The Immortality Grift: Why We Fear Death, and How Real Spiritual Adulthood Begins

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This episode cuts straight into the heart of the newest cultural hallucination: “You’re going to live forever.”

Tech prophets preach it. Biohackers sell it. Billionaires chase it.

But beneath the glossy promise lies the oldest human terror—the fear of dying, the fear of suffering, and the illusion that immortality is a birthright.

Into this spiritual crossfire steps Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester—Madrinha, Torchbearer, transpersonal counselor, and Founder of Céu do Montréal, the Santo Daime church she established in 1997 to restore sacred memory to the North.

A bridge between worlds, Jessica carries lineages shaped by Assagioli’s psychosynthesis and Grof’s holotropic vision, guiding seekers through the fire of self-confrontation for more than forty years. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, Doctor of Divinity, and author of the two-volume Ayahuasca Awakening. From 2000 to 2017, she protected the Santo Daime sacrament under a rare Section 56 Exemption—holding the line between the state and the sacred.

In this conversation, we explore:

• The rise of immortality culture and why it’s erupting right now
• How the denial of death creates spiritual adolescence on a civilizational scale
• Why the elders who refuse to let go end up stealing the future from the young
• The old-world gatekeepers—those who “can’t chew the leather” but still block the trail
• Psychedelic traditions that teach how to die before you die
• True spiritual adulthood as a path of responsibility, humility, and power
• Ceremony as an antidote to the immortality fantasy
• The difference between lineage and lifestyle branding in a world full of charlatans

Jessica reminds us that the crisis isn’t mortality—it’s stagnation.

A culture that refuses to die can never be reborn.

This episode is a calling, a confrontation, and a torch passed.

Lean in. Listen deeply. The future belongs to those willing to mature.


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George Monty

My name is George Monty. I am the Owner of TrueLife (Podcast/media/ Channel) I’ve spent the last three in years building from the ground up an independent social media brandy that includes communications, content creation, community engagement, online classes in NLP, Graphic Design, Video Editing, and Content creation. I feel so blessed to have reached the following milestones, over 81K hours of watch time, 5 million views, 8K subscribers, & over 60K downloads on the podcast!

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TrueLife is a story-driven documentary podcast that explores the invisible threads connecting us to each other, the world, and the mysteries of life. Every episode uncovers extraordinary journeys, human transformation, and the relationships that shape our stories.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope you're all having a beautiful day. I have with me today, Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. She's a bridge, the Madrina Torchbearer and founder of Souda Montreal, the Santo Daime church she established in the United States. Restoring sacred memory to the north, a transpersonal counselor shaped by Asagioli and Groff. She guides seekers through the fire of self-confrontation. From two thousand to two twenty seventeen, she secured a section fifty six exemption protecting the Santo Daime sacrament from the state. An ordained interfaith minister, doctor of divinity and author of the two volume Ayahuasca Awakening. She has spent more than forty years leading workshops, counseling and teaching the radical act of spiritual adulthood. Dr. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Well, it's always a pleasure to hang out with you and talk about topics of mutual interest and hopefully of interest to others. So I was a little surprised when you tossed this topic at me because I've noticed in some of your other posts that it's something on your mind, right? Yes. You know, and every now and again we see something and we go, hmm, that's interesting and mysterious, but maybe somehow weird. Yes. What's weird about it? Okay, so who wants to live forever? Right? That's the question for today. So as always, I have some notes and did some thinking and thought, hmm, this opens up some very interesting questions for me and possibly for other people. Okay, so first of all, are we talking about this live forever thing? Are we talking about life after death? Life before death, life during life, and life after death? Are we talking about extending human life so that people live longer, okay? Or are we talking about immortality? Okay, so those are the things that I thought we could kind of dive into. So if we look at this, let's start biblical, okay? Let's go biblical. Let's go. If we look at the Old Testament, we'll see that they believe now either I'm not saying this is true, I am not saying it's not true. What I'm saying is I don't know that these are stories that may be true or may be not true, okay? So I'm just saying that they exist, these stories, okay? That in the ancient times, they walked with giants, they walked with gods, okay? They lived hundreds of years. Some of the people that are recorded as having lived, Noah and others, for hundreds of years. Now, is that a reality? As I said, I have no idea. But again, we see already there's that seed that's planted of possibility, okay, of holding on to an individual life. Right now, you're in the George life. I'm in the Jessica life, okay? That's the life I'm in right now, aging. It's getting older, this life. I'm getting a little raggedy around the edges, okay? But I'm still in it. I'm still here, you know. Wasn't that a Beatles song? No, Bob Dylan. I'm still here. Okay, so we look at religion, we look at biblical age, and we see there's a lot in religion and about people who lived longer and immortality and eternal life. And how often did Jesus talk about eternal life? But I don't think he was talking about in the body. Now, I know in some branches of Judaism, and perhaps all, I'm not sure, I haven't visited this conversation recently with a rabbi, but they had a belief about when you