Death as a Rite of Passage

Winter may be death’s season but spring, with its aura of rebirth and renewal, is the ideal time to be reminded of the illusory nature of death.

Death itself is winter. It’s the losing of the life force and consciousness that keeps one corporeal. It’s the vacating of the form. Winter, like death, seems so final, but is it? Peering across a vast white wasteland, we wonder where life has gone and yet, just a short time later, it re-emerges. Trees begin showing buds, grasses begin to emerge, and waters begin to flow. Spring abounds with these miracles, these reminders of a return-to-life. Winter’s finality was an illusion.

Death offers the same illusion. It’s no more final than the snow upon the earth or the empty branches. Death is, in its great Divine Reality, the movement of the human from winter to spring. In fact death is just the first act in a three-part play.

Act one is a transition away from physical life; it is our winter. For some, the first act is but one scene long, for others, it is many. Act two is death itself. The life force expires and the Essence that is the immortal Self leaves the form and enters the world of the formless. Act three is re-birth. Act three is our spring.

In the re-birth we reawaken to the beautiful recovery of our spiritual selves. In the re-birth we rejoice in the Divine Love that we find ourselves bathed in. It is reunion with others gone before us. It is a reaffirmation of the goodness of existence and the progress of the human divine. It is the remembering of one’s name. Our re-birth is our True birth, for form is but the garb we place ourselves in when we pass thru the veil of forgetfulness into physical life.

Death comes when we have succeeded in our work here on the planet, when we have learned and/or taught all we can or need to. Death comes when our soul has chosen to let go its life force and return Home. Here, in flesh, we are like great adventurers, traveling through days collecting experience, creating relationships, loving and loathing, but all the while just passing thru. One day our journey ends and we must return from where we came. We have graduated! We have been promoted! We have been liberated! We have done much work, overcome many obstacles, and our soul has expanded such that it is our reward, this going Home!

There, our welcome is celebrated. It’s a joyous time. But here we mark the event with darkness. Often we think it is final or that we are somehow completely separate. Because we can only ‘see’ the first act we don’t understand the miracle that follows. If we did we’d be filled with joy for our loved ones. I wonder too sometimes if our mourning is not, in part, our soul’s longing for what our ‘departed’ has come to find. On the other-side I have never met a soul who wished they were still here. Even those who had the most wonderful physical lives or have left with their most beloved still in form, when asked if they wish they were here, have always answered with, "No. This is where I belong. But I will wait for him/her to join me." It is just that beautiful. They are just that happy to be Home.

The spring that follows death is radiant. Old bent bones are straightened, memories lost are returned, sufferings are gone, and in some cases, the perception of form is done away with completely. Burdens are lifted, worries transcended, wounds healed, Truths revealed. Even the happiest of souls are happier.

Western culture has begun to put more emphasis on celebrating the life that was lived yet we still have far to go. For not only should we be honouring the life that was but celebrating the life that is again! ( I learned early on in my communications not use the word ‘dead’ when referring to those in spirit. They are quick to point out that they are very much alive!)

As we observe the caterpillar secrete itself in its cocoon, we do not mourn its ‘death’ because we know what awaits the creature on the other side of its transition. And when the butterfly emerges and flies away we wave, in awe and delight, at its re-birth and its new found freedom. Death for us is much the same.  It is a rite of passage that allows us to experience the soul’s springtime of re-birth.