Latest / Spooky Butt / 7. Grown-Up Goths with Lauren Seeley
Transcript
- speaker-0: Mm. Mm-hmm. hello, and welcome to Spookybutt. I am joined today in Spooky Butt Studio by someone very special, Lauren Seely. Lauren Seely is a death and grief doula for pets and humans. She is a death educator and facilitator of the Silent Book Club of Death NYC, as well as the Sweet Death Book Club that hosts monthly author talks. She is a curator for funerals, altars, memorial spaces, designer, illustrator, Reiki practitioner, and creative grief artist. She hosts regular grief and death discussions with musicians, artists, photographers, film directors, and authors. Lauren has partnered with institutions such as Historic Greenwood Cemetery, The Met Cloisters, Morbid Anatomy, and more. She resides in Brooklyn, New York, and works freelance in the funeral industry as well. Lauren is also the creator of the cover art for this humble podcast. Lauren Seely, welcome to Spookybutt. speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me. speaker-0: Yes. my God. Thank you so much for joining. so first and foremost, I wanted to call this out at the top of the episode. Your Etsy store, it's sweet death art, is an absolute banger. That is one of the best Etsy stores I've ever seen. Just the way it's curated, the way it's designed, and then the variety of products that you provide. so I think it was yesterday I did place my first order. So I got two pairs of the wide leg pants. I think I did Night Garden and Twilight Garden, which I'm so excited about because that's gonna be perfect for this like ridiculously hot summer we're experiencing. speaker-1: Yeah, and they're super comfortable pants too. So I'm glad that you chose those. And thank you so much for saying all that awesome stuff about my shop. It's just really like a space where I can host all the things that I'm interested in. you know, the art is obviously reflective of me and the stuff that I love, but I love finding other people that are attracted to that as well that love that kind of like cutesy, spooky, gothy, deathy vibe that I have. speaker-0: Yeah, and it's funny. So when I was looking for cover art for Spooky But, I of course saw the Memento Morbid podcast, which you have done the artwork for, which is fantastic. Yeah. So I was like, okay. I looked into your social media accounts and whatnot. And then what sealed the deal for me was the Etsy store because I saw the Robert Smith merchandise. And so when I was in like the sixth grade, I had a really bad goth phase and I discovered the cure. And it was just like A very special time for me. So I was like, this is a sign that I need to reach out to Lauren. speaker-1: Yeah. And I feel like like so many people that come across that design, similarly, you know, to the as you know, I have other ones in the same kind of vein. I'd rather be crying to the cure. I think that as fellow goths, you know, we of course love the spooky music and the sad music, but also realize as we get older and experience grief, and get more comfortable with, you know, sadness and how cathartic it can be and how healing it can be. sometimes just listening to that sad music and crying in a way that we didn't really do as much when we were kids can be a different way that we're connecting to that type of music now. And so, I don't know if it's the same for you, but as for me, it's progressed from this like angsty kind of gothy, you know, exploration as a child or youth that found this music, but then carried it with me through life and is like, actually, this is really helpful for when I'm feeling sad. speaker-0: Yeah, that's great. Cause I know like when I got into the cure and I saw like the makeup and the black clothes and whatnot, I was like, like this is, you know, what I want to project out into the world. I was in, you know, a very strict Catholic school at the time. But no, that's that's a great point. And I did wanna ask you, so have you listened to the new Olivia Rodrigo album? speaker-1: But I like her. speaker-0: Yeah, Robert Smith is on that album. He's featured on one of the songs. speaker-1: Whoa, cool. Okay, now I definitely will have to check that. speaker-0: out. Yeah, it I think it came out like maybe in June. but she it's so funny because she has a song that's literally titled The Cure. And then one of their songs sounds like I think it's a forest by the cure. It has like kind of the synths going on. Cause I was listening to it without like I didn't look through the track listing and you know see like featuring Robert Smith. I was like, this kind of sounds like they were listening to the cure when they wrote this and then it's like the next song boom is Robert Smith singing. So I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This is so funny. 'Cause yeah, I it's just so cool to see like younger generations pick up on stuff that we grew up on and whatnot. So yeah, highly, highly recommend that album. speaker-1: Okay, definitely we'll check that out. Yeah, because you know, I was just talking about this the other day. when you've been a fan of a band as long as you know, a band like The Cure, the early stuff is the stuff that you learned about first. That's the stuff you got into because if you discovered them like decades ago, you know, that's when they were a newer band. Like last year when they put out a new album, I was kind of like, I don't really know how this is gonna go. This this this could go either way, you know? And I absolutely loved their new album that they put out last summer. I guess it's not new anymore, but it it was at the time. And so now like after listening to that album after like years of not hearing anything new from him, I just kinda get excited whenever I hear about like new Robert Smith because I'm like, it's gonna be good. It's absolutely gonna be good. It's always good. he can't really fail, no matter like how far down the road he gets with music or how old he gets. he just keeps putting out good stuff. So, thank you for sharing that with me because I will definitely check it out. speaker-0: Yeah, I I was lucky enough to see the Cure headline, the Austin City Limits Festival back in 2019. And he sounded absolutely incredible. And I remember reading a review of it after the fact in like Austin Monthly or whatever publication. And the author was just like, you know, he he kept trying to check to see if Robert was maybe like singing out of sync, like if it was backing vocals or like pre-recorded. And it wasn't, Robert Smith just still sounds. that good 'cause he's just taken care of his voice. So I thought that was that was super cool to see. speaker-1: Yeah, and I think that it's like it's such a nice gift to be able to keep singing for as long as he has and to continue having like a good quality of singing voice. because you know, you like I've seen a lot of like goth bands like as they've gotten older, and I'm not I'm not faulting them and I'm not blaming them, but I mean sometimes it can really go in a bad direction, you know? if they're not like singing all the time or practicing or anything like that, like sometimes you go