Rhea Mader and I chat about the mysteries that this time of year brings forth. We start out with some light-hearted remembrances of Halloween costumes, and then we ask each other the famous (perhaps seasonal) question: Do you believe in ghosts? Plus, why do some say there are two separate autumn seasons, and why is it said that “veil is thin” this time of year? Finally, Rhea shares an experience with the ancestors of the land, and we mull over our own impending ancestorhood.

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Transcript:

Diane Hullet: Hi, I’m Dianne Hullet, and you’re listening to the Best Life, Best Death podcast. And welcome to my guest this week, my friend and colleague, Rhea Mader. Hey, Dianne. It’s good to be with you. Hey, Rhea, I’m excited. We’re going to put this up on Halloween in 2024, or technically the day before Halloween, and when Rhea and I were kind of brainstorming the other day, we just, we said, you know, this is such an interesting time of year, because so many cultures talk about this time of year, the end of October, Early November being kind of this, like, season when the veil is thin.

And so Ring and I just thought it would be fun to kind of riff on that. And, you know, in some ways Halloween has become this huge holiday in the U. S., right? It’s absolutely, it’s second only to Christmas in terms of spending. And I don’t know about you, but a lot of my neighbors, and as I drive around town, I see these enormous Halloween decorations, you know, the Costco, Home Depot blow up skeletons, and all this giant, I’m going to call it kind of commercialization of this holiday.

And yet there is this ancient piece to this sinking sun time of year that I think is really amazing. So Ria and I thought we would riff about our experiences with Halloween and just kind of some things about ancestors. 

Rhea Mader: Yes. Yes. So that makes me think about, I was in the store the other day and ran into this man who has this school sweatshirt on and it’s like, you know, I, when I see that, I think Memento Mori, you know?

And so I was like, Oh, you’re, you’re a sweatshirt. So cool. And he was like, Oh, you should see my yard. He’s talking about all of his like skeletons and all these things. So 

Diane Hullet: great. He 

Rhea Mader: was different interpretations. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah. Yes, yes. Memento Mori or yard decorations. I saw a great one the other day, which is somebody has two skeleton arms coming up out of the dirt.

Like it’s particularly spooky the way they’ve done it. What are some of your favorite Halloween memories or costumes? Oh gosh, 

Rhea Mader: so when I was younger, I think I was a pumpkin for like, god, four years in a row. My, my mom always made our costumes and so she made this pumpkin for me, but I would have to say one of my favorites is a recent costume.

So my husband and I used to watch the show Ghost. I think it was on Peacock. And there was one of the characters is like this hippie feminist woman, a ghost, right? And I just loved her. And they had this Halloween party one season and she comes out wearing this maid costume and she had like a name tag on and it says Ruth Mader Ginsburg.

And it’s, it says Cleaning up the mess of the patriarchy. When I saw that I was like, oh my 

Diane Hullet: gosh, that’s such a great costume. I love it. Ruth Maynard Ginsburg. That’s good. M A N I D E R. Nice. 

Rhea Mader: So my husband remembered that, and then at Christmas, he gives me this costume, it was like a Ruth Ginsburg costume, and my last name is Mader, so he even wrote a little tag that says Ruth Mader Ginsburg, M A D E R, and so for, for yoga class last year, we were having this, like, dress up party, and Going to do yoga.

I came in with this and it was like wig glasses, like the whole nine yards. And I walk in and they’re like, who is that? 

Diane Hullet: That’s super funny. I love it. That’s good. I was thinking one of my Favorite costumes was when my older daughter switched schools for sixth grade, and they asked parents to come and be volunteers for like a Halloween, you know, I don’t know, little open house for the kids kind of thing.

So nobody at the school really knew me because she was switching to a different school for middle school. So I dressed as a gypsy. And I had, like, this huge, full, curly wig and all these layers of skirts and beads and earrings and all this stuff. And I had signed up to be the fortune teller. So I came in, decked out as this fortune teller.

