A Shaman's Death

This year, I have the pleasure of "dying" twice: once last weekend as an ending to a shamanic intensive I've been involved with for most of 2011, and the other in December with a year-long circle I've been holding since January - my AWAKEN Circle. 

I had no agenda for last weekend's death, other than to be shown whatever was for me to see. The experience was quite surreal on several fronts. What I will share is that for the first time in my "dying" experiences, I was actually buried in the damp soil of the Earth - head to toe, all but my shrouded face covered over with dirt. It was a strangely wonderful experience. 

I loved digging my own grave; it was a tremendously sacred act. And I loved having someone so special to me cover me over with dirt; it was also a sacred act. The feeling of it cannot be put to words. I wished I would have the same pleasure upon my actual death...

I was buried between two huge old oak trees for some period of time. I could hear the wind blowing through the leaves above me as I laid in the dirt, dead. I could also hear flies checking me out, and the whisper of birds flying past and chirping their songs around me, creating moments of total peace and serenity. In contrast, every so often a battery of intense gunfire rang out nearby...as if taunting me with the reality of my death.

The soil was moist and rich and dark in color. I imagined while digging my grave that I would get damp and cold in there. But what happened was that I felt cozy and warm instead, completely held by the love of the Earth. Twice while buried, a wave of a damp coldness passed through me to the bone, but they were only waves, lasting only for what felt like moments...and then the warmth returned. 

At some point my awareness shifted into what I can only describe as a pureness of being. My senses heightened - specifically vibratory sensations. Everything became as a vibration - a wave of energy moving through my body as I laid in the dirt. There was no thought; only presence and vibration. My body opened until I felt fully expanded into all things... as one vibration of being...a vibration of Love in its purest form.

This was a different experience from my past deaths in which I felt an acute letting go of the physical - a sort of separation of my energy body from my physical one and from all things physical. Not so this time. This time, I felt a merging with - an expansion into - all things physical or vibratory. I had an acute sense of connectedness with rather than separation from the physical, even in death. It was beautiful. 

I do not hold anything around the meaning of this experience; I only cherish how it felt. At some point, I arose from the dirt as if on cue from some higher source of wisdom - fully alive, fully awake, fully vibratory, having dropped into an even deeper connection with something beyond the physical. Life and death, death and life: two sides of the same face. I am both of them; both of them are me. 

And so this journey continues: Adventures in Love - my personal exploration into the power of the vibration of Love.

A Pain-Filled Lesson

It's been an interesting couple of days following an injury on Saturday. I'm deepening into the spiritual teachings I've been practicing for a few years now around opening to pain, particularly those of Stephen Levine: "...resistance turns pain into suffering; soften and explore the constant state of change within the sensations; watch the unfolding of sensation as a process; when we begin to respond to discomfort instead of reacting to it, an enormous change occurs. We begin to experience it not as just 'our' pain but as 'the' pain. And it becomes accessible to a level of compassion perhaps previously unknown; (and we begin to experience) the personal in its universal aspect."

The practice I'm focused on now through the Awaken series on conscious living is to reprogram the body's response to pain, including and especially the reaction of the mind to pain. Most of us grow up learning to avoid pain. It starts very young when we hurt ourselves. If you watch small children fall on a playground, they generally show a short-lived reaction to pain until or unless the adults around them react. Then it becomes a big drama! But if they are not critically hurt and the adults either don't notice or respond calmly, kids express their pain with some startled sounds and then get up within seconds and keep playing.

Usually what happens in our growing up years is we get message after message from adults to avoid pain, that pain means something is wrong, and that pain is something to be scared about. These adults are well-intended; it's their job to care for and protect us. They are responsible for our welfare and survival. Yet what we carry into adulthood from these experiences is a belief that pain is bad.

Believing that pain is bad as adults, we avoid and resist pain, which means we close our energy body around it. But what if we could stay open through pain? What if we could simply experience it as fully as we allow ourselves to experience other sensations in life? What if pain was not something bad to be avoided, but just an intense sensation instead? How might that change our experiences of it?

