Okay, sorry for the bad death humor, but seriously, let’s address It. Let’s pretend that one day you wake up and have suddenly became curious about death. You keep thinking about it, begin studying death and at some point notice that you’re tracking your feelings about it, too. Then you take it outside of yourself and quickly become aware of how many people freeze, shy away, change the subject or even seem angry with you when you merely mention the word. Then, horror of horrors, when you show curiosity about their thoughts and feelings on the subject, well, it just might not go as you’d hoped.
Then let’s say you become even more curious and begin to study death from the perspectives of various cultures. You learn quite a lot, but become hungry to go deeper into specifics such as what to expect after death (if anything). You dig for death teachings of cultures that have studied death in minute detail over long periods of time – centuries, millennia. There are some, you know. You ponder and memorize the various maps and tools these teachings offer. You practice through various forms of meditation the process of leaving the body. You even safely explore the paths open to your consciousness post-death.
Afterwards, you return to the present moment fully in your body and take some quiet moments to integrate all you’ve learned and experienced.
And then – WOW! Imagine that all of this contemplation, death data and experiential practice leads you to what amounts to a proverbial, non-lethal two-by-four- across- the-face eureka moment … and you now realize that (wait for it) … there is no death. There’s only life. Always and always. You declare Eckhart Tolle correct. It’s birth and death – life has no opposite. Hmmm. Just sit with that a minute or two.
Okay, so perhaps you feel you can offer those earlier questions eternal rest as a new question begins to form: “What now?” Great question!
To begin unpacking this new question let’s take a look at the birth experience. You are perhaps familiar with the concept of preparing for a good birth. The hope is that we are in a position to take care of ourselves differently or even better than usual. Maybe we take classes on the birthing experience and also on how to then care for an infant if we don’t already know these things. We might read child development books. Perhaps we put our affairs in order, in that our economic realities are considered and perhaps revamped in order to provide for our child. If we’re the mother, we might have regular physical checkups with a mid-wife or doctor. We might take supplements; we watch our diets. We could work with herbalists and energy practitioners. All this in service of creating a good birth experience for the consciousness that’s about to land on the physical realm tarmac.
So maybe we could also prepare for a good death. Wait – what?
Is that even a thing beyond putting affairs in order and making arrangements for the disposition of the body and perhaps a public ceremony for our loved ones to say goodbye? From a shamanic perspective, that’s certainly not only a thing, it’s crucial. According to this cosmology, if we don’t prepare ourselves for leaving the physical world and have a meaningful cosmology that helps us move into the compassionate post-death realms all kinds of troubles might follow. And the troubles won’t only fall on us. Not only might we become stuck and then estopped from continuing along our own life stream, but we can bring a serious and even dangerous burden to the world through becoming a ghost in the realm of the physically living. It’s a very big deal.
If this should happen, a wonderful and effective healing ritual in shamanic practice for helping with the ghost problem is called psychopomp. This is a Greek word that means the carrier of souls, or a spirit who can guide souls to the post-death realms. A shaman works with a psychopomp guide(s) to assist those who are lingering for perhaps multiple reasons in the Middle World (the energetic or non-ordinary aspect of physical reality). Examples of these specialized spirit guides would be angels, Grim Reaper, various birds (my psychopomp guide is a great-horned owl), Charon, Hermes, the Morrigan, the Valkyries, Archangel Michael, Aurora Borealis, animals, Bees, dogs, foxes, horses and other animals as well, Freya, well and wise ancestors, personal spirit guides, light beings, religious figures and so many others.
So let’s get started with this good death preparation discussion. At a Buddhism retreat in 1998 led by Ngakpa Chogyam Rinpoche, a Mind Lineage Holder of the Aro gTer Lineage, he was asked the question, “What is it we see when we die?” As I remember it, Rinpoche’s response was, “Whatever you’ve practiced.” Certainly Buddhism offers very detailed instructions regarding both dying and the bardos post death, which can be practiced. According to Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman, the Dalai Lama practices death six times per day. We also can seek out meditations to support a practice of non-attachment to our bodies, our identities and our loved ones. This doesn’t mean we would love any less, but we can become more comfortable with the inevitable change that we will all experience at some as yet unknown moment.
And then there’s shamanism (which is not a religion but an ancient spiritual practice), which can be very helpful with a death practice as well. We can develop a deep relationship with our psychopomp guide while still in physical form through regular honoring of our guide and journeying to our guide for teachings on death. Under certain safe circumstances we can journey with our guide to the post-death realms to acquire some familiarity of this specific spiritual terrain, and then return safely and completely to our bodies still in physicality. Shamanic journeying also helps us to become comfortable with the experience of being outside a physical body as some aspects of our soul are able to come and go without harm to us. (It’s important to get some good training!)
Working to heal at least your primary ancestral lineages can be very helpful as well.
If you have mostly European blood and bone ancestry I’m not going too far out on a limb here in saying there will be plenty of work for you to do. My favorite model and protocol for this work was developed by Dr. Daniel Foor. He has wonderful on-line classes and a book that explains his theory and method in detail, Ancestral Medicine.
Dr. Foor’s work results in the ancient, vibrant ancestors healing the entire lineage you are engaging instead of working piecemeal. It has been such a blessing for me to be able to address specific lineages as my ancestors instead of carefully wording my invitation to avoid ancestors who are not yet well. I have found this work to be heart-based and satisfying beyond expectations and I’ve also learned a tremendous amount about death. You will also get to know some well and wise ancestral guides who might be there to help you when your time to leave the physical world begins. As your ancestral lineages heal, you might even notice healing changes in members of your incarnate family. And good news for some of you — you don’t need to be facile with shamanic journeying to benefit from this method. Dr. Foor guides experiential work through meditations instead of shamanic practice.
There are also cultures that suggest preparing for death by developing a generosity practice.
Start giving some of your stuff away. Be kind and generous with your time. You get it. My dear colleague and friend Karen Wentworth lived a beautiful life even while dealing with cancer for many years. All during that time of fully living she also prepared for her death with equal levels of the clarity and determination she applied to physical life. She had a ritual practice of releasing aspects of her identity. She went through her material possessions and gave much away. She took care of all practical and administrative details.
Then the big learning revealed itself. She voiced once to me that she had actually come to a point where she felt that she was ready to go and had nothing left to complete in this life. Then new opportunities for her to embrace and enjoy knocked on her door. And as expected by anyone who knew Karen, she whole-heartedly engaged with and thoroughly enjoyed these experiences. Simultaneously, she distilled the essence of these experiences and dropped even deeper into her already capacious vat of wisdom. She began to understand that there’s no tidy ending to things. Physical life will always tempt us with another tasty morsel. Go ahead and enjoy. And also be ready to leave this world at anytime. Prepare. We can be pulled out of our particular physical stream at any moment. And when we go, let’s go both clean of attachments and also fully filled with love. As Pema Chodron states in the title of her most recent book, “How We Live is How We Die.”
The last (at least for now) rather directive suggestion I’ll make on this taboo subject is to please learn how to grieve, if you haven’t already.
This is something I’ve had to learn. I was not offered this training growing up and I’m sure I’m not alone in this. But it’s a muscle we can activate and strengthen. It’s essential. We grieve the loss of what we love and if we don’t, Martín Prechtel says that unresolved grief turns to rage. It freezes our hearts. We don’t need to look too far beyond today’s newspaper or evening news to feel the truth of that. Learn to grieve well and you just might wake up one day and notice that some mysterious alchemy has been at work. And your sorrow and pain have been held and loved into kindness, wisdom and empathy. May it be so.