and see them and you're like, man. That was not what I was expecting. And I'm I'm a little sad about it. and sometimes they're just absolutely phenomenal, and you're like, Yes, this is this is what I was hoping it would be. And hearing that about Robert Smith is a big deal because, you know, I'm a lifelong fan of his as well. I've never seen the cure in concert. but I did get to see Nick Cave a couple of years ago. speaker-0: cool. speaker-1: to me, that was like, you know, it was like bucket list, like I have to see of course the cure is on there too. I don't know if that'll happen, but I did get to see Nick Cave and I had had concert tickets to see Nick Cave twice before. wow and something had come up and I couldn't go and I was like, I'm never gonna see him. It's like a curse. And then like three years ago, my husband texted me when I was at work, and this was when I was working at the Aquamation facility. and he said, Do you wanna go to Nick Cave at King's Theater? And I was like Why are you asking me that? Of course I want to go. And he's like, Well, I got us VIP tickets to see Nick Cave. And I like literally just broke down crying. And all my like workmates, like I worked with like nothing but men, and they are all looking at me and they're like, What's wrong? What's wrong? my gosh, did someone die? And I No, I get to go see Nick Cave. And they're like, that's what you're crying about? And I said, You don't understand. I'm like a super fan, so I was very, very happy to see him perform and of course it was like absolutely magical. speaker-0: So with the VIP tickets, did you get to meet him afterwards? speaker-1: No. I don't and honestly, I don't know if I could handle that. I mean, I know I'm a grown woman, but I'm I'm being honest. because I just admire him so much on so many different levels. To me, he's kind of like the page patron saint of grief. just just because like growing up and being a Nick Kay fan is like a goth kid, you know, and then just everything he's been through and how like outspoken he's been and how transparent he's been with. all of his losses and how he's, you know, alchemized that and created some really beautiful art and music and talks and books. I mean, literally just, you know, sharing with the world what he went through. And I think that that's so important because he's showing other people that it's okay to grieve. It's it's o it it happens and it's okay to live with it. You don't have to pretend it doesn't happen and keep moving. And so To me, that was a really important message, especially in the space that I'm in. kind of went off on a tangent there, but yes, no, I did not get to meet him. I did get to get really close to where he was, and I was in more of like a VIP balcony area. but yeah, I I mean, I I imagine someday, if it's meant to be, it will happen. But I'd love for it to be at one of his grief talks, honestly. speaker-0: cool. that would be awesome. So speaking of grief talks, so you are a death doula. And I had never heard the term death doula up until I started taking classes at Morbid Anatomy about two years ago. so when I hear the word doula, I always think of like the type of doula that's associated with birth. That's something that I know, you know, more about, like the birth advocate and that sort of thing. So How would you describe what a death doula is? speaker-1: So I guess the the s most simple way that I can explain what a death doula does, in comparison to a birth doula, right? A birth doula ushers a new soul into the world. A death doula ushers the soul out of the world or it out of the body. and so I think that, you know, much like the book ends of life, we're born and we die, a death doula is doing what a birth doula does, but is birthing them out of of life. And so I think that when people think about the term death doula or what they've heard about death doulas is that basically we all just kind of spiritually sit vigil and guide people as they die out. And that isn't always true. There's so many different things that we do. We all have our lane. I am not really in the end of life part of being a death duela unless we're talking about animals. for pets, I'm a death doula. and I help people when they get a terminal diagnosis or a pet is at the end of their life, I help walk them through it the same way you would with a human, except obviously it's a little different. and then help them with the aftercare. In the human part of the death space, I work more in the funeral part. Okay I meant to get into this work to become an end-of-life caregiver, but the the death world had different plans for me. So when I was becoming a death doula and I was studying and I was you know reading all the books I could get my hands on and all that stuff, learning about the work that I was going to be doing, I s just was curious. Like I wanted to start meeting people. And so I was interested in the green funeral side of it, the more holistic side, the more natural side and I started visiting like an acclimation facility in Long Island for pets. And then I went to a funeral home in Brooklyn that was more like modern and ended up working for both of them. And so instead of becoming a death doula, I did volunteer with hospice for the first year of becoming a death doula. So in that way I did sit vigil in companion with the dying. And I did work with people mostly around memory care. so patients with dementia, Alzheimer's, things like that. And yeah, I I never really ended up becoming a death doula. I just went straight into funeral. And so I feel like if you are a compassionate person and you're going into the space because you want to be a caregiver, because you want to help people with grief, whatever that means, whatever is drawing you into the space, you kind of just get pulled in the direction of what you're meant for. And this is something that I could like I could like ten years back I was enrolled in mortuary school and I was going to become a funeral director, but doing the same thing, going to funeral homes, interviewing with crematories, you have too many tattoos. you'll never be able to work in bereavement. You'll never be able to work with a family. You can only work back of the house. And that's not what I wanted to do. So I dropped out and went to design school. which is part of the reason why I make art. but yeah, when I came here and then kind of thought, you know, I'm gonna give this another try, but maybe I'll I'll, you know, try it in a different way. it was just very receiving. And then the funeral world said, No, you're meant to be here. I know this is what you really want. And so that's kind of what I got pulled towards. And now a lot of the work that I do in the death space is you know, helping family with bereavement. I help people after a loss with grief support virtually and in person. I help people plan really beautiful like rituals or memorials or altars. I teach workshops around loss and memorialization. I teach funeral directors how to be creative in the funeral space. let's see. What else do I do as a dustula? Does what With an art background, a lot of creative stuff is