A Relationship with Death

This is another older photo, from the center where we hold the East Coast residential programs. Some of you may be able to tell exactly where I was when I took it. It's taken at twilight, with this fascinating cloud pattern.

This time of year is akin to twilight. The weather is colder, the days become noticeably shorter, and we are well into the time when night is longer than day. It is also a time of year when many different peoples honor and remember beloved dead. For me, this is a time of year with the death anniversaries and birthdays of several different loved ones, and so the cultural association is personal.

Death is a touchy subject for many of us. I have shared with many of you that one of the ways my life has most been transformed by shamanic work is in my relationship with death, and the lack of fear when I think of it. But I acknowledge that death is still hard for many, and that fear of death persists in our culture and in many of our psyches.

Part of this work is that we cannot shy away from what makes us afraid. The things we deny have a way of presenting themselves to us over and over again, until we reckon with them and form a relationship with that which we once feared. So it is with death. Death is a part of life, and it is a certainty for all of us, eventually. What is relationship with death for you?