Becky here with a few clarifications and deep dives. In this episode, I dipped a bit into the world of science, and remembered neither one of us are skilled in the language of facts and stats - we’re much better suited to talking about the felt sense of our experience. That being said, truth is very important to both os us, so below you will find additional information on a few of the topics that organically came up in this conversation.

Let’s talk about time

When I said we’re 3D beings trapped in time, I was speaking about our experience of time, more than the actual physics of it. According to Einstein, we actually exist in 4D spacetime so we’re not technically 3D beings “trapped” in time. Einstein’s relativity treats time as the fourth dimension, woven into space itself. But from where we sit—breathing, aging, becoming—it can still feel like a river flowing in one direction that we’re swimming in.

How about those bees

The average honeybee lives just 5–7 weeks in summer, though queen bees can live for years.

In that short lifespan, bees experience intense sensory and cognitive activity—they learn, communicate through dance, forage, adapt to weather, and form complex social structures.

Assuming the bee’s summer lifespan is ~42 days, one day is ~2.4% of its life. For a human living 80 years, that equivalent would be almost two years!

If you want to explore this practice of deep attention to plants and animals as portals to “more-than-human” time, we highly recommend reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s, “Braiding Sweetgrass”

Corrections

I tend to mix up anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism so here are the definitions just to be clear

- Anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.

- Anthropocentrism - is the philosophical stance that humans are the most significant entity on Earth, with all other living beings and natural phenomena possessing value only in relation to human needs and interests.

I also said that humans being are the youngest species—which isn’t *technically* true (there are newer species evolving all the time). But compared to rocks, trees, fungi, and other ancient lifeforms that have weathered billions of years and five mass extinctions, we are young. We’re still learning how to be in relationship—with each other, with the planet, and with the wider web of life. So maybe “youngest” isn’t accurate—but “new to the conversation” feels about right.

Episode Transcript

Becky: Did you know that praying mantis can fly a little bit? I didn't, until one flew right in front of my lawnmower. They're so crazy. The beings are really testing my presence today.

There are so many. Like the whole ground is alive. It's wild. But I guess that's why I get the beautiful choral music at night. So trade-offs. Also not so fun fact about praying mantises. They hunt hummingbirds. It's crazy. Look it up. Nature. I love you.

Welcome to the third episode of Noticing: A Podcast About Nothing And Everything At The Same Time. In this episode, we talk a lot about gifts. The gifts of mowing your lawn, of the bees, of being with someone towards the end of their life, and most importantly, the gift of presence. In this episode, as always, what you'll hear is the felt truth of our experience.

If we dip into the world of science, you can trust it's directionally true, but not necessarily an academic citation. So if you're someone who loves the facts, we've included links and deeper dives in the show notes. I hope you enjoy.

Christina: So I, I am reading Joanna Macy's World As Lover World of Self. Mm. I think I heard about this book when I listened to an on being podcast with her, and then I remember telling you about it and you were like.

Wow. Yeah, she was a major teacher of mine. Mm-hmm. Um, did she actually teach you or did you just mm-hmm. Really

Becky: like in person? It was, I mean, it was a workshop, so I didn't have, 'cause she's an adjunct. Oh. Was, oh, I'm still not, yeah. I mean, is, well she's still a great teacher of mine that is still very present, but her physical being Yes.

Has moved on, , like 95. I mean, it's, and teaching up to the like last. Days of her life. It's incredible. She is incredible. Um, yes, she was an adjunct professor of the grad school that I went to, so I did a, um, it was like a, a not a full semester class, but like a workshop on deep time and it was so embodied and she just has a presence.

She just has such a presence and made such, um, a huge impact on me. Yeah. Yeah. She's incredible.

Christina: Yeah. That's amazing that you got to be in the same space as her and, and understand that presence. Feel it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, so this book is just profound on many levels. Um, and actually what I wanted to share is not even a quote from her.

It's a quote that she quotes. So she quotes, um, John Seed, who is the founder of Rainforest Information Center of the Rainforest Information Center in Australia. And this paragraph is what I was thinking about and it reminded me so much about lots of different conversations that you and I have had.

So I thought I would read it. Perfect. Um, so he says, when humans investigate and see through their layers of Anth anthropocentric self cherishing, a most profound change in consciousness begins to take place. Alienation subsides the human is no longer an outsider apart. Your humanness is then recognized as being merely the most recent stage of your existence.

As you stop identifying exclusively with this chapter, you start to get in touch with yourself. As vertebra, as mammal, as species only recently emerged from the rainforest. As the fog of amnesia disperses, there is a transformation in your relationship to other species and in your commitment to them. The thousands of years of imagined separation are over and we can begin to recall our true nature.

