What might change if grief were not treated as a problem to overcome, but as a sacred journey that unfolds over years?
In this conversation, interviewer Kim Adams speaks with Phillip Scott about Indigenous perspectives on death, bereavement, ceremony and our ongoing relationships with those who have passed. Drawing from decades of involvement in Indigenous medicine traditions—as well as the sudden death of his beloved wife—Phillip reflects on the ceremonies and communal practices that helped him navigate profound loss.
The conversation explores the Lakota tradition of the 13-moon mourning cycle, the wiping of the tears ceremony, four-year memorial practices and the role of dreams in maintaining relationships with ancestors. Phillip also challenges Western culture’s tendency to rush, suppress and pathologize grief, including the growing diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder.
Kim brings in her own experience of losing her mother suddenly, opening a wider discussion about dreams, grief, addiction, collective loss and the ways Western society often lacks communal structures for mourning.
The conversation then expands into collective grief following COVID-19, the relationship between loss, addiction and disconnection, and the rapid commercialization of sacred plant medicines. Phillip offers a call for greater reverence, patience, community, sustainability and Indigenous leadership as interest in psychedelic healing continues to grow.
Ultimately, this interview invites us to understand grief not as evidence that something has gone wrong, but as an expression of how deeply we have loved.
Timestamped Highlights
00:00 – Introduction and the absence of meaningful grief rituals
Kim opens the conversation by reflecting on how little time Western society gives people to mourn, remember and ceremonially release those they love, and asks Phillip to share what he has witnessed in Indigenous traditions.
03:30 – Grief as a teacher, tyrant and taskmaster
Phillip describes impermanence as a fundamental truth of existence and explains how grief can remain with us until we have received its lessons, medicine and meaning.
05:00 – The sudden death of Phillip’s wife
Phillip shares how the unexpected death of his wife at age 35 shattered his world and transformed his understanding of bereavement, trauma and compassionate grief support.
09:30 – Indigenous ceremonies for death and bereavement
Phillip explains that many Indigenous mourning traditions provide ceremonial and communal support over the course of months and years rather than only a few hours or days.
13:00 – The 13-moon mourning cycle and wiping of the tears
Phillip discusses visible expressions of mourning, the Lakota wiping of the tears ceremony and the gradual process of being welcomed back into the life of the community.
18:00 – Four-year memorial practices and relationships with ancestors
Phillip describes annual memorial practices within the Native American Church and Lakota Sundance traditions, and how these ceremonies support an ongoing relationship with the deceased as an ancestor.
22:30 – Why avoiding grief can deepen it
Phillip explains that suppressing grief may compound pain rather than resolve it, and encourages people to allow anger, sorrow, despair and longing to move through them.
25:00 – The pathologizing of prolonged grief
Kim raises the addition of prolonged grief disorder to the DSM and reflects on how grief that lasts beyond a prescribed timeline can become treated as pathology. Phillip responds by contrasting this with Indigenous traditions that may formally honor grief for several years.
30:00 – Dreams as a bridge to the spirit world
Phillip describes dreams not simply as products of the unconscious, but as meaningful spaces where people may continue to encounter and communicate with ancestors. Kim shares her own experience of her mother continuing to appear in dreams after her death.
34:00 – Peyote ceremonies, memorial meetings and intentional prayer
In response to Kim’s questions about peyote and grief, Phillip explains how Native American Church meetings may be sponsored to honor someone who has passed, gather the community and support both the deceased and the bereaved.
39:00 – The ocean metaphor for living with grief
Phillip compares profound loss to being dropped into an ocean and overwhelmed by waves. Over time, a person may reach the shore, but he suggests they continue walking along the water’s edge rather than leaving grief behind entirely.
44:00 – COVID-19 and unacknowledged collective grief
Kim reflects on the collective losses created by the pandemic, including changes in safety, connection and assumptions about everyday life. Phillip expands the discussion to collective grief and despair within the human experience.
49:00 – The so-called psychedelic renaissance
Phillip notes that sacred medicines never disappeared from Indigenous cultures. What is often described in the West as a psychedelic renaissance has remained a continuous way of life within many Indigenous communities.
57:30 – “Turtle medicine”: slowing down the psychedelic movement
As Kim asks what kind of structure might help guide the rapidly expanding psychedelic field, Phillip calls for “turtle medicine”—slowing down—and emphasizes patience, extensive training, humility and collaboration with experienced Indigenous ceremonial leaders.
63:00 – Medicine is not a replacement for community
Phillip explains that sacred plants and fungi may strengthen connection, but should not become the sole foundation of community. Relationships must also be cultivated through everyday care, shared responsibility and time together outside ceremony.
69:00 – Sustainability, overharvesting and reciprocity
Phillip addresses the ecological impact of increasing demand for sacred medicines and the responsibility to support Indigenous communities that have protected these traditions, medicines and ceremonies.
73:00 – Loss, addiction and the need for connection
Kim reflects on the relationship between unresolved loss, addiction and abuse, and the absence of meaningful community structures in Western culture. The conversation explores connection as an essential part of healing.
82:30 – Two-eyed seeing and translating Indigenous wisdom
Phillip reflects on bringing traditional medicine people into Western academic environments and the ways their knowledge has sometimes been dismissed because it does not fit Western standards of education. He discusses the value of “two-eyed seeing”—the ability to understand through both Indigenous and Western lenses.
85:00 – Integration versus medicine as a way of life
Phillip explains why the language of “integration” is less prominent in Indigenous medicine traditions, where ceremony, relationship with the Earth and sacred medicines may already be woven into daily life. For Western participants, integration becomes necessary because the ceremonial experience often exists outside ordinary life.
90:30 – Closing reflections and future conversations
Kim and Phillip close by reflecting on the breadth of grief traditions around the world and the need for continued conversations about community, ceremony, Indigenous wisdom and healthier ways of relating to loss.
