Learning with Uncertainty w— Death Midwife, Educator and Artist Narinder Bazen 🥀

Is uncertainty a feeling, a thought, a condition, or a curse? Is it a beautiful opportunity for wonder or a harrowing reminder of our finitude?

In this episode, grace explores and answers these questions with Narinder Bazen — full spectrum death midwife, intuitive counselor, and founder of Nine Keys School of Death Arts.

Together, they untangle how death is a sacred portal that pries our fingers from the false grip of certainty. And they remind us that uncertainty is with us every day — allowing presence and serendipity into our lives.

Inside —

• Social norms and the desire for certainty
• How we conflate certainty with healing and feeling safe
• The beauty of embracing an ordinary life
• Uncertainty as a doorway to miracles
• Why you can be ok — even when ‘the world’s on fire’
• Creating flexibility in your consciousness
• Reaching up toward the face of Death

If you enjoyed the episode, check out —

• NOW is the Seed for Next
• The Initiation Deficit : Part 1

More about our guest —

• Website: narinderbazen.com
• IG: @narinder.bazen.death.life
• Newsletter: narinderbazen.com/newsletter
• Podcast: Nine Keys & Co

Free resources —

Take grace’s free class EROS : INITIATOR ❤️‍🔥 — Learn what the Erotic actually is, why it's the answer to what's not healing in your life, and who it’s calling you to become — someone delighted and powerful

Stay Connected —

Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your listens

Visit grace's website

Join the newsletter 💌

thanks for listening. peace, be well. 🙏

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the Erotic Devotion Podcast. I'm your host, Grace Allardyce. Welcome everyone. My guest today is Narinder Basin, who is an artist, an unlicensed intuitive counselor, and a full-spectrum death midwife who blends grief work, art, mysticism, and my favorite straight talk into a practice devoted to helping people navigate endings, unravelings, and the beauty of being alive while the world changes shape around us. She's the founder of Nine Keys School of Death Arts, an interdisciplinary school of death work is art and cultural practice. I'm so happy to have you on the show. I'm always happy to talk with friends, and I'm a huge fan of your work, as you know. So welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Hi, darling. Thank you for letting me be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