died, you put your body in the ground. You didn't burn your body because there was no cremation permitted. because they believed that there was a second coming of the Messiah and the dead would rise up and have their, somehow, their poor old bones taken from the earth. You know, I think of all of the archeologists and everybody digging up all these poor old dinosaurs that have been lying in the ground forever. And it's like, okay, but who'd want those old bones to be reclosed with the old life and go back and maybe that old life wasn't so great, you know? Why would we want to go back to it? Let's have a new start is my philosophy. Clean slate. Let's start all over again. Let's learn what we can learn and then go into the next chapter. We see that also in art, this was very strong, the fountain of youth, offering eternal youth. So in art, going back millennia in art, we're going to see that art depicts this possibility. Art and some, of course, mythologies. Mythologies, you know, you have the gods walking around with us who have an immortality, and you have philosophies around beliefs, around that there's beings that either incarnate and they're immortal. And so we see this in religion, we see it in art, we see it in mythology, that there's a theme there around immortality and or eternal youth, because you don't want to be immortal with arthritis, sorry. Or diabetes or anything else. All these people who want immortality, they want their brightest, best, strongest, most brilliant. Okay, and here, when we start to look at that, we see, well, okay, but where is that actually real? Everything dies. The stars die. Okay, it does take them billions of years. Our sun will die. It'll go supernova one day, and that's it, and poof, back down, and perhaps turn into a black hole. Who knows? We've already got some gigantic ones in our Milky Way system here. So everything has a timeline. That's part of the agreement of being in physical matter reality. is everything comes and everything goes, right? Okay, so what's underneath? What's underneath? What is this longing, this thirst, this desire, this curiosity for longevity or extending human life and living for however long? What's underneath of it? Is it the fear of death? Is it the fear of suffering? Having age-related disabilities? Something that happens to just about everyone. Live long enough, you're going to have some kind of complaint. Right? Yeah. Is it the ego attachment to materialism? Is it now that I've spent my entire life, you know, bashing my way through business to accumulate all of this stuff, you know, I don't want to leave it because I'm attached to it. I want more houses and more cars and more yachts and more things and more stuff and more glory and more fame and more power and more stuff. God bless George Garland, wherever he is. Did you ever hear that? That, you know, one of his famous raps on why people have houses is to keep stuff in. Right. More stuff. And then. you have to get more storage and it just goes on and on, you know, stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and how much we actually need, how much we actually want, why do some people need so much stuff, you know? So, and then again, you look on the kind of spiritual tradition side and you see that the monks and the nuns and the, you know, all of these people who dedicated them, the hermits and everything, they have a bowl and a cloth and a pair of sandals and that's it. I mean, look at Gandhi. What did he have? Spinning wheel. That was the only, and his bowl and his sandals and his rope that he wrapped up in. That was the sum total. On one hand, you could count his belongings. Okay. Didn't own a car or a house, you know? So we have these, you know, very, diverse examples in the human experience. And we can look at it with curiosity and interest and say, okay, what's it all about? Give up everything what Buddha did when he left the palace, went in the forest with a bowl and his loincloth, and that was it, begged for his next meal. And then he found out that wasn't so comfortable. And he found the middle way. I'm teasing the Buddha if he can hear me. He found the middle way, right? And so what is it about your world and your thoughts, George? What is it about people wanting to have immortality or even have long, long, long, long lives or something? What is it? You know, I've been thinking a lot about this because I see it everywhere. And so I figure it's something I'm trying to learn from. And I'm not against people trying to live well longer. And I think there's lots of great researchers out there. And there's lots of people that probably have people in their life that are going through trauma or stress or aging. And they want them to have a little bit of ease in life. And I get that aspect of it. But the part that really bothers me is some of really, it seems to me there's two camps. There's really wealthy people, people like Brian Johnson or Peter from the Leader of the X Prize. And I feel like these people are preying on the fear of people dying. Like they're trying to build an industry around it. And it is the fountain of youth. It's Jack and the beanstalks, magic beans. You'll live forever. It's this concept. And it, it, it upsets me because they're preying on the fear of being condescending and ridiculous. Like I, I, it makes me upset. Let me, let me, Okay. Let me try and grasp the heart of what you're saying. Okay. So what I'm hearing is that this longevity fad, okay. The current one, the current going around the merry-go-round on longevity looks to be about the wealthy seeking something else to obtain. Okay. So let me skip down a little bit. Okay. So we're going to take that, the wealthy selling something about longevity, right? Is that the core of what you're saying? Yeah? Yes. Yeah, okay. So first of all, does modern science have the tools to interfere with the aging process? Well, it's quickly developing some. Yeah, it's quickly developing some, you know. And Oh, this is a little interesting point. You know, I dug through some research. Informal research, but still, you know, like not published. Okay. Informal research done by a psychologist was that she offered thousands of people. Okay. If there was an immortality pill, would you take it? And the seventy percent