That is the change is a spiritual one. Thinking like a mountain, sometimes referred to as deep ecology. As your memory improves, there is an identification with all life. Remember, our childhood as rocks, as lava rocks contain the potentiality to weave themselves into such stuff as this. We are the rocks dancing.

Hmm hmm. So as I'm reading this book, I'm, I'm dog earing pages, and that one had a crease immediately. And I was thinking, you know, I, I think I can look back in my life and, um, recall many moments where I felt more myself in nature. Mm-hmm. And he puts words to that memory that remembering, you know, you and I talk about remembering all of the time.

Mm-hmm. Um, uh, it's just so beautiful. We are the rocks dancing.

Mm-hmm.

Christina: Rocks don't have feet. We get to move, you know, like

Becky: it's, I'm giggling. 'cause what instantly came to mind was that scene and everything everywhere, all at once, where they are rocks and they have the little googly eyes and oh my God, she's like, rocks don't move.

And the mom rock, like wiggles towards her and then she puts on the googly eyes and, um, it's like a, it's, I mean, it's expressing the same thing, you know, that we are, we are the rocks dancing and shimmering and wanting to relate to each other. And we are the rocks with googly eyes, you know?

Christina: Yeah,

Becky: yeah.

Christina: It, it's so, um, it's, yeah, it just landed really, it landed really deep in me. Um, and it got me thinking about the fact that sometimes. If like, I can remember being a kid in a car, 'cause I moved around a lot and the way we moved ourselves from place to place was in a car on cross country trips.

Mm-hmm. And I can remember looking out of the windows and seeing trees and thinking like, I'm actually just looking at like grass in the garden, you know, or, or Queen Ann's lace, you know, a big fluffy tree that's 30 or 40 feet tall, looks just like Queen Ann's lace in the garden if you're laying down, looking at it on the side, you know,

Becky: like when you change your perspective and your Exactly.

Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, and then it got me thinking, , about this time that you said, 'cause I, I think you get a lot of, you. Big, bright ideas. You know, some people get them in the shower. I think you, Becky get them when you mow your lawn.

Becky: I do, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because I've turned it into, first of all, it's, you know, being in nature and I think that's the biggest thing is being outside.

And for the uninitiated in my life, mowing my lawn takes about four plus hours. 'cause we have two plus acres. And I, I don't see stupidly bought a push mower because I think it's been a great teacher. I think, you know, sometimes you make decisions in your life. To not buying the, the riding lawnmower, the logical choice or the prac practical choice.

And it ends up being a great teacher. And that's what this decision has been. So, yeah, it's, first of all, I'm out in nature for a long time, and I intentionally turned it into a walking meditation. So instead of getting so frustrated that I made this stupid quote unquote stupid decision, and that, you know, kicking myself for not being more in shape.

So it's so hard. It's like, no, let me slow down. I set an intention before I start to cause as little harm as possible because you know, when you slow down, so when we used to have someone do our lawn, I would go out and I would find snakes like chopped up and dismembered because the guy was just going so fast.

And, and when I started doing it myself, I saw all these bees in the flowers and they don't move. Right. They don't move. Yeah. And it's interesting. Of course it's not gonna move, like it doesn't, like when you're that small, I mean, what would be the scale of, of a bee to us, like us to something else like a skyscraper?

Would you notice if the skyscraper, like, would you move if there was a skyscraper right next to you? No, you go about your business. It's, it's like the scale is unfathomable. Um, but yeah, so I've turned it into this very intentional walking meditation where my intention is to do as little harm as possible, which means I have to go slow because if I'm just, totally mindless, mowing the lawn, um, I'm gonna run over so many bees and, um, and of course like I'm not perfect.

I run over bees. I get lost in thought and then I come back to presence. But it's that presence for me and nature, but it's the presence. I think that that allows these clarity moments to come through. So it's been a beautiful practice.

Christina: Yeah. And didn't you say there was like, there was one day where you sent me a voice memo and you were just like, it just hit me when I was going so slowly and I was paying attention to where the bees were and I wasn't, I was consciously not, you know, running them over with the lawnmower and, and then I thought about the life cycle of a bee and how long a day is for a bee.

Yeah. Like, can you remember what you said? Can you remember your thought process on that and share that? Or can you put yourself in that place again?

Becky: Yeah, I can try. Um, I don't, I can't remember if I was mowing the lawn that time, but , I was outside and I saw a bee and I just, I, I think I sat down in the grass and like sat next to it and I really started to, um, connect with the perspective of the bee. I think a lot about time. I think time is really interesting because we think of time as, you know, this fixed thing, but it's not, it's actually not fixed. Einstein pointed to this, that time is relative um, but we're trapped in it. We're trapped in time. We can't physically escape time because we are a, three dimensional being, living within time, but our imaginations and our consciousness can transcend time.

