The Angel Speaks

Pere-Lachaise Cemetery outside of Paris, France.
Photo copyright 2004, Cecilia Zuniga

On my way home from a shamanic death ritual in Austin tonight, the car in front of me hit a deer. And just like that, the deer's life ended. It broke my heart. I spent the rest of my drive home praying for and sending blessings to the deer (and the driver).

I thought how cruel it is that we drive these cars that can end a life in an instant. And yet I can't say that it was a cruel act by the Angel of Death; She is simply sharing her gift of completion.

I also thought of a friend of mine who recently died in much the same way - hit by a cement truck while driving down the road and killed in an instant. I bet neither Being knew as they made their way onward that each moment was leading to their very last here. I doubt they were thinking things like "Gee, I'm going to die today" or "This is the last time I'll see this place" or "I will never be here again."

Most of us don't think about such things as we live our lives. In recent years though, I have begun to think such things. I've learned through the ritual deaths I've participated in that any moment could be my last, and as Stephen Levine says, "almost no one knows the day on which the last year begins." Or the morning on which our last day begins...

Even though I don't know when my last year here starts (or started), I can live each day with an awareness that any moment of my life might be my last: my last breath, my last kiss, my last meal, my last visit, my last words, my last dance... When held in that light, every instant of life becomes precious.

That is the gift of the Angel of Death: a deep awareness that every moment is precious. What better reason is there for living it all in love... right now?