That is my practice. It's a practice in moving beyond the mind to open the energy body no matter what the sensations. In the realm of dying and death (as we are exploring in the Awaken series), it is a way to reprogram the body and mind to respond openly to pain rather than closing around it, so that as we die we can experience peace no matter what. When we master this,  a level of separation develops between us and 'the pain' that offers spaciousness to find joy and peace despite the sensations that may be running through the body. Since none of us know what our dying or death experiences will be, this is a great practice to master! Ultimately, it allows us to create and hold a container of bliss through the transitions of the body.

I got to practice this yesterday. I can describe how much pain I was in by saying it was tremendous! I (carefully) taught two yoga classes and interacted with people all day who had little idea what my body was experiencing (though the shiner around my left eye gave them an indication that something was different). My goal was to open my energy body so large that the pain would simply be a tiny part of my day's experiences, and to create enough space around the pain that I could bring in and hold joy.

I succeeded, mostly. I was aware of my pain yet not ruled by it; I acknowledged it instead of resisting or ignoring it; and I consciously opened beyond it to bring in joy. The pain was there and so was everything else; it didn't dominate my experiences. I shed some tears last night over the pain that felt linked to old body memory and energy that was ready to be released; it felt good to release it. In the end, I experienced a day filled with healing, joy and love instead of just pain.

Today I remember what it feels like to be in chronic pain. I remember experiencing chronic pain for two years following a serious car wreck in my thirties. Back then, I fell into a deep depression. Pain was the focus of my life as I took steps to find healing for my body. Although not the most pleasant part of my history, the experience led to a dramatic life change that I consider an awakening for me. 

Today, my body aches from my neck down to my hips and I still have a pretty nice shiner beneath my left eye. I know what to do for my body when it's healing, so I'm doing those things. And yet I notice myself leaning into the comfort of knowing that this pain is temporary. I wonder: "How might this experience be different for me if this were not a temporary condition?" I cannot answer that question, yet I do contemplate it.

Sometimes accepting what is gives us the opportunity to experience it without any temporal boundaries, since we can't know when or how what is in the present moment will change. But things in the present moment are always changing; that's the nature of energy and everything here is rooted in energy. I find comfort in that. When I attune myself to the subtleties of the pain in my body today, I notice the shifting sensations. The pain is not a static experience; it is a dynamic one in my body. As I deepen into that awareness, my body relaxes and opens, my breath softens and slows, and I find spaciousness within my being to expand around the pain and beyond it.

I could choose to view this experience as nothing more than a painful, unfortunate accident. My choice instead is to view it as a brilliant opportunity to reprogram my body and mind's experience of and response to pain. It is an opportunity to move toward mastery of opening big enough that I can find the spaciousness within my being to experience inner peace and joy no matter what... even tremendous pain and (ultimately) in the face of whatever my own dying and death may bring. Tonight I teach two classes, and I will teach them filled with joy, love and pain.

Every experience we have in life is an opportunity to grow and open. Today I am reminded of what a gift that is and my heart is full and happy despite the pain. I think that is pretty amazing...

Not Doing

Yesterday I did two unusual things - one that I haven't done since high school and another that I've never done. I chose to do them as part of the "winding down" phase of this A Year To Live process noting that I have just over two months left until my symbolic death.

First, I committed to spending my morning "not doing." The funny part of it was that I got up at 5:30 a.m. and did the usual morning things I do (like feed and water the pets, empty the A/C water bucket, put out mail, wash dishes, see my sweetie off, etc.) so that I could create the space to "not do." It was as if my mind said "OK; you can not do after you do these things! That will buy you some time!" How funny that is!

 But I guess it worked because by 6:30 a.m. I was back in bed determined to not do anything - not even meditate or sleep - for an unknown period of time... just lay there and not do. And that's what I did. I laid there and listened for a world on the move without me. My mind was sure I would hear it and feel frustrated. Only I didn't hear anything, which is extremely unusual; the world outside sounded and felt silent.

I spent the next block of space slipping in and out of dreaming though my mind did not retain any details of them. When I felt it was time for me to get up, I did; it was 10:30 a.m.! I had been laying there for four hours not doing... or at least not intentionally doing. I hadn't stayed in bed that long since high school!