said they would not. Interesting. Right. Just a little thing there. Yeah. So, you know, are we looking at Groundhog Day? Remember that one? Okay. Are we looking at quality or quantity? You know, how many times in the film did he try to off himself and he woke up every morning? You know, he jumped, he leapt from buildings, he did all, ran in front of cars, he did all kinds of things to stop the insanity of waking up until finally he went through all of that until he realized he had lessons to learn And so for me, that was more about reincarnation than it was about longevity. You learn your lessons and better luck next time. What are the ethical and social consequences? What are they? So what have not been heard, what the ethical researchers are saying, the voices in ethics and medicine are saying, what has not been heard in the debates are the voices of ordinary people and their attitudes towards life extension research. There is absolutely nothing been done to ask your everyday folk who's driving your bus, teaching your kids, you know, flying the planes, checkout cashier as, you know, everywhere, you know, serving you. Okay, all the people, no one has been asked, is this something that's going to benefit humanity? So thank you, Robert, John Davis, who is a little Buddhist, I think, here. The incredible Robert Sean Davis says, "'Attachment can be seen as the root of all suffering, depending on the observer's cycle and season. It is a balance to be passionately vested in life and love, but not give up the dynamic malleability that comes from seeing past the illusion.'" much of which may be designed to forge character and strength. Outside the materialism of modern-day transhumanism, there are spiritual paths to reconcile the mind from scarcity and lack to the persistent nature of an eternal mindset. Okay, did you post that up? That was his comment. Oh, that's his comment. Oh, well, thank you very much for your wonderful comment. And, you know, hang in and share more thoughts if you have them. So ethical and social consequences. The average individual living their human life, serving all of the rich people, making it possible, buying their products, using their services, and making it possible for them to have this wealth, have not been consulted on whether this is actually something that they want or ethical and how life extension research could serve for the greater good of humanity. So I'm going to, you know, a little, you know, example I use from time to time is a scientist who developed the worldwide web who could have made an absolute fortune today, but they didn't. They said, this is for humanity. These are good guys, girls, whatever. You know, these are good folks. They saw that this is something that could serve the everyday person. And so that's what the questions about life extension. Those are the questions that thoughtful people and researchers in the field are asking. Right. So it may be necessary to consult people. They fear with any new technology that the public could be misled to become gullible victims of unscrupulous life extension entrepreneurs. We see that in ayahuasca tourism. We see that in psychedelic renaissance. We see that everywhere there's an opportunity, there's going to be, there are words, unscrupulous entrepreneurs. Somebody who sees the opportunity to fill their own pocket. Gain power, gain money, gain something, okay? Other people have dismissed the call for open debate because it would give charlatans an opportunity to promote their useless anti-aging products. So it's like, wait a minute. No matter which side of the coin you're picking, there's the same thing on both sides. Charlatans, unscrupulous entrepreneurs. So the argument goes both ways at the same time. Isn't that fascinating? It seems to ignore the fact, this position of some seems to ignore the fact that there already is a thriving life extension in history. All we have to do is, whether it's your skin or the devil, doctors doing things to your face. And, you know, I was a little surprised at my, my dear dermatologist of endless years and who had diagnosed and served me through my malignant melanoma, thirty-five years ago. Okay. She retired. She's allowed. We all, all her patients will miss her. So I needed to get a new doctor. And, you know, I put in my first appointment and I made it very clear when I booked that, you know, if you need Dr. I won't say her name. If you need my doctor's files, she's written out everything. I have it for you. And since it's been a very long time, but I have been a melanoma patient, I still do need a full body check every year, which at my age is not my happiest thing to look forward to every year. And I was like, you guys going to the proctologist, right? And And a charming man, but all he wanted to do is look at my face and ask me if I wanted to. You know, I've got a little, what do they call them, sun spots and darkening from the sun. And it's like, I'm not bothered by those at all. You know, that says I've had my life's journey. I check my skin to make sure I don't have anything else going on. So this fascination with looks and changing our looks. We talked about this a while ago. Is this an effort at immortality? Is this an effort of holding on to how I looked when I was twenty or twenty five or how I look at other twenty five year old women or men and want to look like that again? And so I do all of these things to my hair and my face and my clothes and my body in an attempt to hold on to something that, hello, it's gone already. That ship sailed. It sailed. Wear your age with grace. Please wear it with grace. Okay. Now, so where are we? Do you want to share some thoughts on all of that? I went wrapping off on statistics and things. No, it makes perfect sense. It speaks to the fear of dying. I think when you were laying out some potential cases of it, when we layer that on with the charlatans exploiting that fear, and like you said, that fear can come from many places. It can be a fear of consequences. It can be a fear of never living. It could be a fear of never facing certain things or the suffering. But it is that relationship between people desperately trying to, to take, to take advantage of the fear of people. I think that that's what it comes down