None of the kids knew who I was. And I acted super mysterious. And I had a deck of tarot cards. So the kids would come up to my table and be like, Hey, I want my fortune read. And I would say, pick a card. And they would draw a card and I would have kind of observed them coming in the room. So I would say something that was kind of about them, you know, like I would say, well, you’re very outgoing and you have many friends, but look out, someone does not have your back.

And you could see the kids just had this moment where first they were like, Oh, whatever, whoever this lady is. And then they’d be like, Oh, my God, she said something that’s real and then I would let them take the tarot card that they had drawn. So, oh, my gosh, that was super funny. And then I just left like I didn’t speak to anybody.

My daughter never acknowledged me like it was just this whole like, who was that mysterious fortune teller lady? Poof, she’s gone. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah. As a kid in Michigan, Halloween was always the season where, you know, the wind and the snow and the rain kind of came blowing in, so you’d, you know, you’d plan to be a flapper and then you’d have to wear your ski coat and like jeans under your flapper dress.

That’s not very conducive to so many costumes. 

Rhea Mader: Yeah, same, same here. So in a four, four seasons state, we often have. Costumes that get covered up by the coats and, which is super disappointing for the kids when they want to show off their superhero costumes and all the, all the stuff. I remember taking my kids trick or treating one year and it was like 15 degrees and I was like, this is bananas.

We’re going up and down the block and we’re done. 

Diane Hullet: And that’s it. No more candy for you. Well, you recently, you are in the middle actually of teaching a class called Ancestor Bridge. And I love the title of the class and say, say a little more about your experience with ancestors. 

Rhea Mader: Yeah, so I actually just love this time of year.

So, I’m a Libra. I just had my birthday. October just feels like such a I don’t know, just a delicious time for me. I think I went to my acupuncturist a little, like a couple weeks ago. And she was talking to me about how in acupuncture there’s really like five seasons. And I was like, okay, tell me more.

And so she says there’s fall is really kind of split into two seasons in acupuncture. So there’s summer and then harvest and then autumn or fall. And she, she explained why. And I was like, so curious about this. So she said, if you think about the energy of this time of of harvest, it’s like the leaves aren’t really turning yet, but you’re coming into like crisper mornings and you’re, You know, coming to the last times of picking all the stuff from the garden and or the fields or whatever it is, and then you start to enter this time of fall where the leaves start to fall, they’re really changing colors, and she’s like, and if you think about it, there’s really just a different essence.

And I was like, Oh, that’s so cool. You know? And so I just I think as a, as an end of life practitioner, I think that I just really sink into this time too, as this time of going inward also as an introvert. sink into this time of going inward and and preparing for this time of like hibernation.

So when I was, and I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, it’s just like this year it actually happened, but this ancestor bridge course came along. And one of the things that I start with in the course is a story of something that happened to me. And and so I’ll share this as a way of like, just acknowledging how we can.

 Honor the ancestors of our land. So I moved to where I live now in gosh, it was about 15 years ago, 15, 16 years ago. And when I, and this isn’t a story that I’ve told often, so I kind of have some nerves about telling it, but I just think it’s really potent and really powerful. So when I moved here, I started having all of these strange experiences that were happening to me and they were Something that I couldn’t explain, so I’ve always been a person that’s really tuned into the unseen world, but the stuff that was happening to me was in a way that felt frightening and so I was very like terrified by what was happening.

So some of the things that I was experiencing without that hope You know, telling like the whole entire story is and for anybody who is like studies, the energy body, they’ll know what I’m saying. But I was having these experiences of something interfering with my etheric body. And so my energy body felt like it was being like lifted up.

And one time I had this experience where I felt like I was drug across the floor in my living room. And It was, it’s almost like I would have these blackout experiences and then this thing would happen and I would kind of come back out. And it wasn’t like a dream. It wasn’t like definitely wasn’t my imagination.

And, and it was terrifying because I couldn’t control it. And I also had another experience where I felt like I was lifted up out of my bed and thrown onto the wall. And all this time, and this went on for like nine months and all this time I was like telling my, my husband, we have to move, we have to move, we have to move, and he’s like, babe, we just moved here.