I'm so excited for this conversation. Where are we going? What are we doing? I know. I think the main prompt that was it's been pinging me for a long time, as I told you before I actually emailed you, that one of the tenets that comes up a lot when you're teaching the nine keys, I think it comes up at the beginning, which is your program, your school for death midwifery, is uncertainty is the teacher. And I think that's such a I think it's poignant for life in general, but I think the way that you phrase it and the way that you reorient to it, and also the way that death in particular brings us really close to that teaching is really pertinent to how we're trying to learn to be alive right now. And so that's really like the big portal that I wanted to open with this conversation. And so I think I'd like to start by just jumping into what's been your journey to radically embracing uncertainty as a teacher. I imagine maybe you've always been that way, but I find that most humans are not. They're like, certainty is safety and I must have it. And we're like, that's not true.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yes, right. Yeah. Well, it's actually one of the core principles of the Nine Keys program. And it's death as the teacher and uncertainty. We get the most lessons, or like the lessons that we get through uncertainty far outweigh any other lessons. And and so I've I have put a lot of thought to it. And I began my relationship with uncertainty without knowing that's what I was doing in my early 40s when my marriage was falling apart, and I found out that I wouldn't be having any children. And in that moment, I collapsed to the floor and my life flashed before my eyes. A whole life of being certain that I was going to complete this script, that I was going to go to college, get the degree, get married, have a house, have babies. I was doing the script and still being a wild free spirit inside of that, but not realizing I was walking around just unconsciously, living my life with so much certainty that this is how my life was gonna pan out. And look at me years later, living eight states away by myself in Maine, having a fabulous, wonderful time. So that's where my my relationship with uncertainty began, was when everything fell apart.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I feel like death in particular, but also these moments where things fall apart. You and I secretly know that those are gifts. Even though they may not, that doesn't necessarily mean they're always fun. But most people engineer most of their lives to avoid both of those things, to avoid things falling apart, to avoid, to separate from uncertainty as much as possible, and to, which is also a similar action to backing away or looking away from death as much as possible. They're all intertwined. And do you feel like it was you intentionally walking closer with death and opening more to its medicine that helped you make peace with uncertainty, friends with uncertainty, perhaps even devotion to uncertainty? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yeah, when after that period in my life, that was actually around the same time that Nine Keys was being born. So the Nine Keys School of Death Arts was being born at that time. And I was had been working stacked hot, thick as a death worker in Atlanta, busy all the time in all sorts of death and dying situations, as you know, my story, and riddled with uncertainty and being around people who were facing the most terrifying times in their life, losing a loved one, right? Or losing a loved one after you just had children with them. Right? Like really hard things. And I could feel this a dissonance between me walking in with certainty and there being so much of the un in the room, right? And it's partly why I that is one of the principles of Nine Keys, Mary Grace, is I want my students to really get to know uncertainty because I think we're assholes if we try to be death workers and we walk around and we walk into a house with so much certainty in ourselves and our lives, and these are my plans, and this is what I'm gonna do with my life, right? And you're walking in to meet someone who at the age of 42 and their life is ending. And so we have to look at our relationship with this first before we can serve people who are standing on death's doorstep, right? Going into the greatest uncertainty. And uncertainty is uh I I was thinking about this before we we got on this call today, and I was like, wait a minute, is uncertainty an emotion? Or is uncertainty a feeling? Is it a thought? I was like, what is it? I'd actually never sat down all these years and thought, what is it itself, right? Um do you want to hear what I came up with? Yeah. Of course. So I was not walking the talk. I I came up with it's a condition. Yeah. It's a posture. It's a posture, it's a condition, yeah. And then so then how we respond to uncertainty is the emotion, is is the feeling, is, is, is the posture we take in response to the uncertainty. And uncertainty I I I we you and I could probably romanticize it so well because uncertainty is you know, when an uncertain time comes up and let's say a woman's life when she's leaving a marriage, there's a possibility of wonder. You know, wondering what's gonna come next, or wondering who I'm gonna become after this, you know, so there's that possibility of romanticizing it. But also there are times when material uncertainty can be really terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, and I think, you know, the first thing that came to my head when you were like, is uncertainty a feeling? And it's to me, uncertainty is sort of a backdoor way of getting into all there is is right now. Mm-hmm. Yes. Because the uncertainty is like, well, what's gonna happen after that? And it's like, well, and we usually grasp extra hard onto that. We're like, well, things are falling apart. If I can just plan what's next, I'll feel better. But if we're really letting uncertainty be the teacher, we don't know what's next. And so all there is is right now, which can be really hard when what's happening right now is an ending. But I feel like really seating myself in that has chipped away such massive things in myself, in my aura, and how I relate to being a healer. You know, you use the example of how we show up to a death situation. And if in your aura and in your field and in your energy is I'm like, I have these plants and I'm gonna do this, and I gotta make sure I tell them these five things. It totally is in dissonance with what's actually happening and what the medicine is. I'm not saying I don't still rub up against that. You know, our friend Dara passed away a few months ago. And, you know, when I was being with her, I in my head, I was like, wow, I'll come back tomorrow. And I really, I really wanted like to spend some time doing X, Y, and Z for her, like just to give her this gift. And she died that night. There was no tomorrow. And I think that coming back to this as like a posture of all there is is right now is really us bringing us back to or seeding in us this potential of just being as alive as possible right now with what is happening. And I find that the people who really know or who are interested in opening to the medicine of rubbing up against death are those who are the most alive to that possibility. And, you know, what goes along with I need certainty is, well, I need to fix this. I need to save this, I need to know so that I'll be okay. And it, you're not going to like death is like, well, there's nothing to fix. You just don't like it. And that's true with so much of how we approach reality, what's happening. And when we take that away, it invites. So if I'm not here to fix it and I'm not here to save it, and I can't know, what then am I to do? Is like a really big question that I would love more people to sit with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yes. I love how you said that. It's a backdoor into being in the here and now. Yeah, because what it's it's a it's a the reality of it is a loss of control. And it's so what is in front of you is a question mark, but also the wind, it's also a possibility. Yeah. I love, I love that idea of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

