Death as a Rite of Passage by Sandra Ingerman

            Death is not a failure; it is a natural process.  Death is not an end.  These are two very important precepts that we can learn from cross-cultural spiritual traditions.   As we have moved from living in a culture that is nature -based and follows cycles into a culture that follows rationalistic thinking and science, we don’t always work with these two basic principles.  Doctors keep patients alive at any cost beyond what is often natural.  As we don’t understand death in our society, we fear it and basically don’t talk about it.

            The result of all of this is that many people die in fear while families and doctors try to hold on.  Many people no longer have quality of life as life can now be extended.  The dying process is often not filled with dignity and the grace that it could embrace if we would once again open up to the teachings of the great spiritual traditions.

            There is a wealth of information we can turn to.  There are thousands of people who have had near-death experiences where a glimpse of the beyond was seen.  Authors such as James Moody and Kenneth Ring have shared much on the topic.  In spiritual traditions death is considered a transition in that some part of us is eternal and continues on after physical death.  Different spiritual traditions have different cosmologies on where the soul travels after death.  But there is agreement that some part of us continues on.

            Unless you have a spiritual practice you will only acknowledge the presence of the body.  And if you only acknowledge that you are a body then yes, death is an end.  But we are not just bodies.  Our bodies are a vessel for our spirit to live through here on earth.  This spiritual essence transitions once we die.  There is no end; there is just a new beginning.  And in ancient cultures this rite of passage was celebrated for the person who left and then rituals for grief were performed for the loved ones who were left here.

            As death for many is seen as an end and a failure we have stopped talking about it in our culture.  This has created a lot of pain and suffering for both the families and the people facing death.  When someone typically starts to speak about death, the usual response from family and friends is, “Don’t talk like that, you are going to get well and you will be back on your feet before you know it.”  This denial that there is a change coming stops true loving and supportive communication on all sides. 

            In my own life I have had three near-death experiences.  The experience of losing my ego or sense of self and the peace and beauty of being once again with the source of life has allowed me to feel very comfortable with death.  There was no fear or suffering once I left my body.  I had the experience of being held in complete unconditional love.  One of my former issues had been being more comfortable with death than with life.  My experience with dying has made it very easy to talk to people about death.  The best gift we can give someone is to listen to what his or her feelings are and offer support and comfort.

            I teach a workshop on death and dying from a shamanic perspective.  In this workshop I offer spiritual practices to help participants understand death for themselves and the cosmology of where we travel after death.  I also teach simple spiritual practices that can help people who are facing death establish their own spiritual connections and receive spiritual guidance to help with their process.  In teaching this material I have found that sometimes when you help a person make contact with spiritual help the next step in their healing process is death.  For some the next step in their healing process is life.  Sometimes spiritual help comes through to cure the person of their illness, where sometimes a person is given help to let go of the body. No one knows when it is the destiny of another to die physically.

            In 1990 I was teaching a workshop in which one of the participants was dying of leukemia.  She was getting ready to go for a bone marrow transplant so she had not given up life, but she was preparing herself for her eventual death.  She shared in our group that she had phoned all of her friends and family.  To each person she announced that her death was imminent.  She said, “Let’s say everything we need to say to each other now so that you are not left with unfinished conversations and feelings.  And then we need to say good-bye.”  What a gift to give to her loved ones.  I have found in my own counseling practice that often the grieving is extended because of all the unfinished conversations and feelings that were not shared.  There was no closure.  To be able to truly share what is in one’s heart and to have closure is such a gift for all concerned.  It helps everyone move on after someone dies.  Without that closure people left can’t fully move on and the soul might have trouble moving on as it is still tied emotionally to people left here.

