Rituals for Recoding Death & Dying
Much of modern death is hidden, medicated and disconnected, as a result we’ve coded our own experiences of death with sadness and despair.
“Death” is a word often uttered among vivacious entrepreneurs and the goddess community, but it’s rare that we have experiences where death is embraced with no time limits, sacred energy and a true welcoming.
I invite you to sit with me as recap my journey from fearful child to the current view that I hold.
I can assure you. This journey is a beautiful one.
I’d like to add before we begin that this piece is geared, not just towards the physical 3d moment of death, but the metaphysical experience as well including ego deaths, soul deaths and the little mini inner deaths that happen each day.
The underlying threads through this resource:
How we curate our mindset toward death
My recent experience of losing my grandmother
The rituals that I use for grieving on the Unified Field
THE KISS OF DEATH
I was about 8 or 9. My dad was mowing the front lawn. I found his small green body lying in the grass with a gaping hole, near what appeared to be his froggy lung. I ran inside. I had heard my anesthesiologist father say that you could help someone breathe by pumping air through a tube. I found a straw and inserted it in the open wound. I breathed in and out, trying to help. Slowly, the frog slipped away.
My early experiences of death were coated with heartbreak and confusion. My dad often told me as he said goodnight, “Remember, sweetie, I won’t be here forever. God will always be here for you.” I would feel incredibly sad and anxious, especially once I learned that God might not be there for me, because some people went to hell. Death felt like a forever disconnect; it left me heartbroken, sad and often depressed.
No matter where you are on in life. It would benefit you to consider the viewpoint that has been past down to you. What were your earliest experiences of death? How have they encoded your consciousness?
DEPRESSION AS A PORTAL TO AWAKENING
Maybe you find yourself asking, “If we’re all gonna die, what’s the point anyway?” I still ask myself that question some days. Sometimes the answer is clear. Sometimes, utter cluelessness lands on me like an empty question, but the difference is the following: my new view doesn’t make me want to commit suicide; in fact, it makes me want to take my clothes off and dance naked in the rain. You can read more about my path of depression and healing here.
If you’ve ever been depressed or experienced deep lows, perhaps you’re just dissatisfied with the current story being told.
Maybe you’re here to awaken human conscious.
EGO DEATHS
I first welcomed my own ego death in a medicine ceremony.
I climbed into a warm, wooden treehouse. I found my place and laid down. I closed my eyes only to find complete darkness. This had never happened to me before. Usually, I saw visions, but this time I saw nothingness - a nothingness that didn’t end for hours. One word on repeat over and over again - why. I was grabbing my stomach and writhing in pain. My guide came over. “I have to get out of here,” I said. I stumbled down the spiral staircase and onto the jungle floor. I knelt and wretched, but nothing came out. Eventually, I went back to my space and the darkness came again, but this time, I saw myself inside the earth in a pod beneath a large tree. A grandmother tree and the old woman was me, yet at the same time, I was also the newborn below.
Like all experiences, the hard part ended. Darkness dissolved into white light and I came back to realm of the living. I do the dance between life and death everyday and so do you.
ATTENDING THE DYING IS A SACRED DEVOTION
I’m not just talking about the end of a life. I’m also talking about the death of a past self.
Do you really hold this process with the reverence it deserves?
Where do small or large internal deaths get glossed over or skipped?
DEATH BRINGS EVERYTHING PRESENT.
If you want to move beyond a fear of death, this question should be asked often. What within you is dying? In every second, something is being born and something is dying. Something in you is waking up, becoming more conscious, and some past version is falling away. This is the beauty of time. It keeps going, and yet in this present moment, we are suspended.
There is a clarity that exists in the face of death which is palpable. This clarity is the collapsing of time - the remembrance of things past, future hopes and dreams, all come sliding into view to show us our truth. It’s a gift, if we choose to see it as such.
As I watched my Nana, laying there more lifeless each day, I thought over and over again, “That’s not my grandmother.” Her essence, what made her Betty Jo Deere, had slowly leaked out of her overtime. A few months before, I was trying to remember some things I called, “Nana-isms”. I even started a list in my phone. I couldn’t remember a lot of them and I felt frustrated. Now, I remembered everything - the way she laughed, all of her crazy sayings, the moments we spent together at “Camp PattoJam”, all of the trips, her whole essence and life story. It all came flooding in so clearly.
Her legacy, her true essence, brought me into mine.
THE COURAGE TO HOLD WHAT IS
It is difficult to give full presence to death, especially in a culture that pushes it to the peripheries. People are okay with talking about ego-deaths, but don’t tell us that you’ve had one until you’ve been reborn.
Death can be ugly.
The gaping mouth, fever filled body, bloodshot eyes, gasps for breath, pain-filled groans - it would be easier to turn away.
It takes courage to stay with the dying, but we know it must be done and with full presence it always transforms.
Practice holding death with courage and you have both the haunting and the hallowed in the same breath.
IT TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES
The timing of death is a mystery. Often it is quite slow, the soul lingers for a while until it’s gone. Other times, it happens quickly.
