Volume 5 Issue 2 Conscious, holistic approaches to end of life

After a , Something to Do

Living into Dying: Suicide

Bridge of Sorrow

Suicide Coming Home in Australia www.naturaltransitions.org Transform your views of and reframe your relationship to living and dying Honoring Life’s Final Passage A three-level certificate program in Spiritual Death Midwifery and Home Guidance with Jerrigrace Lyons & guest instructors

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Jerrigrace Lyons, Founding Director of Final Passages, is a trailblazer in the new field of home funeral guidance. Since 1995 she has trained hundreds of students in a sacred approach to conscious dying, natural death care and family-centered . Many of her graduates are now leaders in the home funeral movement. Jerrigrace is one of the founders of the National Home Funeral Alliance and now an emeritus board member. She is featured in the acclaimed PBS documentary “A Family Undertaking.” INSIDE THIS ISSUE Natural Transitions Magazine | Volume 5, Issue 2 departments features 6 editorial Dispelling the Misconceptions about 4 Well-Remembered Suicide & and by Karen van Vuuren by Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD 8 community forum Meadowlark by Karen Wyatt 5 The German Funeral Ladies of Berlin by Susan Jung 16 After a Suicide, Something to Do by Karen van Vuuren a time to die 18 10 Bridge of Sorrow Home Funeral Guides Meeting the Needs by Heidi Boucher of Suicide Families by Donna Belk and Lee Webster

cultural connections 20 Opening to the Presence of Your Loss 12 Coming Home in Australia by Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD by Libby Moloney 22 The Culture of Bereavement by Terri Daniel in spirit 28 A Karmic Act by Andrew Holecek 24 Losing Julie by Steffany Barton 32 Living into Dying: Suicide by Nancy Poer 27 The Suicidal Trance by Richard Heckler green council 33 37 2016 – A Breakthrough Year The Face of the Divine by Karen Wyatt by Kate Kalanick and Ed Bixby 35 Death Salons: Where Dying Is Always media in Style by Mary Reilly-McNellan 38 Seven Songs for a Long Life Review by Mary Reilly-McNellan

last words 39 Kindness On the Cover: “Bare Boulder Winter” by Karen van Vuuren Naomi Shihab Nye Last Words: Poem by permission of the author, Naomi Shihab Hope Nye, 2016. Reprinted from Words Under the Words, Far Watercolor by Nancy Poer Corner Books, Oregon

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 3 editorial Well-Remembered by Karen van Vuuren

Last year I was at a winter concert at my children’s school when I got a call from a friend asking for support with an unexpected death. A father of a young child had chosen to end his life after years of struggling with depression. His wife had discovered him that morning after he’d ingested a combination of drugs and alcohol and put a bag over his head.

A year later, I met with the man’s widow and heard more about her journey. Close to the anniversary, there had been a sweet remembering and scattering of his ashes. During the recent Day of the Dead, which preceded the , she had created an altar to him in their house. It was one of the first things any visitor to the home would see. No shame, no hiding, a blatant display of love.

I also recently heard the story of how a women’s group had hiked into the mountains on the anniversary of the death of one of their circle. Their fellow member had hung herself from a tree near a popular trail. Her friends chose to retrace her footsteps and gather in her name to remember her life and acknowledge her departure.

Perhaps one of the hardest things for families and friends of those who die by suicide is how to, with ease, celebrate the life of a deceased loved one. But remembering and marking the lives of those who die by their own hand is important and healing. It means revisiting the pain of their exit, and yet calls on us to look deeply at the of the lives of those departed souls. In doing so, we might end up grappling with the hard but revealing question: How did their lives gift us with opportunities for growth? How did their lives shape who we are today in some positive way?

The Alliance of Hope website (www.allianceforhope.org) for survivors of suicide is a valuable resource I discovered while researching this issue. Its eclectic blog is good and informative reading, especially about memorializing the dead. I read about Martha Corey-Ochoa, a first-year college student who jumped from the 14th floor of a Columbia University building. Corey-Ochoa was a promising writer, whose poetry and prose would never reach beyond her immediate family. But her father, George Ochoa, was determined to publish her work post-mortem on a website (www. marthacorey-ochoa.com), in recognition of her talent and to share it with the world.

Our intention with this issue of NTM is to offer stories of hope and inspiration and to help create an understanding of suicide and the grief that follows in its wake. “Something to Do” addresses the helplessness felt by families and invites creative, meaningful responses to loss, with or without the body’s presence. Libby Moloney of Victoria, Australia, and Heidi Boucher of California, both home funeral practitioners, share illuminating personal stories. Author and hospice physician, Karen Wyatt, speaks candidly about the impact of her veteran father’s suicide. (At least 22 veterans a day take their own lives because of unresolved trauma.) And we leave you with Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness,” balm for the soul and one of the most moving poems ever printed on our Last Words page.

4 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org community forum The German Funeral Ladies of Berlin by Susan Jung, green , Berlin, Germany

Dear Natural Transitions,

Many thanks for your very interesting magazine! Regarding in Germany, I wanted to inform your readers that in contrast to the US, our burials have remained quite green. We put bodies into the ground (without vaults) and bury again after 20 years have passed. There are walls for the placement of urns that are in great demand because people do not want to be bothered any more with caring for a grave. In Germany, it is still the case that relatives of the deceased must maintain a grave site or must pay if someone has to come and do it for them. The current trend here is for to offer grave sites that no longer require any maintenance.

Another change is happening in the manufacturing of funeral products, albeit slowly. Caskets are being produced in lighter colors and finished with natural oils rather than toxic varnishes and other harmful chemicals. The interiors of caskets are also becoming more environmentally friendly; there is a move towards simple cotton and away from ruffles and fancy finishings. Woven, basket-like caskets are not yet permitted in Germany because they are not considered leak-proof.

I have written a book about my work, Live Better with Death which encourages Germans to once again engage with death. The washing and laying out of the dead at ______home, home vigils, and wakes—these are uncommon in most parts of Germany. Most Natural Transitions has always Germans are not aware that they can do these things themselves. Our work with focused on building community. With that goal in mind, our families who engage in hands-on death care has been very positive. Families who Community Forum page is care for their own experience a remembering that this feels “right.” to encourage communication among our subscribers and With regard to memorial services, these are still largely traditional, but even here, within this movement for more things are changing, and they are fueled by the free spirit of the younger generation; conscious, holistic, and greener as a society, Germans are still influenced by the ways and views of the post-war approaches to end of life. We welcome comments on the generation. articles and sharing news and inspiration from your part of The book, The Funeral Lady by California celebrant Pam Vetter, inspired me to start the world! Email your letters to my own funeral business in Berlin. You can contact me to find out more about my [email protected]. work by emailing me at [email protected].

our vision • Acceptance of death, loss, and grief as a natural part of life our mission • To share holistic approaches to end of life Published biannually by Natural Transitions • To provide a forum for end-of-life caregivers and a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization educators executive editor Karen van Vuuren 3980 North Broadway Suite #103–171 assistant to the editor Mary Reilly McNellan Boulder, CO 80304 copy editor / proofreader Margaret Pevec [720) 432-2296 [email protected] design Sean Doyle doylegraphics.com http://naturaltransitions.org layout Ann Erwin © 2011 Natural Transitions Magazine illustrator Christina Lewis Opinions expressed in Natural Transitions Magazine are not necessarily those of Natural Transitions or advertising director Marcie Cole its Board members. [email protected] www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 5 When Someone You Love Completes Suicide: Dispelling the Misconceptions about Suicide & Grief and Mourning

by Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD

Misconception: A misconception is is the constellation of internal thoughts As a grieving person, you will probably a mistaken notion you might have and feelings we have when someone we encounter others who have adopted about something—in other words, love dies. Mourning is when you take the a rigid system of beliefs about what something you believe to be true that grief you have on the inside and express you should experience in your grief is not true. Misconceptions about it outside of yourself. Over time and with journey. And if you have internalized grief are common in our society the support of others, to mourn is to heal. this misconception, you may also find because we tend not to openly yourself trying to prescribe your grief mourn or talk about grief and WARNING: After someone you love experience as well. mourning. You can see how we’d have has completed suicide, your friends misconceptions about something as may encourage you to keep your grief Everyone mourns in different ways. “in the closet” as suicide grief. to yourself. A catalyst for healing, Personal experience is your best teacher however, can only be created when you about where you are in your grief As you journey through the wilderness develop the courage to mourn publicly, journey. Don’t think your goal is to move of your suicide grief, if you mourn in the presence of understanding, through prescribed stages of grief. openly and authentically, you will come compassionate people who will not to find a path that feels right for you. judge you. Misconception: We can always But beware—others may try to pull you determine the “whys” of a suicide off this path. They may try to make you Misconception: Grief following death. believe that the path you have chosen is a suicide death always results in Why the person took his or her own life wrong—even crazy—and that their way “complicated” or “pathological” can be a painful yet natural question is better. mourning. to explore, yet it’s a question for which They have internalized some common Research indicates that survivors of there is often no clear, satisfactory misconceptions about suicide grief and suicide integrate grief at about the same answer. My experience with many mourning. And the misconceptions, in pace as those who experience any kind survivors suggests that you may, very essence, deny you your right to hurt and of unanticipated death. Obviously, there slowly, with no rewards for speed, authentically express your grief. can be some natural challenges, such as discover that it is possible to live with the combination of sudden shock, the the uncertainty of never fully knowing As you read about this important natural question of “why,” the trauma of the answer to “why?” touchstone, you may discover that you witnessing or discovering the suicide, yourself have believed in some of the the lack of support from family and Misconception: All suicide survivors misconceptions and that some may be friends, and the potential of “secondary feel guilty. embraced by people around you. Don’t victimization” that results from cruel, The sad reality is that some people will condemn yourself or others for having judgmental, or insensitive comments, actually say directly to you, “I bet you believed in them. Simply make use of but do not let this misconception feel guilty” or pose the question, “Do any new insights to help you open your become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do you feel guilty?” This is one of the most heart to your work of mourning in ways your work of mourning, and you will prescribed responses for survivors of that restore your soul. come out of the dark and into the light. suicide. In reality, as a survivor, you may Misconception: Grief and mourning Misconception: Grief and mourning or may not feel guilty. Besides, assuming are the same thing. progress in predictable, orderly you feel guilt is the opposite of my belief stages. that you are the expert of your own Perhaps you have noticed that people experience and therefore you must teach tend to use the words “grieving” and The concept of stages of grief was me what you feel; I must not prescribe “mourning” interchangeably. There is an popularized in 1969 with the publication what you should feel. important distinction, however. Grief of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s landmark text On Death and Dying. However, Misconception: Only certain kinds of Dr. Kübler-Ross never intended for her people complete suicide. Reprinted with permission. When Someone stages to be interpreted as a rigid, linear You Love Completes Suicide by Dr. Alan D. This is a simple misconception to dispel. sequence to be followed by all mourners. Wolfelt. For more information on grief and The reality is that suicide is a stranger healing and to order Dr. Wolfelt’s books, to no race, creed, religion, age group, visit www.centerforloss.com. 6 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org When Someone You Love Completes Suicide: Dispelling the Misconceptions about Suicide & Grief and Mourning

or socioeconomic level. All kinds of Misconception: Tears of grief are a need a time-out from regular worship, people have completed suicide since the sign of weakness. don’t shame yourself. When and if beginning of recorded history. you are ready, attending a church, Tears of grief are often associated with synagogue, or other place of worship, Misconception: Only a crazy person personal inadequacy and weakness. The reading scripture, and praying are only completes suicide. worst thing you can do, however, is to a few ways you might want to express allow this judgment to prevent you from your faith. Or, you may be open to less While the person you loved who crying. completed suicide may have been conventional ways, such as meditating depressed, anxious, or hopeless, to be Sometimes, the people who care about or spending time alone in nature. sure, most of us survivors don’t find you may, directly or indirectly, try to comfort when people try to tell us the prevent your tears out of a desire to person was crazy. Not all people who protect you (and them) from pain. You Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, is complete suicide meet some formal may hear comments like, “Tears won’t a noted author, educator, criteria for mental illness, and even bring him back” or “He wouldn’t want and grief counselor. when they do, we don’t need to hear that you to cry.” Yet crying is nature’s way of He serves as Director they were crazy. releasing internal tension in your body, of the Center for Loss and it allows you to communicate a need and Life Transition in Fort Collins, CO, Misconception: It is a sin to complete to be comforted. suicide, and the person who does goes and is on the faculty at the University of directly to hell. Misconception: Being upset and Colorado Medical School Department openly mourning means you are of Family Medicine. Dr. Wolfelt is As one Catholic priest observed about being weak in your faith. known for his compassionate philosophy suicide, “When its victims wake on of “companioning” versus “treating” the other side, they are met by a gentle Watch out for those who think that mourners. This article is excerpted from Christ who stands right inside of their having faith and openly mourning are his book The Wilderness of Suicide huddled fear and says, ‘Peace be with mutually exclusive. If you are mad at Grief: Finding Your Way, available at you!’ As we see in the gospels, God can God, be mad at God. Similarly, if you bookstores and www.centerforloss.com. go through locked doors, breathe out peace in places where we cannot get in, and write straight with even the most crooked of lines.” Realistic Expectations for Grief and Mourning

Personally, I believe there are no limits to Now that we’ve reviewed the common You need to feel it to heal it. God’s compassion. God mourns with us. misconceptions of grief, let’s wrap Your grief will probably hurt more If God’s nature is one of steadfast mercy up this article by listing some of the before it hurts less. and love, then this is a misconception we “conceptions.” These are some realities need to keep educating the world about. you can hold onto as you journey toward Your grief will be unpredictable and will healing. Misconception: Suicide is an not likely progress in an orderly fashion. inherited trait and runs in the You will naturally grieve, but you will You don’t “get over” grief; you learn to family. probably have to make a conscious effort live with it. to mourn. Be alert for uninformed people who may You need other people to help you project to you that because someone Your grief and mourning will involve a through your grief. in your family completed suicide, you wide variety of different thoughts and may have the same fate. This projection feelings. You will not always feel this bad. is not supported by the facts. Scientific research has not at this time confirmed a Your grief and mourning will impact genetic basis for suicide risk. you in all five realms of experience: physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual.

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 7 Meadowlark by Karen Wyatt

