Nine Keys & Co: the art, soft-business, activism, and mystery of death work

What does it mean to tend grief, death ed, and end-of-life planning in late-stage capitalism?This is death work beyond the bedside.In this episode of the Nine Keys & Co. podcast, I speak with grief and death tenders Abby Goelzer and Venessa Greenheron about the evolving shape of death work in 2026. Together, we explore facilitating advance planning, death education, and collective grief spaces during times of political violence and systemic instability.When institutions feel fragile, when trust in medical systems is fractured, when the nervous system of a nation feels activated - advance care planning is no longer just responsible paperwork. It becomes sovereignty work. It becomes culture work.Abby and Venessa share about their co-facilitated offering:TenderNest Part 2: A Space for Witnessing and Awakening to the Grief of US ViolenceTuesday, March 10, 20266:30–8:00 PM Central Time (4:30 PM Pacific)Online gatheringTenderNest registration:garnetandthemoon.com/event-details/tendernest-part-2

Facilitators, space holders, death workers, grief workers - This episode is for you. People are raw. And they’re braced. Grief groups are everywhere, which I love, but the nervous systems walking into our spaces are more lit up than they’ve been in years. Triggers surface faster and repair feels urgent.And facilitators? We’re not outside of it. We’re grieving too. Watching the news. Paying bills. Holding our own lives together while holding space for others.In this episode, I’m talking candidly about what it’s actually costing to facilitate right now, and the one thing I keep returning to: boundaries. If you’re holding space in this moment and feeling the tremors underneath it all, this is a coach chat about how to last.www.narinderbazen.com

Find Melissa Word's Devotion Mode here!In this episode, I get into why death work isn’t something youmemorize, and why art, making, and creative practice actually train us for theparts of this work that can’t be taught. I talk about death work as a lived,hands-on practice and why creativity matters right now. Then I’m joined by Melissa Word to talk about death work as art practice,paper, what the hands can guide us to, and her new offering, Devotion Mode - a monthly, zine-style practice that brings making things back into the center of spiritual and death-adjacent work.Join Narinder's newsletter list here.

Welcome back to the Nine Keys podcast. I’m Narinder, and this first episode of 2026 returns to death work as a path of devotion.After a quiet winter shaped by listening, rest, and a new diagnosis of moderate hearing loss, I reflect on the magic that lives inside death work, specifically sympathetic magic: the simple, often unspoken practices we use to communicate with the holy, the ancestral, and the unseen. I share how the rose has become a living symbol in my death work, appearing again and again in moments of grief, ritual, reassurance, and awe. I offer The Rose Beyond the Wall, a poem adapted from A.L. Frink.This episode is an invitation to notice the symbols that follow you, the quiet magic you may already be practicing, and the deeper relationship you live inside of with your death work.www.narinderbazen.com

In this final Nine Keys episode of the year, Narinder closes the door softly on 2025 with reflections on soft business, world-building, and the death arts. She invites listeners into a season of genuine winter rest, where miracles land quietly, and nothing needs to be performed. The episode ends with Pink Light, a short guided moment for anyone who feels tired, tender, or stretched thin.Thank you so much for being a listener of the Nine Keys podcast. To stay in the flow with Narinder's work, sign up for her newsletter here.

In this tender conversation, Narinder sits down with her Admin Angel, Kursten Hedges, a strategist and mystic who helps artists, healers, and visionaries build businesses that actually hold their souls. Together, they explore a radical truth: business and spirit were never meant to be separate.This episode is alive with honesty, magic, and practical wisdom. Narinder and Kursten talk about:following sacred nudges inside your workhow money conversations must be part of mutual aid and community carewhat it's like to navigate chronic illness while still building new worldsthe tender, magical intersection between creativity, death work, and strategyIf you’re an artist, death worker, healer, or heart-centered solopreneur trying to build something sustainable in a world that’s falling apart, this episode will feel like sitting at a warm table with two people who deeply get it.Expect real talk.Expect magic.Expect to leave with a softened heart and a clearer path.Find Kursten at https://theadminangel.com/

In this episode, Narinder invites death workers, healers, and soul-led practitioners into an honest conversation about getting their work out into the world beyond the grind of social media. Narinder reflects on the early “soul era” of death work online, when community and education were central, and contrasts it with today’s fast-paced, algorithm-driven “crazy bazaar.” (Daje Aloh's phrasing) Listeners will learn how to shift from algorithm-dependence to an ecosystem approach, using newsletters, blogs, podcasts, local workshops, and real-world creative offerings to grow their work with sustainability and intimacy. Narinder shares why repurposing your content is a wise use of our precious time, and how different channels reach farther.If you’re a death worker or healer feeling overwhelmed by social media, or longing for ways to share your work that feel more intimate, grounded, and aligned, this episode will feel like a deep exhale and a way forward.To sign up for Narinder's newsletter go to www.narinderbazen.com To schedule mentorship sessions with Narinder go to https://www.narinderbazen.com/study-with-narinderMentioned in this episode are:Yarrow Magdalena of https://glimmerportal.com/about-yarrow/Misha Murphy of https://hafezdeathcare.com/Meghan Johnson of https://www.madisondeathcollective.org/Daje Aloh of https://storywork.studio/

In this tender episode, Narinder shares conversation with Venessa Greenheron - artist, parent, farmer, and death worker on Whidbey Island, Washington, and a cherished Nine Keys alum. What begins as a discussion about Venessa’s upcoming grief gathering grows into a deeper reflection on death work as an art form and the practice of reciprocity that keeps our care alive.Together, they explore the complicated ache that can surface around the holidays for those navigating fractured or unsteady family systems, and how tending something small and alive, like a Paperwhite Narcissus bulb, can become a ritual for reclaiming warmth and beauty inside that ache.An easy conversation, meant to be listened to with your hands around a warm mug.

*Best listened to in stillness, with a candle lit and your notebook nearby.In this Samhain-season, Halloween episode of The Nine Keys Podcast, Narinder invites death workers into an intimate, experiential reflection on the role of fear in death and grief work.Through story, breath, and gentle somatic guidance, she explores the quiet hauntings that accompany this vocation: the fear of saying the wrong thing, of not knowing enough, of being too much or not enough. Rather than trying to fix fear, Narinder teaches how to hold it, warm it, and listen to what it’s asking for.This is not a teaching episode, it’s an experience.If you need Narinder's one-on-one care, check out her mentorship offerings here.