Reflections On Death and Life

The above photographs were taken by my husband's friend Rob when he and Ron were in Mexico several years ago. Ron shares that these photos were taken on a small island in the middle of Lake Patzquaro around two in the morning. 

Ron writes, "It was a long boat ride from Patzquaro to share the yearly vigil of local families with loved ones in the little hilltop cemetery. The vigil lasts all night during Dia de los Muertes. Families sat at the graves quietly celebrating and communing with their family members who had passed. Some families were silent, others laughing softly, remembering, and sharing with those around them. I recall an old gentleman, sitting quietly and peacefully next to what was only a small mound of bare dirt, with a modest wooden marker, and a single candle burning. Other graves were covered in elaborate and beautiful floral carpets of marigolds, and entire families sat around eating, drinking, and celebrating the life and death of their loved one. It was an extraordinary experience."

The photographs and the story behind them is beautiful, moving, heartfelt and soulful. There are gifts and teachings that I experience here in the essence of these lovely photographs and what it is that they convey. What comes for me is this vision of a world and of our own hearts that moves us toward embracing death, thus empowering us to bring greater presence to our loved ones who are dying, to those who have crossed over, and to our own lives right here and now moment-by-moment. 

I am also mindful of how deeply all of this touches me because of my own personal losses. There was the experience of my father and my brother both dying many years ago with everything left unsaid and undone. I have spent 30 years healing and transforming the old rules I had learned in my family of origin and in our culture that were rooted in fear, secrecy, silence, shame, separateness, and a great deal of pain and suffering that was both current and inherited. Today I understand that what doesn't get addressed and healed tends to unconsciously be handed down to the next generation... and the one after that, and the one after that... 

There is so much I have been learning, very much including how to recognize and walk through the doorways that lead to heart-pathways which illuminate that a different way of being is possible. I will always be eternally grateful for all that has been teaching me to open to life, to my own heart, to the Sacredness and love and beauty that weaves through all of life. I have been remembering what I had forgotten.

Life is a series of deaths and rebirths, if we allow it. Otherwise we get stuck in death and not allowing Life to truly take root in our being. We get scared, we push away vulnerability and love and simply forget our authentic selves and the beauty of our true nature. At least this has been my experience. I was lost to myself. And without consciously working to recognize all the myriad of ways I shut out, shut down, shut up, opening to the experience of wholeness and connection and love often escaped my awareness and limited my understanding and capacity to be more fully alive. 

It is a great paradox how we humans are so deeply wired for connection and love, and yet how fiercely and blindly we can push away what most sustains and nourishes our deepest being. The gift of this awareness - the mindfulness of my triggers and wounds and blind spots, and the courage to allow this into my conscious awareness - is among life's greatest treasures. Otherwise I would have continued to thrash around, starving for love while also not allowing love in. Not really. Because I was too afraid, disconnected, unaware. Today is different, very different. I experience this as a miracle.

As I watch the decline of my elderly mother, I am very mindful of staying open moment to moment to what it is that needs to be said, felt, touched, honored, blessed, loved. I am also aware of this as I witness the illnesses, deaths, family tragedies and challenges and losses around me. Every moment is so precious, if we can but have enough courage and support to embrace and treasure what is here before us and within us.

May we break through the silences and the secrecy, the denial and turning away, the fears and walls we build to protect us from vulnerability, authenticity, and deeper connection with our hearts and those of others. So many paradoxes we humans experience, such as that to embrace death brings us into greater life. We can learn to open to and embrace more and more of ourselves and one another. Our time here is so precious. Our loved ones are such a treasure. And learning how to open to greater and greater expansiveness in the way we live our lives is a gift beyond measure. 

Bless us all ~ Molly

 At the cemeteries in Michigan where my father, brother, and paternal and maternal ancestors are buried, September 2014.