For months the words would echo sagebrush and prickly cactus. The wind, through my head and haunt my fitful, the perpetual Wyoming wind, blew troubled sleep. Countless times a day the grasses into diagonal rows and the I would relive that moment: holding trees into a slanted stance, like a line the telephone receiver to my ear and of soldiers all tilting to salute the sky. hearing my brother say the words that Dad loved the wind. “It blows the bad changed my life in an instant: “Dad died weather away!” he would say. I dug my today.” Upon that first hearing I was fingers into the freshly turned dirt. I frozen … numb … dizzy …with a buzzing grabbed a handful of purple lupine in my head like that emitted by a fading and yellow coreopsis from the funeral fluorescent light. I heard pieces of the arrangement that shrouded his grave story … “a gun” … “the garage” … “blood” and pressed them to my face. The … “Mom screaming” … “the neighbors” fragrance carried me to our cabin in … “the police” … But the entire time the Bighorn Mountains—Dad’s special my brother spoke, I concentrated on sanctuary he had built with his own trying to wake up—to feel the warmth hands. I wept. Over and over I sobbed of my comforter over my shoulders, my mantra, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry, the softness of my pillow cradling my Daddy.” Sorry for all of the unspoken head; those familiar reassurances that words, the unbaked sour cream raisin this was only a dream. But the tears pies, the undiscovered trails, the in my husband’s eyes, the somber and soaked with our grief. Wringing out unobserved sunsets. This was my private concerned faces of my staff, the hushed over and over again the water of the rite of mourning in honor of those and suspended activity of the normally sky, of his life, of our sadness; we were moments known only to the two of us. bustling office, all served to jar me to never dry. The sky burst open. Heaven “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Daddy. I’m reality. wept. He was gone. Mourners huddled sorry. I’m sorry.” The tears and the words under eaves with hoods covering their erupted from the deepest place inside of Dad was gone. He took his own life heads. Umbrellas dotted the me. I couldn’t stop them. I poured out my with a .357 Magnum pistol from his gun with bright spots of color. Howling sorrow over his grave in such a torrent collection while Mom was out shopping. winds rivaled the minister’s voice for that it seemed to me the tears might He chose the dark, overstuffed, dingy our attention. We were battered, spent, tumble down the hillside and overflow garage, full of boxes and boxes of our emptied by the storm of grief. the banks of the Platte. I did not know family memories, as the place to come when it would end. to an end. Every moment of his entire But, the day after his body was laid in life—every tear, every smile, every the ground—after dirt was shoveled over Grief following a suicide death is sunrise, every held hand, every raindrop, the casket that held his pieced-together particularly poignant, accompanied every breeze, every leaf—had conspired remains—that day, the storm subsided. by overwhelming guilt and the together to bring him to that final The rain stopped. A shy sun lingered never-ending search for a reason why. moment: that last breath, last blink of behind high cirrus clouds, radiating Everyone close to the departed wonders an eye, last swallow of saliva, last twitch lavish light and faint warmth on those if something could or should have been of a thumb. Everything terminated of us below. Peace. Relief. We sighed done to prevent this. Each survivor asks with the motion of the steel firing pin collectively with the earth, revering the difficult questions about the tragedy and the propulsion of a single bullet power of Nature, grateful for this release and feels somehow to blame for not through flesh, bone, space, time. Silence. from the storm’s assault. intervening or recognizing the signs Everything at an end. or saying just the right thing. I was I visited Dad’s grave that day with my especially devastated by guilt because And then the rain came. For three days four-month-old baby daughter sleeping I am a physician and I routinely treat we rushed under umbrellas—to the in my arms, peacefully unaware of depression. I am supposed to save lives— church, the mortuary, homes of friends storms and grief. Dad was buried on that was the purpose for all my years of and relatives—dodging lightning bolts a hillside overlooking the Platte River, training and hard work. How could I fail which slashed the black sky, mixing surrounded by fields of grey-green to save the life of someone who mattered our tears with raindrops until we were so much to me? How could I go on living 8 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org knowing that I had failed my The memory of that song, and the father? How could I ever practice bird that stood by me so faithfully medicine again? I would not know on that difficult day, would that day on the hillside overlooking become a lifeline for me during the Platte River, just how long the the years I drifted on the sea of pain of grief would last, just how grief. When washed overboard by many times I would review the a deluge of sorrow, I would grab same questions over the next years hold and somehow stay afloat. of my life, and just how much my When marooned by loneliness own future would be shaped by Karen and her father on her wedding day and isolation, I would hoist myself the oppressive anguish that had hand over hand, back to safer overtaken my soul. For I was only at meadowlark as saying: “Oh, yes, I am a waters. I had questioned on that day the beginning of a dark and dangerous pretty little bird…” But that day, in the whether I could continue to be a doctor journey. This flood of tears would wash cemetery, the meadowlark’s persistent after this devastation. The answer was, me away to drift for a seeming eternity song spoke to me: “Hold on, everything “No.” I could not continue to be the same on a sea without a shore, under a night will be all right; everything will be all doctor I had been before my father’s sky without stars. right.” death. Nothing would ever be the same again once I began that uncharted But on that day, when it seemed Now, this meadowlark, such a powerful voyage of loss. But a transformation was there could be no end to my crying, symbol of my relationship with my occurring that I could not predict on that unexpectedly, my sobs were interrupted father, attended me in my sorrow, day in the cemetery. Shattered by my by a sound—a sound that I realized had harmonizing with my cry of lament, father’s death, my heart would become actually been present since my arrival at transporting me through time. He stayed capable of absorbing pain as great as the grave site. A sound that beckoned my with me throughout my graveside the ocean I floundered upon; and my memory and demanded my attention. ritual that lasted much of the afternoon. vision would be sharpened to pierce It was the song of a meadowlark. And Though I stared at him and moved closer the darkness and see the tiny flickering there he sat, perched on a barbed wire to his perch on the fence, he did not light of a lost soul in the distance. I was fence directly in front of me. His bright move. There was never once a pause in becoming a doctor who could ask a yellow breast glistening in the sun, head his singing. As my tears gradually ceased patient, “Why you?” and who could see raised to the sky, singing his song over and peace began to fill the drained the Divine inside every person, no matter and over and over again. The song was at reservoirs of my soul, he continued to how distressing the disguise. Most once a requiem for my father, a lullaby sing, inspiring me with his steadfastness importantly, I was learning to impart, for my baby daughter, and a reveille for and perseverance. “Hold on, everything with steadfastness and perseverance, my mournful soul. will be all right.” Eventually, I was able to the simple guidance that had salvaged say goodbye to my father that day, and me: “Hold on, everything will be all right; You see, meadowlarks abound in the turn to leave the cemetery, clutching a everything will be all right.” shared memories of my father and me. handful of lupine as a keepsake, with The meadowlark is the state bird of the meadowlark’s song fading into the Wyoming and, like my father, loves distance. wide-open spaces, which are common in our state. Irrigating pastures on the A few months later, I made the 90-mile Dr. Karen Wyatt is farm, horseback riding in the corral, drive over dusty, rutted roads through a family physician fly-fishing at Spring Creek, picnicking the Bighorn Mountains to return to Dad’s who has spent much on Casper Mountain, wading in cabin. It was my first trip there since of her 25-year Alcova Lake, relaxing on the deck of his death, and I was hesitant to plunge career as a hospice the cabin—all these activities were back into the pain I knew I would feel medical director accompanied by the sweet, melodious there. But as I stepped from the deck caring for dying voice of the meadowlark. Dad loved of the cabin to the lupine meadow patients in their homes. The author of A the meadowlark’s song and always out back, my heart soared. A smile Matter of Life & Death: Stories to Heal pointed it out to me whenever one of graced my lips when I heard the song. Loss & Grief and What Really Matters: the birds was nearby. Ornithologists “Hold on, everything will be all right.” 7 Lessons for Living from the Stories use phonetics to mimic bird songs and A meadowlark perched on the fence. of the Dying, Dr. Wyatt is the recipient help them remember the pitch, melody, Singing my father’s melody in the land of numerous awards for her volunteer and rhythm of each bird species’ of his heart. He is not gone. We will work and the compassionate care she has unique vocalizations. Some experts not forget. provided to her patients. have described the lilting song of the

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 9 a time to die Bridge of Sorrow by Heidi Boucher