to. Yes. Yes. And, and, and perhaps their own fear. Of course. Yeah. Their, their own fear. Yes. Some people are driven into these industries because of their own fear. They're desperately looking for the fountain of youth, you know, you know, the Holy Grail, you know, eternal. And, and, and for those of us, certainly in the transpersonal field where we are, I am, you know, extremely interested in spiritual development and evolution. Who am I and why am I here? And what is my life about? And, and finding that balance of being able to live well and healthy, you know, it's, it's, it's quality, and quantity. If I had to choose, it would be quality of life. Decades ago, one of my dear friends at the time was the chief epidemiologist at one of our hospitals and universities. And we had deep conversations about this, about longevity and about quality of life and quantity of life. And, you know, and people who have a, my understanding of the research in it and the observations of people who work in the field, is that people who live, you know, and this is kind of cultures that share healthy longevity, have some things in common. Certain nutrition, close to the earth, in harmony with the earth. Regular physical activity, usually connected to or close to the earth thing. They're growing their crops. They have their large garden, vegetable patch, whatever it is. They're outside in nature. So physical, it's not just on their Peloton watching the news, right? I mean, that's good. I don't want people to think I'm saying stop doing that. If that's what's in your life, then great, keep doing it. You will be much healthier than not doing it. But if you can go for long walks outside, if you can work in your garden, then it's kind of different, you know? And so people who have healthy longevity, they have a strong sense of purpose. You notice I'm not saying faith. It's a strong sense of purpose which encompasses people of faith. It's something broader than just having a faith or a religious belief. It's a strong sense of purpose. We can talk about that more if it's of interest to you. And they also have strong social networks. And I'm talking about real ones now. I'm not talking about six thousand friends on your Facebook page, probably half of which aren't really people, right? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Strong social networks where they have families, they live together, they do community activities together, they help each other. You need to raise a barn. You know, everyone shows up to raise the barn. You need to get your crop in and you need more help. You know, the folks come around and help you get your crop in because they're helping you, you're going to help them, right? And so these strong things is what, if you look at cultures around the world, these are the things that live to healthy longevity in a people. You know, healthy habits. They're not smoking cigarettes. They're not. excessively drinking alcohol yes they may have some wine that they made with their own grapes for example or they don't drink at all you know and or very very infrequently um and so you can see that but they those are the folks who aren't interested in you know immortality they're not interested in because they're living here now yeah and they are living a healthy fulfilling Life that has a sense of purpose and has meaning. So coming back to the underlying themes, okay? Remember I said a sense of purpose? Can we talk about that for a moment? Yeah, please. This, for me, will be the antidote to fear of death. It isn't needing a great faith in a divine being that will eliminate your fear of death. It is living your daily life with a sense of purpose and putting those things I just mentioned, a healthy relationship with the planet, a healthy diet, good habits, good health habits, you know, good social networks, good relationships, healthy practices, whatever they are. They're healthy. They're good for you. They're good for your community. And that living in the moment, which is what all those good spiritual teachers and gurus and guides are trying to teach us, that is what provides meaning in life. At which point, once you have that sense of purpose and meaning in life, your fear of death shrinks down. The fear of suffering, I think, a little fear of suffering is normal. It's human. I don't think it's ever going to disappear. You know, none of us want to suffer. Right. And even those of us who are willing to accept death as part of being alive, you know, part of the everything arises, everything falls away, everything comes, everything goes. So, and our willingness to let go of the ego, let go of materialism, that is something we do through the aging process. And we can either do it with dignity and grace, or we can get desperate and try and hold on to it. You know, the portrait of Dorian Gray, right? Yeah. Which eventually, of course, catches up with him, as it always does, you know. And no wonder the fascination in modern culture with all these superheroes and, you know, superheroes that are immortal. Yes. Gregor Raphael Fisher. Yeah. Well, seventy percent said no. Thank you very much for the immortality. I mean, you know, but if we think of a film like The Matrix offered a wake up pill, do you want to wake up? So, you know, if I wasn't already taking a wake up pill, our sacrament, I would, you know, yes, a wake up pill is good. But an immortality pillow, I don't think so, thank you very much. I think I'm willing to surrender to this process that is here and learn what I can from it, do it as consciously as possible. Okay, where are we now? You have some thoughts on this last go around? I do. Let me read out my friend Gregor's comment right here. Gregor, thank you so much for being here. Robert, thank you so much for being here. He says, interesting conversation. I have a comment on a slightly different subject, how we face death itself as it arrives. My mother recently passed away from ovarian cancer. I was taken aback at her bravery, especially as death finally came for her in the last days and hours. While she was perhaps a little frightened and apprehensive, she was amazingly lucid and was okay with and understood the experience. You guys caught my interest with to die with grace. Yes, dignity. Thank you so much for