november: intention
monthly theme: [death]
“ To be responsive to the vulnerability of living beings and living systems is to become exposed to responsibility, and to the possibility of intense suffering as well as to the possibilities of serenity, joy and belonging... The seduction of comfort, if such there be, lies squarely here in a desire to avoid suffering. As self and place are interwoven for most of us, self-protection would require insulation from other living beings and from place itself. Self-protection would thus promote the fragmentations of modernity and while insulating us, would also leave us stranded in a hapless nowhere.”
-Deborah Bird Rose, Reports from a Wild Country
As Americans, we often see death as unadulterated suffering until we come up close to it. Our theories about passing away don’t seem to hold up in our lived experience, nor do they even seem remotely helpful for us in navigating our reality.
In March 2020, a dear friend came across a Refinery29 story on death doulas. After watching, I just knew that was the path for me. So I’ve been following this thread toward death-work since by reading books on loss, grieving, and the active dying process. I’ve signed up for mortality workshops and death cafes. Death is not some topic I approach lightly, irreverently, or without plenty of contemplation and research.
I’ve studied this country’s approach to death and dying more closely and intentionally than I already had throughout my life experiences of it. I used to say that I was friends with death--the more I explore this concept, the more I realize what a childish protection such perspective gave me. Like putting a blanket over my head to be safe from monsters in the night.
But the ultimate truth is that my relationship with death, like most any relationship, is rather complicated. It ebbs and flows the more I see of it and the greater contexts in which I can relate to it. Finding it in the snack aisle at the grocery store or feeling death as a kiss by a gust of wind. Sometimes it is sweet and other times haunting.
Death is not just losing the human body, there are so many other forms of death we experience daily. Is sleep or meditation not just practice for death? Do parts of us not die when a friend stops speaking to us--for they cannot see our growth beyond our moment of separation. Instead, we are embalmed in their memory at a less-mature state and there we will decay slowly but surely into the recesses of their minds.
In March 2020, we laid to rest so much of our daily routines. Killing off habits such as eating at restaurants and going into work was a sacrifice we had to choose. Writing this now, it’s hard to remain objective and not pity those who couldn’t and still can’t make this choice. It seems so simple and easy under the light of death. I will gladly bury my fancy dinners and nights on the dance floor so that my mother does not have to bury me.
Death is clarifying. A statement that might be coming a little too early on in this month’s journey through Hades. But it leads me to my hopes for your intention-setting this week: let death clarify itself to you; what the weight of its imminent presence means in your day-to-day life. A thought which burdens me occasionally, but the more I really stare into the depths of its meaning, the more I am comforted by my own temporal nature.
As there is an instinct to live, so too is there an instinct to die. Therefore, our greatest fears of the unknown--what is beyond--can be assuaged because it (death) is really already within.
Life is just potential death and death is just potential life as our memories and work are composted for future generations as well as our bodies becoming nutrients for the soil (if we choose to have a green burial).
A lot of my own fears around death are surfacing through writing this essay, but I will not turn away from them or try to shrug them off as if my death-work thus far can prepare me for every emotion around dying. That is my intention for this month as the weather cools off and the sun sets sooner. I intend to keep death at the forefront of my mind, honoring its great power and thanking it for giving so much to life. Death sacrifices itself each moment we continue breathing. Death is always with us, yet it has no ill intentions.
Please take a moment now to recenter yourself, write a note to Death, or simply journal about your feelings on death. If any of this feels like too much, please take a few deep breaths with your hand on your heart so as to feel your pulse and smile, give thanks for the life-sustaining systems you have in your body. Thank each and every cell that keeps blood pumping and air moving. So many other cells have died so that these newer and healthier cells could do their job now. Such is life; constantly yielding so as to persevere.
