A Dream of Death

These days seem a good time to write about death. It is the time of the waning, when the northern hemisphere begins to darken and the quality of light is changed, glancing at an angle that enters our eyes and that our ancient human brains recognize as the impending shift. The rhythm of life slows, the harvest is in, the wood pile is stacked. It is stick season in the wooded lands and stubble season in the flat lands.

Here in Liguria Italy, le castagne - the chestnuts -, have fallen and opened. The hills have witnessed the passage of human foragers collecting the fruit of this land, an ancient tradition born of necessity and continued out of ritual and tradition. We collected a small pouch of them which now rest in a carved stone bowl on the table reminding us to honor the gifts that sustain us as we journey into the dark.

I recently had a dream of dying. Death dreams are plentiful with us humans, whether its the loss of a loved one returning to visit us, witnessing violence towards others or our own death, these dreams speak to our awareness of our own mortality, soul loss or loss of loved ones, grief or simply transformation: a letting go, a structure crumbling, something of our conditioning that no longer serves is dying.

In my dream, I had understood the place and time of my death. I was given a potion by a nurse which I had consumed to facilitate ease in passing. Death was imminent and I was asked would I like to stay in the hospital or go outside. I chose to go out. A man guided me to a place prepared for me, a spot out in the desert valley with some soft pillows and woven blankets, a place to rest. As I walked, I felt a quake in my body, a slipping, something inside shifting into a new position. I could feel death coming. I sat down and settled into the sandstone. I saw my skin changing and felt a breath-catching fear of the threshold. Random thoughts of what I had forgotten to do before I was to go came into my mind but passed with the simple knowledge that it no longer mattered. The no-longer-mattering didn’t feel like defeat, only surrender. I was not afraid, though I felt the rush of fear in my body and the inevitability of this moment which we all will experience someday. My head dropped and my chin rested on my chest and my whole body relaxed.

It is a profound dream for me. I have always been afraid of death. During my druid training, when we read Stephen Levine’s A Year to Live, I struggled with the concept of living a life as if I had one year to live. I mean, what? A year passes by so quickly. What would I do with that time? Would I spend it traveling the world or saying goodby to family, putting my “affairs in order”? Would I just keep on keeping on? How does one gather the chestnuts? How does one prepare? When we did our death ceremony at Dreamland Sanctuary with the Green Mountain Druid School, which involved digging a grave and spending the night in it, I wrapped myself in my blanket and listened to the sounds of the woods, saw the moonlight above and heard the hoot of owls and the cry of coyotes and felt a deep sense of how our journey is both solitary and lightened by the presences of others. My sister and brother druids-in-training were in graves along side mine; we had traveled together in our journey of self discovery and healing, our symbolic death opening us to a re-birth.

Some might be curious, Hey Laura what if the dream means you are going to die! Well, yes this is true. One day I will die. Is the dream premonitory? Perhaps. But the message of the dream, deeply received for me, is more about living. Not a legacy, not some spectacular event to mark my knowing of death, not some big change, but a feeling…the feeling of release in the dream is, for me, the letting go of attachment, letting go of all the worry and preoccupation, the externalized illusion of control.

There is so much pain and suffering. Whole religions revolve around the concept of suffering and how to find ease and understanding in our suffering. Humans, as a whole, have brought great suffering to the planet and all its beings. We can sometimes too easily imagine the very real suffering of others in the world whose circumstances are tragic. But there is also great joy and we must find those moments. They may be discovered when we enter into the personal sphere with one another human with open hearts and minds or when we are of service with authenticity and hope despite despair. When we take in nature in its raw beauty, when we remember to look up at the moon or stop to smell a flower, watch a tiny insect travel the length of a twig, or a bird take wing we can find reverence and awe and joy in living. When we engage in creative practices, the arts, painting, poetry, theater, we can find inspiration and awe at the power of creativity.

Our knowledge of death as imminent can help us feel into what it’s like to live with more presence. It’s not that we don’t plan for a future, truly foraging for chestnuts can be a wonderful experience, but we accept that even in our planning, we don’t know and therefore we must be flexible. I have more ease in following the flow of life. Some of this is the wisdom of age and privilege. Some is because I live my life working with others and their dreams. The dreams, both mine and others, offer many lessons and insights that resonate at a soul level, a deep collective wisdom that is there for us all. So gather your dreams, tend to them. May their wisdom guide and sustain you during the dark times.