Nine Keys & Co: the art, soft-business, activism, and mystery of death work

Somatics Sam is back on the Nine Keys & Co. podcast for a conversation about our capacity to hold seemingly contradictory emotions at once.

Inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s unforgettable final scene in Roman Holiday, we wonder: Can grief witness a beautiful memory without taking full custody of it? Can happiness remain happiness, even when it’s over? And what becomes possible in our world when we become able to hold great joy and feel safe doing so?

A conversation about ecstatic love, nervous systems, loss, lemon cheesecake, suffering, bubbliness, grief & Roman Holiday.

Find Sam here on their website at https://psilocycle.com/

And on Instagram @somatics.sam

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What if being good is costing you your life?

What if the Good Girl is quietly suffocating your death work, your service work, your healing work?

In this episode of Nine Keys & Co., Narinder sits down with erotic healer, teacher, and Erotic Devotion podcast host Grace Allerdice to talk about the Good Girl: the part of us trained to please, perform, sacrifice, and suffer, to prove that we are doing life correctly. - and she is alive and well in care work.

What if your care work isn't here to save the world?

What if your compassion feels empty because it lacks passion and desire?

What if the life underneath the Good Girl is lighter and far more powerful than the one she’s been trying so hard to earn?

This conversation is particularly for the death workers, caregivers, healers, artists, activists, and service-oriented people who have begun to wonder:

Am I actually serving the world, or am I still trying to be a very, very good girl?

🐍✨ Find Grace at https://mgallerdice.com/

And her podcast Erotic Devotion where you find podcasts.

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@graceallerdice

Newsletter : https://grace.myflodesk.com/newsletter

IG : https://www.instagram.com/mary.grace.allerdice

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Artist, university film educator, and Nine Keys death work alum Lindsay Bane joins Narinder for a conversation about childlessness not by choice, pronatalism, and death work. They talk about Lindsay’s extraordinary story of loss and reinvention, the cultural systems that value motherhood above lives without children, and her pilgrimage through Ireland in search of ancient Sheela-na-gigs.

To listen to Narinder's Childless Not by Choice story on Lindsay's podcast go here: "Do You Have Kids? Short answer, No."

To contact Lindsay, you can go to her website www.lindsaybanestudio.com

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What if oncology, hospice, and astrocartography aren’t such different kinds of work after all?

Nine Keys alum Nova Campbell joins the podcast for a conversation about the unexpected path their death work has taken, from working as an oncology nurse, to hospice care, to helping people understand their relationship to place through astrocartography.

We talk about the body as an instrument of knowing, what happens when we become quiet enough to hear our own yes and no, our longing to reconnect with the earth, and the ways a map might help us recognize something we already know deep within ourselves.

Nova is offering the Nine Keys community 15% off an astrocartography session through September 30.

Use code NINEKEYS when booking.

https://nova-campbell.com/

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Artist and death worker Owen Lytle joins Nine Keys & Co. for a conversation about grief, death work arts, and the unexpected places they intersect, from ceramic slugs and online grief galleries to chronic illness and accessibility.

We talk about how whimsy and sorrow can live side by side, how creativity can slip past our defenses, and why our truest expression might be our unique medicine for the world.

Owen is a disabled trans artist based in Philadelphia who creates ceramics, digital art, stories, and spaces for grief.

Find Owen at owen.studio.com and on Instagram @ooowen.studio.

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In this episode, Narinder sits down again with trauma alchemist, death worker, and somatic coach Sam X to explore one of the most overlooked aspects of death work: the voice.

Together they discuss why so many death workers struggle in their work with knowing how to find the right words - struggle with speaking up, with boundaries, advocacy, conflict, and showing up honestly in difficult moments. They explore where these patterns come from, how they show up in the body, and what practitioners can do when they notice themselves shrinking, freezing, people-pleasing, or asking for reciprocity in return for what they give and give.

Learn more about Sam X here.

Instagram: @somatics.sam

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What happens when death workers bring the same willingness for difficult conversations to each other that they bring to the families they serve?

In this roundtable discussion, Narinder is joined by death workers, artists, and activists, Misha Murphy, Venessa Greenheron, and Rebecca Lopez Mullins for a thoughtful cultural critique on the death worker movement and an invitation to practice the skills we often ask of others.

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In this grounding episode of Nine Keys & Co., Narinder sits down with somatic therapist, astrologer, and grief worker Sam X (xe/they) for a conversation about the somatic realities of death work.

Together, they explore practitioner trauma, nervous system responses, imposter phenomenon, burnout, fear around speaking honestly in the death care field, and the grief death workers themselves quietly carry while supporting others.

This episode opens up an important conversation around trauma care for the practitioners and what authentic, embodied support can look like for death doulas, grief workers, hospice volunteers, caregivers, and full-spectrum death workers navigating emotionally intense spaces.

Sam offers 1:1 somatic support sessions online and is also hosting a collective healing portal, Rebirth Retreat, in Portugal this September.

Connect with Sam:

Instagram: Sam's Instagram

Website: Sam's Website

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In this episode of Nine Keys and Co., Narinder Bazen sits down with death workers and artists Meghan Allynn Johnson and Rebecca Lopez-Mullins for a contemplative and unfiltered conversation about the modern death doula movement, comfort aesthetics, marketing, grief culture, trauma, and the growing pressure to make death look clean, palatable, and consumable.

Together, they explore what gets erased when death work is flattened into soft branding, who becomes invisible inside “good death” narratives, and why death work must remain spacious enough to hold uncertainty, violence, beauty, mystery, and collective grief.

This conversation touches on culture work, systems, art, care, and the ungovernable nature of death itself.

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This episode is just me - unfiltered and unedited. I'm speaking plainly about the parts of death work that don’t fit the narrative.

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