The Truth About Death
For whatever reason I am inspired to speak about death this month. Yup, that one inevitable experience we all get to have, whether it be physical, emotional, geographical or mental, death will knock on our door one way or the other and most probably multiple times in multiple forms. She is a force of nature, a powerful teacher and initiator of consciousness, freedom, maturity and love. Death helps pain go away when we allow ourselves to surrender to its process. The greatest mystery in life is not life itself, but death. Death is the culmination of life, the ultimate blossoming of life. In death the whole life is summed up, in death you arrive. Life is a pilgrimage towards death. From the very beginning, death is coming. From the moment of birth, death has started coming towards you, you have started moving towards death.
The greatest calamity that has happened to the human mind is that he is against death. Being against death means you will miss the greatest mystery. And being against death also means that you will miss life itself, because they are deeply involved into each other; they are not two. Life is growing, death is the flowering of it. The journey and the goal are not separate; the journey ends in the goal. The fear of death, the denial of death, thinking we can outsmart death, this is the arrogance of the mind, the arrogance of our distorted feminine and masculine energy, disconnected from the heart. To deny nature and it’s cycles is to deny your human condition. To fear death is in so many ways you fearing yourself and fearing life itself. You rejecting the opportunity to transform, become, grow and experience new people, places and things. The fear/denial of death, trumps your ability to not only dance in the unknown, but also trust life. Death is what makes life so sacred. Death is what keeps us humble and reminds us of the finite time we have to be on earth, to make love, to be in human form, to taste, to explore all possibilities. Knowing that it will one day come to an end, and nothing but your experience of life will matter. Death can also bring deep awakening or become an initiation towards higher consciousness. My father and brother’s death gifted me this and I am forever grateful for it.
Much like it’s counterpart Birth, Death also marks a before and after, it keeps count of time and allows us to track our evolution. Should we choose to embrace, respect and honor death, in return she gifts us freedom. Freedom to start anew, freedom to become a new being or create a new life for ourselves. Freedom from pain, freedom from toxicity and limiting beliefs. Thing is most of us have no idea what to do with freedom, because it’s scary and also requires a lot of trust. So instead of allowing death to move through us entirely, we turn our heads, stuff it down and pretend it’s not happening. Better to stay in control than bow my head towards my heart and let go.
When I speak of death I don’t only mean the physical death of a human being. I’m also referring to the death of a friendship or relationship. A job or a place you felt was home. Death of self too, just like a snake sheds her skin, humans also have the capacity to shed old skin. These are all cycles of nature, a time to create, a time to maintain and a time to destroy. From death comes life, from destruction comes creation, the never ending cycle of life force moving through us. It amazes me when I hear stories about the quest towards immortality. Everyday a new product to keep you young, a new technology to extend life on earth or on another planet. Artificial Intelligence being created in the attempts of humans never dying. I find this quite amusing, why would anyone want to live forever? It sounds so predictable, boring and exhausting to me. If I knew I was never going to die, then what exactly would I live for?
Is it because as a collective we have been taught to fear the unknown so much that we are willing to pretend that death doesn’t exist? Is it the arrogance of the ego, wanting to play God, thinking it can outsmart nature? Is it the fear of having a full human experience, which requires us to integrate death. Are you truly willing to hold on to a relationship, job, situation, illness that is causing you pain because the fear of what’s on the other side of death? Let me tell you what’s on the other side of death: LOVE…!
If death has come to knock on your door, she has a good reason for it, she has come bearing many gifts. All you have to do is allow her to take you by the hand and walk you through the tunnel. Death is a sacred feminine trait, she is an aspect of Mother Nature. If all other beings and plants have a life span on this earth, why should it be any different for humans? To embrace death is the best gift you can give yourself. It will allow you to feel safer in your body, it will keep you in loving presence more often and in a more constant state of child like wonder and trust. There is so much collateral beauty when you experience or witness death. It’s a sacred right of passage. The soul returning to source and the body returning to earth. The soul returning to self, and the body shedding yet another layer of illusion so as to be one step closer to wholeness within. I invite you to practice carrying death with a light heart, with gratitude and trust that it is always happening for the greater good.
It took me a long time to understand and accept death as a gift of love. It’s not without previous kicking and screaming, bruises and scars that today I have such an intimate relationship with her. In my quest towards Sacred Union, I can now say that I have become a Death Doula, Mother of Death if you will, and because of this relationship with her, I have absolutely nothing to fear. I remind myself of this daily, it is teaching me so much about trust and acceptance of all things as they are without spiritually bypassing. I also understand how my view or way of being can make others uncomfortable. I have the capacity to sit in very dark dense energy and simply be with it. I can exhale for a very long time and sit in the nothingness of the void, lifeless. I have learned to allow my heart to break open into a million pieces over and over again in order to be reborn into more and more love and more and more life. The pace at which I go through my own death and rebirth cycles never ceases to amaze me. Being able to support people in choosing love over fear, in expressing their anger and grief and integrating ALL of who they are, is an honor and a privilege.
For you see the depth of our ability to feel grief is in direct correlation to the depth of our capacity to love. Grief is nothing more than love at a lower frequency. It takes time to move through our system because of it’s density and because we have a tendency of suppressing it due to our fear, limiting beliefs and conditioning about it. I invite you to start thinking of grief as love, as an indication of how deeply you can love. Then perhaps it will become easier to welcome the waves of it through your being, allowing the death of all things to become an ally instead of an enemy.
We will never be able to beat death, the more you run from her the more she laughs. The more you deny death, the more you close yourself off to experiencing the full spectrum of life itself. Death is a beautiful initiation. Learning to carry it with a light heart, and accepting it’s presence is a very important part of the conscious journey. If this post is “freaking you out,” I invite you to start developing a relationship with death, greet it every morning and be grateful for the day of life it gifted you at night. Connect more to nature and watch the natural cycles of Mother Earth. Spend more time in your heart and less time in your brain. As you start to get more comfortable with death, you get more comfortable with the unknown. As you get more comfortable with the unknown, trust begins to blossom and we are able to surrender to what is, exactly as it is.
Fear of death is also fear of time. And the fear of time is, deep down, fear of unlived moments, of an unlived life. So what to do? Live more, and live more intensely. Live dangerously. It is your life. Don’t sacrifice it for any sort of foolishness that has been taught to you. It is your life: Live it! Don’t sacrifice it for anybody or anything. Live it! Don’t think that it is courageous to die. The only courage is to live life fully. Death also gives us the gift of love. When we fear death, we fear love. This is why death demands respect. She has given you the gift of life and the capacity to love…
Sending Dragon Heart Love to All beings