sharing that. You know, lots of light for you and your family and for her where she is in her transition. And yes, grace and dignity. So if we're living a meaningful, purposeful life in health and in balance, as much as we can, being human, okay, we're still going to have good days and bad days and difficult times, and that's going to come and arrive for everyone. But if we have a fairly strong sense of self, of who we really are, we can move with that, like the tree moves with the strong wind. Yeah. it doesn't get uprooted so we can give ourselves that flexibility to be resilient in the face of challenges and difficulties but also have grace dignity and courage in facing aging and you know because i think it's the aging as much as the death it's the people don't want to age that fear of suffering age-related disabilities you know the loss of quality the loss of What they see, the loss of vitality, the loss of being able to do things you used to do, you know. You know, at a certain point, your body says, no, we're not doing that anymore. Thank you very much. I mean, you see, you know, there was some woman who ran an Ironman and she was like eighty, eighty years old or something. OK, she had a whole team of people helping her, too, by the way. But she's still like, God bless her. You know, if that is what brings you purpose and meaning in your life is to an iron man at the age of eighty something, you know that you go girl, you know. So for the rest of us who would be cheering on the side, but not right. Right. So does that make sense? But the more meaningful your life is, the more well your life is, then the less likely you are to want an immortality pill. Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. In some ways, wanting to live forever robs you of living your life now. Like if you're spending all this time thinking about like, how do I get more? How do I live forever? Like you already have it right now. You have everything. It's right here. It's right here. We are sitting with it. It's present right here, right now. It is you. It is me. It is us. It is everything everywhere. Right. Oh, well. Thank you for sharing that light and peace to you, your family, and to her, you know, and, you know, acknowledging your, your, your courage and, and openheartedness to accompany her. Because that's what, I think that's something that's so essential. Palliative care, you know, I'm old enough that I've watched palliative care change drastically. Okay. and become something that is profoundly meaningful to the individual and hopefully making a setting where the individual can make decisions and make choices and ask for what they want and need and what has heart and soul meaning for them as they go through that last section of their life. And I've watched many people go through that, including my husband last January. The year before it was my mother. The year before that it was my first husband, the father of my children. There's been a steady stream of passages, you know. And each time you're in the presence of that, each time you are either supporting it or assisting in some way that will be helpful for the person, I believe that it helps us, you know. It helps each of us to be more open-hearted, open-minded, more present. You know, I'm thinking of two great teachers. Those were, I really, you know, have gratitude for. And that would be Ram Dass, the former Harvard psychologist, Richard Albert and Steven Levine. And the work they did on death and, you know, based on Kubler-Ross's original work on death and dying. and how to be present with it and how to face it. And so what I would want to say to these people who seem to be so deeply desirous of longevity and, you know, the fountain of youth, is do some charitable work. Do some volunteer work. You know, push the juice cart around and the palliative care. You have to be screened to assist in the hospitals, but... I'm sure you've got some friends, all you guys out there, all you wealthy people who, you know, want to live forever. Why don't you go and sit with the dying and learn from them, you know, and learn from them. So Jack Kornfield, another one, he tells remarkable stories of when he was, you know, doing volunteer work and palliative care. A story that really stayed with me. Shall I share it? It's one of his stories. It's nice. I'm sharing his story and acknowledging him. So he was kind of on call and one of the nurses had come to him and said, you know, because he was, before he was Jack Kornfield, he was a psychologist, right? So before he became like spiritual teacher, American Buddhist spiritual teacher. And so he was, I guess, on call at the hospital And so one of the staff came and said that she was a little worried about one of the patients that he was breathing in a very strange way and he seemed distressed. And maybe Jack could go and sit with him for a while. So Jack did. So he sat and I came in and the man was breathing very fast like this. And so Jack kind of meditated on what's the best way to support this man. So what he did is he started breathing like he was breathing. And this is actually kind of like a technique and a technique in which you will start then slowing the breath down with them. Your breath will start slowing down and you will help ground them, okay? And so the judge started breathing rhythm with him. And the man sort of started a little bit and he says, you see it too. You see it too. So Jack says, tell me what you're seeing. I see a ship. There's people on the ship. And he says, I'm saying, okay, you know, okay. And, you know, what is it about the ship? And he says, the ship is coming for me. And he settled down and he relaxed and he says, there's angels on the ship. I'm getting tears just thinking about it. Yeah, I know, me too. It moves me so much. And he says, and so Jack says, well, who's on the ship? And the man says, there's angels on the ship and they're coming for me. And he breathed a few more breaths. Isn't that a beautiful story? Every time I think about that story, it tears me up like crazy. Yeah. So that ability to open into the moment, you know. A few years ago, a very dear friend of mine, I better grab a Kleenex, fortunately. My birthday is in a few days. I was born full moon rising, and the super moon was