Grief is one of the themes that runs through Nectar of Time. Below is everything in the Nectarium that touches on it.
Where it comes up 12
Within this theme 87
Concepts 20
- Ghosting
Being cut off by friends without explanation. Tyler calls it harder to rationalize than a romantic breakup because we're taught 'friends forever'; it is the episode's most personal enigma…
- Death Salon
Gatherings, also called death cafes, where strangers talk about grief, death and loss and share book excerpts and poetry. Mia borrowed the term from a Brooklyn therapist and is piloting…
- From Mourner to Investigator
Mia's framing of the shift that happens in grief when the mourner starts investigating, Sherlock Holmes style, the person lost or why they left (as in the Murakami novel, or her own urge to…
- Bargaining (Grief)
Mia's definition: bargaining is the investigator mode ('why them, why not me', 'what were their last wishes'). Disputes over wills are unprocessed bargaining, and so are decisions people…
- Five Stages of Grief
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, known 'since at least the 60s.' Mia stresses they are nonlinear: you can be in denial for five seconds and in anger for the rest of your…
- Secular Ritual Gap
Tamir's observation that religious death rituals (Tibetan bardo prayers, Jewish psalms, Irish wakes) have no analog in secular culture beyond the funeral, a gap Mia's gatherings try to fill.
- Ayahuasca
Psychedelic brew used in ceremonies in which Mia felt she communicated with her late mother; her first experience brought the message 'let me go.'
- Closure Is an Illusion
Mia's claim that closure doesn't exist; what people actually seek is the inner power to say 'enough, I'm done, I'm putting that to bed.'
- Grief as Love's Shadow
The episode's central image: grief is love's shadow or ghost, so like love it is a unique thumbprint, inherently personal and subjective, and possibly spiritual in nature.
- Holding Space
Mia's term for being a 'clean mirror' who listens, observes and asks questions without shock or judgment. She argues most people outsource their therapy to hairstylists and Uber drivers who…
- Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
The focus of Mia's Harvard research and future vision: psychedelic-assisted therapy 'voyages' for grief. She notes initiatives using MDMA to mediate conflict between Israelis and…
- Hierarchy of Grief
Tamir asks whether there is an objective hierarchy of grief: sudden death versus prolonged illness, suffering plus death as the ultimate tragedy (as in Holocaust stories). Mia answers that…
- Song of Ascents
A group of Psalms that Tamir says are recited during the seven days of Jewish mourning at the family's home; his example of religious death ritual that has no secular counterpart.
- Unprocessed Grief
Mia argues much Western addiction, substance abuse, PTSD, depression, anxiety and even physical disease is unprocessed grief, because we say goodbye to things all the time without actually…
- GRF Methodology
Mia's grief methodology, developed as a response to the five stages of grief, which she uses at grief dinner parties and death salons and will unveil in full in her memoir, with exercises…
- WWII trauma in Murakami
Salih's reading that unexplained events like the children collapsing in Kafka on the Shore, Lieutenant Mamiya's war, and figures like Colonel Sanders are Murakami processing Japan's war…
- Altars and Grief Objects
Physical shrines to grief, such as Mia's family leaving her mother's clothes untouched for a decade. Impractical as use of space, but nobody calls an altar inefficient; Tamir likens them to…
- Biopsychosocial Grief
Mia's point that grief is shaped not only by the relationship but by your biology, psychology and social state when the loss happens (hormones, mindset, addiction), so the same loss can be…
- Shiva
The seven-day Jewish mourning period at the bereaved family's home that Tamir describes (not named on air).
- Irish Wake
Tamir's example of cultures that turn death into a celebration of life; he finds it hard to reconcile since every funeral he's attended has been solemn.
Books 9
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Tamir loves the scene where a friend tells Tsukuru a strange story about a man his father met at a mountain inn, an example of Murakami's one-on-one conversations that feel like portals.
- The Grief Trip
Mia's memoir in progress about losing her mother and her psychedelic journey with that loss; the centrepiece of her work, unveiling her methodology. She is seeking an agent and hopes for a…
- A Grief Observed
Lewis's account of grieving his wife, the love of his life. Tamir reads the opening ('No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear...') because grief, like love, is crazy-making and…
- Childhood (Hesse poem)
Poem Tamir reads ('My farthest valley... O dark gate, O dark hour of death, come forth') about longing for death as a return home to one's dreams; Mia hears in it someone letting themselves…
- Norwegian Wood
The Murakami novel Grant likes best; Tamir notes it is his only novel without magic realism.
- Poems (Hermann Hesse)
Hesse's well-known poetry collection in a bilingual edition (German on the left, English on the right) that Tamir reads from.
- Tokyo Ueno Station
Novel narrated by the ghost of a homeless man in Tokyo whose family has died, struggling to reconcile the point of his existence. Tamir reads a passage asking whether death is where time…
- Tony Takitani
Murakami short story, one of Salih's favorites ('a pretty messed up story', Tamir agrees); also adapted into a film the two discuss.