I mean, it's like how how do we learn to be with something, someone with life, if it's not a test that we're trying to ace or something that we have to prove or fix? And that's a really foreign concept for a lot of people. And I personally find that underneath that is this really beautiful ecstasy of being alive, of just kind of reveling in the miracle of being alive and letting that just really be this huge fire at the center of your life. But ironically, it's not, that's not a beauty that we can access unless we're willing to be with death is the teacher. Uncertainty is like this key. Like we don't, we can't get to that beauty and that gold unless we're gonna go, we're willing to go through that portal and even not know who we are, especially if we have a whole identity around helping and fixing and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm really fascinated with the enculturation of our social norms. So, you know, certainty is it begins at the very young age when we're being asked, what are you gonna be when you grow up? Or yeah. Like let's just can we just unpack that question that we ask children, right? And that and that programming there, or what's your retirement plan? Or, you know, if you just buy the right house, if you just do the right things, you know, it's so I'm really curious about the the the social norm of certainty and how we just talk it.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Mm-hmm. All the time. It's everywhere. And now I find it's really crept into even, you know, healing spaces in this way. We're like, this space is safe. It's perfectly safe. I'm safe. This is safe space. And like what they mean by that is like, nothing can happen here. I'm like, a meteor could drop right now and the whole world blows up. Like, let's get clear on what we mean by that. Like, and it's something that I intentionally don't say because it just brings up so many, like, who am I to say that I've got safe space for you? You know? I can offer compassionate space. I can offer truthful space, radical space. I can offer flawed space. I can offer imperfect presence. I can offer quiet. But it's I like the way that you're talking about that because it's crept into all of these other words that like there are ways that we're secretly or unconsciously conflating certainty with healing or certainty with feeling safe. And now we're twisting that into like that's what it means to heal and like to feel alive. I'm like, that is that's not it at all.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah, it's a it's the question mark. It's to, it's to be available in the question mark. And I, you know, I was teaching this in my class and I had a student ask me one time, well, well, lessons and uncertainty, what about someone who doesn't have food? What about someone who can't afford to pay their rent? You know, how are we supposed to tell them that the lessons are in, you know, lean and lean, just lean into your uncertainty, right? You can't, you're about to lose your house, but just lean into uncertainty, you know. And so I'm like, well, no, we're not romanticizing it. We're not trying to make a binary out of it. Uncertainty is like the the last thing on the list of wanting to be in a on a binary, right? And so I also like to like to look at the socialization of certainty, but then also look at the duality and the gray areas of uncertainty. And, you know, having housing insecurity, having a material uncertainty is a real fear. But even inside of that, there is a space for wonder, and there's a space for creativity, and there's a space for community right now, community changing, and and like let's say a mutual aid conversation comes out of that or you know, a relationship mends because of that. You know, so it's not it's not black and white. It can material uncertainty can be terrifying, but I also just want people to hear that there's also a a space open there for creativity and possibility.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, I mean, I feel like what you're describing is it that it's it's not something to bypass either. However, the uncertainty is manifesting, it's not something to like skip over. And I'm thinking back to and I think there could be some room within that gray area to talk about stability and certainty as different things, like as like they have qualities, for instance, like the way that nature is rooting down and creating stability and resourcing itself, not so that it knows what tomorrow is doing, not so that it can create a guarantee on its existence for the next 50 years. That's just because its nature is to do that. And I was thinking about some of the seasons in my life where I had no idea how I was gonna pay my rent or eat between a Monday and a Friday. And again, I'm not here to romanticize someone else's experience, but it did really sharpen my awareness of right now. It's like, okay, rent's due on Friday. I have no money, I have no food, I don't get paid until Saturday. I have no idea what I'm gonna eat between now and then how I'm gonna pay my rent. But it was like, well, but right now I have X in the fridge. That can be dinner. And right now, the rent is paid. So right now I can, you know, and then I show up to work the next day and someone's like, oh, we had this for dinner last night. I thought of you. Thought you might want some leftovers. And it's like, that could only happen if by doing that. And I think too, there's a way that we take a way that we secretly try, I see this a lot with some things that I work with and teach. It's we immediately take a lesson that's challenging and try to make it about everybody else. We're like, well, uncertainty is a teacher. Well, what about for the people who are and it's like, we're talking about you and your relationship to reality right now, and let's just stay there instead of trying to make it about how everyone's gonna abide by these rules.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Yes, yes. And I loved, I love challenging these core principles. I love challenging these ideas and and flipping the coin over and over and over again because what a boring podcast would it be if we were just like, uncertainty is so magical, you know, like how what a boring podcast. But also, uncertainty is really magical. It is really magical. And that goes back to that here and now. And in my experience with it, same thing. I could echo that same sentiment. How am I gonna pay my rent? How am I gonna, and then I get into, well, the roof is over my head today. And the roof is over my head the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and then I realize like what you were saying, it's this root, I love that image of the tree rooting down and having the stability in the here and the now, and not thinking about tomorrow. The tree isn't thinking about tomorrow, it's rooted in the here and now, and in my personal experience with my uncertainty practice, or like now I have an uncertainty practice in my experiences with it, and just it's the way I live now. And it's it is so magical. It opens up like life becomes full of serendipity, Mary Grace.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah, I've experienced it as very freeing. You know how much emotion, anxiety, doom scrolling, frantic, non-aligned decisions are actually sourced in our desire to know what we can't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