rising as I was being born. And so for the third time in my life, on this birthday this week, there was a full moon rising at the jack. So only three times this happens. Isn't that interesting? Anyway. That is fascinating. I'm sad that I can express emotions very easily. So this light is sad. My kids will laugh at me. Mom, we're not going to that movie with you because you're crying all through it. Which I don't think is a bad thing. To be able to cry easily if something's sad. I don't see that as being this bad thing at all. Fortunately, in my private practice, I was able to use tools so that I wasn't crying along with my clients when they were describing difficult things but there you go so talking about accompanying people in that moment of transition and how doing that helps us infinitely would you agree yes and so it's the fear of aging the fear of aging for some people that's really scary they don't want to lose their faculties they don't want to lose their brightness. They don't, you know, they don't want to lose their sex drive. I mean, sorry, but let's say it like it is. Right. They want to have all the same vitality that they had when they were in their twenties or thirties or something like that. And they think immortality or some, you know, some service or something was going to give it to you. Does it? Does it? No, it, I love what you said about sitting with people that are dying or being surrounded by it. I feel like death is the biggest teacher, probably the most difficult teacher. But there's so much you can learn from there about your own life, about a life worth living, about something meaningful, about how lucky you are, about how fortunate you are to still have your time. I often think about... You know, right now somewhere there's someone on a hospital begging a family member begging for one more day. Please, God, give me one more day. And so many of us have it. So many of us have tomorrow. So many of us have the next hour to tell someone you love how much you love them or to do something kind or to do something for someone that will never be able to repay you just to do something beautiful. Like you have that right now. Like that is to me. And I think that that's why the idea of living forever. It's like, why? Why do you need? You don't need that. You need to live right now. Live now. Be here now. All the spiritual teachers teach us this. Instead of so fearful of the future and imagined and or real loss. So it's also the fear of anticipated loss. Yes. Yes. We anticipate what we're going to lose and we're fearful of it. Instead of how do we grieve? Okay. You know, how do we grieve those big life changes and the aging process? You know, when certain things that we could do, we can't do anymore. And when certain things that we had, We don't have anymore, you know, people. And we can look at, if we look at it, we're going to see that this is how we've dealt with loss our whole life. Yeah. If we have dealt with loss, if we were taught to deal with loss in a way that had ritual, that had meaning, that had heart and awareness to it, then any loss is just a smaller loss or a bigger loss. Does this make sense what I'm saying? So, The fear of death is part of it, but underneath it for me is the fear of loss. The fear of living and then not living, but not having lived. Yeah. So if we know how to be with loss, if we know how to grieve appropriately when grieving is what is called for, So as a culture, do we know how to grieve? Do we know how to be with grief? I don't do that. Yeah, we don't. Okay. Well, I mean, not me, but I mean, I get all caught up in the glitz and the glamour and the flashy, you know, TikTok lifestyle. Let's just say it like that, you know. But, you know, that's not anybody's real life. Every now and again, we'll have a little slice of somebody's real life. Somebody will be on a talk show or the news or something, and you'll see that they have a difficult thing in their life. They've had a big loss. They have a health crisis. They have a something. They're not this glitzy, glamorous, fake being that people think some people are, and then aspire to have that. you know, as a friend, a friend of mine said body by Mattel. So, you know, the plastic dolls. Yeah. They don't age. Yeah. Okay. Where are we? Okay. So we were talking about, well, we talked about ethical and social consequences that, you know, God knows what the ethical consequences are. This is only for the wealthy people who can afford these treatments, these things, these, these whatever people are doing to themselves, clearly it's not available for the people on welfare. Right. Clearly it's not available for perhaps those who might need it the most. It's not available. Okay. It's available for those who can afford it or maybe who can't afford it, but give up everything in the hope of getting it. And that story is more tragic than the people who, as I read here, okay. who are gullible, who are vulnerable enough to be gullible, to become victims of life extension. I mean, how many cancer patients have fallen prey to all kinds of people and treatments and stuff, right? Yep. Promising all kinds of things that are not based in scientific review as actual and research is actually helping anyone that in fear and desperation in that longing so the vulnerable yes they we need to have a kind thought for the vulnerable and hope that they find some courage and confidence to find their way through that and they get the support they need and the information the education that they need so But while we're talking about it, let's talk about longevity that we've already got on the planet and why we've got it. So we talked about healthy cultures of longevity. But let's look at what's actually happening on our planet. The population of people older than eighty years old is the fastest growing group in the developed world. That's a bit scary, isn't it? I don't know. The worldwide number of people older than sixty five years is projected to increase from two hundred and forty nine million in two thousand to six hundred and ninety million in twenty thirty. Wow. Now, what are the factors? Now, obviously, we can agree that a goal would be a healthy society that has that has elderly people who are healthy and active up to the time of their