Bonus Episode #08: Tobin Mayell—Part Two—Everything Under the Sun and Moon

In Everything Under the Sun and Moon, show host Jef Szi continues his conversation with Tobin Mayell, as Tobin remembers the life of his late mother, Christine Waddell. Christine was a healer, teacher, mother, and grandmother who passed away suddenly in the Spring of 2023.In this fluid conversation between enduring friends, Tobin weaves the experiences with his mom and Christine’s own life—as such, we learn a great deal about Christine’s journey and the arc of Tobin’s relationship with his mother.Along the way we find that Christine was not only a life-long seeker, but also a highly respected wisdom-keeper, healer, and guide to her clients. By hearing stories about her early hopes for enlightenment, her discovery in her 30’s that her biological father was someone else, and her joyful penchant for gardening, we get powerful glimpses into core elements of Christine’s completed life.And like his relationship with his father, Tobin also found his need to individuate from his mom. In this case, it meant finding ways of taking space from a highly invested mothering style, prone to “polishing” Tobin’s sense of self through astrology and emmeshed encouragements. And yet, as with his father, we find the transmissions in life and death still take place. Not only did Christine’s search for belonging in her life help her and profoundly benefit her clients, we come to see how it bestowed on Tobin an emotional permission that carries on inside him today. Christine’s passion for astrology lives on in Tobin as well—ironically shedding light on how Tobin can now understand her deepest pains. Through this show—and the one before—we get an intimate portrait of how death, the journey of memorialization, and continuing the thread of life after our relatives pass are all riddled with unexpected teachings—as if the web of life has strands reaching through death’s mysterious gateway onto the other side.As always, you are invited to listen-in, because in these two episodes that dive into Tobin’s very personal journey of losing both his parents within months of one another, we get a real dose of how life and death collaborate in ways that are impossible to know beforehand.