My new phrasing now is frantic non-aligned decisions.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I loved that. And it's not a need to know. You don't need to know. You think you do, but you actually don't need to know. You want to. So how and how do we be in the I don't know then?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

That's a fun question.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Strongly recommend spending more time with death would be stage one if you want the the fast door into that. And it's funny, I mean, I think anywhere where we come up to those edges of life, you know, whether that's with birth or death or even, you know, mystical space, ceremonial space, where we feel sort of that edge. We feel like I call it the portal is open. And you can only feel the portal opening if you're just here. Whether that's in meditation or singing or having sex or having a conversation with someone, you'll miss it if you're not all the way here. And recently I had a death client who her mother was undergoing a voluntary stopping of eating and drinking. And she said, Well, how many days? How long does that take? Like how many days? And I just, I mean, A, I'm in no medical position to suggest that. But also the example I gave, I think is one that you often correlate birth and death as well. It's that, like, you know how when you're in labor and you're having a baby and you kind of know you're in labor, but you actually don't know how long it's gonna take or how the baby's gonna come or when it's gonna come. It's death is the same way. We're just going the other direction. And there's something about those heightened states of the portal being open that you'll miss the gift if you're not here. And I think those spaces spaces can give us a lot of feedback about how well we're doing with that. But so can your meditation practice, so can learning to sing a song, so can anything you do with your body or going outside, because the natural World isn't wondering what tomorrow is going to do.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

I think that's really beautiful. How was that client? How was their deafing?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

You know, it started off with some friction because her daughter reached out, and I could tell there was a lot of pain and tension in the relationship between the mother and the daughter. And the mother was really like at peace with dying, not actively dying, and just was like, I want to, you know, have an assisted euthanasia. And I was like, well, you could just stop eating and drinking, you know, stop treatment and just, you know, go home and go into hospice and do it that way if you want, if you want more control. And her daughter ended up flying in to be with her. And they had a some really beautiful healing moments in their relationship that was really exquisite because of that, and because of that dying process, it actually healed a lot between them, and uh, it was really beautiful to witness. So it was actually very peaceful.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

It's good to hear. Uncertainty is such a place for transformation. Like it has to be. It's like the main stop. You know, the the caterpillar doesn't know it's going to become a butterfly. So how do you be in the goo? And I was asking you how you be in the question mark, how do you be in the I don't know? I think maybe what's just like dying to come out right now is I think we're also really terrified of living a simple life in this culture. An ordinary simple life. Yeah. And a lot of the certainties that we think that we have in life are tied up in grandiose dreams and longing. You know, wishing, longing, looking for the sign, I'm looking for the sign.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

I mean, say more about that because I know what you mean, but for the listener, flesh that out a little bit about how it shows up of you know, feeling like either we're entitled or we like deserve this like bigger grant. So something that looks un extraordinary is who we're supposed to be, what we have to do.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