pulled into the work that I do. But I think that when people think, you know, when they ask me, like, you're a death duoler, what do you do? Their assumption is always that I will sit bedside and help plan for end of life. And while I do those things, it's mostly after someone dies. speaker-0: Okay, that's so interesting. And I love what you said about like pulling from your creative and artistic side because I don't know, it's kinda like you know, I'm Catholic and I'll basically all funerals kind of look the same. You know, we have a wake followed by a Catholic Mass and then interment. But it's I don't know, it's so cool because just because someone passes away doesn't mean that you can't get creative with it and you can't get creative with celebrating someone's life. so are there any examples of like I mean if if it's okay to share of maybe like some of the more, I guess, creative or interesting ways that you've helped a person be memorialized. speaker-1: Yeah, so a lot of the work that I've done creatively, I guess, and it still kind of feels weird saying that because we're talking about funerals. but some of the ways that I've helped families creatively in the space is that I've helped create kind of like a personalized memorialization in the space of the funeral. So the family will bring in belongings, art. music, whatever it was that the person that has passed was really into, if they had like a collection of magnets, if they really loved a specific flower or fruit or a fragrance or a drink or food, we would basically work together and set up this memorial space that felt like an altar to them. It kind of felt like they were there and their presence was all around. I mean, sometimes, you know, when you have a funeral, there's a a person, the decedent is present. Sometimes it's ashes, it's more of a memorial. Sometimes there's nothing there at all. They've already been interred, but this is more like a, you know, memorial service, just kind of like telling, you know, everyone that they have died and that we are celebrating them the last time, even if they aren't present. So you can I mean, you can there's really so much that that you can do. I think that Telling their story visually is really important and getting the family to be involved in any way with setting things up. If there was a specific way that like a younger person kept their room, the parents are gonna know that, the siblings are gonna know that. They can help us set that up visually. Like if they were here and they were helping us set this up, what would that look like? Where would they want this to go? How would they want this to look? You know that. I don't know that. That's your loved one. So let me help you do this. And what I find is that when you pull the family in or you pull the friends in, they really enjoy being part of that. They really they feel they feel really involved and that's something that the funeral, you know, service has kind of taken away from people over the last 150 years. And I'm not saying completely because I've met so many wonderful funeral directors that are also encouraging to get the families to come in and help and you know dress their loved one, bathe their loved one, you know, help set up their things the way that they would like. But it's it's not something that we are as familiar with. I think if someone has died and we're going in and we're going to set up a funeral for them, we're not thinking like I there's all these things I can do, unless they're told that there's all these things that they can do to make it more personal. They're picturing like, okay, what kind of casket, what kind of flowers? Is there food? Is there, you know, music? Of course, a playlist is important too. But there's so much more that you can do creatively that I think needs to be like brought back into the space of memorialization that kind of is like, you know, hey. Yes, they died, but they were a person, they were alive before, they had interests, they had hobbies, they had things that they loved, and we can bring those into the funeral and make it about them. speaker-0: wow, that's amazing. Because yeah, it's it's interesting. You know, when someone passes away, it's like, how do you, how do you capture all of that? And also it's, I don't know, there it's kind of like the shock of like, wait, this person's gone. But, you know, how do we how do we celebrate them as like a three-dimensional person? So that's great, though, that things are kind of like trending towards that, you know, and I think we're all kind of a bit more self aware and like we know kind of what we bring to the table because of social media and this and that. So I think maybe as time moves on and you know, millennials, Gen Z, etcetera, get older and eventually start passing away naturally, we'll probably see that pretty pretty frequently throughout like the death space and the funeral space. So that's I don't know, that's awesome. speaker-1: Yeah. And I mean another thing to think about too is like, what do you do with all their stuff? Right. You know? What do you do with all their stuff? So if you have this like space where, you know, you have like all their favorite things and you don't want to necessarily keep them or take them back with you. You can tell their their friends and your family, you know, hey, t if you see something that, you know, you feel like is a connection between the two of you, take it home with you. Right. You know, keep keep it, keep it forever. I know I love having things from my loved ones after they pass. Having a t shirt, having you know, a f a favorite little object or trinket of theirs, can be very comforting to me because it it it reminds me that they were here. It reminds me that even though they're they're gone, th they were still here and this still belonged to them. And in that way I feel that sort of connection towards them. But also like this this is something that I'm really grateful to be able to teach other funeral directors about that maybe haven't considered like different ways that you can bring creativity into the funeral space to make it more personal. I do teach with a funeral director that teaches a continuing education program, funeral directors all over the country, virtually and in person. and I love having conversations with them and learning the ways that they are doing this in their space and then sharing with them other ideas and having them go, yeah, that's great. I'm gonna use that. And then they tell me, you know, what it is that they're doing, and I think, great. You know, I'm gonna use that too in honor of you because this is how we are able to help people is by sharing ideas, sharing experiences. So I love that as a as the only death doula that's part of this educational program for funeral directors, I'm able to have these conversations and we're able to learn from each other. speaker-0: that's so amazing. So what was it that got you interested in like for lack of a better term, the death space? Like is has this been like a lifelong interest? Like what was it that drew you towards this? speaker-1: I don't know that it's something that I've that I was meant to be drawn towards, but I will say I took care of two grandmothers when I was very young at the end of their life. I took care of my very close and dear oma when she was dying of cancer, and I was the only person that was okay with being there and seeing her and spending time with her as she was transitioning and going through all the physical changes and sick because I think it was really hard for everyone to see her that way. But as a as as a teenager, I looked at it as, well, if this is what I get, you know, if this is how she's going to be for the time I have left with her, I I don't care. I w I want to spend time with her anyway. I want to spend the time that she has left together. So in that way I was able to get past How hard it was to see her go through those changes. