I have been thinking a lot lately to what means to Live and Die. The impermanence of Life is no always acknowledged unless we meet Death in a form or another or we just foresee it as an ultimate End of Life.
In shamanic cultures Death is not to be feared, but embraced and sought as a teacher. Many rituals and ceremonies involve the concept of dying and being re-born into something else, a new state, a new awareness, a new body. Sweatloges, medicine wheels and re-birth ceremonies bring us on the edge of ending so we can resurrect on the edge of a beginning…in between there is a transition state, where all types of transformation can happen, at physical, psychological and spiritual level.
I have been fascinated for a while by the concept and mission of Death Doulas, those people who choose to accompany other people on their last transition phase in this Life. I find this work so humble and at the same time so important and worthy of praise. Because it requires strength and also being comfortable with the Death process. In this kind of service towards the other, who knows that Death is close and wishes to get prepared for it, the role of the Doula is to make the transition as smooth and meaningful as possible.
Becoming acquainted with Death turns into a dance where we can enjoy rhythm and melody as ultimate purpose of Life. We get that glimpse of permanence, of eternal peace and silence only when we start truly listening to Life inside our body, knowing that this listening is only possible while alive.
I have never been scared of Death, I know we all get there, at the ultimate point of farewell from this Life. I have other fears regarding people I might leave behind and possibly regrets for all the things I could have done and said and did not.

Death as I see it is a Rite of Passage, the most sublime and absolute in all its dimensions. Only when we know that we die, we become aware of the body and its impermanent and imperfect nature. Then we start to pay attention to what makes this body alive, what thoughts and emotions run through it and what makes it move, feel, suffer, expand or contract. With the body observation it comes a new understanding of what each transition and ending bring into our Life. How we react to this transitions and endings makes the difference between those who live in a permanent aliveness and those who are already dead inside…because when we embrace our fear of Death and understand that this is part of Life as a moment of dissolution and re-creation we can find more fuel and motivation to stay Alive with the inner knowing that this is what we only have and need to cherish: aliveness.

In my experience as constellator I saw many people being drawn towards Death. In many cases it comes from a subconscious desire to follow dear ones into death, as the suffering and the loss might be too heavy to bear. For Love we decide to take burdens and energetic states that are not ours, in what is called hidden loyalties. But it is the Trauma split that creates the ground for sacrifice and suffering. We give up our own Life and desire to live to accept a fate that is not ours. The little child in us, once neglected and abandoned, longs for reconnection and sometimes this is only possible in Death, which brings the reunion with the loved one but also ultimate peace to the Soul. But in any case, such sacrifice is of no use as it will never really solve that split, the cause of it.

I often see the therapy settings as a Rite of Passage: when the new awareness comes, when the split is overcome and the fragments seen and placed together, something happens inside the client, inside its body and consciousness. A new spark brings a new Beginning and celebrates the re-connection to the Self as an act of resurrecting the essence of Life. In that moment and spark, Love is not given out but given to the Self, to the little child can take its place in the Heart and feel that Love. It is when the Adult in us re-parents the little child without asking anything in return and without conditions. It is the unconditional Love that has the power to alchemize something Sacred: our conscious presence in an embodied way, moment after moment.

Death is always there, by our side, as our Fate or Destiny too. We cannot escape any of them, the best is to get acquainted with both and understand they belong to us and to our Life. When we look to ourselves with Love, Death also smiles back to us and we do not fear it anymore.

Loving ourselves intimately and genuinely brings meaning to our Destiny and it carves a different path into Life. We bring to Life all those fragments that we thought lost and irrecoverable. We become alive in every moment when we accept a part of us to die, to burn the shadows and fears of the unknown and rebuilt from ashes a new vision of the Self.

And so it is!

Blessings for a fully lived Life! in the Now!