Ep. 214 - Gifts of the Ancestors with Mirabai Starr, Jackie Dobrinska & Amy Buetens

Mirabai Starr joins Amy Buetens, Jackie Dobrinska, and the LSRF virtual Satsang to explore how we can deepen our sacred connection with our ancestors and embrace the divine mystery of mortality.

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This week, Jackie, Mirabai, and Amy explore:

• Taking a moment to share in gratitude after a brief breath meditation
• Expanding the heart in the wake of grief, death, and profound loss 
• Being with the reality of a broken heart while remembering that death is a part of life
• Día de los Muertos and the Latin cultural approach to honoring death
• Honoring the intimate connection we have with our loved ones who have died
• Sensing the connection we have to our ancestors and bringing the qualities/quirks of our deceased loved ones into our lives
• Creating home altars and ancestral shrines as a form of ongoing reverence
• Dedicating projects, practices, and creative pursuits to our ancestors

Each month, women are invited to a monthly virtual Satsang that uses a shared leadership model, featuring rotating facilitators, cooperative programming, active participation, and inclusive decision-making. This Women’s Satsang has been formed to help build allyship and agency among people who identify as women, whether cis, trans, or non-binary women, by providing a space to come together to foster greater connection, involvement, and representation around the teachings of Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba. Click HERE to join.

About Mirabai Starr:

Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author of creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialogue. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. Check out her many books and learn more at MirabaiStarr.com.

About Amy Buetens:

Amy Buetens is an artist, illustrator and art educator. She is a certified integrative thanatologist and death educator. Her work includes performing final rites of passage, and she serves as a leader in her Jewish burial society. She has been a dedicated student of Ram Dass for over 20 years, and is a co-leader for the Love Serve Remember Foundation’s International Women’s Satsang and leads her local Ram Dass Fellowship. Check out her co-created book, You are the Universe, HERE

About The Host, Jackie Dobrinska:

Jackie Dobrinska is the Director of Education, Community & Inclusion for Ram Dass’ Love, Serve, Remember Foundation and the current host of Ram Dass’ Here & Now podcast. She is also a teacher, coach, and spiritual director with the privilege of marrying two decades of mystical studies with 15 years of expertise in holistic wellness. As an inter-spiritual minister, Jackie was ordained in Creation Spirituality in 2016 and has also studied extensively in several other lineages – the plant-medicine-based Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, Sri Vidya Tantra, Western European Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, the Wise Woman Tradition, and others. Today, in addition to building courses and community for LSRF, she leads workshops and coaches individuals to discover, nourish and live from their most authentic selves.

“By really forging these intimate bonds with our ancestors, we are also making friends with our own death and becoming more at ease with that vast, beautiful, invitational mystery to merge back into the beloved. The Sufi's call our death our wedding night with the beloved.” – Mirabai Starr

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