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was still hard. But I looked at it that way. I looked at it as this time together is so short, it's so precious, and I want to get everything I can out of it. So I moved in with my grandparents and helped my grandpa take care of her. And when she passed away, her mother survived her and her mother had dementia. And my grandfather was just completely overwhelmed and grieving. And I said, I I can do this. I I can help, you know. So as a teenager, I was going to high school. I was working. I was taking care of my ninety-four year old grandmother. I was helping my grandfather who was grieving, get through the day. I was cooking, I was cleaning. and I think that I just like willingly took on that role because in my family, that's kind of what we do. We we take care of each other. we take care of our elders. And it just seems so natural to me. And when it was over, I was like, wow, that was, you know, after years later, after my grandmother passed away, I was like, wow, that was like a whole thing that I just did from a really early age. And like I was able to juggle all of that, like that grief and that heaviness. And so, you know, kind of was like, Well, I'm glad that's over. I'm gonna move on to being an artist now and just kind of forget about that. But then later down the road, like I said, I had enrolled in mortuary school. I I was getting pulled back towards it and just felt like, you know, I'm still using I'm still using this experience in my personal life. I'm the person that everyone calls when someone dies. I'm the person that everybody leans on when they need support, when they're grieving or they're sad or they go through a breakup. and I just kind of felt like maybe I'm meant to be you know, a support. for people that are grieving. And so that was why I went into I well, why I wanted to go into funeral work is because I wanted to be that person. death didn't bother me. as I was touring these crematories and funeral homes, it was the first time I had been around like a lot of death. and I just kind of was like, wow, this is overwhelming. But I think I can handle it. And you know, like I said, I ended up dropping out because they said that, you know, you'll never be able to work front of the house. So design's cool, moved to New York, went back into the space thinking like, okay, I'll I'll give it another try. And yeah, I feel like this is where I'm meant to be. speaker-0: that's so interesting because it's it's one of those things. It's kind of like there's well, there's this saying, what is it that whenever you make a plan, God laughs or something like that. It's just, I don't know, it's so cool to see how people get routed through life. And instead of resisting it, you can look at it and say, Okay, here's what's here's what's going on, here are the resources I have at hand. What choice do I want to make moving forward? So that's I don't know, that's so cool to see how that's unfolded. So I do want to touch on the book clubs that you're a part of. So for the silent book club of Death NYC, I do have a kind of generic question off the bat. What is a silent book club? I feel like I've gotten a couple of different answers. So I I'd like to know from someone who works with that firsthand. speaker-1: Okay. So Silent Book Club in general is a globally like huge book club that has chapters all over the world. And basically what it is is it's kind of like a it's like a a meetup for introverted extroverts. people get together, they socialize a little bit, they read silently for an hour, and then they come back together and they they talk. socialize or whatever, depending on the venue that they're at. For me it's a little different because I'm the death portion of it. And it was actually started by a handful of people, but two that I know well Lisa Paul, who is the creator of the Death Deck, and my my f another friend and colleague of mine, Catherine, better known as Death Project Manager. And so they started the Los Angeles chapter. I think there's one more person I can't remember, and I'm so sorry for this. there's there was a few people, but these are the two that I know are two of the original founders of the death portion. And they started a chapter in Los Angeles that was death themed. So anything like death, aging, grief, just anything under that umbrella, same idea. a silent book club original. But then after we read for an hour, we play the death deck. And the death deck is kind of like cards against humanity, but for death. And it may not sound fun if you've never played it before, but it is so much fun. And honestly, it is one of my favorite things to do during book clubs. So anyway, the the the way that this started was that I I came across Catherine, Death Project Manager's post that they were having one in Los Angeles. I read a lot of books and I read a lot of books about death. And I was thinking, wow, I would love to go to a book club like that. And I asked her, I said, Do you do you know if there's any chapters in New York? And she said, No, there's not, but why don't you start one? and that was two and a half years ago. So I started a a chapter here and kind of just had them at whatever place would have me while I was starting out. And I tried to mostly meet at places of disposition. So I first had my my very first book club at the funeral home that I worked at. And then Greenwood Cemetery and then various other places and then we were alternating like funeral home, Greenwood Cemetery and Now I do them every month at Morbid Anatomy. And I've been doing that for a year and a half now. but we also do them at the Met Cloisters once or twice a year. Yeah, it's it's a fun time. The first one that we did was on a day that the Met Cloisters was closed. it was like, I mean, and that place is packed all the time. Right. But we had the whole place to ourselves. Granted, we couldn't just wander freely as we wanted to, but it was really cool just to have that whole space to ourselves and to be able to read in the cloisters and be able to play the death deck in the Gothic chapel. and so yeah, very much look forward to those. But did that answer your question? speaker-0: Yeah, that's my god, that's so cool. Just because like I there are times where I'm like, maybe I should check out