What I noticed from this practice was how many things would not get done without me here to do them. Other people would be stuck doing them instead; or they simply would not get done. Even the tiniest of things like petting the cat or emptying the trash might not get done or at least not when they are usually done. Will that really matter when I'm not here? Or will these things be forgotten?

I noticed my mind asking "Where are the places that I will be missed?" and then trying to find them among the things that were tugging at me for doing. Ah - ego identity. That's something worth clearing before I die...

As to the second thing I did, check my next blog...

A moment of panic

Wow - I'm at an even 100 days left to live...

I had an interesting drive the other day while pondering my approaching death. I looked up into the sky and was touched by the beauty of the clouds, and in particular, an open spot that went through the clouds and seemed to go off into infinity.

Suddenly I became aware that my feelings had shifted from a place of beauty and openness to sadness.  

When I looked more deeply inside, I realized that the sadness was around the idea of no longer being here - of no longer being a part of all the physical beauty here. I was thrown backwards into an old question that used to plague my mind: "What happens after we die? Where will I go? Will I be aware of any of this? Connected to any of it? How sad that I won't be able to feel things the way I do now."

I tried to calm my emotions and my mind by connecting to that sense of Oneness, interconnectedness and bliss that I've touched beyond this physical life, yet I was unable to. I could not find the feeling state in my body; I could not remember it or connect with it in that moment. I tried recalling an experience when I felt it strongly, but I struggled to hold on to it. My mind panicked then, almost shouting at me: "Oh no! You can't remember! You've lost it! And what if it's all just a lie? What then? You'll be nothing! You won't be able to feel anything, do anything, experience any of this! What if it's nothingness after death? And just what IS nothingness??"

I haven't gotten stuck in such a state in years, so the feeling of it was uncomfortable. I held it, knowing that it might surely be possible; that such an ending might be true because I don't know what the truth is. And then I went back to holding open the possibility that it's more than that; that there is something after  death, but I just don't know what.

Then I was able to drop out of the panic I had generated and return to the present moment of enjoying the beautiful clouds and the sky. I thought about all the things I love in my life - the people, the places, the work I do, my home and pets, so many things about my life that I love these days - and I felt deeply for the first time in a while how empty I might feel without access to them in the physical way that I have now. And I wondered if I will miss them when I die as much as I imagine that I will while I'm alive...

Mind Games

This morning I took my dog for a walk. On the way home while stopped at a light, I had an interesting impulse: "Use the visor to block the sun..." I heard my mind say, and my hand went habitually to pull the visor over to the window. But a half-instant later I realized that this mental impulse was contrary to what I felt, which was to turn my face to the sun and enjoy its warmth on my skin. So I returned the visor to its storage place, closed my eyes and turned my face to the sun, smiling as I took in its beautiful light and warmth.

"How many times a day," I thought, "do mental impulses like this one lead me to do things that I don't really want to do? Out of habit? Or unconsciousness? Or from a lack of presence?" This one small incident of "catching my mind in the act" raised a whole new level of awareness for me.

Sometimes I call that kind of mental rambling "a runaway train." I've learned that if I focus on even one of those thoughts - one of those cars on that train - my thoughts go running away along the rest of the train until I am so far down the tracks from the present moment that I miss it completely.

The trick, I've learned, is not to follow even one of those cars beyond its usefulness. It might be helpful for me to attend to the thought, "Did I turn off the hose?" but it's not useful for me to then go running through every car on that train: "If I didn't, the water bill is going to be SO high! I can't believe I didn't turn off the hose. I can't believe that I forgot again! No - maybe I DID turn off the hose... did I? I can't remember. Maybe I should run home and check after I finish this? It's so hot; what a waste of water! We're trying so hard to conserve and then I leave the hose on again! Stupid me! Maybe I could call someone to check it for me...." and on and on and on.

