Life Consultant Ceremonial Guide
Loving Death
Death is one of the only things that every person has in common.
No one gets out alive. We might as well learn to love it.
I held the young lamb's head in my hands, draping its ears over its eyes, the first deprivation of its sensory experience. The lamb attuned to the moment, the baying of its siblings nearby, the tension of the circle; certainly it could feel the culminating moment despite our best efforts to approach death in peace. It thrashed momentarily, resisting the inevitable. I lost grip of its head and quickly gathered it again, ears over eyes. Two other friends held its legs as it laid comfortably on its side while Micky felt around the neck. It was her first time holding a knife with this intention, it was our first time facilitating death. I held an internal mantra, sending the lamb blessings of gratitude and peace. The moment came, stillness from our guides and witnesses. The blood from the young lamb squirted across my hands and jacket, we caught the rest of it in a bowl. It was a short and easy death.
The lamb harvest was a feature weekend in a Nature Connection program, Ways of the Wild, hosted by Earthkin Wilderness School. I aspire to continuously deepen my relationship with the Natural World, and this program is facilitating that process. Our modern lifestyles have separated us from Nature, creating a great poverty in our lives of luxury and comfort. Our First World countries are founded on the eradication of Earth based cultures. Largely speaking, we’re a bunch of lost settlers not knowing who we are or where we come from. We don’t know how our ancestors lived. We don’t have a relationship with the beings that surround us: the tall standing ones, the winged ones, the four leggeds, the vibrant and medicinal plant beings. We’ve forgotten to bow to the Four Chiefs: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. These forces are what afford us our life. Developing relationships with the Natural World can come from practicing ancestral skills: hunting, tracking, animal processing, plant identification, foraging, bird language, shelter building, wild crafting… The skills are a doorway to Nature. Awareness and deep listening are a doorway to Spirit. It’s there that we might better understand this human experience.
We’re removed from the cycles of life. We outsource death. We fear it. It’s some unknown phenomenon that hides around the corner. Our society is disconnected from our food: the meat that shows up cleanly wrapped in grocery stores, from beings that have lived horrific factory lives. Our countries are disconnected from our peace: millions die and many more suffer for our lives of relative safety and comfort. Our families are disconnected from the death of our loved ones: they spend their last years and minutes hidden away in old-folks “homes” and full of tubes in hospitals. We try to milk every last second of “life” even if the quality of living has already passed. This isn’t real. It’s a denial of Nature and the actuality of existence. We can’t write death out of the story of Life, it’s a chapter as great as birth.
My intention for participating in the slaughter of the lamb was to build a relationship with death. To face it, to be intimate with it, to be real with it. This moment of exposure had been building upon others, like witnessing hunting kills and aiding in animal processing. The lamb was my first time getting my hands dirty. It was an acknowledgement of what I’m a part of, the full gamut of the human experience. We are each creators and destroyers of life. I honor, with gratitude and grief, all that dies in order for me to live.
Our Nature Connection initiates had a diverse response to the killing of the baby sheep. The cohort ranged from avid hunters to vegetarians, and we all invariably had brushes with death in our personal lives. We were elaborate in opening the death portal, beginning with a cocreated altar that was adorned with significant totems. Songs emerged spontaneously and were sung to ground and regulate our energy, and to honor the lamb. We handled the animals with love and care. Our emotions ranged from gratitude to grief, all was welcome. But when the time came, we set our emotions aside, swift and stoic in the process, supporting the transition with grace. We continued to honor the lamb as it nourished our bodies that night around the fire, and by utilizing its hide, hoofs and insides to craft functional accessories for outdoor use.
Birth is a portal into an experience. Death is a portal into an experience. These transitions are latent seeds of emergent beauty. Nature teaches us about the cycles, as different elements experience different states. The Sun (fire) nourishes the tree that becomes the wood that feeds the fire to heat us, the coals disintegrate to ash, which nourishes the soil that incubates the tree. The chemistry of the equation is fascinating but, the mystery awaits in the metaphysics. What is the energetic continuum, the animating force behind it all? Acknowledging death as a state shift, not a terminus, empowers us to honor the moment of great transition. What will be born? We don’t deny the great sorrow of loss, but begin to develop peace with impermanence.
The harvesting of the lamb led me to reflect on my experience with human death. The most intimate encounter I’ve had was with my Baba: my Mother’s, Mother. It happened spontaneously, in the dark hours of the morning. We had four generations of relatives gathered in a cottage for my Aunts wedding. My Mother and Baba, Life Givers of two generations, were sharing a bed. I heard my Mom cry out, pleading for help. I oriented myself through the fog of last night's alcohol and made my way to their room. Baba was unconscious in a seated position and I laid her body on the ground so that we could try to resuscitate her. My Stepfather took over and the chest compressions caused blood to spurt from her mouth; the sight sent me over the edge. Fear and sadness overcame me as I fought and resisted the moment. I went outside to be held by Nature. A faithful Sun brought beauty to the morning as the paramedics worked hopelessly. Her Spirit was on its way. It was a short and easy death.
We all serve Life, a force greater than ourselves. Some call this God, some call it Spirit, some even say it’s synonymous with Love. Regardless of what it is, it is an animate and intelligent force. It might seem awe-full and at times unjust, but there are no mistakes in Nature. Eventually, we are all harvested by Life. We’re blessed to be a part of this eternal river, caught in the current, taking us to where we need to go. We arrive to discover that we are the water itself.
At the time of my Baba’s death, I didn’t have a Spiritual practice. There was no sense of expansive connection or understanding of the cycles of life. I certainly didn’t have a relationship with death. In that lack of Connection, that poverty of separation from Nature, I wasn’t able to show up for my Baba. I couldn’t recognize the moment for what it was, one of great transition. This is why I practice Nature Connection, participate in Ceremony and explore Spirituality, so that I can learn to live in a good way… and die in a good way. Engaging with death, like taking the life of the lamb, is practice. Intentional exposure so that I am prepared for when these moments arrive. When my time comes, my prayer is that I can meet death with acceptance, courage and grace. In my best faith, regardless of how I die, there is no reason to suspect that I won’t be held in love and song by forces that are vaster and more permanent than humans.
There was a picture captured of Baba the day before she died. It was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky. A band played as we communed jovially on the day before the wedding. Some relatives were featured in the photo with Baba smiling in the background. A rainbow radiated from her head towards the heavens. The following day, we mourned a death, and celebrated a wedding.