Deepening Into Life
A black altar of fertile soil.
A kiss on the lips from angels of the night.
A cup from which all beings drink from in the end.
An hourglass of eaten time.
Death. The contract we make with life. The ending of one form. And the mysterious beginning of something new.
The Death card in the Tarot is a messenger of both physical and energetic completion. And we don’t have to look far to dig up the knowing that with every ending comes rebirth, transformation. Because the life-death-life cycle is all around us. The yearly story of the seasons — winter always blooms into spring. The daily dance of light — our sun always rises after it has rested. We are fed the dead with every meal.
Death is divine compost in the circle of life. And blesses us with a certain kind of wisdom that nothing else can give us.
I have watched bodies die. Bodies I cherish with my whole being. And those moments of watching my beloveds take their last quiet breaths, while utterly gut wrenching, were some of the most peaceful moments of my life. Some of the most profound, present moments of my life. I laid with my love, my soul pup’s body for days after he passed, soaking in his softness, rain tenderly weeping alongside of us. I was not afraid of the chill that streamed over his paws. Instead I wrapped him in cozy blankets and anointed the nape of his neck with my warm moon blood. I adorned him with a baby’s breath crown and sunflower wands. My sunshine boy. I was not afraid of the smell of decay on that last day with his body when I did the one ritual I never thought I’d be able to do: cutting his glorious hair to keep tucked in a pouch, my now most cherished belonging.
I don’t know how I would have gone on without having done these rituals, without that time of honoring the completion of my love’s physical form. Those days were a portal for my grief to pour forth. Without restriction, without fear. An opening to let the power of death flow through me as it needed to. I let the full force of my grief wash over me every time I thought of him, felt him, missed him. And I still do. And I don’t know if I would have been able to truly process such oceanic loss without those rituals at his death, if I hadn’t let myself fully face the death mother. Had I been afraid to look, to touch, to smell, to feel— that enormous grief would still be heavy inside of me, unprocessed, unfelt, begging to be freed.
It is a gift to give ourselves over to death and to grief. In its own strange and heartbreaking way, death deepens us into life.
It is in the darkest, wildest, most unknowable places that miracles are born.
The stretching of love beyond these bodies.
The faith in what lies beyond.
The vitality that breathes us when we remember the preciousness of it all.
The irony is that our death-phobic culture distracts us from truly living. Most people drive by dead animals on the side of the road without a second glance when that could be a moment of honoring a life. And maybe so many animals wouldn’t have to die in this unnecessary way if we simply paid more attention. People put their elderly in nursing homes because we haven’t been taught how to face the end of life. And we miss out on valuable perspectives from our elders. We miss out on the gift of caring for those that cared for us. People and children in Gaza are being murdered in the most violent ways and some people still choose to turn away. And a spark of their own humanity dies from not witnessing.
And many are not courageous enough to face the truth that old systems are dying. And they have not yet tasted the magic and liberation of imagining a different world. And I hope they will. Because it tastes like the sea dripping down your cheeks. And it feels like sunshine warming your bones. And it sounds like children laughing and making art. And it smells like the compost in the garden that generously feeds us all.
Death is medicine if we let it be. A richness in the soil that grows our lives. A necessary helper in these transformative times.
So let us have the courage to not turn away from death.
Let us honor it with every out breath, every autumn, every sunset and sunrise.
Let us be changed by its wisdom. Let it bring us more alive.
🌻 Josie
I love y’all. I’m wishing you a soul nourishing Sunday. I pray you let something go. I pray you grieve something on your heart. I pray you tell your loved ones how precious they are to you. Even if they are in the spirit realm. I hope you let death in all its heart-breaking forms deepen you into this life.
✨ A song to meditate to for letting go.
✨ One of my favorite artists is an animal memorial photographer. Her name is Amanda Stronza. Check out her beautiful work here: https://edgeeffects.net/animal-memorials/
Sunday Soul Nourishment is the free weekly-ish version of the Starlit Soil newsletter.
I am endlessly grateful to each of you for your presence here. Your support and sharing of my work is so appreciated and helps the magic to reach more people.