            Even if a person is in a coma or is unconscious they can hear you.  You can sit by their bed and speak the words that are in your heart.  These words can bring great peace to loved ones who are making a transition.  (Add documentation)

            From the near death literature a common experience is that there was a loved one on the other side who showed up to help with the transition.  Often people who are very close to death speak about seeing a loved one who has died by their bed offering comfort.  We can validate a person’s experience knowing that this is a possibility.  I had a student once who shared that before his grandmother died she spoke about seeing her mother by her bed whispering words of comfort.  The family became frightened by this and called for the doctor.  The doctor ordered medicine for her to stop the hallucinations.  What a tragedy!  A very beautiful scenario would have been created if the family members understood enough to say, “Yes, your mother has appeared to help you.”

            John, a brilliant retired hospice worker who studied with me, shares a touching story of working with a dying priest.  John went in to visit the priest one day and the priest said to John, “Tell me what is going to happen to me when I die.”  John responded, “Father, you know what is going to happen to you.”  The priest said, “John, that’s just in the books, tell me what is going to happen to me.”  John said, “At the point of your death someone who you once loved dearly will be there to meet you and help you.  Can you think of someone you would like to see again?”  The priest thought for a minute and found peace in thinking about someone he would want to see again. 

            John was not with the priest the night he died but another hospice nurse was.  The last words out of the priest’s mouth were, “Tell John he was right.”

            As we age we might find ourselves called to help friends and loved ones who are dying. Offering comfort without pushing any spiritual dogma on someone can be just a few simple words.  Creating a space that contains love will transmute fear to love.

            When speaking to someone who is dying we have to talk to them with our hearts.  Death is not an experience that we can intellectualize.  Although there is a lot of spiritual information on what happens to us after we die and where we go, the bottom line is that much of this information still belongs to the great mysteries.  We really will not know what happens until we die.  But we can die and help others die knowing that we are held in love.

            I find that people who are close to death are hypersensitive to the energy around them.  If I am in a place of fear or discomfort about being in the room, the person I am with will pick this up.  It is important when sitting with someone to get into a centered state.  Taking long deep breaths through the nose into the diaphragm and then breathing out slowly can attain this state.  If you take a few deep breaths, you will find that your own energy shifts changing the energy in the room.  Once the energy in the room changes you will find yourself and the person you are with in a more relaxed state.  This will move both of you out of your head and into your heart.  Just in this act, a tremendous amount of healing will take place.

            When I speak with someone who is dying, I stay away from dogma and theory.  If I don’t know the person well, I try to create a conversation which will give me an idea of his or her philosophical and religious beliefs.  From there I use vocabulary that will fit into my client’s own belief systems. For example, as I practice shamanism I work with guardian protective spirits, which I will speak of as guardian angels to someone with Christian beliefs.  In listening we can find words that will match anyone’s belief system.  In this way we can use words that will be healing instead of words that create conflict, confusion, and/or fear.

            I might begin by asking a person how they are feeling emotionally and physically.  If a person says that he is afraid, I don’t want to invalidate his feelings by saying there is nothing to fear.  This is not a healing action.  By just allowing a person to speak what is in his or her heart and to express feelings will allow the nature of those feelings to change.  Sometimes the most healing action to take is just being fully present and being witness to whatever comes up.  This act creates a space where change and healing can take place.

            If a person complains of being in pain, again I want to acknowledge and validate what is being expressed.  I might not have a solution to the problem, as a solution might not exist.  But being a listening ear always creates healing energy.

            From a spiritual perspective, there are spiritual forces around us at all times that hear our call for help and have compassion for our suffering.  These might take the form in various traditions as guardian angels, guardian spirits, God, individual gods and goddesses, or deceased loving ancestors.  Depending on a person’s spiritual or religious beliefs, I might encourage a person to call on a spiritual force that they believe can offer assistance.  Through the use of prayer and asking divine forces for help, a variety of effects can be achieved.  A person might feel peace of mind, or divine intervention might come through to alleviate the pain and suffering experienced in the body.

            One of my students taught his father who was dying of cancer how to practice shamanic journeying.  He gave his father a cassette player with a drumming tape.  The drumming provides sonic input, which allows one to move into an altered state of consciousness.  He educated his father to the shamanic belief that we all have power animals around us that love and protect us.  His father took to shamanic journeying very easily and found a power animal with which he developed a strong relationship.  Over time the power animal took all the pain away so that he could stop taking all pain medication and live the rest of his life pain free.  This, of course, happened through regular journeying and his father did keep up the practice until he passed on.