It's feeling real American when I hear it given back to me. It's feeling real, you know, I gotta go there. Politicize Death Worker. I mean, it's feeling real American. It's feeling real American, you know, that everything is scripted. Everything is is grandiose, it's planned, it's scripted. I'm really just so interested in the enculturation of our social social norms, Mary Grace, you know, and us spiritually minded folk can speak spiritually about these things, but I think sometimes what really helps is just being like, you make those choices because that's how you were trained, you know, little doggy. You know, we were we went we were trained to live this way. And isn't it so fun to look at how we were trained to think and go, oh my gosh, I was trained to think that everything in my life was going to happen if I just dreamed it up and and and or or or just put you know, pushed and reached and made it happen and reached my full potential. I'm standing here as someone who who totally thought I had control over my life. I thought I had control. I thought I was gonna go down, I like I said at the beginning, I ha thought I had control. I had the script. I was given the script from childhood. You're gonna grow up and do this. This is this is what you want. Be so certain about it, you know. May all your dreams come true. And what's so amazing is I'm happier and healthier and holier today than I've ever been. That was my next question. Yes, give me all the uncertainty. Like now it's like, where can I get it? Where can I get it? Where can I get it? Give me the uncertainty because that is a doorway to wonder, serendipity, miracles. For real. It really is. It's a doorway to miracles.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, and it requires so much more pres it's a dynamic, it's a much more dynamic relationship with life and reality. And there's like a way that even spiritual people, you know, certainty is this thing that we're always grasping for. Like we can't have it. And so therefore, if we're always grasping for it, we're always putting ourselves in a position to not feel satisfied. Like we can't feel satisfaction. And if you perpetually grasp for something that you can't have, you will also feel depleted, sad, depressed, anxious. Your desire will go away, your pleasure will go away, your presence will go away, and you'll be like, why does the world hate me? And it doesn't. You're just reaching for the wrong, you're reaching for something that life can't give you because that's not what life isn't certain. So you can't, you're, you're looking for something that's not a reward. And yeah, I get really interested in the ways that school is structured, you know, even religion, right? Like we're doing this so that we can like guarantee certainty in the afterlife or or in school, you know, what time you're gonna get up and what time you have to be at school from now till, you know, your mid-20s, and if you make good grades. And it's really, it's really a massive identity shift for people when they realize that they don't have to be the best. And I mean, we talk about spiritual enlightenment. Already tried that. Yeah, you did. Yeah, I mean, please share more about that in a minute. Like we get to the mountain and we like see God or whatever, we have that experience, and those experiences are like beautiful and gorgeous. And I love being at the top of the mountain with the or under in the cave with the portal open. I live for that shit. And paradoxically, it's more likely to happen if you're not needing grasping for it. And it's also even when and after you have that, you still have to come down off of the mountain and look ordinary on the outside again. Like it's it's this inner world, this inner thing that you've built in yourself and how it looks on the outside. I find that the more I can just let go of what I need that to look like or be, the more satisfied I feel. Like, huh. Isn't it funny that they think I'm just a regular asshole, whatever, you know? I'm just a regular little person doing this. And like secretly I have all these like little things going on in the moment. And like I love that. It's a little secret between me and life. And we're both ordinary and extraordinary because life is extraordinary. Like the fact that we're just here breathing is like a miracle. But what were you saying about that? I was talking about the mountaintop and you have your own special journey with that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Oh, I just oh yeah. I mean, all the years I was in the Kundalini yoga rabbit hole, you know, and and yeah, I mean, I don't want to go down that too far, but yeah, just trying trying to reach a certainty of spiritual purity. Ooh. Way to push Mary Grace's button.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

It's like I'm writing a whole book about how that's shit. I'm looking at the table of contents all around my room right now. Gross. Yes. Like, is that the goal though? No.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Is that the goal? No, man. The goal is just to enjoy this. Spoiler alert, no.

