Dying
by Jeffrey Pierce

From the very beginning of their path, a shaman begins to see the interconnectedness of life in all things. It's a concept that we often talk about here at Old Ways and within our spiritual circles of friends and family, but one which we rarely fully comprehend. Life is so intricate and so diverse, so many individual spirits and whole systems relying on each other in patterns we can scarcely imagine, that it's a challenge to glimpse even a tiny piece of it.

Until it comes to death.

Death seems so final. Our first response to death is usually denial. "They can't be gone," we say when a loved one dies. When a stretch of our path, whether it's a small personal change or a much farther reaching shift takes place to end what we once knew, we whisper, "This can't be happening." And yet it does. We wake up each morning, realizing that part of our world is gone and simply isn't coming back.

A short time ago, I received news that someone who had once been very close to me had been murdered. Among the other moments that cascaded into my world in an avalanche of emotion, I found myself considering the nature of death. What did it mean to die? What did it mean to live? What did it mean when someone was simply gone from the greater scheme of my world?

When I don't have my own answers at my fingertips, as a shaman I turn to the natural world. I clear my mind and simply walk, letting the patterns of Nature present themselves to me. Clouds slowly drifted across the sky. Birds spun in intricate flocks. Trees reached for the sky, the world turned, and life went on. Nature didn't notice that a single human life had been snuffed out.

But I did.

And that's when I began to truly understand what it meant to die - and what it meant to live.

When you go into a healthy forest here in my native Pacific Northwest, everywhere you look you see green life. But what we don't realize is that the life is built on death. The soil is rich, saturated with fallen leaves and decayed trees. Saplings sprout from the trunks of fallen logs. Everywhere you look, life needs death to thrive - and what I realized is that it's a beautiful thing.

A decaying leaf resting on the sidewalk (March 9, 2007)

The problem isn't the cycle of life, death, and rebirth but the value we place on the related words. Death is simply the flip side of birth's coin; both events radically change the lives they impact. A newborn child forever changes the family it's born into. The passing of a loved one forever changes the lives of those that are left behind. What I discovered is that we value birth. We celebrate and cherish it. Unfortunately we've forgotten how to value life until it's gone.

When a child is born, we hold it. We cradle it and coo, bathing the child in love and affection. Parents and grandparents are congratulated; siblings are challenged with new responsibilities and opportunities; space is made for the newborn in the family's life. Each moment is about love and the interconnectedness of life. An amazing circle of life and community comes together in those moments - and then we walk away. We once congratulated our co-workers on the new member of their family; we try not to roll our eyes when they tell us of that same child's report card.

As I looked at the forest around me, I wondered if the sense of loss that we feel is because we didn't embrace the opportunities we had when the person was alive. I've been to memorials where people talk fondly of memories and a life well lived; I've also been to funerals where the words of those in attendance are filled with, "I wish I would have told them," and "If we'd only had the chance together." While both moments are tinged with melancholy from the silence of a voice that's been stilled, people smile at the memories of the first and shed tears at the latter. Trees don't cry in a forest, even as they sink their roots into the forest that came before them. There's a richness, a joy that comes from the connection they shared, that same deep connection that's reflected in the memories of the people who gather to share stories of the departed.

There are those who pass from us who are half of our spiritual whole. The wound of their passing may never heal while we still walk this mortal coil. I can't even imagine losing my wife or one of my children. But a step beyond that is our own forest of connections. It's the relationships and connections in our world that are the soil we embrace with our roots, the sun that warms our leaves, and the rain that nourishes and refreshes us. I wonder if we simply embraced those connections with all the love and joy we did when they were newly born, if our partings would be different. If we continually found the newness in our chosen community, if we continued to celebrate each other and freely offer love and affection, would our partings be different? Some losses will always cause immeasurable grief, but for the rest of us, those a step or two beyond the center of the departed's core, would we see death the same way if no words were left unsaid, if we had truly embraced life and lived out our shared dreams with the departed?

It's never that simple. The web of life is too intricate, too complex to be fully understood. As I stood in the forest, my own emotional landscape changed, I found myself holding only one more answer than I'd had before - I never wanted to be one of those who said, "If only."

In a forest, life doesn't grow from sickly soil that was half-lived. The rich earth that the tallest trees draw from was fully lived and embraced by those who had come before. To be part of that chain of life, it didn't matter how I died, but it did matter how I lived. I realized that the only passing I had any control over was my own. The more I lived, the more I gave, the more I connected with the lives around me, the richer my soil would be. I realized that the cycle of life/death/rebirth spoke about more than just reincarnation - it spoke of how I should live. My life should be lived in such a way that when my death came to pass that new life would continue to spring from what I left behind. Whether it was a person I loved, a student I taught, or a child I raised, if I embraced those connections like we approach the birth of a newborn, the soil I gave to them would be rich. Others would grow in that gift. And one day, when my own time came, the forest would be rich and healthy, not simply because of who I was when I lived, but also because of what I left behind.

Thoughts? Comments? You can contact us at connect@oldways.com or interact with Jeffrey, Briana, and the Old Ways community on our Facebook page.

Originally published in Old Ways on January 24, 2011