            When I have presented the idea in workshops of teaching people who are facing death how to journey the typical response is, “The people I know who are dying would never agree to learn such a practice.”  I have found that when people are in fear, it is often surprising what they open to. 

            After I have spent a significant amount of time with a dying person, I ask if they would like to learn a method that will help them connect with spiritual or divine forces that they can speak with and tell them what they are feeling and what is on their mind.  If a person seems interested, I will introduce them to journeying using vocabulary that fits in with their philosophical and religious beliefs, leaving out all theory and background information on shamanism.  Most of the people I have worked with are not interested in learning about the system of shamanism; they are interested in accessing spiritual help.  If a person is not interested in this way of accessing help, I move on.  I can still provide a tremendous amount of support by saying there are deceased loved ones around who can offer you help if you ask, or by encouraging a person to pray for help.

            Today many people are put on high dosages of painkillers as an attempt to increase comfort levels with many forms of cancer.  I have found that if the person is on something like a morphine drip, it is not possible for me to have them do spiritual work as periods of being lucid are so far and few between.  But I can put on some soothing music and talk to them knowing that some part is hearing me and taking in what I am saying.

            There are also people who don’t want to talk and process their feelings, but also don’t want to lie in bed alone.  Sitting and maintaining a state of love, appreciation, and compassion can provide a tremendous amount of help.  Sitting in silence, continuing to breathe in a normal but deep way will create a healing energy in the room.  Often, the most powerful healing is in the silence.

There are No Unfinished Conversations

            It is important to finish up as much unfinished business as we have with people before they die.  There is no such thing as an unfinished conversation.  For example, if you feel you have been betrayed by someone who transitions, the energy you carry keeps you connected to that deceased person.  You do not become free from them and you might feel burdened by this connection throughout your life.  You might also find that the same issue arises in another relationship, as the issue was never completed for you.

            The best way to have completion with someone is to speak what has been in your heart for years.  You want to be able to communicate the positive feelings you have felt as well as what you have appreciated about this person and your relationship.  But you also want to say what you have been carrying on a problematic level.  Again, if a person is unconscious or in a coma you can still speak the truth that lives in your heart.  Sometimes it feels easier to speak to someone who is unconscious since they can’t respond back to you in words that you can hear in the present.  But you might find completion of the conversation in a dream or in a meditation.

            Although the two of you might have some level of discomfort when the person is conscious, it is best to speak what is in your heart.  A person who is close to death will want to unburden himself before he leaves as much as you might want to have closure on issues.  Sometimes a person close to his transition will bring up issues.  And it might be up to you to do so also.  You want to be able to use healthy communication. The key here is to start with what you have appreciated and loved about each other.  When moving onto talking about problematic feelings, it is important to not move into a place of blame and judgment.  As long as you stick to your feelings, you are in a good place.  No one can invalidate your feelings.

            For example, communication expressed as, “You hurt me when….” can be changed to “Your behavior or your actions hurt me when…”.  Saying, “You hurt me” is an attack and can create a reaction from another and set up a situation where you might feel invalidated.  When you say, “Your actions or behavior hurt me”, you are not attacking the person.  And if you stick to how the actions or behavior made you feel no one can react to this.

            If you can do this in a healthy manner, you both will achieve closure.  If feeling levels are too high and you communicate in a way which throws you both into a place of blame and judgment, a call to a helping professional who can mediate a healthy conversation might be useful.

            Feelings and words have energy.  When you are in an emotionally charged state, whether positive or negative, you can feel the energy around you.  In Medicine for the Earth I wrote about the power of words and how all ancient cultures were careful about what words were spoken out loud as the vibration of words sets up a feedback mechanism in the universe.  The vibration of the words sent out comes back to you.  Try sitting with this metaphor: The energy behind your words and feelings rains back down on you.