Mm. So it was this moment of connecting to the bee and the bee's life. I assume it's like a year. I don't even know, but I, it's shorter than mine, let's just say that. Mm-hmm. Um. So how does that shape their relationship to time?

Hmm.

And, and not that they're, not that I'm saying that the bees are sitting around thinking about time, but like, what is their experience of time?

How is one moment, so a bee's life is condensed? If your life is, you know, one year, yeah, every day is, you know, one, 365th of your life.

If your life is. 75, 80 years that day feels much, um, can feel much shorter. So if we can connect with the perspective of other beings, my experience of it is it slowed time down. Mm-hmm. And it, it like that, those few minutes that I was connecting with the bee felt spacious and expansive and, um, yeah, I think a lot about that.

And I think that's what nature, nature can teach us a so much. Oh my gosh.

Christina: Yeah. And I think, um, in, in a lot of, in most people's day to day, at least like in our Western culture. They might find that sitting down, like taking that thought of like, huh, maybe I'll sit down and watch a bee.

That that actually is a waste of time.

Yeah.

Christina: So I think you're right. I think that you actually did not, you weren't mowing your lawn when you had this thought, but I think consciously mowing your lawn helped serve you this thought later.

Becky: Absolutely.

Christina: So you start to relate to nature in a way that allows you in your human day to day where you are going grocery shopping and doing all the things, keeping your house clean, whatever, where you are more subject to time.

I think that because you can take small moments to experience timelessness, you're able to in integrate it into your human existence, which is a really worthwhile. Thing, I think. Mm-hmm. I, I've started doing this with my kids too. Um, speaking of , like cycles of time and paying attention in nature, we've, we found milkweed in, in the meadow that I planted in the backyard, and every day, a couple of times a day, I take them out and we look at what's happening and it's, it's kind of amazing what happens with them.

I was thinking about it last night and, you know, you learn this in grade school. There's like the, the like puke bait stage and then, then there's the chrysalis stage and then inside of the chrysalis, this thing literally changes itself completely. Yeah. From, I, I mean, it's so mind boggling to me and so beautiful that we can watch as outsiders and watch this incredible transformation take place.

And I don't know. How you could spend time doing that as a human being and not reflect that experience back on yourself.

Mm-hmm.

Becky: So what was hitting me is, and it's tying back to , the passage that you read in the beginning. In order for me to have that experience with the bee, I first had to respect its life, you know?

Yes. And I think you are right that the mowing the , the intention that I set and the, the conscious practice of mowing my lawn, I was respecting the life of the bees. because we move so fast as a species in our modern culture, and because we aren't taught to, we are brought up in anthropomorphism where we are the apex species and, and every other species is here for our extraction or our, you know, their resource or they're in the way.

You know, that's the culture that, that we're. The modern culture. Definitely not all of , human evolution, it's just our modern culture. When you step into your relationship with the ecosystem, you find respect for all these beings.

And how can you ever receive messages from something that you don't even see? You know, you're not even, and I don't mean like see with your eyes, but I mean really see as like you are a being who has just as much right to be here on this planet as I do, and you as a being, whether you're conscious or not, like we're not gonna debate how, like the complexity of the.

I'm not gonna compare a B's thoughts to my thoughts as a value. Like, they're here, I'm here. We both wanna be here. We both deserve to be here. That's it. Yeah. I don't need to justify it, you know? Um, and when you step into that, I think you, you just learn so much and yeah, it's been a great gift. 'cause really it's, I'm getting the gift.

It's not me like saving the bees. 'cause I run over plenty of bees. That's the other thing is like, I'm a skyscraper trying to like, not cause harm to tiny beings, you know? So of course I'm going to cause harm, But can I cause as little harm as possible and respect to the best of my abilities, the, the other beings that I share this planet with.

The other thing that was coming up is around time and you were talking about like bringing that presence in tear every day. And that really , has been the biggest gift, you know, because, and you said like some people would think that's a waste of time of sitting with the bees. And it comes up for me of like, even the way we talk about time, we spend time, we waste time, you know, and it's so ingrained, but it's like we think of time as this commodity or this, or this resource.

Um, h how is it possible to waste time? Like time is just the.

Time is like the atmosphere, you know, how can you waste that? I don't know. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. And that's just a product of capitalism and you know, being in a society where producing is the most highly valued thing. Um, I question that. Yeah. Because how much value did I get out of that? And then it stretches those moments into, yeah.

