Demystifying Death: A Conversation on Embracing Death, Death Denial, & Living Fully With Vanessa/Vee

Matti hosts Vanessa aka Vee (she/they), a queer college professor and integrative body psychotherapy practitioner from Quebec, for a conversation on liberation, grief, and death in community. They explore how grief and other difficult emotions are often intellectualized rather than embodied, and how breath, movement, expression, and shared support can create felt liberation. Vee shares near-death and chronic pain experiences that shaped their healing path and interest in death education, discusses death-denying culture, communal Italian mourning rituals akin to Irish keening, and the value of planning for death, continuing bonds, life review, terminal lucidity, and making room for both grief and joy.