{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Road to Your Name Podcast","title":"Road To Your Name - Season 7, Episode 9: A conversation with death doula, Diane Boots from Iahki'nikonhketskwas (Lifting Their Minds Center)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2766,"description":"Road to Your Name | Diane Boots — Lifting Their Minds: A Conversation on End-of-Life Doula Work\nThis episode was recorded in April 2025\nEPISODE DESCRIPTION\nWhat does it mean to be present for someone at the very end of their life — and what does our culture already know about death that we've forgotten how to practice? In this episode, Lisa speaks with Diane Boots, director of Iahki'nikónhkétskwas (Lifting Their Minds Center) at Akwesasne and an end-of-life doula, birth doula, and pipe carrier.\nDiane has supported over 200 births in Akwesasne, and after a near-death experience of her own, she found her way to death doula work following a wake where a grieving family felt abandoned by their community. What she shares is unflinching, deeply practical, and quietly beautiful: the legal documents every family needs before someone passes at home, the physical realities of how a body naturally prepares for death, how hearing remains for roughly thirty minutes after a person passes, and how Haudenosaunee teachings — particularly the Condolence — already contain almost everything we need to know about how to grieve and how to show up for each other.\nThis is a conversation about honoring the spirit's transition the same way we honor its arrival, and about what gets lost when a circle community starts taking care of only its own.\nWHAT WE TALK ABOUT\n- What an end-of-life doula actually does, and how the role mirrors the work of a birth doula in providing education, presence, and support through a major transition\n- The essential legal documents every family needs before a loved one passes at home: DNR, will, medical proxy, power of attorney, and executor — and what happens if they're missing\n- Why feeding a dying person, however loving the instinct, can cause real physical distress as the body's digestive system naturally begins shutting down\n- Encouraging patients to keep living during their final transition: doing something they enjoy, inviting students to keep learning...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/EMAPSU_o9vetcBfJJ4OU41woZtyCGFgI7d9nIXpjEOY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iMGM3/MjAxOGE0Njg1ZWVj/MWUxZTFkMzllNmI3/ZWQzZi5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}