Just as we are surrounded by life, we are also surrounded by death. And yet we have made it an unfamiliar friend. For so many people death comes unannounced and we are unprepared. Yet we know that it exists in all our futures, as it is also in the lives of those we know and love.
For many the only time that we consider death is at the funeral of a loved one or a friend as we say goodbye, or as we sit with news, often delivered unexpectedly, that our health, or the health of someone we know, is not what we would wish, that death could be outside our door.
I remember sitting with my mother for the last days and nights of her life while in a coma, unconscious throughout. Reassuring her when she became restless in her sleep like state. And performing the "Shamans Death Rites" over and over, during her last days and nights. Clearing residual "heavy" energy from the luminous energy field around her body. Helping to bring restfulness to her last days and hours, so that when it was time, she would breathe out her last breath and be able to leave her body, making her transition, and in the way that she saw it, going to be with god.
We all have different beliefs about life, and also about death. The Shamans practices for the dying do not compromise any of these. They are simple practices informed by thousands of years of service. That help us to prepare, where there is sufficient time, and when it is time, to make our last moments as sweet and easy as possible.