When I'm grocery shopping and like, can I slow that down and like really like step into the presence of the bee and slow that experience down. So I take in more of the experience 'cause our brains, The way it processes time and the way we experience time is when we are really present, we're encoding more sensory details.

So we're taking in the colors, the textures, and it makes time feel more spacious. So like if you, when you go on vacation and you're in a new environment and you're not as stressed maybe, and your obligations aren't there, you're encoding a lot more data and it feels, it can feel very spacious if we're present.

But if when we're at home and we're doing the same thing over and over again and we're not present. It feels so condensed. That's why time feels shorter the older we get and our life becomes more routine. So I don't know how long I'm gonna be on this planet, but I want it to feel as long and spacious as possible.

So it's such a gift that I can bring it into everything, like, or try to practice. I can practice,

Christina: practice

Becky: bringing it into all these places.

Christina: Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, and it's something that I really, I really value as a parent, like bringing my kids into this experience. Um, and uh, sometimes it can feel, you know, like they have a lot of friends who have all these gadgets and digital doodads and screens and little cars that they drive each other around in, down the street.

And then when kids come to our. I was, I'm like, here's some sticks and a pair of scissors and a little jar for collecting flowers. Also, make sure that you find that lemon balm around the corner and put your hands in it and then smell what it smells like, you know? Yes, yes. This is what my dad taught us to do in summertime.

He would take us on these little woods walks and we would find the berries growing and we would eat them. Mm. Um, but like, leave some for animals. Right. Uh, it's just our, um, presence in the natural world as a part of the natural world and not separate from the natural world is something that we always have access to, regardless of the things that we own.

You know, like I could be having a really great year where my career is skyrocketing and I feel the power of that. And I could have a year where things are very slow and I am giving myself a sabbatical to just sit and be present in my life. And the opportunities to exist inside of the natural world are the same in both mm-hmm.

Instances. Um, it's just, I don't know. Mm-hmm. The more I, the more I think about this, the more that I just, I just wanna remind everybody all the time that you can be quote unquote successful and still be, um, slow and reverent to the I judge to be the right things, to be slow and reverent towards, you know.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: Um, also, I, I, I always consciously try to learn the names of things. Talking about, like when you were saying how the. How can you see something, quote unquote, see something. Um, if you don't acknowledge its existence as being what it is. And especially after moving here to this old house with these old trees and such soul here, I would walk around the yard and meet plants as if they were friends.

Mm-hmm. Like, what is your name? I have the internet to find that out. So I'm gonna go learn it and I'm gonna write it down on a piece of paper, just the same as I do with my neighbors, so that when they walk by, I can call them by their name. So Amy might walk by with her dogs and I can say, look at this blue Astor around the corner.

They're the same.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. Amy and the As. Right. Um,

Becky: and I love that. I feel like that's the name of a good book, Amy and the Astor.

Christina: Yeah. It does have a, or like a band name, maybe. Oh, yeah. It has a

Becky: good ring. Yeah,

Christina: it

Becky: does.

Christina: Ugh, ugh. Yeah. The relationships are different, you know? Mm-hmm. Like your relationship with your dog is different than your relationship with your wife.

You can, you can have a different communion with them, and it doesn't make one better than the other. But this has just really been, this is like what I've been thinking about so much lately.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: Is, yeah.

Becky: It's so interesting, and this comes back to something we've talked about so many times of like our differences and yet similarities because.

As you were reflecting on, like you like to name them. I have found for me, and this is what is so beautiful, is there's no wrong way. There's no perfect way to relate to nature. Naming takes me out of it. So, I tend to just like be, it feels like I just wanna be with them in my, body.

And when I, I think about this with the birds, you know, I listen to the birds and, and I watch them. And when I start thinking, thinking, what kind of bird is this? Because it doesn't come naturally for me. Like I've watched, like this is very natural for you to name them. And this is what's so beautiful is everyone's different and there's no right way to commune with nature.

So for me it's like I've given that up. I'll see the same plant probably my whole life and have no idea what. What kind of plant it is, but I'll witness it, I'll witness that individual plant and be with it. Or you know, I'll listen to that individual bird for 20 minutes, um, and have no idea what species it is or,

Christina: yeah.

Becky: But, so yeah, there's, there's, it's, and it's always available. You don't need, like, we both are very lucky that we live, we have a lot of access to nature, but mm-hmm. It does like, look out your window. You could look at commune with the sky, you could commune with the pigeons if you're living in the city. Um, just something beyond yourself, you know?