Not only does the mind take off down the train tracks, but it judges me in the process, making me feel doubly bad. It doesn't say "Well, if the hose IS on, the grass and trees are getting a good soak!" No, it creates a disaster. And the humor is that I probably did turn off the hose! And even if I didn't, it's not the end of the world, but that's what the mind wants me to believe. It goes into what some folks call "disaster mind" and makes a huge deal out of a silly little thing like maybe leaving the hose on.

Today I was gently reminded of the games my mind plays so habitually at times that it's easy for me to miss, opening the door for disaster mind and a lack of presence. I caught it this morning; I'm happy for that. I've been practicing feeling my way through the world rather than thinking it so much. Today I got a clear view of the difference between the two, and I'm definitely more interested in the feeling of it...

Counting my way down to "my final hour" is bringing much more of this type of presence into my life. I am grateful for that. I have 109 days left to live now; I really want to be present for all of them...

It's a matter of perception

Yesterday I got a clear reflection of where I am today when an old "thorn" thrust itself into my beautiful day...

"Wow, he's really PISSED!" I thought, as this person raged over the phone. What was different for me this time is that I did not identify with it; I did not take it personally, take it on, or take it in... well, that's not exactly true.  I held my energy centered, listened to the energy of what he was expressing, felt the intensity of his body as he tried to navigate his way through the emotional eruption, and then, when he was done and said he was going to hang up, I simply said, "I love you" and hung up. And then I felt compassion for him, for the suffering he creates in his life and for the poison he spews out to those who love him.

I had an instant - well, maybe a few moments really - of questioning myself, of doubting and scolding myself ("How could I have missed that? I was so careful! I can't believe I did it again; I pissed him off again..."), and of judging him ("He's made up all these stories about me in his head, and now he's searching for proof that he's right! He just looks for data to validate his perception of me, and that's all he sees.") It's that part of me that, after all these years, still wants him to see me the way I see myself; still wants him to like me, respect me, appreciate me, love me. I don't like the stories or the person he's created me into; I want him to see the real me!

And then I see it: I'm just like him: I want to be right - about me. There's the "hook!" The game I'm playing is really no different from his. I see myself a certain way and I want him to see me that way too, instead of the way he does. I've made up my own stories of me and am searching for proof that I'm right; and all I see are the things that support my perception of myself; and I reject the things that don't... Wow. My game is no different from his; it just looks a bit different.

So there's a piece of work to be done - clearing old fears and beliefs that drive that train. What parts of this energy do I own and how can I shift them? "Yay!" I say to myself: "That's great information!" And then, I realize just how far I've come since I began this journey years ago. Used to, an incident like that would have floored me - dropped me right down to my knees in emotional pain. It would have knocked the breath right out of me and I would have taken it all in and on as somehow my fault, judging myself as not good enough, not worthy, and not lovable...never even considering that his perception really has little to do with me because it's nothing more than his story of me.

Today, I get clarity, and through the clarity I can take action that is aligned with what I'm creating - with the me that I'm consciously becoming. I can feel compassion for him and for myself, for our shared journeys, and for our internal distortions. And I can thank him for being such a spectacular teacher for me, supporting me in moving my own soul ever closer to its truth. And I can smile, filled with love for each one of us, even if he doesn't know it. And I can breathe in the peace that comes with having an open, spacious heart no matter what.

Ah - so that's what it feels like. That's how it feels to stand in my own integrity and to honor it, while honoring others as they stand in theirs too, however it looks and however it feels. I mean INTEGRITY with a capital 'I' - that inner truth that is uniquely mine based on my own perceptions, beliefs, etc. There's no right or wrong; there just is. He is and I am  - we both are doing our best in each moment with the information that we have at the time. And that's a beautiful thing because that's all we can really ever do.



©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

"The Way"

So part of the challenge of "We are all messengers; we are all Divine" is how to handle the "tough" parts of this life. Like - what if the leader of our country holds entirely different beliefs then me? Beliefs that I reject to my core? And then, what if that leader acts on those beliefs in the world - as a representative of me? Only it's not me; it's not at all aligned with what I believe, with the world I choose to create, support, and hold... What do I do with that?

