Present to Death

Death and dying and contemplating this passage for oneself is a sobering reckoning most of us visit privately and with others at least a few times in life's journey.  A recent experience of this topic discussed among friends stayed with me for several days, and I feel compelled to write about it.

We all die.  And, if we are honest, we are afraid to do so.  If we had a chance to choose how to die, it would basically come down to a choice of the least unpalatable means (wishful thinking) for most of us.  What interested me in the aforementioned conversation among friends was the general insistence felt among the many in the conversation that they be present to themselves and the experience of dying; they wished not to miss the process, not to be in a drugged stupor nor apparent absence of dementia, but to experience their life to the fullest right up to the end.

As a nurse, all I could think was, "may the angels not be listening to this."  This human existence is an endless series of rounds of suffering (and joy).  There is no avoidance of pain.  It's our birthright and payment we make as human beings.  Experiencing our thresholds of pain in different layers is a valuable, even an illuminating materiality that can bring a richness to one's life.  That experience is something we take on willingly, especially if we know there is an end to it, a reprieve in sight (i.e. childbirth, brief uncomfortable procedures, a really bad headache, a divorce with a court date).  Pain medications are a god send when you need them.  Our pain thresholds decrease as we age.  The more frail we become, the more acutely we feel pain.  Pain medication and adjunct therapies that address pain receptors in our bodies/brains (clinical aromatherapy, bodywork, energy work, acupuncture, qigong) should be freely accessed if possible.

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A question came to me when discussing this idea of being fully "present" right up to the end:  How could we not be present to this cataclysmic event, same as the impossibility of not being present to our birth?  We are born as Whole selves.  Seemingly our purpose is to find how to live this wholeness in the time we are given.  We don't spend a lot of time knowing or experiencing this.  We don't know how, but (hopefully) spend a lifetime working toward being in relationship to the Whole that we are.  But despite this lack, we are still One.  A muscle is still a muscle even if it is atrophied.  We can't miss our passing because we're in a coma, or in a medication-induced delirium.  To imply this, is to believe Presence is a cognitive state.  It is not.

The body is an incredible dimensional, layered and impossibly complex organism.  Some type of life is going on in a person living in a coma. Arnie and Amy Mindell have proven this in their studies of coma patients.  You just have to hang 
around people in these altered states for a period of time to sense this is true.  We on the outside are 
not privy to this passage they are moving through.  But there is no mistake the experience of moving 
toward a death is not passing them by.  In the case of quick, usually violent deaths (it is my opinion), 
the layers of ourselves (body, energybody, spirit, soul) are separated.  And there is a need to re-assemble 
before a passing is complete.  There is a presence in this, an actual energetic movement toward the 
Wholeness we are in body on earth, and probably beyond.

So, we may have these temporary distractions of suffering, agony, trauma, violence which ultimately leads to our death, but our innate divinity is always present.  It's the thing that leads us Home, through this important transition.  We seemingly are in preparation our entire lives for this moment, are living this truth in small ways almost on a daily basis; through our system changes, relationships, the almost inconsequential letting go and acceptances that is our daily bread.  The cultivation of a deeper understanding of the layers of presence possible to be earned in a lifetime, is a support to an actualization at (bodily) death.  It is impossible not to be present to one's own death.  The cells, the energy fields within our body system are constant cues, despite our denial variations or momentary circumstances that seem to remove a consciousness from the equation.  The reality of the breath and depth of consciousness sinks in.  Consciousness... Presence are not cognitive activities.  They are a fuller, deeper, more whole experience, connected within, connected without.