Christina: There's, there's always a moment every year too, thinking about people. 'cause I'm aware of that too. It, it's all expanded here since I'm much um, I'm in a much. Deeper natural place here. So everything, my sense of all of this has just expanded so much. But even, you know, I would find these experiences in New York City mm-hmm.

Many of times, you know, you can, there's even just very simply the sound of leaves when they, when they come into being every year and they touch each other. Mm-hmm. You get this rustling sound and there's a day that that has not happened and there's the day that it happens. And that happens every year.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: The day the leaves suddenly are here and can blow. And they tell you the wind is here and you can orient yourself towards nature anywhere. Absolutely. Light water every, yeah. Yeah.

Becky: And it's also like stepping out of that separation, that there is nature out there and then there's me or there's humans.

We are a part of nature. So even living in a city and, and looking for just the light, looking for, you know, there is life all around you. And it's, it's different in a city. I think that's why both of us gravitated towards being in nature. Mm-hmm. But it is there. Your description was beautiful. Like when I lived in the city every weekend, probably also 'cause I was very broke, but I would just walk, you know, and it was, um, I would walk to Central Park, I would, you know, just walk the streets and it's so alive.

Christina: Yeah.

Becky: Um, I think it's just orienting to what's alive no matter what. Um, no matter where you are, what environment you're in, what is alive around you, and there is no separation between nature and humans. I think what's what I found challenging towards the end of living in a city is when you're in a city, so much of it is human made, and it's predominantly human.

And we are the youngest species, you know, we're learning how to be human, so we're causing a lot of harm. And I think when you're in a city, you're confronted with that and you maybe are a little more detached from the older beings, the rocks, the trees, the ones that have been on this planet through.

Five mass extinctions and change and upheaval. And I think , when you're connecting with something so much more ancient who know how to be and who know how to be alive, um, it makes it a little easier for me. It gives me like a grounding point in, oh, we're just young. We're just, yeah. Like, it reorients me.

Christina: Yeah. I feel that too. I think that I found this essence of this feeling even in New York City mm-hmm. Through witnessing all the different ways that people can exist together and separately and, um. Like, I remember walking, walking. I would always walk too.

That's the best part about living in a city. You're just walking everywhere. And I remember one time texting a newer friend of mine and saying, and maybe this is my way of just feeling it out. Like, is she on the same wavelength as I am? Do other people feel this way? And I was walking through, , a park in the East Village and the, there was like fall.

And so the leaves were, were falling off of the trees and kids were playing with their families. You see so much. There's like someone who is unhoused mm-hmm. And a family playing and elderly people walking and jazz in the park and the, like, the smell of cider donuts and stuff. And it's, it's a very, it's a sensory overload in a different way than when you're in nature.

Um, but it still is a sensory overload. And I, I texted her and I said, do you ever just get the feeling of everything being illuminated in your life and you feel your place in the family of things? And it's just, it's such an overwhelming sensation, but I have it all the time. And she, I think she was probably like, yes, okay.

I don't think she thought I was strange, but I wonder if maybe that planted a little seed. Like I, what is Christina High? No, I'm not high. Christina's

Becky: never high.

Christina: Christina's never high. Not necessarily

Becky: the case with me, but, uh, Christina's always high on life,

Christina: life, life and, and even in New York City where there's like.

On the ground and a wrap that crosses my path and all of these different things, there's still this really grounding feeling that's equally lifted of just, ugh, I get to be a part of this thing. Mm-hmm. And everything is humming around me.

Mm-hmm.

Christina: And granted it's a much greater, more faceted and full feeling doing that in the salt marsh in the fall than in a New York City Park, but it's still sort of there.

Becky: Yeah. It's absolutely there. Yeah. And I feel it now. Um, I think I had to leave the city to do some work, so what's coming up for, for me is, um. Like even the way you describe it of like the poop on the street and the unhoused, like you're not glossing over the more uncomfortable things. And um, you, I don't think you ever have.

And I think for me, I had to do some work around discomfort and like being able to see those, those things is what I was alluding to before is like the suffering that humans can cause. Mm-hmm. Um, that I think it's just coming up for me now, but I think that was part of what was hard of being in the city is 'cause you are confronted with it.

And I didn't wanna shut it down. I, that's not my nature is to like look away. Mm-hmm. Um, but I didn't quite know how to hold it when I was there. And it is a different experience when I go back now. Now I feel like I was just there. Um. Right before I went to Esson actually, um, I stayed in the city overnight and I was, it, it felt, I felt so alive and it was amazing.

And I was like waving to people in the streets and like, like bringing my presence, uh, and my aliveness 'cause I was able to, 'cause I'm able to hold all of it in a much different way now. Worth. It was really, I think it was really weighing on me because I think a survival tactic for a lot of people in cities, um, is to shut down, to like shut out all of the aliveness because it's a lot to hold, it's a lot to hold.