- Consolation to Helvia
Seneca's letter from exile to his mother telling her not to weep for him, cited by Tamir as an example of Stoic consolation as practice.
People 8
- Tamir Barzilai
Host of the Nectar of Time podcast; in this second official episode he shares his own path back into fiction via a pandemic book club and Haruki Murakami.
- Haruki Murakami
Japanese novelist and one of Tamir's favourite authors, who brought him back to fiction. Grant thinks he is wildly overrated, 'the Stephen King of Japanese literature', and dislikes his…
- Mia Cosco
Research assistant at Harvard working on psychedelic research, specifically how psychedelics can help with grief; hosts grief dinner parties, death salons and death cafes, and is writing a…
- Hermann Hesse
German-Swiss novelist (Siddhartha, Steppenwolf). Tamir read him as philosophical fiction; Tamir says Hesse knew Carl Jung and that Jung's influence shows in his writing.
- Seneca
Cited as a Stoic whose life was riddled with tragedy (killed by Nero, family deaths) and who wrote consolation letters, including one to his mother from exile.
- C.S. Lewis
Author of the Narnia books and science fiction whose nonfiction Tamir has recently started reading; his memoir of losing his wife gives the episode its line that grief feels like fear.
- Al Pacino
Tamir recalls Pacino's speech in Any Given Sunday about how, as you get older, things get taken from you, as a parallel to Murakami's pinball metaphor of loss.
- Yu Miri
Japanese-Korean author of Tokyo Ueno Station, which Tamir reads from as a meditation on grief.
Quotes 14
We heal in kind of a field of connection. There's really a field of healing that's created when people share in a group.
We say goodbye to things all the time. Are we choosing that goodbye every time, or are we letting things happen to us? I'm choosing this, and this too I'm also choosing. I'm here and I'm choosing it.
Closure is kind of an illusion, which is a terrible thing to say to some people, but closure is really an illusion. What people are really seeking with closure is the power within to just say, okay, enough, I'm done, I'm putting that to bed.
Curiosity is an ascension from depression. Even if you just have the motivation for one more breath or one more moment, that's better than just being like, I want to end it all.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.
Grief is crazy making. So is love. Love is crazy making, at the risk of sounding like a pop song.
I look at grief as almost a shadow of love, like love's shadow or love's ghost. And just as love is its own unique thumbprint, I guess so is grief, because it's just that reflection.
They don't want to talk about that. It's kind of like puking in public. But I actually think that that is why we need to do it.
Silence still means you're participating, because even if you're just energetically participating, you're still there, you're still present. You don't have to be saying anything to be present.
You can't really outsource your responsibility of your decisions. It's really easy to spot people who don't take responsibility when they say things like, oh, but they would have wanted it. And you say, well yeah, but there is a part of you choosing it too.
We're warring over different things we believe in, and I'm thinking, guys, you're warring over grief. Like what the hell is going on?
Fighting over someone's will is like trying to figure out the mind of somebody who's no longer with us.
Are we proving ourselves to other people or are we proving ourselves to the version of us yesterday? Who are we trying to win against? We already know we're a badass. Why do we have to prove it?
Grief is something that I know very well. I've walked with grief as a lifelong companion at this point. Unintentional, unplanned, but so was my mom's death.
Insights 11
- Fiction can process collective trauma
Murakami's unexplained wartime incidents and Western mascots can be read as a nation processing war trauma through symbols, just as Germany still processes its history.
- Grief is not only about death
We grieve lost friendships, ghostings, divorces, pets and miscarriages (the hopes and dreams planted in a future), not just the dead.
- Secular culture lacks death rituals
Religions give mourners structured practices (bardo prayers, psalms for seven days, wakes), while secular culture has only the funeral and worries about wills and costs.
- There's nothing new under the sun
Your love and grief are unique, but they are functions of a human nature written about endlessly, so books, even obscure ones by unknown authors, can hand you tools others already used to…
- Control can be grief in disguise
Rigid structure, narrow-mindedness and a need to control everything can be a child's defense against grief that hasn't been dealt with internally.
- Decisions made for the dead can breed resentment
Acting on a dead person's wishes can be courageous or a way to dodge responsibility. Whether it lasts depends on how aware you are of the part of you that is choosing.
- Grief cannot be prescribed
Because grief is as personal as the love it reflects, no one can set a time limit or tell another person where to draw the line. Mia still feels a pull to a mother she barely knew, decades…
- Sadness is part of love; suffering is optional
Sheela admits there were sad moments after the falling out with Bhagwan, but calls them 'also part of love'. She accepted them graciously and let thoughts and feelings leave as they came…
- Curiosity both heals and haunts
Investigating a loss can lift you out of depression, but without a clear answer it becomes a Gordian knot that tightens the more you look, a chase after an apparition. Be clear about what…
- The stages of grief are nonlinear
You can spend five seconds in denial and a lifetime in anger, or jump straight to bargaining. Cerebral, fix-it people often go straight to bargaining.