We can, we cannot move house. Right. But there were also other things. So my kids were little at the time. I mean, from like three years old to. fourth grade and there weren’t a lot of kids in the neighborhood except for next door and they had like three kids and so our kids were always outside playing and it was the summer and so I would hear kids crying and I would go look out the window like are the kids okay and everybody would be outside playing and laughing and I’m like gosh I heard somebody crying and so this kept going on.

I’m like, all these things I can’t explain and I honestly thought I was losing my mind. So I’m thinking you know, this is like something I can’t tell anyone because I can’t explain this. I think I’m losing my mind. I don’t know what’s going on. And then as this just kept going on and on and on, my son who was a sleepwalker came up in the middle of the night and he is standing over the bed and at first I’m like, Oh, he’s.

walking in asleep again. So he comes and he stands over me in bed and he said, Mom, like, yeah, he’s like, Mom, yeah, he said, there’s a man downstairs. His, his bedroom was downstairs. He said, there’s a man downstairs and he wants me to tell you that you’re supposed to help the children. And I can never say that without getting goosebumps all over my whole entire body.

So I’m like, Oh, I know. I know. I don’t know what to do. So that was kind of like a moment where I was just like, It was affirming right that I’m that I’m not losing my mind that this is really happening and also where I’m just at my wit’s end like I don’t know what to do. 

Diane Hullet: It’s like no frame of reference for what’s happening or how to even move it or have support with it or like you’re supposed to help the children.

Yes, but how like, like there’s no reference point for how. Up until that point that you had. 

Rhea Mader: And we were doing everything. Like my, my husband grew up Catholic, and so we were like, saying like, the prayer to St. Michael, and we’re like, saging, and spraying like, salt water, and all of these things. Like we are trying everything.

Cause I’m like, I’m losing it here. Like I, I can’t live like this. And I had talked to my mom, who was one of the only people that I had talked to about this and she said, why don’t you let me connect with somebody that I know? This person was like a healer from New York and she said, let me reach out and see if there’s anything that she could do.

So she was like, yeah, I could like try to do a remote house clearing and see what happens. And I didn’t know any of this was going on. I mean, I knew that my mom was going to have this conversation. So. I think it was like a week later, my mom called me and she said, so has anything changed? And I was like, yeah, it feels a lot calmer.

And she said, well, I’ll tell you this woman that she had reached out to had told her, so she had done this remote. clearing and, and she said she had, what she had picked up on was this energy of a massacre that happened on the land. And she said it was Native people and others. And those were her words, that it was Native people and others.

And I was like, whoa, wow, that explains so much, right? Like the stories of, The what I was feeling with or hearing with those, the kids yelling or crying and and so like for me, it was incredibly terrifying, but that energy that I was picking up on was the fear and the terror that was felt by the people that were involved in this massacre.

So I share that story as a way of just acknowledging that our ancestors and we talk about this in the answers to bridge class that. There’s so many layers to ancestors, like we have land ancestors, we have ancestors of our blood lineage, we have spirit ancestors, like of a spiritual line or a religious line or something like that.

And then we also have I’ll, I’ll share that this comes from Tears of Firestone, who I really adore. She wrote a book called Wounds to Wisdom. And And so she calls it like our soul potter, soul family. So this is another aspect of our, of our ancestors. So this could be people that we just really connect with in some way.

So yeah, that’s what, that’s why I think that this time of, of the year is just so, for me, it feels like so ripe with ritual. It feels so ripe with like this aspect of honoring and reverence. So all of these 

Diane Hullet: things, yeah, and again, I think one of our challenges is where do we put these experiences or how do we name this time of year as this thinness between the worlds, if you will, and I think that’s so powerful that you have that experience.

And I think. Often, I don’t know about often, but it’s not uncommon that people have unusual experiences that they don’t know how to explain in their reference of what they know about this world in the culture we live in for the most part. And so I think there are other cultures, obviously within the U.

S. and all around the world that hold these truths to be more evident. Right. And they have a place for these stories and a place for these experiences and a way to have a framework and make sense of them so that they aren’t just some weird, terrifying thing where you feel like you’re losing your mind.

