Joél Simone Maldonado (aka The Grave Woman) joins Recipes for Grief podcast to discuss Black funeral and food traditions. As we chat, you can really hear us deepening into curiosity, trust and friendship as we venture into the ethics of preserving family stories and AI, as well as the ethics of intuition in death care. Another thing we discuss is how on her podcast, Death & Grief Talk with The Grave Woman, she'll highlight television and movies about death and grief (with a few recommendations). We also talk about the prominence of alcohol on reality tv and discuss how our relationship with alcohol has changed recently.

Joél Simone Maldonado aka The Grave Woman is a sacred end of life and grief care professional, award winning educator and founder of The Black Death, Grief, and Cultural Care Academy. She specializes in educating professionals about the importance of Cultural Competency, Racial Inclusion and Diversity in end of life, death and grief care.

Joél has worked in the death care industry since 2010 and has over 15 years experience in the healthcare industry. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Compassion and Choices as co-chair of the board's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee and volunteers with the African American Leadership Council.
Joél educates the public through having open and honest conversations about death, dying, death care and grief culture through the use of my courses, podcast, YouTube channel and social media platforms.

- Black funeral food traditions

- The responsibility and grief of digitizing recordings of our elders

- Death care as intuitive work and alchemy

- Receiving messages from the dead in death work

- The ethics of psychic abilities and giving messages to people

- Embodying the gift of divination

- AI, nanotechnology and death care

- AI and mass consciousness after death

- Animating photos of the death and AI communication with the dead

- Space burial

- The Ancient Egyptians and the circle of necessity

- Joel's prophetic dreams

- Being "death curious" and curious in general

- Spoiler Alert movie trailer

- Don't Worry Darling movie trailer

- Black Mirror

- Love is Blind

- Alcohol (spirits, the death care profession, The Housewives...)

- Portals, death and rebirth

- Dancing, stretching, drumming...resistance and grace on the journey

- Joel's (many) offerings as guidance from Spirit