unknown 29:54

No.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

For $23.99. I'll give you the answer. The end into end of my book. You just open it and it's like, no. You know what? I would I need that book. No, I don't. No, spiritual enlightenment and all of our spiritual quests, and you know, a lot of that is really wrapped up in the good girl issue, as we know. And and I've been there, done that, and trying to find certainty and trying to reach the pinnacle of living in so much uncertainty that like, you know, I'm like I'm a monk in the woods. I need nothing, you know, I have like no uncertainty, you know, and that becomes really flavorless and not realistic and a cement jungle when there's great things like jazz and you know, mascale.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I mean, it's like you could go dancing as a and so even a spiritual journey gets hijacked by this certainty norm. Yeah, because it's like the journey just becomes whatever it is, whoever it is we are. And so if we're bringing all that shit to it, it doesn't matter if it's in like the cereal box of spirituality or academia or, you know, becoming some, I don't know, I'm yeah, I'm trying to think of like what the business things are. Like you're in the Forbes 40 over 40 or whatever the fuck it is, making the top of the entrepreneur list or making the most money. It doesn't matter what the cereal box label is. Like if you, the cereal is still the same, like the box does it doesn't matter. You can call it whatever you want, but you're doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do you see, like, what's like one of the most common uncertainties you see in your work?

SPEAKER_00 31:49

I think the one that shows up, it's not often the one that ends up being the most important, but the one that shows up the most on the surface is the world is so uncertain, therefore I'm not okay. And the world is super uncertain, and you can still be okay, but only if you're okay with uncertainty. And again, that doesn't always end up being the thing that's really feeding the story, but that is the that's the one they're wrestling with the most. It's the most superficial, it's the one that's the most reinforced by social media and the world. You know, it's the one that you can say, How are you doing? I'm like, Oh, the world's so uncertain. I'm so not okay. The world's on fire. The world's on fire, and then everyone is like, Yeah, I know me too. And, you know, so it's it's the it's heavily reinforced. And that doesn't mean you can't have obviously you can have feel however you want to feel about it, but these those don't have to equal the same thing. So I would say that's the one where I see that's the most superficial. It usually comes up first, even if it's not the main target eventually.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

I'm so tired of explaining myself in this way. Do I do see the suffering in the world? I'm a death worker. I'm a politicized death worker. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Of course. But isn't it interesting that people think, well, if you're okay and the world's uncertain, you must not care. I care so much. That's why I'm not okay. And I'm like, those are not the same thing. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

No, no. My inner peace is not labeling or dictating other people's realities, other people on the other side of the planet, people downtown. I mean, it's my inner peace is not dictating their realities, but I do believe I can create, I can stay expansive, I can stay clear, like you were talking about making aligned decisions. Like I can make clearer decisions when I stay in this place. And also, I'm a realist. And the and the reality is that the lilacs are wafting through my window right now, and the sky is a brilliant blue. And they're out there banging on the outside of the house right now and painting it a new buttercream color. And I'm so excited, right? And I can hold all of I can hold all of those complexities. And I get nervous and I I start to get itchy and allergic when we start to have a certainty about the uncertainty of our times. And when my when my whole life flashed before my eyes, it coincidentally was at the beginning of the pandemic. And I think this also probably influenced me was that everybody was saying, we're living in uncertain times. We're living in uncertain times, we're living in uncertain times. And it's like, newsflash, that's true every day. Newsflash. When have humans ever not lived in uncertain times?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Like there was one day the dinosaurs woke up and were like, it's Monday, I'm gonna eat a leaf. You know, like every day on the planet is uncertain equally.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Yes. Yes, yes. And we're not, yeah, it's it it is just a it's just a way of life. And I think that the going back to uncertainty is not an emotion, it is a condition. And I'm so glad I hashed that out in my mind this morning before this podcast, because I'm just walking living my life thinking it's a feeling. I hadn't really thought about it, right? I'm like, oh wait, it's not about a feeling, how I respond to it is a feeling, and I can actually control how I feel. And it's not black and white. I mean, material uncertainty is different than existential uncertainty, right? And we can be in those things at the same time, and but I I wouldn't harp on it so much in my own work, in my counseling practice and with my students if I hadn't experienced so much beauty and magic with uncertainty. I mean, I I think I would talk about it a lot if it was like danger, danger, you know. But it there, but there's so many gifts in it. And I'm a lot of people I work with are leaving marriages, are leaving corporate America. Children are moving out of the house, right? I was certain this is who I was. Now my whole identity is just crashing, or I can't work in corporate America anymore. I've gotta I've gotta do my soul's calling. How do I make the leap? How do I how do I go from knowing every knowing I was getting a paycheck to I don't know, you know, and I promise people that the soul knows the way. The spirit knows the way. And maybe you won't drive three Maseratis. But maybe but maybe you'll be in the glory and the beauty of what you have now.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Exactly. Like it will ask something of you to have its magic.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Uncertainty sometimes I like to play around. You might have heard me say this before. I like to make uncertainty into a deity. I like to make, I'm an animist. We like to make everything into, you know, personify it. So when you were just saying that uncertainty is gonna ask something of us, I just had the image of it as a deity and thinking about sometimes it's a wolf or a coyote, you know, and it's circling around you and you can't hear what's happening and where it's going, and sometimes it's a butterfly that you know something has shifted and changed. You know, and you can't tell where the change is coming from or what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Like step one is often like if people are really stuck in the rigidity and the think the think that they need certainty, then step one is like really starting to create some flexibility of your consciousness and your soul. Like you've got it so locked down tight, like you've got to start to create some flexibility there, like in your ego, in your body, in yourself, because you're not gonna survive the ride if you need it to be that rigid. And you know, it makes me think of the face of the mother, right? That's like, you know, it just looks like terrifying. And only if you let yourself get eaten and your head chopped off, you're like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And there's a reason it looks terrible. Like if it still looks so terrifying that you don't want to come close, you're not ready. You may not get a choice in that potentially, but like if you have a choice, if it's still so terrifying you just can't, then that's the sign that you're still too rigid. There's not enough mobility in your soul and your ego and your consciousness to resurrect the self on the other side. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

