A Matter of Death & Life
It’s my favorite time of year - everything is dying!
Okay, maybe that seems like a really morbid thought, but hear me out. Just this past weekend we celebrated Samhain/Halloween, All Souls’ Day, and Dia de los Muertos, AND a new moon in Scorpio. Add to this festive weekend the fact that we are entering the Fall season in the Northern hemisphere, and you can see that death appears to be the theme of the season. There is a lot of juiciness to unpack here, and the season beckons us to slow down and explore this season with intention and reverence.
That is, perhaps, the primary reason I love this season: it’s as if nature gives us permission to slow down, reflect, journal, practice greater self-care, and reassess what is most important to us. With the confluence of so many holidays during the last quarter of the year, we also focus on family, friends, and loved ones - both living and transitioned. It can be a tough time when memories and grief of passed loved ones are very near and the veil is thin. I know for myself, I’m coming up on several transition anniversaries and I’m riding that wave of grief, though perhaps smaller but still ever present in the ocean of emotions.
In my continued dance with the themes of death and grief, I have noticed that something interesting has emerged. I attended an online goddess circle where we explored the mythology of Santa Muerte, a very important figure in Hispanic culture and certainly the patroness of Dia de los Muertos. I’m reading a fabulous book titled “Santa Muerte: the History, Rituals, and Magic of Our Lady of the Holy Death” by Tracey Rollin. For me, the most fascinating take-away is that Santa Muerte is not just revered for being the saint of death, but she is honored as the goddess of all life that comes after.
Of course: Life After Death.
We all want to believe in this, don’t we? But let’s put this another way: Death always precedes life.
Ummm, that doesn’t make sense?
Well, it doesn’t when we consider death only from the lens of a loved one dying and leaving their mortal body behind. But let’s widen the lens a little and take a look:
Consider all the ways we experience death, dying, and grief in our lives:
Death of a relationship or friendship
Losing or leaving a job
Moving away
Grief over the passing of our youth
Death of the Summer season (technically called “Fall”)
Can you think of other ways you experience a “mini death”?
For me, this exploration highlights two truths:
Grief is every present as one of our primary emotions - not just stuffed in a corner and brought out for funerals and memorials. This fact alone can help us to embrace this emotion rather than run from it, and when we do, it can be one of our greatest teachers.
Death DOES clear the way for new life to emerge. Consider that the loss of that relationship or friendship leaves a space for a new relationship to come into your life. That job that you left (or were let go from) leaves an opening for a new and better opportunity to come forward. Moving to a new home or even a new city may bear some feelings of melancholy, but also clear the way for new and exciting adventures to be experienced. And look, even though I have been fighting this menopause transition for a few years, I have started to realize the rich wisdom that has been knit into my bones and the deliciousness of slowing down and savoring life.
Nature is always such a great teacher on this topic. For any of us that grieve intensely the end of Summer, if we sit with it long enough, we can find that there are some joys to uncover during the Fall and Winter seasons (cozy blankets and hot cocoa in front of a fire with a good book being just one of my favorite examples). Additionally, if we take a look through the wide lens, we see that after every Fall comes Winter…and then…
Spring and Summer.
Over and over again, like sunrise and sunset.
In fact, the traditions of the ancient Aztecs that many believe gave rise to the popularization of the folk saint Santa Muerte, believed that the sun setting in the West was the goddess of death herself returning to the underworld, only to be reborn again the following day at sunrise.
In exploring these ancestral traditions, it has become very apparent, to me, that death and life are inextricably connected. Even as our loved ones transition from life to death, many not only hold the belief that they move on to life in a different form, but that we can have a new kind of relationship with them. Absolutely, we will experience profound sadness and grief that they are not here in their physical form with us. My hope is that at some point we can come to an embodied knowingness that they are still here with us, we can speak to them, spend time with them, give and receive love with them.
Ultimately teaching us the true meaning of eternal life.
I leave you with a poem that came through me during our journeying meditation with Santa Muerte.
Brushfire
Daughter, walk with me
over this holy ground.
You see nothing
but dried cornhusks
and seeds scattered
over an empty field.
Stand with me,
root your feet,
and with the fire of your heart
set it all ablaze.
The Earth scorched,
blackened, stripped clean -
you think it is destruction, death
but look closer.
This is the beginning
of the Mother’s sweet rest
and rebirth,
a blank canvas for
dreams and Dahlias
and all you wish
to bring forth into bloom.
This is what you must do
in your own heart,
burn it all away
and leave yourself
bare and open
to the seeds of love, connection
Let yourself spin and float
through each sacred season.
This is how you remember
your right and holy relationship
with the soil, the trees,
worms and birds, fire and sky,
and the heart of it all.
Remember
your holy matrimony
with nature, and the other, remember.
Let it burn you wide open and empty.
This is how you remember
your relationship to you.
You are the Earth.
You are the Fire.