And in nature it's not that it doesn't exist in nature, you know, watch a nature documentary and you'll see plenty of Yeah. Violence, you know? Yes. Um, but you're not, nature is so expansive, you're not confronted with it. But when you pack so much in a city, you know, you can't really escape it. Um, at least that was my ex my experience of it.

Christina: Yeah. I, I think that makes a lot of sense. 'cause you did have a long. Like a long, I feel like a part of your awakening was really embracing the fact that discomfort is just a part of life. Yeah. And to just be able to be through, go through it and mm-hmm.

Um, yeah. It's so interesting.

Becky: What do you, do you attribute anything to your natural ability to just kind of hold it all? Yeah, that's what I was just thinking

Christina: about. I think it's probably my mom.

Mm. Same mom. I think my

Christina: mom. Yeah. I think my mom is, um, she is so good at being with everything.

Mm.

Christina: Being with hardship, being with, um, joyfulness.

She was a nurse growing up when, um, we were kids and when we were younger going in elementary school, she became a night nurse at, um, like an elderly care facility and a nursing home. She was a night nurse at a nursing home, and sometimes she would bring us there during the day. Oh,

Becky: wow.

Christina: Okay.

Yeah, I remember the smell of those places because it's a very different smell that smells like bodies who have been around for a long time. And she would take us in and she wouldn't even, I don't remember her trying to like, protect our feelings or give us any information beforehand.

Mm-hmm.

Christina: She was just like, let's go visit my friends.

Hmm.

Christina: And we would go and sometimes we would walk into a room and there would be a person in a bed and they wouldn't speak, and mom would just talk to them, introduce us to them like it was any other human being.

Hmm.

Christina: Um, yeah, she's a pretty special person in that way, so, um,

Becky: yeah. Such a gift. It's such a gift she gave you.

Christina: Yeah. 'cause it really doesn't, um, I really don't think I gloss over. I think I'm, I'm someone who naturally orients towards light. Mm-hmm. But it's not in, um, it's not in an ignoring a darkness kind of way.

Becky: No.

Christina: Um, Andrew, my husband always tells me that I'm like a, like a brahm symphony. A what Symphony? He's a musician.

He's a musician. And he says that I'm like a Bram Symphony Brams. Where, bro? Yeah. But it, some people might take this as kind of a dig, but it isn't because he was like, you're like a Bram Symphony. You just like, you're always what you are. Like, you like I'll face something that's difficult with him just as quickly as I'll face something that's easeful.

Yep. I was taught that. Yeah, I was taught that mostly by my, mostly by my mom. Um, I, yeah. I don't know. I, the nursing home thing is an interesting thing. I've thought about that a lot because death has never frightened me. We were walking into rooms where people had just passed or were maybe confused. And didn't know how to talk to kids or were very, very much like, oh, I wanna talk to you.

Oh, kids, lemme hug them. And, and it was just sort of like, you know, as kids, you look to your parent to see how do I assess this situation? And it was always just like, we're here. This is Bob. Bob's been here for a while. I, I helped change his bedsheets last night, or whatever. And, you know, just to be in those spaces without much, um, changing in your behavior.

Becky: Yeah. Maybe that was it. I mean, it sounds pretty profound to me. I, um, at Essel and I, I met, uh, a new friend, friend in my group who's young. She's like 29. And she was talking about, uh, being there when her grandfather died and then. Afterwards she started volunteering. She lives in Germany, so it's, uh, I don't know what the equivalent would be here, but she volunteers to just like be with people who are towards the end of their life, you know?

Um, and I just saw such a maturity in her, and I'm not pointing to that one thing, but it really struck something in me. And I've been called for a while to look into being a death doula or like, I think I have the capacity, but because I have, I've had to teach myself, I still feel this hesitation and this, this, um, reaction or this fear.

So I have to like do work knowing that I know how beneficial this will be for me. Like, I'm not even thinking about what I can give to the person dying. Like I'm very selfishly thinking , this would be such a beautiful experience. Because there's, I don't know, it's just such a shame how we treat death and dying in our culture is like something to turn away from.

No. Yeah. 'cause there's so much wisdom. First of all, we're ignoring people who have so much wisdom just because they've been on this planet for so long. And then like death is, the birth and death are the only experiences that are universal among humans. Mm-hmm. Among all beings.

Mm-hmm.

Becky: And yet we shy away from it and we, we don't talk about it.

We don't look at it, we don't bring our kids to it. So like, I mean, what a gift.

Mm.