I can’t look at the Golden Gate Bridge Time began to speed up as my body to the family residence for a couple of without my heart aching. That’s the seemed to be operating in slow motion. reasons: the home was small without downside of doing this work sometimes. The first thing to do was to call for adequate space to maneuver, and I wasn’t Regardless of how sacred and special logistical support from a local funeral sure how intact the body would be after caring for the dead is, it can still take a director I worked with. Many questions plummeting 220 feet to the water. I felt toll on one’s emotional wellbeing. But were flying through my head: How soon the need to see and assess the situation I have very little to complain about can the body get back to Sacramento? before I could confidently support his compared to the pain and suffering What condition can we expect the body parents in the process of caring for him. families go through when dealing with to be in? Will there be an ? Even after 33 years of doing this work a suicide, particularly when it involves and seeing all sorts of intense things, a young person entering the prime of Since time was of the essence, the each death is different. Protecting myself their life. funeral director, an avid home funeral by understanding what shape the supporter and friend, got on the phone deceased is in, in order to assist others in A friend called the afternoon of to help facilitate getting Kyle’s body dealing with their loved ones, is crucial. September 20, 2013. Kyle, 18, three weeks back as quickly as possible. Twenty- into his senior year, had skipped school. four hours later he was in our care, His mom met me at the funeral home He drove his truck from Sacramento having just an external exam without where they gave us total privacy and to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the autopsy. Under the circumstances, space to bathe and dress his body. stopped in the middle of traffic, and I requested that Kyle’s body be brought He was in surprisingly good shape leapt to his death. A seemingly happy to the funeral home before taking him considering how he had died. Nothing student, athletic, and with out of the ordinary was many friends, his death sent a noticeable except for a long ripple out into the community abrasion on his right forearm. that is still felt today, several But he was freezing cold… not years later. There were no just cold from refrigeration, signs of anything wrong. but from the frigid waters that had engulfed him. Still The family, in a state of shock, covered in “goose bumps” was unaware of what all was and smelling faintly of salt involved with caring for a water, his mother and I quietly loved one at home after death, washed and clothed him in although they had heard of one of his favorite T-shirts, it being done. Supportive pants, and socks. He looked community members relaxed, as if he were just arranged for us to meet to taking a youthful nap, his explain the process, leaving mouth slightly open. them in freedom to decide what was best for them. After After casketing him at the talking, Kyle’s mother and mortuary, he was driven back father decided that bringing to his modest home where him back to the house for a large crowd of people had a three-day vigil would be gathered outside. Cars, quietly the right thing for them, his sobbing teenagers, food, siblings, and the community, flowers—it was packed. The particularly his classmates cozy living room had been and friends. cleared out and rearranged in order to fit his casket. I had This was not my first suicide, stopped at the grocery store but the tragic and dramatic on the way to pick up the dry way that it happened was ice. The bagger, around the immensely overwhelming. same age as Kyle, asked what

10 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org all the ice was for. Feeling open in the I have assisted families with to bring beauty, guidance, and support moment, I shared the story and briefly by hanging and gunshots to the head. to families whose loved ones have explained the process. He was moved I’ve dealt with drug overdoses, car and chosen suicide, perhaps I can help those and thanked me for sharing this concept motorcycle accidents, and recently, the left behind who feel so bereft and of home funerals. He was going to pass tragic drowning of my beloved brother shattered. along the idea to his grandmother. and niece. I have handled roughly sewn, autopsied bodies where torso and skull For three days the scene was the have been violated. All these experiences Heidi Boucher has been a Home Funeral same: kids, food, flowers, family. The have impacted my heart and emotional Guide in California and Oregon for over living room became smaller as more well-being on some level. How can they 30 years in addition to working in film and more flowers, cards, and candles not? And yet, I wouldn’t have it any other production for over 20. As a quiet pioneer, encircled Kyle’s casket. While the family way. and community tried to process this educator and advocate of home funerals, tragic event, I found myself struggling My life here and now is in service to Boucher recently produced the award with the intense outpouring of grief families who want to care for their dead winning documentary In The Parlor: The coming towards me. Home funeral loved ones at home. By helping Final Goodbye www.intheparlordoc.com. guides often become the people others turn to for comfort and guidance if no one else is available. The delicate balance of listening and supporting |advertisement| can be a burden if one is not equipped to deal with it. As a mother of two sons and a daughter, I find the cases of parents burying their children the most challenging to navigate. It can be agonizing to watch a mother, father, brother, sister, grandparents and all the rest of the extended family suffer through the unknown. How could such a bright and well-loved human being make such a choice? Remaining centered, focused, and listening to others without input, helped me to connect, yet stay grounded.

At the end of the vigil, a packed service was held in Sacramento. A few days later, the family drove Kyle to Montana for burial.

Since Kyle’s death, his parents have been relentless in their efforts to install a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. With the design and $76 million dollars approved for the construction of the net, they may be close to victory. I often wonder how families fare after the completion of such things. Does grief re-emerge?

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 11 cultural connections Coming Home in Australia by Libby Moloney

People suffering grief upon the suicide and grieving with the body present is dusk, close friends and family read of a loved one can feel a strong sense their first opportunity to accept that prayers and poems by candlelight. Then of their not having been enough: they their loved one has truly died. James was escorted from the house with didn’t do enough, say enough, intervene rituals that meant something to him and enough, guide enough, even love enough. Experienced home-friendly funeral his loved ones. He left the house with They feel guilt at not preventing the directors can hold the space for the dignity. death. deceased person’s family and friends to support the transition towards healing. Later, James’s father was heard to Home-based or family-led death care One of my favorite examples is of James have said that this ceremony was the can ease this. Effective post-suicide and his family. most beautiful thing he had ever seen. support from an experienced doula, During that week, and culminating in home funeral advocate, or holistic James left for work one day and never a meaningful ceremony in familiar and funeral director provides families with came home. Post-suicide, a huge clash cherished surroundings, family and a safe, calm, private, organized space began between his wife and his family friends were able to reclaim and release that allows them to care for the person of origin. James’s wife Hayley wanted James. who has died. In short, we provide the to bring him home and care for the conditions for carers to reclaim their body herself. His family of origin were Reclaiming the body is a vital first step relationship with the deceased, to mortified by this idea. The ensuing towards healing after suicide. Depending become enough. arguments were raw, ugly and all-but- on the method of suicide, often the physical. Eventually I said to James’s physical body is in good condition; Carers can clean and comfort and father, “He went to work one day and there is no wasting, dehydration, or cuddle their person as much as they never came home. He needs to come deterioration as in palliative care. With need to in order to reconnect with them. home to his wife and children and then skill, a home-funeral practitioner will Post-suicide, connection is vital because, leave this house with dignity.” James’s cover any wound damage and autopsy invariably with death by suicide, family father melted. Tears of recognition scarring without erasing all evidence. and friends have endured a horrible poured down his face. It’s important not to cover everything limbo of up to a week or ten days while up. For some people the only way they the body is with the . Often During the next few days one of the will ever be able to breathe again is by this delays the family’s realizing the most uniting events was the crossing- exploring, caressing, kissing, or at least truth of the situation; when the body is the-threshold ceremony held in James viewing every part of their loved one’s returned they might have to start at the and Hayley’s back yard. Below soaring body. Everyone’s grief is different, but I beginning; viewing, touching, smelling, gum trees and to the tune of birds at have found that many people, especially those in the medical or veterinarian fields, tend to be more hands on.

A home-funeral friendly practitioner organizes sufficient time and space for loved ones to grieve safely in the privacy of their own home or an adopted home, such as a holistic funeral sanctuary. From this grounded and familiar place, sadness can be shared, joy felt, and other unimaginable feelings expressed, to the extent that the living can raise the strength to provide after-death care as well as to organize a public commemoration.

In the case of suicide, one of the gifts of home-based care is in supporting the Indigenous smoke ceremony at funeral Natural Grace family to go back to the start and care for

12 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org the deceased as though the death were expected.

No death is easy, but at least with an expected death, family and friends have time to prepare physically, emotionally, and financially. With suicide, after the body is returned from the coroner, home-friendly funeral directors emphasize that it no longer belongs to the police. It belongs to the family. Libby with indigenous elders Effective after-death care provides a safe, private, nurturing space with sufficient sufficient time and a safe place, they are properly? What/who should be included time to wash, anoint, and tend their able to tap into their own innate wisdom, and excluded from the ceremony? How person; to bring them home to love and even during this terrible period. They will we word our public statement about to say goodbye. become aware of and start to understand this death? their own reactions, and can work out This re-grounding starts to guide those what is best for them and the person By keeping these discussions close to left behind towards a better emotional they have loved. They are more able to home, familiar objects, smells, foods, place. People currently choosing home- answer myriad questions that come up, rooms, pictures, and activities prompt based death care are generally resilient like: What kind of funeral is appropriate ideas about how to send off their person and self-aware, so by allowing them for our person? How do we honor them honorably and meaningfully. If the