a silent book club 'cause I see some I don't know, like, as far as books go, I'm really big into nonfiction. Like I love memoirs and things like that. So a lot of the book clubs that are kind of around here are more geared towards like fiction and fantasy and all that, which is great, but not exactly my cup of tea. But the Death Deck just sounds that sounds so fun, 'cause that's just kind of like A way to create community and kind of like lighten up the mood. And so this sounds like such a fantastic opportunity for people who are, you know, we keep hearing this term, looking for third spaces. So this would be a great way to get out to meet people. It's it's such a low pressure event and you're in this like incredible setting, like the Met Cloisters. So man, every time I hear about something like this, it makes me so jealous that I'm not in New York. speaker-1: Yeah, and I think that another thing that's really cool about this book club too is that you don't have an assigned reading every month. It's you read whatever you want. You're just bringing whatever book you want and reading it amongst strangers and you don't have to socialize. You can leave afterwards if you want. If you don't feel like it and you just want to read around other people, cool, and then you can take off or you can hang out afterwards. Same thing goes for the death portion of it. it's more important to me that people know that you can be an observer or you can participate. You never are obligated to talk like talk about anything that makes you uncomfortable because there are those discussions of mortality, and that's really what this is all about is it's getting people together to talk about death because people don't really have a space to do that. maybe they're grieving and they want to be able to talk about that. If they want to show up and they're crying, that's okay. They can do that too. Like it's really just a place to be in community. where everybody is like, you know what, death is the theme here and whatever that brings up for people, that's okay. and I always tell people that when they're playing the death deck too, like if you want to just observe and you don't want to play and you want to kind of just like feel it out, feel free. because some people have never had conversations about death openly before. Some people come every month and they love talking about death or you know, so you don't know you don't really know what people's reasons are for coming. It's really important that you kind of just meet them where they are and let them know that like, hey, however you want to do this is totally fine. we're just happy that you're here and that you're willing to do this sort of contemplative work. speaker-0: wow. That's that's so cool. I do also want to point out that Greenwood Cemetery, for people listening, if you're going to New York or if you live in New York and you've never been to Greenwood, it is absolutely worth the trip. Greenwood Cemetery is incredible. and it houses a lot of names that you would recognize from like the Gilded Age in New York City. I remember back in twenty thirteen I took a trip to Greenwood and I think I was there for like six hours. Just taking pictures. It's just such an incredible place. speaker-1: Easily. Yeah. And they just opened up their the greenhouse space education center. That was actually where the last CE that I taught, I got to teach in there. And it it's just such a beautiful space. And they have like this wonderful memorialization portion of it that has like art and artifacts from people that are buried there, famous people that are buried there. and then they have like Just this like beautiful glass arboretum that's really nice. Probably not really nice right now unless the AC is on. I don't know. I haven't been in there since it's been so hot, but it I imagine it gets pretty hot. but yeah, and they have wonderful death education programs, tours, lots of cool things going on in there. So definitely check it out if you're in town. speaker-0: that's awesome. So, in regards to New York City, how long have you been affiliated with morbid anatomy? speaker-1: I think it's been about two ish years now or two and a half. I can't remember. The time just flies. I just I really love everybody that I meet and work with and Morbid Anatomy is just such a wonderful space and there's so many like kindred spirits and I love being in community with people that are morbidly curious and that I can have conversations with around esoteric. Topics and death and so I'm really excited. I'm I'm missing them a little bit right now because they're closed for the summer because they're moving. so my book club is actually kind of on a hiatus because I was like, I don't really wanna I don't know if I want to look for another place. I'll just wait. So I think I think that they're opening again in the fall, but they're moving and they have acquired this really amazing Victorian hair art collection. They're gonna have it set up like as a museum inside of the library. speaker-0: Okay. that's awesome. Cause I remember I remember hearing about that. They were trying to maybe like get some support, like, hey, help us to, you know, acquire this. And so it's great to hear that they've they've got that collection and they'll be able to share that. I next time I go to New York, I've got to make it over to the Morbid Anatomy location. It's gotta be my pilgrimage. speaker-1: Definitely best books ever. speaker-0: Nice. I did also see on your Instagram, I do want to talk about this, you went on that Witches of Wall Street tour. Yeah. So that was okay, that was hosted by Morbid Anatomy, right? No, okay. speaker-1: No. It lo it would look that way. It would look that way. It was it was kind of like a field trip for a lot of us that work there. And there was there was a reason why. we had had a discussion about it. Andrea, who is one of the authors that I did the Instagram live with, let's see if I can find her book. so she's one of the writers of a book that I did a discussion about. Haunted History of Invisible Women, True Stories of America's Ghosts. And then Liana Renee Heber was the other author. I met Andrea at a talk and was like, wow, cool. You wrote this book about the history of women ghosts in New York, and other places too. And but she also does they also do tours. And I thought, wow, I want to go on one of your tours after hearing you talk. And so we had been having this discussion about, okay, well, well, let's figure out when we can do a tour. and then we decided because one of our beloved morbid anatomy friends was moving away that, hey, why don't we take this tour as like one of her going away sort of gatherings? And so we just all decided to go. And it just happened to be mostly morbid anatomy people that went. But it was a lot of fun and I did not realize how much witchcraft and witch history surrounds Wall Street. speaker-0: That's yeah, I cause I saw that and I was like, that's that's like a clever name. Is it just a name? And it's like, no, apparently there's a ton there. That and it's like the oldest, oldest, oldest part of Manhattan. Yeah. so