I've spent time contemplating things of this nature in the past, extending the issue out to the community I live in. What about the person who acts out of integrity? Who is a rapist? A child molester? A thief? What about the tragic accident that killed my friends? What about natural disasters? What about the illness that killed my loved one? And on and on and on... Are these things Divine?

I bet most of us wonder about such things now and again, especially when faced with them personally. Yet here's the deal: The Divine Source that I believe in is dynamic; it is a catalyst for movement and change. It is founded in energy, and energy is not static; it's dynamic. The natural world created by this Source, then, is also dynamic; it moves and changes in cycles, and the cycles never fail. Things arise ("birth"), exist, and then fall away again ("death"). It's all temporary except for the Source. The Source is always present "behind the scenes" of this life. Quantum physics is proving this now, that this is an  energetically-based life, yet that's an entirely different blog...

And it doesn't matter what you call this Divine Source, what symbol or language you choose to use to describe it; it's the same Source in my opinion; and that's just my opinion. It can be God, Goddess, Gaia, Spirit, Allah, Great Creator, Divine Source, Buddha, etc.. Take your pick; they all point to the same mystical, energetic Source in the end.

So - if I believe that all things are of the same Source, and if I believe that this Source is Divine in its nature, then all things are of the Divine. And beyond that, if I believe that all things are of this Divine Source, and I believe that this Source is sacred, then all things are sacred. So, if I hold faith in these beliefs, then all things in this life are both sacred and Divine, even the tough ones.

Yet, how can that be? How can suffering, destruction, trauma and such be sacred and Divine? I may never have an answer to that question. But I can at least accept these things as part of the natural (sacred, Divine) flow of energy in life as we experience it. And I can at least accept that it is all part of the "arise-exist-fall away" cycle which is an essential part of this energetically-based life. Some Native Americans call this cycle "The Way."

From this perspective, suffering is the "falling away" of comfort and comfort is the "falling away of suffering; destruction is the "falling away" of creation and creation is the "falling away" of destruction; trauma is the "falling away" of safety and safety is the "falling away" of trauma. You get the picture. Everything arises, exists, and falls away again. These are all temporary states of being, just as everything else is, just as I am, because it's simply the way of energy...The Way. There is no time to the cycles; they simply happen when they happen. 

I arose into this form at conception; I exist; and at some point I will fall away again from this form. It's just "The Way" or the "Law" of energy, and I am, we all are, energy in the end.


©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

"The Dying"

So this week, one question that arose for me during this final year to live is: How can I support my energy body's graceful release from it's physical packaging during "the dying?"

I remind myself that I am not this body. This body is a sacred vessel within which my true essence resides. Levine wrote: "Remember that the ever-present luminosity into which our ever-impermanent density dissolves is the light of awareness by which consciousness is seen, our essential nature which never dies." I am - we are - none of this physicality. It's just a vessel; a package that we get to use to fully experience this beautiful material, sensory world. The senses are an avenue into a fullness of being, a wholeness of being, in this physical realm that would not be possible without them. They link us more closely to the subtle energy body that is our sacred and essential nature which never dies, as Levine describes it, that infinite light of awareness that is our essence; yet they also connect us more deeply to our physical nature in this realm. The senses, then, are a bridge between our sacred infinite essence and our sacred finite vessel.

To answer my own question, there seem to be several pathways into preparing oneself for "the dying." Exploring these pathways is a big part of my journey this year. For the moment, today, I simply remember to honor this sacred, sensory vessel as a bridge to my sacred essence. This body is serving me now, in the present, where I am still "alive." So I contemplate how to best support it. Somehow it seems contradictory to expend energy supporting a body that is in the midst of what I call its death walk, it's journey toward a final surrender. But from the moment we are born, aren't we all on a "death walk?"