death they have meaningful lives right they have meaningful lives where they wake up in the morning and they say yay i'm still here instead of oh my god i'm still here okay yay i'm still here and i can go on zoom and visit with my grandchildren and wherever they are and i can listen to my favorite music and read a wonderful book and go for a walk and talk have lunch with friends and do some activities, okay? Do the morning yoga class or whatever it is, okay? So that would be a healthy goal that I think all of us could get behind, okay? That a lifespan that is healthy and active. Is that actually the reality? What is the reality, okay? There's, why are we living longer? The reduction of infectious diseases, reduced childhood mortality through modern medicine and science and yes, vaccinations. Children are not dying the same way they did from infectious diseases and or unsafe water. Okay, that's been a huge thing, being accessed to safe drinking water. Very huge thing as far as childhood mortality. Modern medicine, sanitation, improved food supplies, all of this has been contributing to people who are living longer. Modern medicine is increasingly able to keep our bodies alive for longer. So if we go back a hundred years, it wasn't a cure or a treatment, not a cure, a treatment for many diseases that would kill people. Diseases simply what? Diabetes. What did they have for diabetes a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago? So lots of you know, even cancer treatments through surgery and chemotherapy, radiation, et cetera, et cetera, all the various and sundry treatments for different diseases. So people are, we're keeping our bodies alive for longer. I love how it's stated. We're keeping our bodies alive for longer. What do you have to say about that? We're keeping our bodies alive for longer. I like the way it's stated, and I think it allows us the opportunity to live well, to enjoy longer. But I think also there's consequences with keeping our bodies alive longer. I think that the longer the body lives, the longer the aging body lives, the more it steals from the youth. Nicely put. Nicely put. And how much of our health care system is consumed. Yes. It's been shared with me, and we can read about it in Chronicles, that Indigenous people in other eras, an older person, when they within themselves reached the moment where they thought, I'm no longer supporting the tribe. I'm a burden to the tribe. I am told they would wait for a stormy night and they'd go walk about. They'd wait for a storm and they'd go walk about. Come on a journey, won't be coming back. And this was considered honourable and acceptable if an elderly person reached the point. That's our culture and I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm not attaching any judgment at all. I'm just saying that These stories are chronicled, okay? In the current reality, we are seen driven to keep alive at any cost or consequence, okay? The eight years that my husband chose life after he broke his neck, he chose surgery and life, okay? And the first few years, he's had the option. We have the option here in Quebec for medical assistance in dying. And he chose, he asked her to die twice and then changed his mind and said, no, I think I'm going to be better. I think I'm okay. And we watched him do that dance. That was hard. Yes, I don't want to live like this, paralyzed, you know. We quietly told him, after a couple of years, two years or so, you will start with dementia. This won't be on the table anymore. So he left it too long until he was diagnosed by that point. by year three or so, the dementia. So that option's off the table. Yeah, yeah. Hard to watch. Eight years. Eight years of watching someone struggle. I want to live, but I'm not living. There's huge deep teachings in it. Huge deep teachings in it about quality of life and courage and And giving someone the freedom to choose, it was his life, God's choice. I couldn't, I'm not going to deny him his choice. That would have been wrong all the way around. So people choose. They, you know, there's decisions, difficult decisions to be made. And people get to choose. I've known, I've heard stories from, in years past, clients and students and of an elderly loved one who had an illness before medical assistance in dying, okay? And I myself watched beloved friends, you know, wither away months or even up to a year or two years longer than they would have wanted to until finally they realized, I can just stop eating, okay? Stop giving me food. And a very dear teacher of mine, a mentor in the Santo Daime, watched her and then she told everybody, okay, No more food. And then no more water. I know I'll go faster with no water. No more water. There was no medical assistance in dying. Palliative care was just keeping you alive and stuffing food in your face. Okay, why, why, why? You know, why? We have to ask ourselves why. Why do we do this? Is it guilt? Why can't there be a goodbye room? Okay. Why can't there be a goodbye room? You know? when the person is at the point where they can't wander off because you're not allowed to wander off anymore. The police come and find you, and kind people bring you back. You're not allowed to do what's somewhere in your bones. You know it's the right thing. One stormy night, go out in the storm, keep going. So it's where our society is at, which is, and I'm not putting judgment on any of it. I'm just saying this is where it is. This is what's happened, seen it, witnessed it firsthand. How do you make space for that? You know, how do we make space for that? How do we hold it respectfully? How do we continue to offer dignity and compassion and let people make their choices and make sure that society offers appropriate choices so that people do have options? So maybe, you know, what you have up on the top here, what if beauty is not on the flower and the way the flower teaches us how to die with grace. Maybe as much as there is an industry that's trying to sell immortality, okay, perhaps it would be better if we had more support with how to learn how to grieve and learn how to let go and, okay, everybody isn't going to become a Buddhist and embrace that, but still, okay, but still. How do we support our culture in understanding that everything