that's that's amazing. Do you have any like favorite parts of that tour that you can share? speaker-1: I mean, it just I got to learn so much. There was a lot. there was a lot that I didn't know. There was a lot that I already kind of knew, because there was a lot of conversations around spiritualism and that's one of my special interests. so yeah, speaker-0: Mine too. speaker-1: like learning about Lily Dale and like you know, some of the mediums that came from there and their history here. in the city, which makes sense. but then also I got to kind of talk about Harry Houdini, which was fun. I was volunteered by my friends to be the one that talked about Harry Houdini's distrust of mediums. And another special interest of mine is Harry Houdini. So you know explaining that like, yeah, I don't blame him. I mean Back in those days, you know, mediumship was it was all smoke and mirrors. It was all very theatrical. it wasn't the same as it is now where people are actually having those conversations with the dad and they're not trying to make all this money off of people by like putting on this huge show, which I actually appreciate that part too. but for Harry Houdini it was personal because he really wanted to speak to his mother who had passed. And so As as you know, being the type of person that performed tricks and illusions himself, he's like, I'm gonna figure out how they're doing this because I don't think it's real. And he was able to pick apart every single act that he attended and debunk everything that they had been doing. And really like at the core of it, it was just he just wanted to talk to his mom. And I just thought, you know, if he would have been alive now. Things would be different because he would meet mediums who actually were able to communicate with the dead and weren't doing it in this way that they were just, you know, putting on a show. So I understand as much as I love the history of spiritualism and mediumship and all that, I was like, Well, yeah, but he just wanted to talk to his mom. It was just personal, you know. speaker-0: Right. And it's it's kind of wild because I was just thinking about like Harry Houdini and like his reaction to spiritualism, I think maybe yesterday. And what's so interesting when you kind of touch on this topic in history is like people love to compare him to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed all of it. I think he was just grieving the loss of his son, who I believe died in World War One. and he just maybe it was just that blind faith because he was just so distraught over it. being like, there's no way that this is fake and all of that. So it's I don't know, that's just such an interesting piece of the history of spiritualism, just seeing the naysayers and then the people who were all in. So it's yeah, it's a it's a special interest of mine as well. speaker-1: Yeah, and I mean, and I I understand like that's what made spiritualism such a big deal was that there was so much death at the time. Yes. And people just they needed they needed something. You know, they needed something to soothe them. And spiritualism created this illusion for them that they chose, you know, I I'm sure it could have been obvious to so many people that like maybe this isn't real. But I think that for for people that were grieving, they didn't want to believe that. They just wanted to have that like hope that like my loved one is still here. I'm still able to communicate with them. I'm still able to talk to them. And I still believe that that's possible now in a different way. Again, you know, it's like, yeah, they are still there. You are still able to feel them and feel connections and and get get signs from them and things like that. So I think that we just want to believe that there's something else after we die. And that was what spiritualism gave people. It gave people that illusion that they could be here right now with you. You can talk to them. You can, you know, it's not over. And so I I get the need and you know, the human desire for that, but You know, it's I I see both sides. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. It's I don't know. It's just it's so cool. And it was such an interesting time in history too, with all of the like crazy technological changes and the populations booming and a lot of the population is dying, untimely deaths. So yeah, just such a such a fascinating time to be alive. Yeah. So I think at this point we're ready to get into the spooky portion, well the spookier portion, I guess. so I understand that you've brought a spooky story to share with us today. speaker-1: Yes. so actually we are getting ready to go to our beach house on the Oregon coast. we are originally from the West Coast and our family is on the west coast and my husband has a vacation home that his family shares on the coast. It's very old. there are there are two ghosts that live in that house. And there's a woman on the upper portion, and there is a man on the bottom portion. And the woman's energy is just kind of like, the man is a little grumpy. And I've been trying to figure these two out for years. they don't really bother us, but I like to think of them as like the maitlins from Beetlejuice. speaker-0: nice. speaker-1: They have the whole house to themselves by themselves most of the time. But then people show up. And it's kind of like, no, people, you know, and so we come in, we say, Hello, we're here, you know. and they they're there, you know, but they but they they're very noisy at night. So if if you're sleeping downstairs, you will hear stomping, you'll hear stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Sometimes the doors will open. very cold upstairs, no matter what. one specific room is very, very cold all the time. I won't sleep in that room. I've done it before. And every night, the same time every night, the woman passes the mirror about two or three in the morning. And I don't mind her. She's I don't think that she means to cause harm. I don't feel any of that in the house at all. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: but you know, you wake up to something crossing your your peripheral vision and it's like, okay, I'm not going back to bed after that. So I just I don't sleep in there. my oldest son sleeps in there because he does not care. It does not bother him. And he sleeps so hard, he's like, I wouldn't even know if she s sat on the bed. Like, I'm out, you know? so yeah, everybody in the family has seen her. everybody has seen her generations before my husband. they've all seen her in the window. they've seen her on the stairs, they've seen her in the rooms. we've never seen the man. just kind of feel him. So his spirit I think is mostly in like the cellar portion of the house. Okay. To take out the trash and the recycling, or if you need tools, from from the garage portion of it. everybody runs in there and runs out. They just don't want to spend too much time in there and it's just the energy is a little weird. But the woman it she doesn't really she doesn't really bother anybody, but you will see her from time to time. And