So after the house clearing, it all changed. It 

Rhea Mader: all changed in the way that I didn’t feel the terror anymore. So there are still things that happen that, and I think part of this is just me being tuned in to that aspect of the unseen world, but also there’s like this summer a door that we have in the back part of our house that’s always it has a deadbolt and we never go in and out this door.

And I was sitting in the living room watching TV and all of a sudden I was like, it’s kind of hot in here. Like what’s, what’s going on. And then my husband who was outside in the backyard comes in and he says, did you want that door open? And I was like, what door? And he said, well, that door’s open. And I was like, well, that’s weird.

I didn’t go out of it. And it’s always deadbolted, but. It was open, you know, so things like that happen, the TV turns on at random times, like, just, like, strange things, and I think that I’m so used to it in my life now that I’m just like, hello to whoever’s like, and it doesn’t bother me, right? The, it’s the at, the, the, terror that I was feeling from the energy of the, of what had happened before.

And I don’t think that the, those ancestors were meaning me harm in any way. I think I was just picking up that vibration of fear that they were, that they were holding. 

Diane Hullet: So if, if we said, if I asked, do you believe in ghosts? The answer would be yes. 

Rhea Mader: So I love that question too, because I think that even, you know, when I think about myself as a young child like I was always reading like ghost stories and, and things like that.

And I, that’s a question that I was always kind of like, Having this pondering with like, are ghosts real? And I think part of that actually kind of started when my grandmother died when I was eight. And and I was always kind of like, well, where did she go? Right? And I could feel her essence with me sometimes.

And so I, you know, there’s this feeling that I’m having that she’s here, but I can’t see her. She’s not at her house anymore. And so I think that’s what kind of like started me with this curiosity, like are ghosts real? And I think when we say it like ghosts, right, there’s this image that we could conjure up in our minds.

And, you know, Halloween here is a good I guess materialization of that. But but yeah, I think that’s, And I think absolutely ghosts are real. 

Diane Hullet: It’s funny when I think of the word ghosts, I don’t, it doesn’t resonate as much with me. Like some, like if you say, Diane, do you believe in ghosts? I guess I’d say yes.

But if you say, do I believe in spirits? I’d say, Oh yeah, for sure. Right? So that’s something about, they have different connotations I guess in some way. And certainly this, I think, Spirit world feels like a really interesting call to me and I have not had experiences like you’re describing where I’m very tuned into it.

Many, many people who I respect and believe have had those experiences of doors opening or things moving or definitely things happening that cannot be explained in, in the rational world in our three dimensions here where we live. So I think that’s so interesting. And my experiences are probably more, oh, almost like in a dreamy state, like going to places.

Like I definitely have that experience of, of some kind of liminal space travel or something like that. That has been really interesting, almost like dreams, but not quite like dreams. They have a different quality. One time my grandfather visited me in a dream and it was like, I woke up from it feeling like that wasn’t so much a dream as a visitation and it was, I was looking out this door of a house he had lived in and I was watching a hummingbird flying around a yard and it was buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.

And then it came right in front of my face, turned into his face, and he kissed me on the nose and then popped back into a hummingbird and flew off, you know? And I just woke up thinking, okay, dream, visit? Spirit animal. I don’t know what that was. But these kinds of things, I think when we when we talk about them, they’re they’re more common than people sometimes like to admit.

Rhea Mader: Yeah. And I think if we lived in a culture where it, It was more, you know, normalized that these things were happening or conversations were had about it then, because even when I have shared that story of mine with people, they’re like, Oh, like, they’re not looking at me like I have three heads, you know, I think there’s a curiosity about it.

And then there’s also some people like, oh yeah, like, and then they’re like, I’ve had something that happened. And I think even about our work with people at end of life of like sitting bedside with people who are having these visions and sometimes we’re so quick to write them off as a hallucination or just disregard them as something that’s not real.

