Jill Katz is the person you want by your side to help navigate all the stuff a loved one leaves behind. Both super-practical and compassionate, Jill is blessed with intuition and a deep understanding of neurodivergent behaviour, and how we can all get stuck and overwhelmed. She provides a set of simple systems that help guide you through the clutter, and clear things away – materially, emotionally and cognitively – to unlock your true potential.

Keshnie Mathi is the Grief Companion - a human compendium of diverse emotion, humour, compassion and wisdom, wrapped in the professional ability to listen. In this episode, she details how she supports people in their grief. And at the end of the episode are a few ways you too can support someone experiencing the pain of loss.

Dr Ivan Schewitz is a veteran explorer of the thoracic cavity, having saved and improved many lives in his long and pioneering surgical career. In this episode, he reflects on what a lifetime's work has taught him about life and death, and the responsibility that he carries. He shares intimate experience about what it's like to save a life, and to lose one, and how best to communicate this to a family. A warm and affable man with great experience, related with humility and kindness.

Adriaan Bester has a clear eye and a steady hand, in a business that provides a service as old as time. His insight, compassion and sensitivity is perfectly suited to this culturally diverse country, steeped in traditional rites and rituals about death and dying. Yet Adriaan is an innovator, unafraid to introduce new technologies and new options for people who have lost a loved one. His experience is unique - and he relates it with kindness and warmth.

Dr. Mary Ryan is a priest and soul carer, someone with great experience at providing spiritual care at the end of life. In this episode, she discusses her journey toward priesthood, and the challenges she experiences as a woman and feminist. She explains what is meant by soul care, and what it's requirements are, as well as sharing a useful model of the stages of dying which helps us understand the needs of the dying person. Mary is a teacher and the inspiration behind the Soul Carers...

Ela Manga is an integrative medical doctor, highly attuned to the relationship between different systems in the body. She has a deep experience of death, and how breath plays a leading part in how we live and how we die. Her work is radical and gentle, profound and compassionate. In this episode, she shares her insight and experience with us, and some of the secrets to using a healing tool that's right under our noses.

Veteran teaching midwife Ciske van Straaten has vast experience of helping to bring life into the world, and has also been intimately involved in death. What has this taught her? What have these two moments got in common? How do they relate to each other, in the cycle of life?

Author of 'Crossing the River Styx - Memoirs of a Death Row Chaplain,' Russ Ford shares his experience of accompanying those condemned to die in their final years, months and earthly moments. This is a story of unlikely redemption in the face of self-righteous carnage and fear, a story of humility and courage. It is also a powerful testament to the institutionalized savagery of the death penalty as enacted in the state of Virginia, the first southern state to abolish the death penalty in...

Who has the right to decide how someone else should die? In this episode, Sean Davison explains some of the terms involved in his quest to help legalise assisted dying in South Africa, and makes a compelling case to advance this option for all South Africans. It's nothing less than a human right: the right to die a death with dignity, on one's own terms.

An in-depth look with leading experts at the pioneering technology that enhances natural decomposition of human remains, helping get you back into Mather Earth where you belong.

At the intersection of a profoundly rich Judaic spirituality and a childhood proclivity to see things others don't, Belinda Silbert is unique - a woman rabbi, a trained classical musician, a mother and someone who ventures beyond the veil.

What happens to money when death happens, and what happens to life when money happens? In this extremely helpful snapshot of things to be mindful of when a loved one approaches death or dies, Louis van der Merwe demonstrates a practical, effective but mostly empathetic approach to things.

Welcome to the VizLab and the world of facial reconstruction from skeletal remains, where unidentified and unclaimed bodies recover a sense of human dignity on a path to healing and justice. Dr. Kathryn Smith is our eloquent guide, someone who moves between worlds, from law enforcement and justice to fine art, identity and its absence.

Aquamation, also known as alkaline hydrolysis or water resumation, is a relatively new technology when applied to human remains, although it's been used on animals for quite a while. But how exactly does it work? Adriaan Bester brought this technology to South Africa, one of only three countries worldwide where aquamation will soon be widespread. He's the special guest of this episode - a down-to-earth gentleman with a twinkle in his eye who tells it like it is.

Cremation is a practice riven with misconception and superstition. It is taboo for many people, but also our obvious remedy to dwindling land available for burial. What happens when a body is cremated, and what are the fears people have?

Reincarnation, cremation, the sacred passage of the soul.... this is an in-depth discussion of Hindu rites and rituals around death and dying, and why these are so important in the cycle of life. A deeply literate and erudite guest, Lokesh Maharajh has intimate understanding of the importance of these rituals and the correct way they should be performed for maximum karmic effect...

Dr Linda Liebenberg works at Tygerberg Mortuary in Cape Town, and has been a consultant forensic pathologist for over two decades. She's seen things most of us will never see, and she's seen them up close. She takes us into her world, describing the challenges and triumphs of her profession, dedicated to bringing justice to her patients and their families.

Simon Lupini knows how to help families in their grief, by doing all the practical stuff around death - transporting the deceased, visiting Home Affairs to register a death, preparing a person for burial. It's this last aspect, seldom seen by anyone, that he describes here in detail, with immense compassion and sensitivity.

Sr. Margot van der Wielen has vast experience working in a hospice environment as a nurse and trainer. She is responsible for a team of nurses who conduct home visits for people (and their families) who experience life-limiting illness. What has she learnt about death and dying, and how to provide compassionate care over the past twenty-five years? Take a listen....

An insider account of life as a paramedic, with decades of experience. Compassionate, insightful, passionate. What happens when the worst thing happens? Bradley Klein is the type of person you would trust with your life.

A taste of what's to come in Season 2, featuring a snippet form the exclusive mini-episode to be released at the end of the season, The Aviatrix.

Sheikh Sayed Imraan provides an incredibly detailed account of what happens when someone from the Islamic faith dies. In this episode, recorded in the mosque, he reveals not only what happens, but why, with compassion and an ever-present twinkle in his eye. From receiving the body and washing it, to shrouding it and burying it and praying over it at every step of the way, Sayed Imraan's generous explication is a rare glimpse into a set of holy practices with great implications for how...

Imagine being the principal on the scene of a road accident where there are multiple fatalities. When I sat down to interview Lloyd Castle, I had no idea that this is what he’d been responsible for, for many years, as a traffic officer. After a while he'd seen enough, to answer a new calling - teaching people how to stay safe on the roads - specifically, on motorcycles. In this episode, Lloyd discusses what goes on in the mind of a biker on the road. His insight into the behaviour of...

It was in the blood - a powerful call from the spirit world. Heeding it, Lindy Dlamini left her 'old life' and, in a kind of rebirth, became initiated as a sangoma, or African traditional healer. She describes her work as a 'facilitator of healing', alert to the signs she's been both gifted and trained to read, always emphasizing the importance of our relationship with our ancestors, whether we are aware of them or not. She also discusses witchcraft and the practice of daily connection as...