Deborah Pierce

It’s Time to Look at Death Differently

A reflection on death and dying with the mushroom from Debbie Pierce, a death doula and Psanctuary Psacred Passage minister.

It’s Time to Look at Death Differently

What if we started to look at death more like a birth?  What if we started to celebrate and honor death like we do a birth? And why not? Aren’t they both simply soul transitions from one form to another?

Even how our bodies and our souls transition between the two are similar and form a “circle” of life within each life.  For instance, when we are born, we sleep a lot as we get adjusted to being in a body. We drink super nutrient dense milk, then soft foods and finally solids.  As our bodies get old or diseased with a life threatening illness, we sleep more and more, we start losing our appetite and in many cases go to softer foods and finally to a nutrient dense liquid and water like a baby starts out.

Yet our approach, our view of the two are so different.  We celebrate and embrace birth into the human form and dread and delay our birth into the next form as much as possible.  But what if we accepted that death is a part of life and celebrated it as such? Afterall, death is inevitable. I’m not saying that we don’t all want to live in this human body as long as possible, after all, human life is amazing! But if we are able to accept death and view it as another birth, I believe we are able to live more fully, more consciously.

So imagine that if you or a loved one is faced with a life threatening illness, and you take that opportunity to honor that life, to live it more consciously.  Yes, you still will do what you can to maintain the human body as much as possible, but instead of spending the time you have consumed in dread and fear and sadness; you start living consciously.

What does that mean? You look at your life, or that of your loved one with gratitude and from a much bigger perspective.  You look at it all, good and bad, with gratitude for having the experience.  You want to repair broken relationships, work on forgiveness of yourself and others, and start reviewing all the amazing experiences you have had.  Most importantly, you have deep and vulnerable conversations with those you love.  

And when it comes time to make that transition to the next life form, similar to setting up a nursery and the environment for a birth; you set up the environment and experience for your next adventure, your next form of life, in a way that is meaningful and beautiful to you.  Having a beautiful, peaceful sendoff will result in a better experience for all involved.

The sacrament of the psilocybin mushroom is very helpful in helping us overcome our fear of death and be more present in the time we have left.  Even if you have lived at least part of your life consciously, when you get a diagnosis of a life threatening disease it is completely normal to have some strong emotions.  The sacrament helps us process those emotions more effectively and helps us focus on living the rest of days and minutes in the best way possible, including getting ready for our next post-human adventure.

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Read more about Psanctuary's new ministry, Psacred Passage and sign up for updates here: https://ministries.psanctuary.org/psacredpassage

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