But like your dream of your, of your grandfather and the hummingbird, like that’s so much so much beautiful symbolism in there. And, and that’s something that we talk about in Ancestor Bridge too, is like all these ways that we can connect with our ancestors or, or that they are trying to connect with us.

And so that’s why I think I also just really love this season too. And if you think about, so you mentioned like in different cultures how we My honor this time. And I think a really big one that a lot of people know about is the my favorite movie is like Coco, right? And so thinking about like the Deo De Mortis, like that is celebrated in Mexico and I think that’s been part of, like, our pop culture, right?

But that’s really or the essence of what they’re, what they’re celebrating is also in a lot of other cultures. And so, one of, one that I’m familiar with is, like the Pagan season of Samhain. And so this is a time of, Celebrating the harvest and also like people burning fires or starting fires, and the, the fire is like a way to ward off evil spirits, and then also they would dress up in costume which is kind of like where Halloween eventually takes place.

 Evolved into what it is now, but dressing up in costume as a way to ward off evil spirits in the way that, Oh, if I’m in costume, they won’t notice who I am, right? Which is kind of funny to think about. And I think it’s also this honoring of the turning of the wheel, right? Of the, of the seasons. And I think that we’re so busy in our lives that we don’t tune in to this kind of thing.

And so that’s why I love this practice that I’m going through with these people in Ancestor Bridge, because I’m also dropping really deep into this time. And so we’re building altars, just like, you know, Just like they do in the in the practice of the day of the dead and, and just bringing things to our altar, like pictures of our ancestors or things that we connect to in the land.

Like I have some acorns and some stones and some rocks and candles and some pictures of my ancestors and feathers and all kinds of things. That that I’ve brought into this altar as a way of remembering. And so it’s really remembering, honoring, and bringing reverence 

Diane Hullet: too. Oh, that’s such a beautiful way to put it.

And it is interesting that we’ve got some holidays like Memorial Day in late May that is, is specifically about people who’ve served our country, but it’s also kind of a time to remember. And I know my in laws always went to the cemetery on Memorial Day and, and And cleared things, but that season has such a different feeling to it than right now.

And right now, when you talk about like creating a fire or creating a altar space to kind of honor a name that this time is passing, I just love that there’s, this is a favorite time for me because there’s something for me about the days getting shorter and shorter and shorter. that I love. And so everything getting darker is somehow so moving to me.

And I always think about ancient people who, you know, basically prayed that the sun would come back. I mean, what a, what a huge thing that would have been to watch the days getting shorter and shorter and just try to have faith that the sun would once again warm if they lived in this kind of a climate, these four season climates.

So there’s something really. I agree. It’s juicy in a funny way. And I love this idea that it’s five seasons because it does like August, September, that harvest time do have a different quality than the second part of October. And this is one of our first really gray days in Colorado right now. And it’s like, Oh yeah, here it comes.

It’s we’re going dark. We’re going in. And that makes sense to me that there’s kind of a crossing time there. Yeah, 

Rhea Mader: I love that you’re just like intuitively naming this aspect of the seasons and the way that the sun travels and and so the according to like paganism which is kind of like a little a little bit of what I practice there’s this time of like the equinox so let’s just call it the equinox.

So There’s this time where we’re having equal parts sun and equal parts dark, light and dark. And so this is essentially this time of the thinning veil. And so we’re, we’re honoring that there’s this equality or balance in light and dark. And I think this time, for me, feels really potent, like you said, because we’re, we’re traveling into more darkness.

And so I think that’s great. Also probably why we’re like, Oh, we’re inviting these ancestors. We’re remembering them as we kind of go into our hibernation, hibernation stage and we’re asking them to like support us. And like thinking of that time, like, Oh please, is the sun come back? Like I have to. They thought it will come back, you know, and so, and so asking them for that support.

And then on the flip side, when we come back to the spring equinox, then we’re coming into more light, but that’s also a time where the, the veil is said to be a lot more thin as well. 

Diane Hullet: Ah, when you talk about celebrating or honoring, what are, what are other ways that in the Ancestor Bridge course, you’ve kind of talked about how to be with ancestors?