When you just were talking about that, Mary Grace, about the mother and her her face, and she's gonna eat your head, she's gonna eat your head off. And oh, I know, I've I've heard the blood curdling screams when she's come around. Yeah. And it just made me think, I don't know why. Maybe you can help me understand why this image came up because I think your listeners would appreciate this that it is a clinical symptom of death and dying for us to reach up at the end of life, for us to reach towards death. So you're talking about the mother and this scary face and what comes after we let her take our head. And it that brings to that brings up that symptom for me that at the end of life it's very common for it's a clinical symptom that we reach up, we don't reach down, and we don't reach for things that we want to push away. And so we're reaching for something in the face of death. We're reaching for the face of death. There's something on the other side, we don't know, maybe a light, and then it goes out.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

We've talked about on your podcast before, like, you know, initiation is a process of moving through a death rebirth, and death does look like scary, wild, I'm gonna lose my head. Like it's the same face or it are we experience it in the same way. And on the other side of the face is the beauty, and you can't have one without the other. And I think the death has that duality in it, really together, like reaching towards this thing that's some version of annihilation, but also depending on your belief system with my belief system, some version of annihilation, which is also always seems to be the beginning of something, it always seems toom into another thing, you know, which is you know, another phase of mothers. It's like destruction and creation are the same thing. And so if things are getting destroyed, well, they're also getting created at the same time. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

When I was packing up my I sort of thinking about myself then, I was, you know, packing up my life, getting ready to leave my husband, you know, my therapist is like, you need to move out, put it on a credit card. I mean, that was her plan, was like, just put it on a credit card, just move out. You'll be fine, you know. You'll figure it out. And I was talking to my mentor, and I was telling him, and and he was real kind of, you know, just cavalier about this huge thing that I'm going through in my life. And I was trying to like prove to him, like, this is really hard, you know. And I was like, I'm so angry at him, you know. And he said, Narinder, have you ever noticed that nobody makes a big leap with a pen and paper in their hand? With a balanced checkbook and with a balanced checkbook, yeah. It's fucking terrifying. Yeah, you're gonna be afraid, and let's go jump.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Let's see what happens. Speaking of jumps, I know your practice is really full right now. You're teaching, you're creating art, you're showing up, you're going to Philly to talk on panels with Eiko Otake, who's like one of my heroes. What is really up for you right now in your life? And I think before you answer that, like work, why is what has you really just turning towards life with a smile on your face? What's really feeding you?