Becky: Just, it's really

cool.

Becky: It normalizes it and then it's like when you're in, because for me, I think of that as like the ultimate fear that drives a lot of our human behaviors. Yeah. Around. Fear, like that is the, the big one, right.

It's a big unknown. It's, um, and you know, so when you, so that's like, it's like, it feels just so primal. It's like survival or death, you know? And when you don't have a relationship with death or a healthy relationship with death, something that we will all experience, I would imagine that it puts you in like this survival mode more than you need to be.

Christina: Okay. Something just clicked with me actually exactly what we were talking about before. Where if you practice being in the presence of nature, how does that extend into your life mm-hmm. Into your lifetime? Because I was thinking, what does it take to be able to like sit in a room with someone who's dying and feel okay?

Mm-hmm.

Christina: First of all, I think you have to be a grounded person. I think you have to have emotional maturity and just a groundedness about you where you're actually not spending a lot of your energy thinking of what you should be doing because you just feel very comfortable in yourself. I also think, um, I also think that you have to be willing to let your feelings flow through you as soon as they arrive, as well as witness the feelings of others flow through them as soon as they arrive.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: And also I really do think, actually, I've never thought about this this way, but I think practicing being present

mm-hmm.

Christina: Is an incredible way to get there. Mm-hmm. Because that's one thing that I think that my mother has always done very well is, and like, is the quality of any incredible nurse or caregiver Yeah.

Is to be present.

Becky: Yep.

Christina: And so I think practicing presence in general. In your garden or in your whatever, in yourself, in your cold plunge, in your whatever walks things.

Mm-hmm.

Christina: That expands out of you in so many more ways than you realize, like, not only does it help you enter your life from a place in your center every day, but it helps others, like

mm-hmm.

Becky: Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine being at the end of your life and the people that you love or just anyone is like, afraid to be present with you? Right? Like, or like, I mean this what you, you, when we were talking about the experience of your grandfather

Christina: Yeah.

Becky: And like him just wanting people to be there.

Christina: Hmm.

Becky: And because. He has amazing, you know, he has you and Andrew and all of your very present family members. What a gift. You know, I mean,

Christina: Yeah. Um, so my mom's dad passed away, so this is the, the father who in that generation wasn't as in the home, you know, like her mother raised her more than he did 'cause he was out working. And anyway, um, my grandfather passed away a couple of years ago and he had just an incredible life. Just an incredible life.

Nine kids. One of them was adopted from China in the middle of the nine. Um, and you know, with the nine kids, talk about the life you get to experience go through. Mm-hmm. Um, he had cancer at the end of his life, did some chemo. It went away for a little bit and then it came back. And then he was just like, this is my time, now is my time.

Um, and so then, you know, he and my grandmother made the decision to bring him home. It's like what everyone should aspire to is the way this man died. So he was at home in a bed in his living room. And, , he asked, he, his experience dying was so profound that he just told my grandmother that he wanted all of his grandkids to come.

So he had his kids there. You know, they were all around him taking shifts. When you have nine kids, that's great, right? Yeah. Um, two of them had passed away at that point before him, so he had seven of his kids there and their spouses just attending his

death

Christina: however long it took. And then he said, I, I wanna talk to all my grandkids, so if anybody will come see me, I want them to.

And it was in the middle of COVID. He didn't want people to wear masks because he wanted to be able to see them, which I cannot blame him for. Yeah. But it was at that time where you were afraid you would cause harm to especially elderly people.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: So I reached out to my neighbor who was 80 and her partner, who's also 80, and I said, here's the experience.

Like what do I do? Should we go? Mm-hmm. Do we go? Mm-hmm. And they both said, you go, you gotta go. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So Andrew and I went down and um, and it was just my mom did warn me. She didn't warn us as kids in front of the nursing home, but she warned us this time, come see him. Hopefully you get him in a lucid time.

Sometimes he comes and goes, but just be aware that he cries a lot.

Mm-hmm.

Christina: Which was a really good thing to be aware of. Yeah. Because he is, you know. Not someone,

Becky: these

Christina: like patriarchs do not weep. You know, she was alerting

Becky: you to, to something different than you knew when you were a kid.

Yeah, yeah,

Christina: exactly. So this was like, this man that you've seen as this really strong, you know, man, he's, he's crying a lot. Mm-hmm. And, but again, she wasn't like, she was just like, that's what you need to know. He's crying a lot. Yeah. You go, do you? So we, we went and um, and Andrew is a musician, so he brought his saxophone because grandpa had always asked us, you know, like family parties and stuff.