At a glance: Home-based death care in Victoria, Australia

There is no legal requirement for a Families may use their own vehicle to products, like shampoos and soaps. No funeral. transport the body. chemically-based treatments are used. A funeral can be held anywhere with grounds are becoming Cleaning of bodily fluids and purging the owner’s permission. more popular and available to the are consistent with natural practices Australian population. globally. No law requires that families use a funeral director. Families choosing home-based funerals We don’t embalm bodies, unless they are supported by the Natural Death need to be repatriated overseas. The law allows for bodies to be kept at Advocacy Network, Inc., http://www. home and there is no time limit for this. We use a cooling blanket to preserve ndan.com.au. the condition of the body to a mortuary Anyone can be a celebrant. standard, without having to use dry ice. The only laws are the following: a Home-based care of the body Family and friends then hold vigil with medical practitioner must issue a death In Australia, we need to be aware of the the person and can comfortably and certificate, the body must be buried or heat and how this affects the health and safely touch, kiss, and hold the body cremated in a registered cemetery, and presentation of dead bodies. With the without concern. the death must be registered with The right equipment, it’s a lot easier than Office of Births, and Marriages. people think. This is how we do it at All of this can be done by families Natural Grace: themselves. We wash the body using only natural The individual can be cremated or products, including warm water, buried in a homemade coffin or shroud. essential oils, and other organic

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 13 deceased is in the home, people can person to nature and to proudly host the come and go from the room or be in public event honoring their loved another area of the house while still one’s life. As a holistic funeral holding the space. Music and meals can director with Natural be shared. Stories can be told. Healing Experienced home-funeral guides Grace in the Australian can begin. empower loved ones to see the beauty state of Victoria, Libby in the deceased after suicide. This is Moloney provides And something remarkable happens. a sacred gift. Done well, home-based, culturally sensitive, Because those closest to the deceased family-led death care can change the rest home-based, family-led, natural death person have cared for and farewelled of people’s lives, and this Aussie holistic care. Contact Libby at naturalgrace.com. him or her in an intimate and private funeral director sees it happen time au and http://www.ndan.com.au. space, come funeral day, they are and again. generally ready to willingly return their

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14 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org simple, biodegradable, recycled cardboard in an old style design

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 15 After a Suicide, Something to Do by Karen van Vuuren

The phone rang early that morning and I suppose that isn’t much of a surprise. that room. Order replaced disorder. when I answered, I heard the faint voice Jill’s brother, Ben had struggled with it Beeswax candles, images of Ben and his of a young-sounding person. “Hi, it’s Jill. for years. He was in his mid-twenties family during happy times in the past I’m hoping you can help me. My brother and Jill was older by a couple of years. were placed on an altar. The poster of died last night.” I knew Jill had a brother, the ocean went on the wall. It would and I knew that he had been mentally “I saw a light on in his room in the barn immediately draw the attention of ill. But I wasn’t aware that he’d been late last night. I was wondering why Ben anyone entering that room. facing any kind of potentially terminal was still up,” Jill told me. “Something illness. felt wrong. I decided to check on him Even more than sadness, Jill had and knocked on the door. There was no been overwhelmed by a sense of I tend not to come out with the rote answer, so I went in. Karen, I sat there helplessness. Her brother’s body was “I’m sorry” statement when people and held him for hours. I knew that at the coroner’s, to be passed on to the inform me of a death of a relative or when I called 911, they’d take his body funeral directors who would embalm, friend. I’ll express kindness and care and I wouldn’t be able to be there with dress, and cosmetize him for an open in the tone of my voice, but I suppose him. I had to take that time.” casket viewing at a memorial service. I I choose to wait until I am inspired don’t know if Jill felt the guilt that often to say something that, for me, is more I saw an apparition of Jill sitting in a paralyzes families who survive the authentic and original. My approach is blood-bathed room, tenderly holding her suicide of a loved one. But I do know that to first open myself to understanding brother’s broken body, her head bowed, she had begged for guidance about what the other person’s pain, meeting it with heavy with grief. I was glad she got those to do. compassionate action if possible. “I’m precious hours with Ben. sorry” just does not feel like the most Jill was Christian, but open to the I went to Jill’s home with two other home helpful first words, somehow. “That wisdom of other faith traditions. We funeral guides. The scenario called for a sucks” (which I wouldn’t say, of course, talked about her beliefs about Ben’s multi-person approach. We didn’t know at least, in quite that way) might not journey now that he had dispensed with what the family wanted. We weren’t be very elegant, but it is probably more his physical self. She felt that Ben could sure how to help. Ben and Jill’s mother fitting. still receive her thoughts from his place had already engaged a funeral home to in the spiritual realm. So we offered her I guess I was shocked when Jill told me embalm and arrange an open casket various texts from our library of books of her brother’s death. I allowed a few memorial service. Although Jill would that she could read at the altar we had pregnant moments to elapse, as a cue have welcomed her brother’s body home created in that barn room; Buddhist and for Jill to fill me in further. “I found him once the coroner had completed the Christian prayers and practices to relieve last night in our barn. He shot himself.” I autopsy, the wheels were clearly already suffering were balm for this family’s knew Jill as one of the sweetest, kindest in motion to follow a more hands-off souls. Even Ben’s mother, who had been young women I had ever met. I could not conventional funeral. There had been no unable to enter the barn room at first, imagine how she was holding it together. time, no space to talk through options joined her other children in entering that with the family. room, now greeted by a calming expanse In the US, suicide is the tenth leading of ocean. , according to 2012–2014 Jill invited us to visit the room where data from the National Center for Ben had chosen to end his life. Looking Since Ben’s death, I have witnessed other Health Statistics, Centers for Disease at the utter chaos within those four circumstances that have prevented Control. Nationally, suicide is most walls was like looking into Ben’s mind. families from stepping in to do hands-on prevalent among white middle-aged Papers, books, trash, and then, still in its care of the body and ritual after death men. Firearms are used in 50 percent of cardboard tube, we discovered what Ben by suicide. I always ask the question, “Do suicides and when a gun is chosen as the had been craving. There it was, a vision you believe in a spiritual connection? Do method of choice, it usually results in of peace, a giant poster of a vast, tranquil you believe we can still reach the dead?” death. Men more than women are likely ocean. We set to work transforming that If the answer is yes, I counsel that there to use a gun to kill themselves. Women room into a sacred space for meditation, is much to do to offer comfort, strength, are most likely to choose a route such prayer, and the simple sending of love to and love to those who could not stay. as poisoning or a drug overdose, which Ben’s soul. There is much solace in the performing does not end their life but instead results of those practices for your dead. It happened with few words, this in hospitalization. Most people who die process of clearing and re-configuring by suicide have experienced depression. 16 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org As a postscript, I will share that a couple remember this clearly—a framed picture him,” she stated. “I’m going to tell them of days after our visit to the barn, Jill of a forgettable landscape hanging to cremate him and bring the ashes to called me with a request. She wanted crookedly on the wall. the memorial.” Moments later, we were me to accompany her and her mother leaving. to the funeral home to view Ben’s body, I had never met Ben, so I did not know now that the undertakers had finished whether the strange, powdered, and I know that the memorial for Ben their work. She was anxious and feared it rather puffy-looking rectangular face in encouraged a sharing of sweet memories. would not go well. I agreed to go and on that casket bore any resemblance to the But I believe that the most significant that chilly, fall evening, we were met at Ben of life. Ben’s mother clearly did not step to healing happened in that barn that funeral establishment by a solemn, think it did. The face in the casket was so room, where family members sat in unsmiling director. He ushered us into foreign to her that she kept her distance prayer at Ben’s altar, beholding a vast, one of their viewing rooms, with—and I from it. “It doesn’t look anything like expanse of ocean that invited peace.