We took my Nana off the ventilator; the doctors said she would be gone in an hour, but she left her body slowly. It took days. We brought her home to be tended with patience and love.
Sometimes, the mind hangs on and the body goes or vice versa. For some, the golden thread which links the soul and the body is severed in a moment. Most often, especially for the elders and for the parts of our ego that have been firmly rooted over many years, it’s a process, a lengthy one.
You don’t have to witness a physical death to know that, “It takes as long as it takes.”
Letting go makes it easier. The soul was made to detach from the body and the soul was made to be reborn. In ego death, our entire reality is recalibrated to our new version. In physical death death, the soul is recalibrating to it’s highest truth.
“Nana,” I said, over and over again, “I release you when your soul is ready.”
RITUALS ON THE UNIFIED FIELD
Our inner rituals recode our experience. In any moment when we think, “This should not be happening,” or, “How horrible,” or, “Let me push this away and focus on something that gives me energy.” We can ask, “What am I avoiding? What am I afraid of truly?” Once we start descending thru the layers of fear, we see where we make death wrong.
Rituals serve to keep what is dying sacred and righteous.
The ritual is an ongoing prayer of simultaneous grief and celebration.
These rituals occur in the unified field.
You may choose to create an alter. Let this intuitive craft be infused with the raw essence of that which is passing away. For now, when I use the words, the dead, understand that this can be a person or a past self.
During grief, the mind can be anxious. Prayers, mantras and affirmations, harness the mind towards our intentions for the dying. The beauty is in repetition. I often pray a mala when my mind is in resistnace. My favorite prayers at present - “For the best and highest good, from the most humble place I can muster, please Spirit, help us find grace and healing in our lives.” “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu - May all beings everywhere be happy and free from suffering.” Find solace in these words when all others escape you.
Songs help the soul transcend. The breath(our life force) combined with the words(our mind) and the heart(which is so deeply felt in song) help the soul transcend to the higher realms. It may be helpful to sing old hymns or spiritual songs. Even if you don’t align with a particular religion, the words can be unifying and comforting, especially among family members. Let these words comfort and feel the unifying undertone. My favorites - Akal - The Extended Version - which I am listening to now, Purnamadah, and the old hymn, It Is Well. Hum, if even through tears. Songs should be present with the dying.
GRIEVING IS A FULLBODY EXPERIENCE.
Create a dance for the dead. It may seem impossible to move when you are sad. For that, I have created a playlist called, Elemental Grief. Grieving is a full-body experience. Moving, crying, howling, collapsing and moving again gives your emotions life.
Cry when the tears need to come through. Yell and wail if that is needed. The more you swallow down tears, the more you will need to process them in painful ways later. Stay fully present with it all. Ride the waves and don’t move quickly. Pay attention to your body.
This will keep you from going numb.
I watched the hearse roll down the drive. The white van disappeared and I crumbled onto the grass beneath.
Deep healing sighs escaped and an aloneness one only feels in death washed over me.
Surrender. I laid down in corpse pose. I placed my hands on my body and cried. No changing my experience. A moment later, I felt my heart beat underneath my hand, the warm air embrace my skin, the lightness entered in and with it, a deep breath.
I’m still here. I’m still alive. You’re still here. You’re still alive.
THE DANCE OF DEATH
For someone who numbed herself for the first 20 years of life, feeling is a gift. I have something to live for. The feelings that I once resisted now have a home. They now have a resting place in my being. I welcome the entire Universe to live in me.
And I feel her everywhere - in the wind, in the eyes of a stranger. I hear her voice and hold her close still. There is no grasping or holding on to something that’s not there because I feel everything.
She’s not gone. She’s right here.
You’re not gone. You’re right here.
My hope is that we would use our lives and the inevitability of our death to come to terms with our divinity and awaken to the unknown possibilities beyond each horizon.
I welcome any opportunity to support you in your process.
XO,
Maya
OTHER NOTES
Rituals for abortion
Write a the letter to the life you have created. It doesn’t need to be fully recognized as a humxn being, but it does need to be recognized as a distinct soul for it’s future karma. Being as present as possible for the procedure offers a full grief. I did both of my procedures with a very small amount of medication. I recommend it and it is very painful. If you need to scream during the procedure, as if in birth. They may try to quiet you. Do it anyways. Whatever you do, release your jaw fully and pump breath through - this helps to expand your cervix.
Afterwards, you may have a moment where you feel like you want to give birth, especially if you have a lot of clotting. Don’t hold anything back.
Rituals for suicide
Suicide is such a challenging experience. There is guilt - “I could have done more,” and so many questions which go unanswered. Often times, the soul, the strings of this person, are still deeply imbed in the world. I do a visualization to help that soul leave the earth and envision the cord that connects us being stretched apart. This helps both you and the departed. Also, if you’re highly visual or witness a death, may have a horrendous image seared in your mind. Instead of avoiding thinking about the instances surrounding their final moments, you may do a dance acting out how you would lay that person to rest and how you would have comforted them in their final moments. Remember time is not linear. I believe that karmically this clears a lot for that soul.
My favorite books about death and dying is undoubtedly Anam Cara.