Advertise on podcast: Nine Keys & Co: the art, soft-business, activism, and mystery of death work

Somatics Sam is back on the Nine Keys & Co. podcast for a conversation about our capacity to hold seemingly contradictory emotions at once. Inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s unforgettable final scene in Roman Holiday, we wonder: Can grief witness a beautiful memory without taking full custody of it? Can happiness remain happiness, even when it’s over? And what becomes possible in our world when we become able to hold great joy and feel safe doing so? A conversation about ecstatic love, nervous systems, loss, lemon cheesecake, suffering, bubbliness, grief & Roman Holiday. Find Sam here on their website at https://psilocycle.com/ And on Instagram @somatics.sam Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if being good is costing you your life? What if the Good Girl is quietly suffocating your death work, your service work, your healing work? In this episode of Nine Keys & Co., Narinder sits down with erotic healer, teacher, and Erotic Devotion podcast host Grace Allerdice to talk about the Good Girl: the part of us trained to please, perform, sacrifice, and suffer, to prove that we are doing life correctly. - and she is alive and well in care work. What if your care work isn't here to save the world? What if your compassion feels empty because it lacks passion and desire? What if the life underneath the Good Girl is lighter and far more powerful than the one she’s been trying so hard to earn? This conversation is particularly for the death workers, caregivers, healers, artists, activists, and service-oriented people who have begun to wonder: Am I actually serving the world, or am I still trying to be a very, very good girl? 🐍✨ Find Grace at https://mgallerdice.com/ And her podcast Erotic Devotion where you find podcasts. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@graceallerdice Newsletter : https://grace.myflodesk.com/newsletter IG : https://www.instagram.com/mary.grace.allerdice Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Artist, university film educator, and Nine Keys death work alum Lindsay Bane joins Narinder for a conversation about childlessness not by choice, pronatalism, and death work. They talk about Lindsay’s extraordinary story of loss and reinvention, the cultural systems that value motherhood above lives without children, and her pilgrimage through Ireland in search of ancient Sheela-na-gigs. To listen to Narinder's Childless Not by Choice story on Lindsay's podcast go here: "Do You Have Kids? Short answer, No." To contact Lindsay, you can go to her website www.lindsaybanestudio.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if oncology, hospice, and astrocartography aren’t such different kinds of work after all? Nine Keys alum Nova Campbell joins the podcast for a conversation about the unexpected path their death work has taken, from working as an oncology nurse, to hospice care, to helping people understand their relationship to place through astrocartography. We talk about the body as an instrument of knowing, what happens when we become quiet enough to hear our own yes and no, our longing to reconnect with the earth, and the ways a map might help us recognize something we already know deep within ourselves. A gift for the Nine Keys communityNova is offering the Nine Keys community 15% off an astrocartography session through September 30. Use code NINEKEYS when booking. https://nova-campbell.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Artist and death worker Owen Lytle joins Nine Keys & Co. for a conversation about grief, death work arts, and the unexpected places they intersect, from ceramic slugs and online grief galleries to chronic illness and accessibility. We talk about how whimsy and sorrow can live side by side, how creativity can slip past our defenses, and why our truest expression might be our unique medicine for the world. Owen is a disabled trans artist based in Philadelphia who creates ceramics, digital art, stories, and spaces for grief. Find Owen at owen.studio.com and on Instagram @ooowen.studio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Narinder sits down again with trauma alchemist, death worker, and somatic coach Sam X to explore one of the most overlooked aspects of death work: the voice. Together they discuss why so many death workers struggle in their work with knowing how to find the right words - struggle with speaking up, with boundaries, advocacy, conflict, and showing up honestly in difficult moments. They explore where these patterns come from, how they show up in the body, and what practitioners can do when they notice themselves shrinking, freezing, people-pleasing, or asking for reciprocity in return for what they give and give. Learn more about Sam X here. Instagram: @somatics.sam Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when death workers bring the same willingness for difficult conversations to each other that they bring to the families they serve? In this roundtable discussion, Narinder is joined by death workers, artists, and activists, Misha Murphy, Venessa Greenheron, and Rebecca Lopez Mullins for a thoughtful cultural critique on the death worker movement and an invitation to practice the skills we often ask of others. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this grounding episode of Nine Keys & Co., Narinder sits down with somatic therapist, astrologer, and grief worker Sam X (xe/they) for a conversation about the somatic realities of death work. Together, they explore practitioner trauma, nervous system responses, imposter phenomenon, burnout, fear around speaking honestly in the death care field, and the grief death workers themselves quietly carry while supporting others. This episode opens up an important conversation around trauma care for the practitioners and what authentic, embodied support can look like for death doulas, grief workers, hospice volunteers, caregivers, and full-spectrum death workers navigating emotionally intense spaces. Sam offers 1:1 somatic support sessions online and is also hosting a collective healing portal, Rebirth Retreat, in Portugal this September. Connect with Sam: Instagram: Sam's Instagram Website: Sam's Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Nine Keys and Co., Narinder Bazen sits down with death workers and artists Meghan Allynn Johnson and Rebecca Lopez-Mullins for a contemplative and unfiltered conversation about the modern death doula movement, comfort aesthetics, marketing, grief culture, trauma, and the growing pressure to make death look clean, palatable, and consumable. Together, they explore what gets erased when death work is flattened into soft branding, who becomes invisible inside “good death” narratives, and why death work must remain spacious enough to hold uncertainty, violence, beauty, mystery, and collective grief. This conversation touches on culture work, systems, art, care, and the ungovernable nature of death itself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean to tend grief, death ed, and end-of-life planning in late-stage capitalism? This is death work beyond the bedside. In this episode of the Nine Keys & Co. podcast, I speak with grief and death tenders Abby Goelzer and Venessa Greenheron about the evolving shape of death work in 2026. Together, we explore facilitating advance planning, death education, and collective grief spaces during times of political violence and systemic instability. When institutions feel fragile, when trust in medical systems is fractured, when the nervous system of a nation feels activated - advance care planning is no longer just responsible paperwork. It becomes sovereignty work. It becomes culture work. Abby and Venessa share about their co-facilitated offering: TenderNest Part 2: A Space for Witnessing and Awakening to the Grief of US Violence Tuesday, March 10, 2026 6:30–8:00 PM Central Time (4:30 PM Pacific) Online gathering TenderNest registration: garnetandthemoon.com/event-details/tendernest-part-2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Facilitators, space holders, death workers, grief workers - This episode is for you. People are raw. And they’re braced. Grief groups are everywhere, which I love, but the nervous systems walking into our spaces are more lit up than they’ve been in years. Triggers surface faster and repair feels urgent. And facilitators? We’re not outside of it. We’re grieving too. Watching the news. Paying bills. Holding our own lives together while holding space for others. In this episode, I’m talking candidly about what it’s actually costing to facilitate right now, and the one thing I keep returning to: boundaries. If you’re holding space in this moment and feeling the tremors underneath it all, this is a coach chat about how to last. www.narinderbazen.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Find Melissa Word's Devotion Mode here! In this episode, I get into why death work isn’t something you memorize, and why art, making, and creative practice actually train us for the parts of this work that can’t be taught. I talk about death work as a lived, hands-on practice and why creativity matters right now. Then I’m joined by Melissa Word to talk about death work as art practice, paper, what the hands can guide us to, and her new offering, Devotion Mode - a monthly, zine-style practice that brings making things back into the center of spiritual and death-adjacent work. Join Narinder's newsletter list here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to the Nine Keys podcast. I’m Narinder, and this first episode of 2026 returns to death work as a path of devotion. After a quiet winter shaped by listening, rest, and a new diagnosis of moderate hearing loss, I reflect on the magic that lives inside death work, specifically sympathetic magic: the simple, often unspoken practices we use to communicate with the holy, the ancestral, and the unseen. I share how the rose has become a living symbol in my death work, appearing again and again in moments of grief, ritual, reassurance, and awe. I offer The Rose Beyond the Wall, a poem adapted from A.L. Frink. This episode is an invitation to notice the symbols that follow you, the quiet magic you may already be practicing, and the deeper relationship you live inside of with your death work. www.narinderbazen.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this final Nine Keys episode of the year, Narinder closes the door softly on 2025 with reflections on soft business, world-building, and the death arts. She invites listeners into a season of genuine winter rest, where miracles land quietly, and nothing needs to be performed. The episode ends with Pink Light, a short guided moment for anyone who feels tired, tender, or stretched thin. Thank you so much for being a listener of the Nine Keys podcast. To stay in the flow with Narinder's work, sign up for her newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this tender conversation, Narinder sits down with her Admin Angel, Kursten Hedges, a strategist and mystic who helps artists, healers, and visionaries build businesses that actually hold their souls. Together, they explore a radical truth: business and spirit were never meant to be separate. This episode is alive with honesty, magic, and practical wisdom. Narinder and Kursten talk about: following sacred nudges inside your workhow money conversations must be part of mutual aid and community carewhat it's like to navigate chronic illness while still building new worldsthe tender, magical intersection between creativity, death work, and strategy If you’re an artist, death worker, healer, or heart-centered solopreneur trying to build something sustainable in a world that’s falling apart, this episode will feel like sitting at a warm table with two people who deeply get it. Expect real talk. Expect magic. Expect to leave with a softened heart and a clearer path. Find Kursten at https://theadminangel.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.