Friday, August 17, 2007

First, to those of you who keep checking out BLOG and finding that we’ve been out of touch for almost two months, we apologize. Life has been extremely busy. Gary’s wonderful 90 year-old mom took ill and we spent many days away from home assisting his sister and brother-in-law with her care. We were caring for her around the clock in her home as she stood at the doorway of death and decided it was not her time to pass through. It has been a tiring but enlightening time for us.

But, this brings us to the subject of today’s BLOG – Shamanism, Death and Rebirth.

To quote Jose & Lena Stevens book Secrets of Shamanism, “Every shaman knows that in order to create something new, something must first be destroyed. The old form is taken apart and from its energetic source, something new arises.” This is the power of transformation. And, death is simply put, a transformation. It is the change from the physical form back to a spiritual form.

From our perspective (Gary’s and mine), death of the physical body is a time of celebration. It is the time when our friend or loved one gets released from this earth walk and is re-born to Spirit. We feel we are spiritual beings living in a physical body, we are being released from our post and get to return home. This is time for celebration.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we don’t mourn the loss of the friend or loved one, as we will miss their physical presence. But it is a time of great joy that they have the opportunity to return home once again.

We were blessed with the opportunity to share this experience when my mother made her transition over six years ago. We were able to be present and witness the Light Beings or Angels and family members who were already on the other side coming to assist Mom. It was certainly a mixed bag of emotions, as through my tears over losing “Mommy” and knowing she wouldn’t be there to physically hug me again, there was a tremendous sense of awe and wonderment as she finally overcome her fear of leaving the physical and transformed into her spiritual self right before our eyes. The closest I can say that I ever came close to such extreme joy was with the birth of our children.

As a shaman, we are often called to assist those who are making their spiritual transitions or those who have already left the physical body that need help completing their transition. This will be our topic next time.

Death and dying is such a taboo subject in our culture here in the U.S.. People generally perceive death as a negative or something to be fearful of, not something to be embraced. There is much to be gained from examining our thoughts, ideas and feelings about death and dying. I encourage you to sit with those feelings and thoughts and try to separate your true feelings from those that have been programmed by society, religion or family. This takes courage. We wish you the courage to explore.

Until next time,
Debbie