Rhea Mader: Yeah, so I don’t do dream work but there’s like I’m not initiator or a practice, practicer of dream work, practitioner or anything like that. But some of what we do talk about is like dreams and how our ancestors could come and visit just like you shared with your dream. Also this well, The, the alters for sure.

So one thing that, and I wish I could remember who said this because I’m like, well, it just was so potent. But like when we put a picture of an ancestor on her altar, it’s like creating a portal and I was like, Whoa, that’s really powerful. So that we do a lot of like meditative practices a lot of journaling but just as a way also to.

Kind of like claim or celebrate, right, these, these characteristics or these traits that have been passed down to us and honoring sometimes the strife that are the challenges that our ancestors have gone through that have I guess gifted us with where we are now, you know, like I think about my ancestors and coming across the plains and, and covered wagons and stuff like that.

And how, how incredibly challenging that might have been, but also there’s the other side of that, that they were probably like colonizing land and, and the aspect too, that my ancestors have lived on the same land for like, five generations. And so there’s a lot of perseverance, but perseverance that comes with something like that.

And that’s definitely something that I’ve inherited, but like not to just breeze over the ancestors of the land. And so there’s like a lot of honoring of that too. And so I think just acknowledging the, all the many, many, many ways that our ancestors play a part in our lives. 

Diane Hullet: I think about too, a wise woman I once knew a woman named Doris, who was a real mentor for me.

She talked about the power of thinking about the idea of ancestor women, that we all come from a line of women. And if you trace it far enough back, maybe we all come from one woman. And so this, this line of, she called it continuous woman is, is something that I sometimes tap into feeling and just that, that lineage, that, that.

reality that women after generation after generation gave birth to babies so that we are here. And then I think it’s really interesting also to sort of stand here in this Time that we stand in and then feel that portal to the future. Also that we will be ancestors. We are simply one little dot in this line of beads of ancestors stretching before us and to come after us.

And that’s, that’s an interesting way to put your life and your mortality and perspective to say, I will also be an ancestor. So how do I sort of tap into that portal and say, Thank you and acknowledge those who came before me and what they brought to me genetically and otherwise. And then what is coming forward from me and how do I, you know, open to that portal, if you will.

So this dance of Ancestorhood. 

Rhea Mader: Yeah. I love that. All of that. And I think that’s really the progression of working through this course too. So it’s four weeks and we start with we start with like, where are we now? Right. So we’re in this present moment and really grounding ourselves and, and then.

Tuning in over the weeks with like the, the maybe traumas that we’ve inherited, or the characteristics, and the strengths, and all of those things, and, and doing that in a really sacred way, but then at the end, we’re coming to this point of like, how do we want to be ancestors, right? because Eventually we are going to be the ancestors.

And so how do we want to be remembered and what are we passing on and having the awareness of that? Right. Which I think is such a such a powerful thing. And I think this is really the essence of our work and end of life too. Like what is our legacy? What are we leaving behind? 

Diane Hullet: That’s beautiful. It’s like, be the ancestor you want to have.

How about that? 

Rhea Mader: Yeah. I wish I could remember the the name of this book. There’s a, an Aboriginal woman in Australia that wrote a book that was almost to that title, like how, how to be the, the ancestor that you want to be, or how to be like a good ancestor. And it was such a great book because she’s really just like talking about all of this stuff too.

Diane Hullet: That’s I love that because being a great ancestor is probably being a great human is my guess. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. This is so great. Tell the people how they can find out more about the work you do. So my main webpage is my name, rea mader. com. And then I also have a website where I kind of like hold all of my educational work in end of life.

Rhea Mader: And that is conscious living, conscious 

Diane Hullet: dying. com. Beautiful. So you can find out more about Ria there and the work she’s doing and keep an eye out for another Ancestor Bridge class in the future. And as always, you can find out about the work I do at bestlifebestdeath. com and wishing everybody a, instead of saying happy Halloween, I’ll just say happy this time of year when the veils are thin and things are getting darker.

Yeah. Happy ancestor, season . Thanks Rhea. 

Rhea Mader: Bye.