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Oh, well, my school. It is my is my school, nine keys is it, yeah. Long story short, it's I have an art school. Hey, Ma, look, I made my own art school. Yeah. Like I've always been obsessed with death. And, you know, not in just the macabre aesthetics, but just death has always been my bestie. And and and so is art. And I have an art school now. And, you know, it began as a death midwifery journey course. And people are asking to study. I don't want to say her name on the podcast, but you you probably know my very, very first student back in Atlanta, a yoga teacher, and she wanted to study death midwifery with me. And that was during those uncertain times. Like, couldn't pay my bills, didn't know where I was going, but yet I kept being called to these death situations. And then someone else was like, Hey, can you teach me everything you're doing? And then someone else says, Hey, can you teach me everything you're doing? And miracle after miracle after miracle, and hardship and hardship and hardship. It wasn't easy. Making that leap with no pen and paper in hand, you can bonk your head on the way down. I mean, it's, you know, but but it's just been so amazing ever since. So What's really alive for me right now is what has been alive for me for so long. And that is the Nine Keys School. It's about six years old this fall. And now I am opening it up for the conversation of having faculty. So having other teachers. And so I am having, you know, the Nine Keys training course that you went through that we know about, right? And the nine-month-long, like deep dive reorganization, you know, dot all your eyes, taught, cross your T's. But now we have seasonal programming. So dead of winter, we're going through something right now called Flowers on a Table, which has been so magical. I'm just gobsmacked at all of the art I am inundated with every day from students and people in these programs. And I'm just rolling with it. I'm don't know where this is going. I'm just rolling with it. So yeah, and I've been asked to speak on a couple panels that I find really interesting, like medical people in the end of life field, you know, physicians and nurses. So that's interesting to me too, that the artist and mystic gets invited to those conversations. So yeah, just really always in love with my work because it's my art.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

That's all really exciting. The time that we're recording this, I have been joking all year that it feels like June is the beginning of the year. I've spent all of the year up to this point all of these like behind the scenes underground heavy lift things like rebranding my website and the podcast and moving my membership to a better platform for how we use like all of these really heavy lift things. And now that that's done or almost done, it's like I feel like I'm turning my face back towards the world and being like, let's flower together. I'm just feeling just really jazzed in general and just really in love with the things that I get to do and teach. I'm obsessed with my membership. I like love it. I'm finishing up a book proposal that I've been working on for fucking ever.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

I've got that going on too. Yes. I've got the book thing.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Yeah. And it feels good to be like, okay, like I think I'm on like my last, I think we're on like some final edits here. And it's asking a lot of structure of me, but it takes structure to bloom. So I'm just really feeling those poles in me right now and enjoying them. Our our work can be so fun. It can be so fun and so demanding.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

And so demanding and so fun. And we wouldn't trade it for any other position and yeah, it wouldn't do anything else. So we're we're doing the same thing in our little corners of the world and in our ways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Where can people find out more about you and your work and stalk you on the internet and get obsessed with everything that you're doing? Where do you like people that do that?

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Well, they can find me at my website, NarinderBasin.com, easy peasy. And I have a podcast called Nine Keys and Company, Nine Keys and Co. It's a podcast primarily for death workers and people who are curious about the death worker movement. And then on the Instagram there.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

We'll put all the links for all of those things below in the show notes so you can get followed. And I'll say, as someone on your newsletter, you should also sign up for Narinder's newsletter. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I'm very romantic about my newsletters. I love it. I can tell, and I just love a romantic, honestly. So thank you. But yeah, we'll put the links for all of that in the show notes below. And is there anything else that you'd like to share here today that feels on top of your mind or that I didn't make space for?

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Just loving our life. Yeah, just so nice to spend time with you, loving our life, loving our work. And if anyone listening to this podcast comes to me and contacts me and then finds me through this podcast, I would love to know that they found me through Mary Grace.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

So you all gotta tell her.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Cool. Well, I've loved chatting with you and having an official reason to do that in front of other people. And I love you so much.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Love you too, Mary Grace.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to subscribe to the show, leave us a review, or share the episode with someone who would enjoy it. Check out the show notes below for more about our guests, plus links to gifts and other resources to take you deeper. Our podcast music was produced by Santiago Paramo, our podcast art graphically designed by Sarah Mendoza, and photography by Charlie Watts. Thank you for being here, and we'll see you next time. Be well. Peace.