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

An Ordinary Kind of Day

Today was an ordinary kind of day. Woke up, recorded anything I could recall from my dreams, fed the dog, changed clothes, and went for a long walk in an undeveloped wooded neighborhood near my home. It was cold but still – no wind - so the walk was pleasant. A dear friend joined me so it was a “chatty” walk whereas most of the others are done in silence attending to the sensory experience, or at most, chanting. It was good, though, because she gave me some good insights around something I’m frustrated by and trying to move through in a graceful way. Ah, the wisdom of an outside perspective…

I spent the afternoon running errands here and elsewhere, responding to emails, and carving out 20 minutes to have some lunch; actually, by the time I ate, it was closer to supper time. My evening was focused on teaching a kundalini yoga class for post-holiday-junk-food detoxifying…just what we all needed. And now, here I am, piled up on my sofa, dog at my feet, cats curled up in their beds beside me. Cozy is how I would describe this moment in my life.

My life… moving forward quicker than I can track it; minutes tick-tocking by invisibly, counting down my remaining time here… tick tock tick tock tick tock. This is a moment to savor, yes. I’m finding that every moment of my life is a moment to savor, even the uncomfortable ones. Like tonight – I developed a migraine before my yoga class. It was bad enough to make me nauseous. I chose to teach anyway, through the discomfort. I’ve never done that before. My migraines are usually spent piled up in bed, house dark and quiet, wet rag on my forehead, praying to fall asleep and wake up pain-free.

Yet Levine teaches to open beyond moments of discomfort and to be fully present with “what is.” He says to call it “the pain” rather than “my pain.” So I did. I taught yoga with “the pain” and “the nausea” and “the sensitivity to sound and light” rather than my, my, my discomfort. This simple practice allowed me to put some distance between what my body was experiencing and what I truly am, which is something beyond this body. It allowed me to hold the discomfort as just another sensory experience, albeit an uncomfortable one, without identifying with it. And it was a great opportunity to give my body the space to practice “allowing” through whatever sensory experience is happening, despite its flavor.

Because the question is: “How will I die?” And the answer is: “I don’t know.” I might die in a comfortable way, but I might die in an uncomfortable way. If my body has no anchor for how to move through “the discomfort” gracefully, what will it do if it’s dying in an uncomfortable way? How will it move through “the dying?”

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

300 Days

300 days to go in my year to live; 65 days already behind me. I've learned over the years that there are specific practices that can be done to prepare one for death - departing the body we inhabit while "here." In his book "A Year to Live" Stephen Levine wrote: "Close attention to sensation is a means of being present for, and through, the letting go of the body. It is an encouragement of life to enter the body moment by moment, sensation by sensation that ultimately can enable it to find its way back out just as consciously." (p. 103-104). Part of my preparation during this year to live is to begin the subtle separation of my energy body from my physical one. And so, I practice:

I took a walk this morning with my dog. It was sunny but cold with a wind blowing that made my ears hurt. I witnessed my mind wanting to identify and label everything I was experiencing through my sensory body. It took strong conscious effort to drop fully into the sensory experience and out of the mental categorizing and such. So much was available on the sensory level: cold air, cold wind, warm and bright sun, the sound of leaves and birds, the pounding and sounds of my feet on the ground, my dogs collar tinkling as she moved, the odor of her pee when I passed it, the feel of cold air in my nostrils, the sound of my breath, the discomfort on my cold ears, the colors and patterns of everything around me....

I noticed layers of mental activity as I went along, such as: body functions and balance (urge to pee; on my Moontime - am I leaking? watch that rock; legs are sore; knee hurts from yesterday's bruise...); "file-cabinet activity" (identifying, categorizing, labeling, and then sharing everything); chatting in a play-by-play kind of way; playing background music, and on and on.... layer upon layer. Some spiritual masters call this our "Monkey Mind."

I used a specific visualization I've learned to get the background music to stay quiet, and then worked my way forward through the layers of mental chatter and such until I was focused on my breath and the immediate sensory data around me. It took focused attention to keep the mental language/data file drawers closed and all my awareness on the sensory experiences WITHOUT labels.

Doing this practice this morning of quieting the gymnastics of the mind and dropping more fully into the sensory realm reminded me of the fact that all that is truly before me is energy. Whatever else it becomes - even if just a color or texture - is a fabrication of my mind. I really tried this morning to simply experience - without ANY labels. It was harder than I thought it might be. For the brief time I succeeded, the world took on an entirely different flavor: "formless" is the word that comes to mind, if there must be one :



©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.