arises and falls away? And that attachment is what is taught is the root of suffering. The more I have a hymn in my first hymn book, where I am attached, I will suffer in chaos and doubt. Set me free. Let it go. And then I can move on my path. When we get attached, and this is, I think, you know, these teachings are so deep, you know, that it doesn't take, it takes more than one lifetime to get your mind around it, you know? And then you go, oh, that's what the Buddha meant. And I'm drinking daimyo twice a month, right? Going, oh, that's what daimyo meant. Oh, that's what the Buddha meant. You know? Here you are in the path. Where we get attached, we can't continue our journey. It's like a ship. You put the anchor down, right? The ship doesn't go sailing with the anchor dragging in the reef, right? You have to take up the anchor, put up the sails, then you go. So where we get attached, this is how it looks to me, where we get attached, it means that we are not walking our journey. We're stuck. And we can't really go forward as long as we're there. That sounds like a whole other conversation. On attachment. Okay. Okay. Well, I guess we should wrap it up for today. Is there anything else that you thought might be helpful? I think I've shared all my notes on, on this and hopefully people will have their own thoughts about what we've discussed today and and let it settle into them. The oldest person to date, Guinness World Book of Records, was a woman from France, and she lived a hundred and twenty-two years. One twenty-two. One twenty-two. I think the previous was a Japanese man who was like one eighteen or something like that. My mother was a hundred and two. I think she was waiting to go for quite a few years, she would have been happy to go in her own house, not have to go into the residence, although beautiful residence, lovely people, she had a lovely room, everything. But once she got to that point, she would have been, she was waking up going, am I still here? I'm still here. Yeah. And she had a very peaceful passing. She was, she'd been waiting for it for years. Waiting to go. You know, some people say God's waiting room. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to share one last. Yeah, please. It was a very, I might get more tears on this one. Very beloved and dear and close friend of mine, you know, got diagnosed, left some symptoms too long. And, you know, for anybody out there who's listening, you have symptoms, go see your doctor, please. Okay, catch something early enough, you're probably going to live more healthy days. Deny it, it's probably going to just create more of a problem. Anyway, by the time he was diagnosed, it had metastasized, and so he lived about another year afterwards in that last period in palliative care. So I had, in one of our Santa Dimey rituals, I had really – thought I needed to, you know, download my grief so that the next time I saw him, knowing now that he was so close to passing, that it would probably be the last time I was going to be seeing him. And so, you know, I had my good cry. And then the giant said to me, look, tell Bevan, and this is the remarkable thing about being in the non-ordinary state of consciousness, is you have such a profound altered state of awareness of Universal wisdom, okay? And what's available, those voices of wisdom, voices of truth that you become attuned to and can listen to that in our everyday life we don't really hear. So if we're meditating and are praying, we're out in silence in the woods, we can tune and listen to those. So in our rituals, in our meditations, that's what we're doing, being present being open. So I had my cry and I'm sitting there and meditating and just in my concentration, we call them concentrations because it's not just open meditation, it's more focused to being available, right? So focused to being available to listen. And I said, show betterness. And it's like something in the astral open and I was looking at this most Don't ask me to describe what I was looking at because it's very hard to. It's like I was looking at this place of infinite peace and beauty. That's as close as I can get. And I'm like, oh, I can't wait to see Bevan and tell him. So we drove down. My husband was so well then. We drove down to see Bevan, visit him. It was the last time. So we did prayers and kind of last rites with him. And I said, Bevan, drank daimyo two days ago. And this is what the daimyo showed me. This is what's waiting for you. The daimyo said to show you. This is the plate that's waiting for you. Okay? Now, he drank daimyo for years. He was coming down to our church. So he understood. So he looks at me. And I tried to describe it. And as I'm describing it, I see his eyes closed. And he just takes a long, slow breath. He goes, ah, yes. He passed two days later. You know? Wow. So... That's my story. That's beautiful. Probably enough stories for today. So if, you know, and here's where, you know, our fear of aging and death and our fear of loss and everything, these are things that each person has to come to terms with. We can't do it for someone else. Each of us. Now, we may need some support or some help with that. That's okay. That's okay. Ask for help. Get help. There's grief support groups. Every hospital has one. You know, call your local hospital. You don't have to. If people are in a position where they don't have the extra funds to pay private for, you know, a psychologist, a spiritual psychologist, what have you, just call your local hospital. They're going to have a group support, palliative care and grief support, because this is a human experience. Everyone has this. There's no one exempt from loss, from grief, from aging, from death. We're all in this together. Right? Yeah. No one gets out alive. No, no. That's a continued conversation. The soul and all that. Let's talk about that next time. It's been grand. It always is. I hope that some people enjoy our conversation. And thank you to the folks who are listening in and shared some comments and always valuable and appreciated. Agreed. Robert, Gregor, everybody for chiming in today. Excuse me. Thank you so much for being here. Hang on briefly afterwards, Dr. Jessica, to everybody else. I hope you have a beautiful day. That's all we got. Aloha.