Well, friends, I’ve officially got too much on my plate right now!

There are more episodes to come: conversations with wonderful and insightful people, teaching episodes about what happens when we die and what it can teach us about who we are now – and a super spooky episode on David Hufford’s book The Terror That Comes in the Night about sleep paralysis and supernatural assault.  

But I’m taking a few weeks off now as I work on other stuff – like live workshops, my YouTube channel, and my first book (yay!). “See” you in late November!

To find everything else I’m doing, here are a few links:

My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ClaireVillarreal

My other podcast, Buddhist Wisdom, Modern Life: https://anchor.fm/buddhist-wisdom

My newsletter signup: https://bit.ly/CVmailing

And you can come say hi on Facebook or Instagram: @namastehyall

Andrea Wilson Woods shares the story of adopting her little sister, Adrienne, then losing her to liver disease, which she tells in her best-selling memoir, Better Off Bald. The sisters shared beautiful moments even as Adrienne was treated for her cancer, and what happened after Adrienne passed has changed the way Andrea understands the afterlife.

Grab Andrea’s book here: https://betteroffbald.com

You can connect with Blue Faery, the organization Andrea started in honor of Adrienne, here: https://www.bluefaery.org/

And we mention advance directives and medical power of attorney in the episode; you can learn more about those here: https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/advance-care-planning-health-care-directives

To support this podcast, please head to my Patreon page to become a community member for as little as $3 per month: https://bit.ly/3Dm14p2

Or buy me a virtual coffee: https://bit.ly/CVPayPalMe

Grab your free quick guide to the death and rebirth process, with links to (also free) audio teachings: https://bit.ly/2Zl80UA

In this episode, author and spiritual teacher Charlene Jones shares not only her near death experience but also the many ways she's been cracked open to experience the transcendent in her life. In this episode, we'll talk about an early kundalini awakening she had while meditating as a teenager, her abduction and escape from her kidnappers, her struggles with darkness, a near death experience, past lives, and her heritage of Celtic spirituality. 

Sensitive listeners, please note that Charlene's story includes a lot of trauma and deals with topics like sexual violence and murder.

From all this trauma comes a life suffused with the transcendent, and Charlene offers us her wisdom throughout the episode. You can find links below to her memoir and other books, as well as to Jeff Kripal's work that I refer to.

Find Charlene’s books (these are affiliate links; more on that below):

Her memoir, My Impossible Life: https://amzn.to/3v8xy36

Her novel, The Stain: https://amzn.to/2YIlfhR

Her book on healing, Medicine Buddha/Medicine Mind: https://amzn.to/3DGFDir

And I mention Jeff Kripal’s work; here’s a link to more on him: https://kripal.rice.edu/index.html

If you'd like to watch the ad-free video of this episode, please head to my Patreon page to become a community member for as little as $3 per month: https://bit.ly/3Dm14p2

Or buy me a virtual coffee: https://bit.ly/CVPayPalMe

Grab your free quick guide to the death and rebirth process, with links to (also free) audio teachings: https://bit.ly/2Zl80UA

If you follow an affiliate link and buy one of the books above, you won’t be charged extra, but this show will receive a (very small) commission from the sale.

My friend Nick (who writes under the name Nicholas Grant) is a writer, editor, and transpersonal psychologist, and we've known each other since grad school at Rice University's Department of Religion over 10 years ago. I was shocked to hear recently that he'd had a near death experience. He fell out of a fourth story window and spent months recovering physically, but the most amazing part of Nick's story is the emotional, psychological, and energetic rebirth he's experienced.

In this interview, you'll hear themes that will return again and again in this season: the connection between trauma and transcendence and the choices Nick and others make to reshape their lives following. This episode deals with self-harm, substance use, and other difficult topics, and it includes strong language, so you might not want to listen with kids.

This was a long conversation, and what you'll hear is an edited version. If you'd like to hear the whole thing or watch the full video, please head to my Patreon page to become a community member for as little as $3 per month: https://bit.ly/3Dm14p2

Or buy me a virtual coffee: https://bit.ly/CVPayPalMe

Grab your free quick guide to the death and rebirth process, with links to (also free) audio teachings: https://bit.ly/2Zl80UA

If you've heard of near death experiences (NDEs), you probably know that they're a major form of evidence that consciousness can survive the death of the body. In this episode, we'll go through Raymond Moody's classic 1975 book Life After Life, in which he details 15 characteristics of the NDE.

You'll hear some of the remarkable stories he includes in his book about people hearing themselves pronounced dead, leaving their bodies, meeting a being of light, having life reviews, and more. Some people even relate evidence to their doctors or others afterwards, giving details of the procedure done on them -- or even what was happening in other rooms of the hospital -- that they couldn't know through ordinary means.

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/ClaireVillarreal

Buy us a virtual coffee: bit.ly/CVPayPalMe

Check out Life After Life: amzn.to/3uBdki5

Other books on NDEs include After by Bruce Greyson (amzn.to/3orjq3H) and Changed in a Flash by Krohn and Kripal (amzn.to/3D5Ejp5)

(Book links are affiliate links, which means we make a very small commission. But we recommend these books because they're reliable guides on the topic of NDEs.)

Last season we talked about the Tibetan teachings on death and rebirth and how those apply to life's transitions, too. (If you missed it, you can grab your free quick guide here: https://bit.ly/2Zl80UA .)

This time you'll hear interviews with people who have had near death experiences, folks who received communications from deceased loved ones, an intuitive who connects with spirits on the "other side," and even a couple of stories about memories from previous lives. Plus we'll talk dark nights of the soul and what psychedelics can tell us about the afterlife.

You can invest in this podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LettingGrow

Or give a one-time donation of any amount here: https://bit.ly/CVPayPalMe

Thanks for your support!  _/\_

Please grab your free quick guide (see the link below) and get ready to have your mind blown!

https://bit.ly/2Zl80UA

Today Dr. Donna Dechen Birdwell and I will talk about her EarthCycles series of speculative novels that imagine a world in which a new human subspecies has evolved what we might call their mystical capacities in order to survive. And the humans – like us – without such strong abilities for intuitive connection have started deliberately having near death experiences in order to unlock their latent mystical capacities.

Find more of Donna's work on her website: https://bit.ly/3zT06iq

Start here with her first EarthCycles novel, Song of All Songs: https://amzn.to/3fgrEq5

Find her on Instagram and Twitter: @donnadechen or on Facebook: @wideworldhome

In the first season of Letting Grow, we've covered traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings on the bardo states: this lifetime, death, clear light, and becoming (between death and birth). We've meditated together and heard from some amazing people.

Now it's time to wrap up this chapter with a summary -- and a new web page with all this season's episodes grouped according to type (teachings, meditations, interviews, and other reflections). To revisit the season or, for instance, binge all the meditations, go to https://www.clairevillarreal.com/letting-grow-s1-guide

Join the community and get members-only invitations to bimonthly video calls – plus our fun, free biweekly newsletter: http://bit.ly/rbrthnews

Check out more content at clairevillarreal.com or share your story of death and rebirth with us: claire@clairevillarreal.com.