“Learning lessons is a little like reaching maturity. You're not suddenly more happy, wealthy, or powerful, but you understand the world around you better, and you're at peace with yourself. Learning life's lessons is not about making your life perfect, but about seeing life as it was meant to be.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of “On Death and Dying”
Experiencing the recent death of a close friend and colleague has expanded the space around me for the last week, and filled it with something undefinable. There’s a portal through which we come to life that is created by the union of our birth parents, which is somehow nested within and part of a greater passage that includes the ways they came to their lives through their parents. I imagine this mysterious passage existing in no-space and no-time, connecting us through our family lineage to our life’s source with the divine. I’ve drummed for the birth of a friend’s daughter, and clearly experienced with a high-sense perception the presence of that energetic portal, and the way it widened into a round doorway in harmony with the increasing urgency of the baby’s arrival.
I imagine that the portal, while always there, appears again when death approaches if we’re open to watching for it. Although I haven’t been present for that moment with someone, I wonder if it’s the same as the birth portal, and if it leads back to the divine in a way that completes a cycle for a lifetime. I only have questions without answers, but I feel more secure by spending time inviting reflection on these important topics. I don’t consider death the opposite of life, but an essential part of it that gives life shape and helps me bring a focus to what is important.
Are you curious about death, or do you avoid thinking and talking about it? What were your family’s experiences and attitudes about death? I remember sensing the shock and overwhelm in my family when a cousin was in a car accident on her honeymoon, and her husband was killed. My sisters and I were told very briefly what happened, but my parents didn’t share anything about their feelings or grieving process. So much seemed hidden, and I internalized an understanding that something horrible had occurred, and it shouldn’t be considered or thought about. As an adult I came to understand more about how unexpected, tragic deaths in their families when they were young had shaped both of my parents’ outlooks on life, and their ways to respond to and carry grief and loss.
There’s an experience you can try that might help create more space to consider the role death has played in your family, what your beliefs and attitudes are toward death, and what your relationship with death is like. Gather objects that can represent various people and energies (spice bottles, for example) and sit at a cleared table or desktop. Bring yourself to stillness with any practice you choose, and find your way to being grounded and centered. Choose objects to represent one or more friends and family members who have died, one for yourself, and one for death. In any order, choose an object, hold it in your hand, bring the person to your awareness, say their full name out loud, and place them on the table where it feels they belong. Place as few or as many as you like. You could even start with just an object for yourself, and one for death, to explore your own relationship with it. There’s no right or wrong approach. Let yourself take time to discover what’s here for you. Go slowly, gently and with great respect. There may be unresolved family wounds, or suppressed grief you have unconsciously carried for another family member. Avoid overwhelming yourself. If you have insights, you can journal on what you learn. Practice self-care afterwards. May you be blessed to create a good relationship with death.
