know, we, we kind of don't ever wanna go and truly explore. And again, I see that as so much of our life's [01:01:00] work and really trying to, I believe that that's my spiritual practice.

That's how I can show up as being the best mother and the best wife and the best. Celebrant or the best minister or the best daughter, or you know, truly that is where the work lies for me. And I think for so many of us in, and actually it circles back to, I think, kind of like what we said at the beginning.

It's the same, it's the same principle. We're sort of just coming at it from a, a side door, but it's doing the work to. What is deeply true for us and not, not what we've been taught or what's a learned behavior or, you know, it's truly diving down into those debts or creaking those doors open a fraction and grabbing something and coming back up to the surface and getting curious about what this is.

What is this belief system? Why do I, does this serve me? Does this feel true? If I hold it up to the light, what does it look like? Where did this come from? [01:02:00] And again, that's, that's my experience of spiritual counseling. And yes, those big questions might come up, but for me, that's the work. It's, that's sort of deep diving and then coming back up for air, getting your breath, finding your center, going again, exhausting, but beautiful.

Catherine: And it sounds like it's something that's an ongoing process that it doesn't really ever 

Amy: end. It never ends. I think that's the blessing and the curse of this work. And I think again, that's maybe why it's not even work. It's just life. It's just true spiritual accompaniment of us just being alongside each other in our human experience.

None of us really know. And, and yeah, there's so, there's so much sort of fertile nourishment alive in those, in those fields of inquiry. [01:03:00] And that's really all we can do. Whether we're, you know, at all the different transition points in life or in whether we're consciously turning towards the completion of this life, all we can really do is bring that generosity and curiosity.

And again, that's, it informs so much of this work. You can never make assumptions about any of it, about how someone might be. How they're doing. And again, that evolves professionally for me in my language. You know, the way when I have to knock on someone's door and I know that their mother has died, I'm not gonna rush in with a whole lot of apologies or condolences.

I'm gonna square up to that person and I'm gonna look them deep in the eyes and I'm gonna say, hi, how is it today? You know, that's really all we can ever do for each other. You don't [01:04:00] have to be a minister or a celebrant or a funeral director or working an end of life. You could be a bus driver or a gardener or a teacher or a nurse or you know, that, that's what excites me about these conversations.

And yeah, I don't want to, A big part of circling back to the interfaith ministry training, you know, we're given the title Reverend when we're ordained, but it's very clearly. And it's a shared understanding that we're not given the title Reverend as someone who is to be revered. We're not being put up on a pedestal.

The title Reverend, is to remind us that we live with reverence for all of life. And that is such a powerful anchor and touchstone for me in this work. And in a way it's an invitation for everybody to be a reverend to, you know, live in this world in a way where [01:05:00] we're sort of really able to open our eyes to see the beauty and the miracle of all of it.

And of course, life is hard and complex and unfair. And yeah, everyone's carrying a different battle and story inside them, but that's all I can do is show up with my own courage and my own love and. Just be alongside you,

Catherine: Amy. I think that is such beautiful advice for all of us moving forward. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. 

Amy: Well, I've loved it, Catherine. Thanks for having me.

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