            It is vital to acknowledge and honor your feelings and not feel guilty about having them.  We often feel guilty about having feelings especially around someone who is dying or very sick.  We can get into blaming ourselves for not having more compassion.  But the truth is that feelings live inside of us.  Either we express the energy or we repress the energy, which can cause an energy blockage in us that can make us sick.  The key is to express the feelings honestly and then with intention, transmute or transform the energy around the feelings so that the energy becomes one of love. 

            When we can’t forgive someone, we end up “stealing his or her soul”.  When we can’t forgive someone we keep a part of his or her essence.  The tricky part about this is that we cannot force ourselves to forgive someone.  Forgiveness is something that happens, it is not something we do.  But we can set our intention to want to find a way for forgiveness to happen so that both parties are set free from each other.  As we put our attention to this task, we create an energy where forgiveness can slowly begin to happen.

            Performing a ritual to break the connection and ask for forgiveness can be helpful. You can perform a ritual to create closure with a person who is still alive or who is deceased.  You can do something as simple as walking out into nature and finding a stick.  Breaking the stick and asking from a place of love that the ties between you and another be broken sets an intention which will now have its own momentum.  Perform such a ritual when you can get into a state of compassion from both parties concerned.  It is best not to perform rituals while you are angry, as this energy will prevent closure from happening.

            You might build a small fire or burn some incense with the intention of releasing the connection between the two of you, sending the essence of this person on to a good place.

            Write a letter expressing your feelings and burn it.  Allow the fire to transform all the energy in your feelings to love.  This can help to break the connection with another where closure is needed.

            It is best to attain closure while a person is alive, but this is not always possible.  From a spiritual point of view there is an eternal part of all of us that can be contacted if we can alter our consciousness and travel outside of time and space.  Therefore, we can always complete unfinished conversations.

            You can meditate on the person you would like to see again.  Use deep breathing to center and change your awareness.  You might want to put on some relaxing music which puts you into an expansive state of consciousness.  Allow yourself to expand beyond the boundaries of your body freeing your consciousness to float into the ethereal realms.  Ask to meet the loved one you need to speak to.  They might appear as a vision in your mind’s eye, or you might hear their voice speaking to you, or you might get a feeling in your body that you are with them.  Try to open up all your senses.  If it is not time for them to have human contact, they will not show up.  This has nothing to do with you.  It might be a time out for spiritual healing or their soul might have evolved to such a place that they don’t want any human contact.

            If they are capable of contact your intention will establish a line of communication.  Tell your loved one what is in your heart.  Share what is unfinished for you.  Although you might miss them when you are done wish them well and release them energetically from you so that you are both free to follow your own destiny.

Saying Goodbye

            There are examples in native cultures of ceremonies performed to help people on their way at the time of their death.  Among the Pomo Indians of Northern California, a pushing through ceremony might be performed where loved ones who are gathered around a dying person will actually push their arms up into the air visualizing the person making a good journey back home. (Add more examples)

            A friend of mine who practiced and taught shamanism called in her community to help her with her own passing.  She had a long battle with cancer.  She was very lucky in that she had a loving and supportive community of friends, clients, and students who helped her take care of her physical needs as she became too debilitated to care for herself.  She taught her community a song that she wanted to be sung to her at the time of her death.  The song was about a river flowing back to the source. 

            It was clear to people who helped with her care that the time had come to call on the rest of her community.  They showed up and drummed, rattled, and sang her into her transition. 

            Being able to be present in community, or with family, or even alone as a person makes his or her transition creates closure for all concerned.  What a great way to start on one’s journey back to one’s spiritual home.

            Being able to be a support and create ceremonies for crossing over is dependent on our ability to honor and acknowledge that a person’s death is imminent.  Maintaining denial creates an energy of fear and does not always allow for a graceful transition.

            The more consciously people die the more consciously the rest of us can live.