you will hear both of them likely stomping in the middle of the night. speaker-0: wow. That's wild. So okay, so the house is very old. And like when I hear Oregon, do we think that these people maybe were like pioneers back in the day? speaker-1: I think the house was built in the early nineteen hundreds. And I have a theory, I cannot find any information on the the previous owners of this house because it's been in my husband's family since like the fifties or the sixties. I think that there might have been two owners before them, the original who built it, and then the next owner and then my husband's family. But I have tried finding records. I cannot find anything. I cannot get answers from anyone. I've done all the normal things that you would do to, you know, tax records, city hall, all that stuff, go ghost investigators in the Pacific Northwest. I've had Diedinhouse.com investigate it and they're like speaker-0: Nice. speaker-1: So nobody really knows, but I feel like the woman When she shows up to me, I've seen her in my mind, I've seen her in dreams before. She is wet. speaker-0: wow. speaker-1: And she looks and I think may I think maybe she might have drowned. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I think. And so I've I have this theory that like maybe she drowned and the husband is really angry about it. So he spent the rest of his life angry, died, and then that's just how they are. or they're not there at all. And it's just kind of like the stone tape theory. And maybe they're just on a loop and the imprints of them. are there and the things that they used to do when they lived in the house. I don't know if you've heard of that theory before, but it's less sad than ghosts because then it's more like a recording of the activity of the previous like people that lived in the house that are now spirits. instead of them being there or being actual ghosts, it's just this kind of like loop of activity that they left imprinted on the house. speaker-0: Yeah, like I've heard of like a speaker-1: Energy. speaker-0: Right. It's like intelligent haunting versus residual haunting. speaker-1: Yeah. So like a psychic imprint or like a energetic stain. speaker-0: Okay, so she I guess so she hasn't like maybe singled anybody out. It's just like routine kind of stuff, I guess, that everybody has experienced, right? Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: And the only like real message or interaction I've had with them other than seeing them in dreams or seeing her in dreams is that we showed up a day early at Christmas time. We usually come the day after Christmas, but this year we came at Christmas and I think we threw them off because they are used to us coming the same time like every year. And they were so noisy, so noisy. Like we were like, my gosh, like everybody was awake all night, like, okay, we get it. We're sorry. Like, sorry, you know. and the next day I just, you know, was thinking in my head, like thinking to myself, like, you know, I'm really sorry that we came a day early. maybe you guys were celebrating Christmas. I don't know, like whatever it is that we did wrong, we're sorry. What can I do to make it up to you? And just out of nowhere, Bing Crosby swing on a star popped into my head. And I was like, would you like me to play the song? speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-1: And so I played the song and the house was completely quiet the next night. speaker-0: That's wild. speaker-1: Yeah. So that's it but that's the only like direct communication I've ever had from them. So we'll s we'll see. I'll be back there in in a week and I'm I'm I've got some new tricks up my sleeve, so we'll see what happens. speaker-0: that's crazy. So I guess like so the house has been in your husband's family for a couple of generations. Like, was this something that happened kind of immediately? Like as soon as the first person in your husband's family to purchase the property, did they immediately find out, like, hey, this is haunted? speaker-1: I don't know. I mean, I don't know because his family doesn't really talk about it. the the k the kids have all seen it growing up. They were all like everybody knows. And we've had we've had friends over like you'll never hear like the older people in the family talking about it. but we've we have kind of this this this way of like, you know, if If we have like a friend or a relative over who's never been there before, we won't tell them anything. and see just see what happens. And I've had I've had friends run out of the house at seven AM. So, you know, not everybody is comfortable with it, I guess. Wow. You just never know how people are g people are gonna react to telling them, by the way, you know, don't let it bother you though. speaker-0: Right. my god. Like speaker-1: And you wanna see you wanna see if people will kind of form their own opinion or have their own experience. May some people don't at all, so you never know. speaker-0: Right. And you don't want to like influence anybody who starts like their brain starts making things. speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly. speaker-0: my God. Okay. Man, that's that's wild. I just had a conversation with a friend who lives in LA and I have stayed at her place multiple times. And apparently the room that I've stayed in is very haunted. I have never had an experience ever. And every time I've stayed there, I've slept perfectly. So I think it It can kind of vary person to person. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I just did a retreat in Cape May, New Jersey, really old, cool, like coastal town. And we stayed in this like huge Victorian mansion. And when I got there, they were telling me they're like, This place is definitely haunted. So and I'm like, like what kind of haunted? How how haunted? Like good haunted, bad haunted, you know, because you don't know what kind of haunted that is. And I said, Yeah, well, you know, you just y you may feel a presence. You'll de you'll definitely, if you're sensitive, you'll feel something. And I slept like a baby. I mean, I I slept so hard. I am a light sleeper, so I slept really hard in that house. And I did wake up at one point and feel something. And I and I I don't know if I was just like having a weird dream, but I felt like something turned my body. speaker-0: Weird. speaker-1: And I woke up completely turned around on the bed. speaker-0: my god. speaker-1: And yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I dreamed it. I don't know if but it felt like somebody moved my body in a circle. And I woke up and I was completely turned around on the bed. I never knew that. So speaker-0: What was it were you able to just like go right back to bed like, hmm, okay. speaker-1: I was confused. I woke up and I was thinking, like, why am I completely turned around on the end of the bed? and just kind of turned back around and went back to sleep. But speaker-0: Ha ha. speaker-1: I definitely felt like, yeah, something was here with me, like something was in the room with me. I didn't feel scared. I didn't feel like 'cause like if it was bad, I would feel that, I think. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. speaker-1: But I didn't feel that way at all. speaker-0: man. speaker-1: And I'm not really afraid of ghosts. I mean I'm not. I just the the way I look at it is like people die, they have bodies, the things they do when they have bodies are things they do when they have bodies, but then when they don't have bodies anymore, they're scary and it's like that's kinda unfair. 'Cause we're all gonna die and what if we become ghosts and everyone's scared of us? I just feel bad for ghosts a little bit because we don't know the reason. why they stuck around, it's kinda sad, you know. So I I have a little bit of empathy for them and I've always felt that way. speaker-0: And it's I don't know, it's kinda interesting 'cause it's you know, in some cases you th some people might think like, hey, a ghost is something that needs to be removed. Other people cultures, whatever, are more comfortable with like living in harmony with ghosts. But I don't know, it's interesting that you say that because like the friend who I was talking to who has the haunted house in Los Angeles, we're pretty sure we know who it is and we're just like, Man, just just cross over like what it's It's just one of those questions that keeps you guessing, like, man, what is keeping you here? Like, why not just go into the light and like go into paradise? You know? It's it's something weird to wrestle with. speaker-1: Yeah. And and then, you know, sometimes I like to think about like the fact that, hey, maybe it's not actually a ghost. Maybe it's just an imprint, you know, maybe it's like something happened. Well, if you think about like I I mean this I could go off on a whole like tangent about energy, but you think about like a space where something tragic happens in, right? Mm-hmm. That energy sticks around. Maybe not even the person that the the you know the tragic event happened too but that energy does stick around and so what do you do with that you know it's it's it's nobody's fault well it's the person who did whatever you know right the reason why it's there but it's like it's not if it's a person that died and they're the one haunting the space, they probably don't really want to be there. They didn't want to be there to begin with. And so I think that treating them like a problem to me just feels like it's kind of sad, you know, because they didn't ask to be there. there are creepy ghosts. that being said, not all ghosts are good, just like not all people are good. Right. And there are bad there are bad energy, like creepy spirit ghosts that like you definitely should try to get rid of if they're gonna cause problems. But for the most part, like if it's just like a ghost that's like, I died and I love this house and I don't want to leave. Okay. Well it was your house, you know. So I I've I I've loved houses like that before, I get it, you know. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, it's like sometimes it can also offer like a sense of comfort if there's just like this cool ghost to make sure, you know, that everything's cool, like good vibes only, as corny as that sounds. speaker-1: And some ghosts are totally like that. Like some some ghosts are just, you know, or they're you know, or like for example, like if you work in the funeral space, right? Sometimes you'll see whoever it is that's being cared for hanging around. They're not gonna stay there. Why would they? You know, that's just the transition. They're like just hanging around their body until it's time to move on to the next place and then they'll go wherever they're gonna go. but that's just kind of the way I see it, is just like I mean, what do you do? Like you die and now you're not living in your body anymore. And I don't know what happens at that point. I don't know if you're what you're supposed to do. What if you don't know what you're supposed to do and you're kind of like, well, what do I do now? And so you're kind of stuck there and maybe they're confused. And I think that that there are definitely ghosts that die in a way that they are stuck and they don't really know how to move on. And it's sad, you know, so they're just maybe confused and they just need to figure it out. speaker-0: Right. Yeah, that's a good point. And who knows, maybe trying to clear that energy, there's like a good chance that it's probably gonna make it worse. speaker-1: Yeah, they might get really annoyed with you, especially if like if they want to be in that space and they're like, No, I like it. I wanna be here and you're trying to get rid of them, they're gonna go, Hey man, what the heck? Like why why are you trying to get rid of me? I wanna be here. So you know, I mean th I would if someone did that to me while I was alive, I'd probably get annoyed with it too. so speaker-0: Right. my God. That's great. So before we close out, I did want to just thank you, of course, for being here. And then also thank you for creating such wonderful cover art. so I'm in the beginning stages of getting this podcast going. And what's been so awesome is having that cover art done first thing and being able to show that to people and people immediately being like, I get what this show is about. so thank you so much. And I absolutely love it and I'm totally obsessed with it. And every single person who sees it just laughs out loud. They love it. speaker-1: so glad that you love it. I had so much fun making it and I got to look at a cute cat the whole time that I got to put it together. And so every time I I see it, I just think about your kitty boo and I I I think about their cute little face. speaker-0: Yeah, she's she's a star. She loves being a mascot, so this is this is perfect for her. speaker-1: Good, good. I'm glad. speaker-0: Yeah, okay, so any any last words? speaker-1: I don't know. I mean honestly, like from where I'm sitting right now, drink water. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: Sunscreen and water is so important right now. don't become a ghost. think about what you're gonna wear every day because that could be your ghost outfit. speaker-0: that's a great point. I love that. speaker-1: I don't know. As far as like anything that's upcoming for me, I guess you would just have to follow me to find out. I've I've really enjoyed having this discussion with you. I appreciate that. I appreciate being able to talk about those. So thank you. speaker-0: Yeah, of course, I will offer my platform to anybody who wants to talk about ghosts. So people can find you on Instagram at it's sweet death. So that's A-H-H-Sweet Death. speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: Okay, wonderful. And on that note, goodbye. Thank you for listening to this episode of Spooky Butt. Music by Drew Mantia. Artwork by Lauren Seely. Listen to Spookybutt on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Please be sure to like, rate, and subscribe. Follow SpookyButt on Instagram at Spookybutt Podcast. Need to make contact? Send us an email at spookybuttpodcast at gmail.com. We'll see you on the other side. Goodbye.