- Your state shapes your grief
Grief depends not only on the relationship lost but on your hormones, mindset and habits when the loss lands. The same blow can be survivable at one stage of life and devastating at another.
Practices 7
- Grief Dinner Parties
Mia's first pilot of grief support groups: hosting dinners in her West Point Grey home where people cook, eat and share their innermost pain, because 'we heal in a field of connection' and…
- Choose your goodbyes
Actively choose each goodbye ('this I'm choosing, and this too') instead of letting losses happen to you, so grief doesn't go unprocessed.
- Letting the Wanting Rest
Like a watched kettle, desire (including the longing to reunite with someone who died) eases when you wish for it and then let the wanting rest for a while, rather than clutching at it.
- Honor the dead by not fighting the living
When there's no will or the wishes are unclear, the best way to honor someone is not to fight with the people still living, and to ask what they would want for you.
- Talk to your younger self
When old anger flares, Mia addresses her teenage self directly ('Mia, I hear you, I get it') and asks who she is really trying to prove herself to.
- Clarify what you're curious about
Before investigating a loss or ghosting, get clear on what you really want: the truth, someone's perspective, or permission to move on, and ask whether you could go on never getting over it.
- Let feelings come and go
When painful events come, accept them graciously, let thoughts and feelings arrive and leave on their own, and keep love where it belongs, in your heart.
Stories 13
- Grandfather's two pieces of advice
Colin's father died when he was two, and his grandfather looked after him until he was about nine. On a walk shortly before he died, his grandfather stopped and told him: don't ever grow…
- Leaving Bhagwan with tears in her eyes
When Sheela decided to leave Bhagwan, members of her commune 'family' begged her to stay, reminding her of everything she had and all the work she had put in. Tears ran down her face as she…
- Mother's message: let me go
On her first ayahuasca ceremony, Mia felt her mother tell her 'let me go': stop thinking about what I want and live your life. It was hard because she didn't know who she was outside 'the…
- Calling her partner twenty times
Mia's relationship is securely attached, but if her partner doesn't say goodbye in his usual way and something feels hidden, she might call him 20 times: 'me going from investigator before…
- Sad goodbye to the shadow
Salih read Hard-Boiled Wonderland in winter and was left sad and melancholic by the shadow's hard goodbye at the end. Tamir reads the passage aloud and Salih recalls the narrator staring at…
- Seneca's consolations amid tragedy
Tamir recounts that Seneca lost family members, was exiled and eventually killed by Nero, yet made consolation his role, writing to the bereaved and telling his mother from exile not to…
- Angry teen chasing rejection
In high school Mia was furious at her mother for 'giving up' and being 'weak'. Raised by an emotionally shut-down father, she did eight school plays, modeled and went to constant auditions…
- Borrowing death salons from Brooklyn
Mia didn't coin 'death salon': she hit it off with a Brooklyn therapist who co-hosts them, gathering strangers to share grief, book excerpts and poetry. Mia has since moved to Boston to…
- Divorcing couple at grief group
The quietest attendees shock Mia most. People going through divorce have brought their ex-spouse to discuss it together in the group, with tears, screaming and yelling.
- Losing her mother at seven
Mia lost her mother at seven. She doesn't remember her voice, laugh or favorite color and barely knew her, yet still feels a strong, 'spooky' connection to her, which is why she won't tell…
- Childhood control as coping
From seven to about thirteen, Mia coped with her mother's death by becoming 'incredibly OCD', planning every minute and acting as 'the woman of the house' and master of her domain. Later…
- Mother's clothes left for ten years
Mia's family left her mother's clothes hanging untouched in the closet for at least ten years: 'a physical depiction of grief', honoring her despite knowing she would never come home.
- Newly orphaned adult: want to dance?
When someone arrives saying both parents died tragically and they are now an adult orphan, Mia meets whatever energy they want ('do you want to dance? let's do this') or stays solemn…
Films, music and art 4
- Eli
Colin's award-winning short film, based on a Holocaust survivor he met. As a boy in Hungary in the summer of 1944 the man was separated from his mother and little brother at Mengele's…
- After Life
Ricky Gervais's series about a man grieving his late wife. Colin recalls a woman telling him that happiness is a great thing even if it isn't yours, and a line about planting trees whose…
- Interstellar
Tamir: time dilation in Interstellar is a frightening enough phenomenon without added fantasy.
- Any Given Sunday
Football film whose Al Pacino locker-room speech Tamir recalls: as you get older, things get taken from you, and you only realize it with age.
Organizations and movements 1
- Harvard University
Where Mia works as a research assistant on psychedelic research into grief.