What happens when “neighborhood lore” about a Native American burial ground turns into a life-altering spiritual calling?

In this episode, Steven Martin talks with Mike (joining from the West Coast in Oregon) about an extraordinary series of experiences that began when Mike and his wife considered moving away from their Washington property near Seattle—and instead, his wife began receiving vivid dreams. In those dreams, Native American spirits asked her to stay and learn psychopomp work: helping spirits who have died but haven’t “moved on” find their way into the light.

Mike describes how the teachings started through dreams and meditation, how his wife would sense a “tap” (a physical-feeling signal) when someone needed help, and how their work evolved from assisting willing spirits to encountering darker, more complicated cases—what they came to call “spiritual vampires.” He shares the moment he realized he could participate directly, how shamanic training expanded their understanding of “non-ordinary reality,” and why they ultimately shifted to safer spiritual practices.

The conversation also explores:

• Death, grief, and what may happen after we die

• Why some spirits may resist crossing over (fear, guilt, trauma)

• Near-death experiences, “life review,” and karma as a process (not a free pass)

• Shamanic journeying, intuition, the “third eye,” and altered states of consciousness

• Psychedelics vs. meditation as paths to spiritual insight (and the risks of “recreationalizing” the work)

• Suffering, love, and the “dark night of the soul”

Mike also mentions a later approach influenced by Daniel Foor’s Ancestral Wisdom, calling on well ancestors to do the “heavy lifting,” and shares that he’s rebuilding his website and is open to public speaking. He and his wife wrote a book about their experiences, which he says he gives away to help spread the message.

This is a thoughtful, worldview-stretching dialogue about mortality, meaning, and what it might look like to serve both the living—and the dead.