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 17 Home Funeral Guides Meeting the Needs of Suicide Families

by Donna Belk and Lee Webster

As home funeral guides, we are often This makes the need to enter the space . The taboo nature of suicide invited into family situations for without judgment critically important. in our culture also keeps us from naming which we do not have all the facts or Very often our judgments may show precisely what has happened and how the background story of events. Often, on our faces, or in the things we leave we feel about it. This is especially true because we are human, we arrive with unsaid, not necessarily in what we do inside the larger framework of death preset opinions or assumptions about a say. An abrupt response, a tightening that is already filled with euphemisms given situation. of the mouth, difficulty making eye and avoidance language. contact—there are so many ways that we We also bring hope that we will be express “out loud” those things that we Sarah York, Unitarian Universalist able to encourage family direction believe are tucked away inside. minister and author of Remembering and participation in the face of what Well: Rituals for Celebrating Life and may be a roller coaster of complicated That is why it is important to think Mourning Death says in her book, “The —inestimable grief, shock, about potential situations beforehand— first time I conducted a memorial for anger, control issues, imagining the so we can explore our thoughts about a person who chose death, I became worst for their loved ones, guilt and uncomfortable circumstances and aware of how important it is to name shame over their inability to protect perhaps learn to see it in a different, the circumstances of suicide and make their loved one, feelings of abandonment, more inclusive way. Drilling down into space for the feelings that accompany rejection, failure, embarrassment, the lava layer of our own feelings around them.” (Apollo Ranch Institute Press, survivor’s guilt…the list goes on. suicide may yield some valuable insights 2012, p. 86, http://www.sarahyork.com/ into what we bring with us—and what sarah/sarah-york-books) So what must home funeral guides do we must strive to leave behind. to assist with deaths where the cause is York goes on to say, “The power of the suicide? What do we, as home funeral Steven Levine’s thoughts on suicide are unmentionable subject to tinge both the guides, have to offer after a suicide, and helpful to prompt an exploration of our living and the dead with subtle shame how must we comport ourselves to own attitudes about death. He writes: is defused when it can be named.” The provide assistance with integrity and “Death is not the worst thing; the worst language home funeral guides use, openness of heart and spirit? thing is unmitigated suffering or the as well as by speaking with gentle closed heart. It is not death, but lack of sensitivity, honesty, and purpose, could No form of dying seems to carry with control that we fear. I don’t think anyone demonstrate by example to family and it more conflicting emotions than would have taken birth if they hadn’t friends that it is safe to acknowledge suicide. Like it or not, we are culturally, been absolutely assured beforehand that what has occurred. generationally, and often spiritually if the going got too tough they could predisposed to disapprove of a person’s get out. Families will be looking to their guide choice to end their own life to some for practical assistance with what might degree. Many end-of-life practitioners, “When a person’s at the end of their be challenging physical conditions. The including home funeral guides, are physical rope, it is not our job to judge particular requirements of caring for familiar with and even advocate for them. This Judeo-Christian idea that the body in whatever form it is in will physician (PAS, also we’re punished for killing ourselves…if provide ample opportunity to confront referred to as death with dignity) you feel that God tortures the tortured, in a nonthreatening, normalizing and voluntary stopping of eating and that’s not a God who loves. Taking away manner, the realities that present drinking (VSED), and yet may harbor a person’s ability to kill themselves is the themselves. feelings of ambivalence about the highest form of fascism. What right do taking of one’s own life, whatever the we have to force another person to stay The fact that a home funeral has been supporting reasons. in unmitigated suffering?” (Who Dies by chosen assumes that the family has Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Random faith or curiosity or some other motive, Our job as home funeral guides is to House, 2012) and that their home funeral experience step in and educate the family about will answer unasked questions. Home what is possible, not to interrupt the Language plays a significant role in how funeral guides who are well prepared family process or take it off in directions we negotiate suicides. People tend to may be able to assist the family in that we think are right. We need to be place weighted meaning on things the answering their questions for themselves of assistance with as little of our own deceased may have said or done in the while walking them through the steps of baggage as possible. past—consider the importance of the care with assurance and confidence. 18 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org Some suggestions for preparing to serve families of suicide

If you know you are going into a home Self-care prior to (and after) working If your practice includes ritual funeral situation where suicide is the with suicide families is especially assistance, research celebrant texts for case, discover what support systems important for home funeral guides. suicide-specific language with which and materials are available in your area Ritual, prayer, cleansing—whatever to address those present. (See “Opening before you meet with the family. There works for you, to bring equilibrium Words for a Suicide” in Remembering are frequently special bereavement and purpose to an arena fraught with Well: Rituals for Celebrating Life and groups offered by hospices that are uncertainty. Mourning Death http://www.sarahyork. especially designed for suicide survivors. com/sarah/sarah-york-books) Search out people and resources who Research suicide hotlines and the have experience and knowledge of For more information specifically geared resources they use to be in alignment suicide and its aftermath as a way of to supporting home funeral guides, go with their language and approach. tempering your response while seeking to the National Home Funeral Alliance your own personal insight. http://homefuneralalliance.org/ Role play potential responses to prepare resources/for-home-funeral-guides. for a wide variety of situations. Music may also be a tool for opening doors for yourself and for other people. Practice phrases that carry the messages Before Their Time (http://www. you are there to deliver with compassion beforetheirtime.org/ordering.html) is a Donna Belk lives in and neutrality. three-volume series of memorial songs Austin, TX, where and music conceived to provide comfort Intentionally clear your mind of conflict she assists families for those in mourning for loved ones around the issues to free yourself to and individuals with who have taken their own lives. listen more acutely, and respond more conversations about authentically, to what arises. death, dying, and after-death care. She

|advertisement| serves on the board of the National Home Funeral Alliance, and is co-author of the book, Home Funeral Ceremonies. She offers an online course, BeyondHospice. com, for those interested in learning about being home funeral or end-of-life guides. She regularly offers home funeral workshops in the Austin area.

Lee Webster writes from the foothills of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. She is the current President of the National Home Funeral Alliance, Director of New Hampshire Funeral Resources, Education & Advocacy, and on the Board of Directors of the Green Burial Council. A writer, researcher, hospice volunteer, home funeral guide, and conservationist, she is also a frequent speaker on the role of home funerals and green burials in the wider context of funeral reform.

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 19 Opening to the Presence of Your Loss

by Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD

In every heart there is an inner the energy you may be lacking, and the Innocent Denial: This is where you hold room, where we can hold our unfolding of your eventual healing. onto the hope that the findings that greatest treasures and our deepest ruled the death a suicide were a mistake and will be changed at a later date. pain. — Marianne Williamson Setting Your Intention to Heal Blame as Denial: This is where you blame someone else for the suicide, It takes a true commitment to heal in Someone you love has completed suicide. thereby denying the choice someone your grief. Yes, you are wounded, but In your heart, you have come to know made to take his or her own life. with commitment and intention you can your deepest pain. To be “bereaved” and will become whole again. Intention literally means “to be torn apart.” You Pretense and Denial: This is where the is defined as being conscious of what have a broken heart and your life has unwritten family rule is that you never you want to experience. A close cousin been turned upside down. talk about the death or use the word to “affirmation,” it is using the power of suicide at any time. While it is instinctive to want to positive thought to produce a desired run as far away as possible from the result. The for these types of denial overwhelming pain that comes with are multiple and . Often, people When you set your intention to heal, you this loss, you have probably already don’t even realize they are in denial. So, make a true commitment to positively discovered that even if you try to hide, if you discover you have gone beyond influence the course of your journey. You deny, or self-treat your pain, it is still shock into some form of prolonged probably know the cliché: “Time heals within you, demanding your attention. denial, do not shame or ridicule yourself. all wounds.” Yet, time alone does not In acknowledging the inevitability of the heal the wounds of grief that come with pain and raw suffering that comes with But here is the problem: By staying in suicide. I like to remind myself and other this grief, in coming to understand the denial, you miss the opportunity to do survivors that healing waits on welcome, need to gently embrace the pain, you, in the grief work related to your feelings. not on time! Healing and integrating effect, honor the pain. Until you break through the denial and this loss into your life demands that you the pain is experienced, you are on hold The word honor literally means engage actively in the grief journey. and authentic mourning cannot take recognizing the value of and respecting. place. It is not instinctive to see grief that A Vital Distinction: erupts following a suicide death and the Shock Versus Denial Face Any Inappropriate need to mourn as something to honor. Expectations But I hope you discover, as I have, that to Shock along with elements of denial honor your grief is not self-destructive is a temporary, healthy response that You are at risk for having inappropriate or harmful; it is self-sustaining and life- essentially says, “The reality of the expectations about this death. These giving. suicide death of someone dear to me is expectations result from common too painful to acknowledge right now. societal messages that tell you to You have probably been taught that Therefore I refuse to believe it.” While “be strong” in the face of life losses. pain is an indication that something is this is a natural initial reaction to Invariably, some well-intentioned people wrong and that you should find a way to suicide, you will hinder your eventual around you will urge you to “move on,” alleviate the pain. In our culture, the role healing if you stay in long-term denial. “let go,” “keep your chin up,” and “keep of pain and suffering is misunderstood. busy.” Actually, you need to give yourself This is particularly true with suicide There are various forms of denial that, as much time as you need to mourn, and grief. Because of the stigma and taboo as a survivor, you must work to break these kinds of comments hurt you, not surrounding suicide, many people think through: help you. you shouldn’t talk about it, let alone honor your pain by openly mourning. Conscious Denial: This is where you hide Society often makes mourners feel the fact that the death was suicide. You shame or embarrassment about our In part, this article will encourage you to may tell people it was a heart attack, feelings of grief, particularly suicide be present to your multitude of thoughts , or an unexplained sudden grief. It implies that if you, as a grieving and feelings, to “be with” them, for they death. person, openly express your feeling of contain the truth you are searching for,