All God’s Creatures Grieve

            Death is a rite of passage as one transitions to a new journey beyond this life.  For the person who is leaving, it can be a time of celebration.  For those of us left, it is a time for grieving.  Feelings of sadness and loss are natural.  Humans grieve, animals grieve, and even plants grieve.  Koko is a gorilla that has been taught sign language.  Through sign language she has been able to communicate her horror and grief when hunters killed her mother.  The observance of the behavior of such animals as elephants, wolves, birds, and domestic animals show a long period of grief when a mate or offspring dies.

            Grief is a natural process that we all experience with a loss.  In our busy lives we don’t always give ourselves the time to grieve our losses.  We try to get on with our lives as quickly as possible.  Gone are the days when loved ones and families were left alone to grieve.  If we don’t take time to grieve a loss, however, this energy builds up inside of us and will come back to us later on as illness, or we might find ourselves acting out in the world in a way which we don’t understand.  For example, we might find ourselves acting out in anger, as the build-up of sadness is not allowed to be expressed. 

            We might have to return to our jobs and our daily routines, but it is important to create time for ourselves to grieve.  You might enter into one of the many grief groups that exist in your area.  You might want to create some alone time during the day where you can be with yourself.  You might alert co-workers and friends to your loss and let them know your feelings and that you might find yourself crying.  The best way to support someone in their sadness and loss is to let them express their feelings without trying to make them better.  The best way to heal is to express the energy until it doesn’t exist anymore.  Trying to repress it for public appearance just delays healing.

            Again, ritual can be used to help with the process of grief.  I had lost a friend who was very dear to me.  I meditated on a ritual that I could use to help me deal with my loss.  The information I received was that I needed to channel my loving feelings toward this person.  I had all this love that no longer had a way to be expressed.  I was guided to plant a tree in my backyard that I could care for as I wanted to still care for this lost friend.  Nourishing this new life was a wonderful way for me to use my energy which before had no way to express itself.

            Sometimes a friend or loved one is taken from us unexpectedly.  In this instance, sometimes it is hard to get closure and the shock and grief can be more painful than when you have been preparing for someone’s death. 

            I had a good friend who was suddenly killed in a car crash.  She had many friends in town but most of us didn’t know each other.  It took weeks to find each other but we eventually did.  It was important to us to have others who knew her to grieve with.

 We created a memorial for her.  We met at her house, as she loved the land on which we lived.  We gathered in a circle and I asked everyone to share a story about her and what he or she loved and missed about her.  After each person shared, I asked him or her to push up with their arms sending her on in her journey while releasing any attachments he or she had to her.

At the end of the ceremony we all felt that, although we had our personal grief experience to live with, we each had a profound sense of closure.

All Change Involves A Death

            So far in this chapter we have been talking about physical death which can be referred to as “the big death”.  I just want to mention that all change in our lives involves “little deaths”.  When we change jobs, end a relationship, move into a new house, graduate from school, or move into a new time of life, these are all areas of “little deaths”.  It is through death that change happens.  It is through the death of the old that something new can be born.  Death and change are not something to fear as they allow the birth of the new.  It is through learning how to let go of the old and gracefully accept change that life can become the adventure it was intended to be.

A Story of Enlightenment by Meditating on Death

            Ramana Maharshi was a great East Indian sage who had mastered enlightenment when he began meditating on death.  Here is the story as he shared it.

            One day he was in the home of his uncle’s house and found himself in a state of violent fear of death.  As he was healthy there was nothing to explain his sudden state of mind.  He just felt as if he was going to die.

            This fear of death drove his mind to turn inwards and he started to explore the question, “What is it that dies?”

            He imitated a corpse by lying with his limbs stretched out stiff to give a greater sense of reality to the inquiry.  He held his breath and kept his lips tight so he could utter no words or sounds.

            He said to himself, “Well then this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes.  But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it.  So I am Spirit transcending the body.  The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.”

From that time on Ramana Maharshi no longer feared death and became absorbed on focusing his attention on the eternal “I” or “Self”.  Throughout the rest of his life he lived in and stayed centered in the “Self” that does not die and he taught others how to attain this state.

Copyright Sandra Ingerman. All rights reserved.