On the Myth of Transcending Death

As human beings, our inner worlds are a microcosm & reflection of the wider natural world. All that happens in nature: day & night, summer & winter, clear skies & storms, likewise happens within us.

Death is an essential part of the natural cycle, the “circle of life” if you will. From seasonal changes, to the food chain, to the natural progression of all living things from birthing to passing.

Our ancestors understood death intimately. They charted not only the ways death occurred in nature, but also in the self and community.

Menstruation, sleep & dreaming, the consumption of animals and plants, the “dark night of the soul”, periods of grief and loss, and so many other experiences were honored as sacred.

Instead of turning away from these essential experiences, they embraced them as holy rites of passage.

While many of us feel a sense of disconnection to these rites, the medicine of death has never left us.

Myths of separation from nature, ideas that we must “transcend” the darker parts of our experience— grief, anger, desire etc— are just that. Myths.

When we reclaim the truth— that we are nature, embodied and LIVE that embodiment, we are able to see each gift of the darkness for what it truly is— a guide.

We cannot “love and light” our way out of death. We cannot “transcend” or “bypass” death. But we can look to death as a guide, as a teacher, as an initiation leading us from one essential part of existence to another.

When we honor death as a rite of passage/guide/teacher, we honor birth & life as well. It’s through honoring the death cycle that we honor the cycle of rebirth.

Pre-solstice musings because of course, there is always a place for death even on the longest day of the year. The yin inside the yang.