We would sing songs together and that was something he loved. So he said. If Andrew comes, tell him to bring his horn. So we brought his horn and it was winter and we had newborn twins at the time. And like got my mother-in-law to hang out with him here, drove down to Cape Cod like two and a half hours each way just to sit with him for, I think we sat with him for an hour.

Hmm. And he just told us all these stories of his life. And grandma even said, he repeats a lot of stories, but you probably haven't heard 'em yet. So he just got to, we're like, remember his life through all of these grandchildren and, um, there are a lot of us, I think there might be like 34 grandchildren that they have.

Becky: Wow.

Christina: And he had these like really raw conversations with all of us. He talked about how his, um, faith in God to use his words, was deeper than he ever realized until this moment. Mm. Um, and then Andrew played, so after we talked for like 45 minutes, I think he started to get a little tired and he said, so did you bring your horn?

And Andrew said, yeah, I did. And he unpacked his horn and then stood, I was sitting on a chair next to the bed, and Andrew stood at the end of my grandfather's chair. So he was, he could touch his feet and he played a ballad for him. I forget which one he played. I'll have to think about it. But he played a ballad for him.

And I remember looking at grandpa and he, as soon as he heard these first few notes, his face broke into this. Like, like, I don't think I've ever witnessed someone feel such a pure feeling before. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and his face broke into this like, abundant joyfulness. Met with incredible sadness. Mmm.

And he just closed his eyes. Andrew also had to close his eyes because he wouldn't be able to see him and play at the same time. And he was like, this is what I am doing for, like, I'm here for this man and I will do what I can do for this man. And grandpa just closed his eyes and he laid back and he just let it wash over the whole room.

Mm. It was just one of the most powerful hours of my entire life. Yeah. Um, and he had a couple of experiences like that, but we, you know, he doesn't have a lot of musicians in his family. Certain, certainly not ones that are able to be that present

Yeah. With

Christina: him, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Christina: Um, oh my gosh. Yeah. It was, it was very, very special.

Um, and then we were able to give him a two huge hugs and say goodbye. And we went, drove home.

Hmm.

Christina: Amazing. It's

Becky: just really hitting me. The gift of presence. Yeah. Like how profound the gift of presence is. And we don't have to, it's not just in these, in the extremes of birth and death, you know? Um, we can bring that presence to every moment, but I, I think

Hmm.

Becky: It's in inspire, it's inspiring me to do the work. So it's, when I say do the work, what's hitting me is like, you were gifted this experience when you're very young. So in your nervous system, you were taught like, I can be with death and, and the end of life and be okay because your mom mm-hmm. You regulated with your mom 'cause she was regulated.

True. I never had that experience, so that's why I say I need to teach myself because

mm-hmm.

Becky: Death was kind of this unknown when my grandmother was dying. She had a heart attack when she was, um, when I was nine and I stayed, they left me at home. Like I didn't get to, I haven't said goodbye to, or been there really at the end of any of my grandparents.

So it was kind of like kept at arms length and not, I don't mean in like, it was in like, it's hard to deal with. This is hard stuff. Oh my gosh. So I'm not saying like anyone made mistakes or whatever. This is just my experience of it. So it's like when you're approaching anything new and unknown, my nervous system is like scary, you know?

Mm-hmm. So I have to teach myself because there's such a gift of, of just being present with someone at the end of their life. Yep. Oh, this is, I mean, and it's interesting 'cause I bet if we talked to people about like the gift of being there for the, and being present at the beginning of life

mm-hmm.

Becky: They would talk about how miraculous it is and

mm-hmm.

Becky: Yet we, I think we, we would gain a lot by building that capacity for the end of life as well. Mm-hmm.

Christina: I agree.

Becky: Hmm. Presence, the gift of presence.

Christina: It's

Becky: definitely the title for this episode. Yeah, for sure.

Christina: Music was recorded live as a part of the sound service at 3S Art Space in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where musicians responded to the changing light in the room that reflected and refracted through Christina's suspended artwork. Andrew Halchak, the composer of this piece, is playing bass clarinet, and Tomas Cruz and Katie Seiler are singing.

You know, my grandpa passed away, gosh, how many years? Five? Five, maybe years ago. Um, and I have a much closer relationship to my grandmother, who I just visited, and she's coming to me in dreams. Um, she's coming to me in dreams, in the form of like a like an aura. Like a like an Aurora Borealis in the size of her in space. And then I told her about that, that she came to me in a dream and she said, it's so funny, Christina, because that night that you dreamt that. I had the best sleep that I've had since I can remember. And so it's a fascinating thing to just be very conscious of these gifts now in the same relationship of witnessing someone that you love start to deteriorate in their body.

It's an interesting thing.

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