Showing posts with label Death Midwifery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death Midwifery. Show all posts

28 April 2009

Normalizing death

I was the one to put my dad to rest in this life. The snow outside right now is a lot like when he passed, magical and fluffy.  I don't have anger towards it like I would have a week ago or even yesterday, today it's not there.  I did a visualization and it was the moment of giving him one last shot of morphine, while he was surrounded by all of his friends and family came up the other day.  There was this understanding, like he and I were communicating...he saying, "bec, it's okay."  me saying, "I love you daddy, I love you."  My mom singing this beautiful song to him in his ear, telling him she loves him and Jen just speechless with these sweet BIG crocodile tears.  Everyone else there, nothing we could change about the situation but for me the numbness of doing the act went away.  I reconnected with his pulse and that it was doing him good.  When his pulse fell from his arm, it was if someone had released the physical plugs on his bodies drain and whosh...Literally, WHOOOOSH...Almost like the days when I would have to alter myself just to attempt kayaking down a class IV rapid with my buddies.  With that alteration, I was able to paddle better or just release when I knew I couldn't get back up instead of getting gripped in the flow and hurting myself one way or another.  With the loss of the numbness, which I didn't know when it would go away came an unfolding.  The visualization lead me to the practice of Death Midwifery that I had been studying since that summer we were in Seattle.  In actuality, I had gone to the co-op that morning and got three essential oils and sesame oil.  Rose (love, used for anxiety and depression and tension), Sandalwood (flight), and Vetiver (grounding; muscle relaxant, insomnia and nervousness).  We all gathered, opened with a little calling in of the directions.  He loved the native ways of nature that he had learned over life. We washed him with really warm water, which had all three oils in it.  Then we all massaged him with the Sesame Oil (in Ayurveda, this oil represents integration, deep healing and nourishes the organs) with a drop of rose oil.  As each person contributed, they said a little prayer or intention to help in his soul passing.  In my experience over the weekend, it went from the whoooosh of the pulse to the time after the ritual...when everyone was drinking margaritas, wine and beer and people were coming in and out saying goodbye and a party was going on.  He was glowing.  That is where I went to...him being there with this glow, a smile and of course shiny lips because he had to have some lip gloss on...He was just as beautiful then as he had been when we were growing up.  Death finally became normalised for me. I have peace on a cellular level.