20 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org grief, you are being immature. If your feelings are fairly intense, you may be labeled overly emotional or needy. If your feelings are extremely intense, you may even be referred to as crazy or a “pathological mourner.”

As a professional grief counselor, I assure you that you are not immature, overly emotional, or crazy. But the societal messages surrounding grief that you may receive are!

If you fear emotions and see them as negative, you will be at risk for crying alone and in private. Yet, being secretive with your emotions doesn’t integrate your painful feelings of loss; or you would not have picked up this Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, is a noted author, it complicates them. Then even more article. Follow your willingness, and educator, and grief counselor. He serves pain comes from trying to keep the pain allow it to bless you. as Director of the Center for Loss and secret. You cannot hide your feelings and Life Transition in Fort Collins, CO, and find renewed meaning in your life. If you In large part, healing from a suicide is on the faculty at the University of are dishonest about your pain, you stay death is anchored in a decision to not Colorado Medical School Department in pain. judge yourself but to love yourself. of Family Medicine. Dr. Wolfelt is Grief is a call for love. So, if you are known for his compassionate philosophy Grief Is Not a Disease judging yourself and where you are of “companioning” versus “treating” in this journey, STOP! When you stop You have probably already discovered mourners. This article is excerpted from judging the multitude of emotions his book The Wilderness of Suicide that no quick fix exists for the pain you that come with your grief, you are left are enduring. Grief following a suicide is Grief: Finding Your Way, available at with acceptance, and when you have bookstores and www.centerforloss.com. naturally complex, and it is easy to feel acceptance (or surrender), you have love. overwhelmed. But I promise you that if Love will lead you into and through the you can think, feel, and see yourself as wilderness, to a place where you will an active participant in your healing, come out of the dark and into the light. you will slowly but surely experience a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in your life.

Grief is not a disease. To be human means coming to know loss as part of your life. While the grief that accompanies suicide is a powerful, life-changing experience, so, too, is your ability to help facilitate your own healing.

I invite you to gently confront the pain of your grief. Be open to the miracle of healing. Integrating the grief that comes with a suicide death requires your willingness. You must have willingness

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 21 The Culture of Bereavement by Terri Daniel

Excerpted from Embracing Death: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude and God, © 2008

I’m normally an outgoing, verbal person year later, two years later, five years later, It’s understandable that we would be who is comfortable with emotional and beyond. Even though I published a uncomfortable about the death of a child exposure. But during the first two years book about my son’s life and death, there or someone who dies tragically, because after my son Danny’s death, I went into are members of my own family—people it brings home the reality that none of radio silence in terms of sharing my who knew and loved him—who have not us is ever truly safe from harm and we’re true feelings with people. I’d moved to read my book because they’re unable to all potentially vulnerable to such a fate. a new town and made new friends, but touch the core of their own grief. Sadly, But why shy away from the death of an they knew a different me… the A.D. (After for most bereaved individuals, within elderly person who was seriously ill, for Danny) version of me. And I barely knew a month or two our grief is neatly filed whom death was a natural, expected that person myself. away and forgotten by the people who event? love us. I could talk to them about my divorce or In my 80-year-old mother’s social circle the other dramas in my life, all of which In Judeo Christian America, we are of elderly widows, it’s not unusual for were safe topics to which anybody could taught, as children, how to behave their married friends to stop socializing relate. But the subject of my son’s death in a museum, at a birthday party, or with them once their spouses die. The and the black hole in the middle of in a classroom. We’re taught how to widows form their own social networks my heart was something so taboo and speak respectfully to our elders, how and become excellent support for one unspeakable that I barely mentioned it. to say please and thank you, and how another, but they’re acutely aware that People were comfortable as long as they to act appropriately in various social they’ve been shut out by the couples who felt that I was doing fine and putting the situations. But nobody teaches us how were once their closest friends. tragic event behind me. to behave around death. I hear stories like this all the time. Is In deep grief we suffer alone. Death I once had a client with whom I worked this a behavior peculiar to modern is so untouchable in our culture that for several years. He became a dear America? Is it different in Australia or the bereaved themselves become friend and spent a lot of time with my England? Is it human nature, or is it untouchable, and bereaved people are family, frequently joining us for holiday culturally programmed? Does it vary frequently shunned by their social dinners and backyard barbecues. He among different social structures or groups, family members, and colleagues was like an uncle to Danny, but didn’t communities? Do African Americans soon after a death occurs. Our society is come to Danny’s funeral and never said a deal with death differently than sorely lacking in etiquette guidelines for word to me about Danny’s death. We just European Americans? Do Catholics dealing with death and bereavement, carried on our business relationship as if behave differently than Jews? Do poor so the preferred method is usually to nothing had happened. In the same vein, people respond to death differently than sweep it aside as quickly as possible. a widow once told me that her husband rich people? The standard for bereavement leave in died of a heart attack while playing golf American companies is only three days, with a friend. The traumatized friend My friend Mukesh Chaturvedi is a writer after which we’re expected to get back to didn’t come to Danny’s funeral and was and attorney in India who recently work and back to normal. While friends, not heard from until more than a year wrote this fascinating description of colleagues, and family members may later. Similarly, many bereaved parents how death is handled by traditional gather to bring food, help with funeral find themselves ignored on Mothers Hindus: arrangements, and offer condolences Day, Fathers Day, or the child’s birthday, Helping a family when a death occurs for the first days or weeks after a death, even though they would cherish some is both a spiritual and social duty. There many of the bereaved find that after the support and acknowledgment on these are no professional undertakers here, so calls and cards stop coming, nobody important milestones. It’s also common it is the family’s task to care for the body speaks of the event again. for the friends and family of bereaved and the . For the first 13 days parents to avoid talking about their own there are continuous ceremonies. The In our culture, the less attention drawn children for fear of triggering grief, pain, responsible family member, usually the to our grief the better, because our grief and envy in the parent who has lost eldest son, performs the last rites, which makes other people uncomfortable. Yet a child. But all this does is isolate the includes lighting the pyre, and during one of the greatest gifts we can give to bereaved person even more. It does NOT those 13 days he will be somewhat of a someone who’s lost a loved one is to stay help to avoid the truth. None of us has hermit while relatives care for the rest in touch and speak of the departed a the right to deprive another of reality.

