An En-Couraging Verse -- "All Soul's Day"

The more I'm involved in this End-of-life and Grief Coaching work, the more I'm realizing how many "learning opportunities" our society has in these areas. We are a culture that for the most part would like to ignore death and grief at any cost. We would rather do almost anything else than speak about the inevitable. How ironic, especially since we consider ourselves to be an "advanced" culture...

This work is actually some of the most important work we could be doing while we are alive. A volunteer firefighter on Whidbey Island who happens to be Buddhist once told me that in his religious thought, birth was the difficult part; "death is easy, because we have the rest of our lives to prepare for it!" he commented. So, it is critical that we find ways to create courage and speak creatively around these still unpopular and rather taboo topics.

Recently, I was online, visiting a local death midwife's website, and I found this most beautiful poem called "All Soul's Day". Thank you, Marilyn Strong and D.H. Lawrence, for reminding me how gentle we need to be around our dying; and how necessary it is to be ready for it when it comes. I love the idea of helping each other prepare a "little ship" for our voyage to the great beyond. I invite you, too, to savor this delightfully creative verse about death and the hereafter:

Be careful, then, and be gentle about death.
For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through
The door, even when it opens.
And the poor dead, when they have left the walled
And silvery city of the now hopeless body
Where are they to go, Oh where are they to go?
They linger in the shadow of the earth.
The earth's long conical shadow is full of souls
That cannot find the way across the sea of change.
Be kind, Oh be kind to your dead
And give them a little encouragement
And help them to build their little ship of death.
For the soul has a long, long journey after death
To the sweet home of pure oblivion.
Each needs a little ship, a little ship
And the proper store of meal for the longest journey.
Oh, from out of your heart
Provide for your dead once more, equip them
Like departing mariners, lovingly.

-- D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Blessings be upon us as we say goodbye to one year, and welcome in a new and hopeful one -- another death and rebirth experience that can help us prepare for life's last great adventure! Happy "releasing" into 2009, Dancing heart~~~


P.S. If you are local, please note that I will be leading a Day Seminar on "Joyful Transitions" on the second day of the New Year -- this coming Friday -- at the Nonviolent Communication Training Center in the Greenwood Neighborhood of Seattle. Please see details on how to register on the Scheduled Events page of my website.