26 Days and Counting

 Wow - not much time left. I contemplate how to spend it during these fabulously beautiful fall days beneath clear, sunny, cool, breezy skies and crisp, clear, breezy nights. I realize that I am happy with my life these days. It is so full of goodness and love. I love my partner; I love my teaching; I love my writing; I love my counseling and coaching; I love my home and my pets; I love my friends and colleagues; I love my family...and most of all, I love myself; I love who I've become. Yes, my life is full and rich with goodness and love.

How does one prepare to say "Good bye" to all of this goodness? Should I write a letter? Make a video? Or spend my time connecting with people directly instead? Do I tell people? Will they understand? What do I say as I look at them with overwhelm at their beauty and the beauty of everything around me - so filled with appreciation, gratitude and joy for it all?

Life is such a gift. We don't give it nearly the amount of acknowledgment it deserves. And this Earth! We have no idea how fortunate we are to have such a magnificent place to live and grow and experience here.

What keeps us from truly being here? Why do any of us spend our lives beneath a thick fog of anything other than sheer joy, freedom, love and intimacy? Why are we so scared? What are we so scared of?

Why do we separate ourselves from all the rest when we are born of the same Source, when we are all family in the end? What makes us so closed that we can't bring ourselves to simply love? Is it really as simple as loving ourselves? Of recognizing our own divinity? Of releasing all the fears and trappings of our error thinking?

To think of ourselves as anything less than divine, and anything less than whole, and anything less than connected to all other things is to deny our origins in the Highest Power (God, Allah, Creator, Great Spirit, Buddha, etc...) from which we have all emerged. Quantum Mechanics is proving this today; we can no longer deny that we are all born of the same Source, however we view it, define it or describe it. There is only one Source of life in the end.

 So why do any of us - why do I - spend any time at all feeling somehow less than something when all that I am is a unique expression of that Life Source?

Moon Walk

Thursday night I walked my favorite labyrinth under the full moon. I've been visiting this particular labyrinth for maybe 12 years. The stones it is made up of are white and they glow in the moonlight, giving a magical feel to the place and space, especially on a clear full moon night.

As I enter my last month to live on this "A Year To Live" adventure, things are becoming extra poignant. Walking around the labyrinth between the darkened shadows cast by oak trees and the clear white light cast by Grandmother Moon, I experienced in a very concrete way how light exists within shadows and shadows exist within light. There is no separation; the two exist among each other in a beautiful balance of light and dark. Without both, who would really know either one?

I think my experience with this balance was in answer to an intent I sent out to Grandmother Moon before walking the labyrinth: "I ask for your support in releasing any and all attachment or resistance I have to the suffering of myself or anyone and anything else." While dancing among the light and the shadows cast by the trees and the moon, I realized - I felt - that it is all a perfect balance of energies and that both are necessary; both are a part of life and living. Without both, there would be no wholeness or balance.

Following the path to the center, there were moments when my shadow was cast directly in front of me - just like a person - a body double. I connected with this shadowy body double of me and held her as the residue of me that will remain in this physical plane after I'm dead. There she was, a mere shadow of what used to be me; a footprint; a reflection of my energy; neutral space where I once was; someone's fading memories. "How long will she remain?" I wondered, "How long will I be remembered and in what ways?"

I got to thinking about who I am, really. "Am I me or is that shadow the real me? Who is the me that people will remember? Who do I want them to remember and why? What am I leaving behind in my wake?" In one generation or less, any memory of me can be completely erased, my life here dissolved. Every adventure, every experience, every breath completely erased - my existence here forgotten, irrelevant history...

What I realized is that this journey is not about bringing all the things in my life to completion before I die - all the relationships, projects, paper work, teachings, etc. It is about bringing ME to completion before I die. "How much of what keeps me separate from love and divinity can I surrender and release before I die? Because what's left is the real me."

Yes: How much?

A Song For The Dying

These days I'm not sure what's related to what. Am I feeling physically tired and fatigued because of some nutritional or hormonal issue? Or because I'm busier with writing, teaching, and presenting? Or because I'm not sleeping very well? Or because my neck has been giving me grief so I haven't been able to exercise regularly? Or because of the energetic shifts that are happening Universally and within my being? Or because I'm coming close to my death date?


52 DAYS is a very short time that I have left in this experience. I'm contemplating the details of my death and how I want to approach it. Do I want to have a big celebration or a quiet, intimate exit? How important is it that I finalize all the details of how to handle my body? Who do I want to contact and in what way before I die? How do I really want to spend this last 52 days?

Of all the questions flowing through, the one arising the most is What is my death chant? Somehow this one piece feels most important to my process. I feel that it would be comforting to have one rehearsed and intimately familiar when I die. There is something beautiful about the vibration of sound in and out of the body...

Levine describes the healing/death chant as "a familiar path into the unfamiliar - a sacred path." He writes: "A death chant can act as a refuge from the storm, or an open window to the sun. Whatever the chant is it will bring us closer to grace, our original nature, the Kingdom of Heaven that is within."

For all of those that I have death-walked, I've sung to them for hours as they transitioned. It is a beautiful thing to watch the spirit of a being rest into the sounds of a song. I don't know if there will be anyone by my side singing to me when I die, but I can be; I can sing to myself!

Aside from all the formal details of what will happen to me and my stuff, the death chant feels most significant as a bridge between this physical life and the ethereal one that I'll be shifting into. This is the piece to focus on; this is the way forward. The rest feels like looking back, which I've spent lots of time doing already, cleaning up and preparing things.

Yes - my death chant is calling...