22 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org of the family. Women cry a lot, and are I still remember the old days when fearlessly involved in the dying process— encouraged to do so. On the 13th day, people made animals out of cucumbers, for ourselves and for others—the whole there is a feast, and religious ceremonies eggplants, and sticks and put them circle of birth, death, dying, and the can continue for up to a year. Many on streets to greet the return of the could be approached with eyes marriages are arranged during this dead. The dead are clearly more loved and hearts wide open. period because the community is so than feared.” tightly massed together. George Bonano, a professor of clinical The death of very old people is always psychology at Columbia University, celebrated, and people start planning whose work focuses on coping with Rev. Terri Daniel, MA, the feast immediately. Death is accepted, grief and trauma, recently conducted CT, is an interfaith understood and honored here. Lots a study comparing grief processing in minister, clinical of what people say on such occasions the US and China. Bonano noted that chaplain, certified reflects the philosophy of the Bhagavad the focus of grief in Western countries thanatologist, and Gita [sacred Hindu scriptures]. They is mainly on accepting the finality of author of three books say, “He is not dead, he has only left his death, so western grieving is very much on death and the afterlife: A Swan in earthly body behind.” about breaking bonds with the loved Heaven: Conversations Between Two one. By contrast, in China it is believed Worlds; Embracing Death: A New Look Perhaps you know of this Islamic that the person isn’t really gone and at Grief, Gratitude and God; and Turning tradition… if you meet a janaza (a there are rituals and behaviors designed the Corner on Grief Street: How Trauma funeral procession with people carrying to acknowledge the continued presence and Loss Can Transform Us. She is also a coffin), you are supposed to walk of the departed. the founder and president of the Afterlife alongside it or help carry it for at least Education Foundation and producer 40 steps. “They have a responsibility to help the of the annual Afterlife Awareness dead person on his journey,” Dr. Bonano Conference: www.afterlifeconference.com. What a beautiful tradition! Not only are says. “Because of this belief, the sense of Muslims required to stop what they’re loss isn’t as important as working with doing to honor the passing coffin, they the dead to help them find their way. are required to walk alongside it, to be This task helps people feel connected, so part of it, and allow it to be part of them. grief is much easier to deal with. Some It’s an excellent way to personally and of these practices include cleaning the publicly embrace death without fear or grave regularly, bringing offerings of repulsion. food, and burning paper replicas of everyday objects that the dead might Odani Keiko, a Japanese journalist, need in the afterlife, such as shoes or says that dying in Japan has been pots. The most common paper offering increasingly handled quietly and is paper money. In cemeteries and covertly in hospitals, but there are still ancestral halls, the Chinese literally strict social conventions related to burn bags of paper money, which they honoring the dead, attending funerals, send as offerings to deceased loved ones.” and maintaining relationships after a death. It would be unthinkable to avoid While most of us can’t imagine burning a funeral or leave a social circle just bags of money, the idea of “afterlife care” because somebody has died. links the world of the dead with the world of the living in a way that blurs “The Japanese are not burdened with the boundaries between us and expands guilt about facing God, so perhaps this our view of existence. Can you imagine makes the concept of an afterlife easier how different bereavement would be if to accept,” Odani says. “It’s believed that our culture supported us in maintaining human souls still live after death and an after-death connection? And if we come visit the family in mid-summer. could learn how to be consciously and

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 23 Losing Julie by Steffany Barton

Excerpt from her book, Facing Darkness, Finding Light – Life After Suicide

I COULD NOT WAIT. I had to see her. up with her like she was an old friend. “Of course. You know I will. Helping is Despite the imminent ho-ho-holiday, She laughed, listened, and looked fairly what I do best,” I replied cheerily. I did with upcoming, out-of-town travel, relaxed, so I, too, eased into the moment. not expect what happened next. three kids for whom to play Santa, a This would be fine. Julie seemed okay. presentation to deliver, a newsletter to “I don’t know that I want to be here circulate, and a festooned house long But Julie was not okay. Julie was anymore, you know?” she said, looking at overdue for a cleaning, I put on hold terminally ill and dying a slow, painful the ground and rocking back and forth the hustle and bustle and headed to death. No test could indicate it, and no on her feet. her home. I could not wait. lab values were off, but she was dis- eased, distressed, depressed, and done “Yeah, I know. Kansas is sometimes with an existence that seemed marked stifling. Have you thought about I wanted to see her. by a string of misspent opportunities moving?” I offered, noticing she was very, very quiet, and now stood still. Julie came to me quite by accident, but and relationships gone horribly wrong. Julie wanted out. She had hurt too badly for a higher purpose. Although I had “I mean, I don’t know that I want to be for far too long. known of her for nearly a decade, I never here. Here. The pain cuts me like a knife, met her face-to-face until one crisp sometimes. I don’t know... “ She trailed November afternoon when she rang my Still, she held on. off. doorbell. I knew it was she only because, moments before her arrival, I received a For three consecutive afternoons, Julie Calmly, I formulated a few thoughts into text from the babysitter, “Can’t make it appeared on my front porch as the gentle words. “Could I say a prayer for today. Sending a sub... Julie. You’ll luv her. special “guest babysitter.” In those hours you? Maybe we could look at this from a Thx.” spent with her, my children and I grew spiritual angle?” to love the woman. Her devotion to Opening the door, I took in the animals won over the heart of my son: “Please help me. I just don’t know...” unexpected guest. She appeared younger she fearlessly reached into our terrarium Silently, she looked into my eyes than I, with a full face and ruddy cheeks. and gleefully allowed five, fire-bellied once again. I could see a mix of fear, Her jawline looked somewhat heavy toads free rein of her arms, trunk, neck, uncertainty, weariness, and pain in her because of her blunt, bobbed haircut and face. She sculpted a tea set of Play- face. “I’ve got to go. The dogs will be so colored in a deep red to orange. Cloaking doh, crafted a duct tape wallet, read mad if I don’t let them out. Thanks.” her upper body was an open woolen aloud from King Arthur, and learned sweater of various colors in a pattern how to properly dress a Barbie doll. She She stuffed the check into her bag, that reminded me of the American colored her nails, and the kids’ nails, turned around, and walked with Southwest. I noticed that, although too, with permanent marker, and she determination in her knee-high, black, she had no children, she wore a white applied some rub-on tattoos. She loved military-style boots toward her van. turtleneck sweater tucked tightly into to draw and made a picture of a singing A little over two weeks from that her “mom” jeans, which seemed oddly and dancing cat that filled my eldest day, I learned she was in ICU, being paired with her knee-high, black, daughter with delight. transferred to a psych unit. She had military-style boots. She looked at me attempted suicide at the family with a twinkling eye paired with a As my work week ended, we all agreed home. She was discovered and taken mercurial smile and said, in an alto that her career as a babysitter was a immediately to the ER. No permanent voice, “Hi. I’m Julie. I’m babysitting resounding success, and we decided to damage was sustained, save a deep your kids.” call upon her in the future should the need arise. wound to the neck. The knifelike pain Motioning her in, I wondered how this she had described to me had become would unfold. All considerations were I handed Julie a check for the week’s literal. After a short stint in the psych cut short, however, as my children, pay. She looked at me— seemed to look unit, she received a discharge to stay delighted with a new visitor to entertain, into me— then, breathing, she asked, with family. began sharing stories and chatting it “Steffany, will you help me?”

24 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org Losing Julie

So on that cold December night Respecting her request, I prepared I had to see her. to go. She walked me to the entryway and thanked me for As she opened the door, I glanced coming. at her. She wore a cream-color funnel-neck pullover, deep green “I want to talk to you again soon. sweatpants, and stark white May I come back?” I asked as she athletic socks. Her eyes looked hollow, This startled me, and I looked up. She opened the door and stepped outside with dark circles under the lids; no sat, serene-looking now, eyes closed, with me. twinkle, no glimmer, not even a gleam lips in a near smile. I wondered if I had could be seen as she looked past me. imagined her words. Closing my eyes “We’ll talk,” she called to me as I hustled She smiled pleasantly but distantly; she again, I placed my hands on her knees to the car. “We’ll talk.” seemed subdued, almost vacant. As I and imagined more light and love Getting into my Honda CRV, breath stood in the cold outside, I prayed that surrounding her. The peaceful silence visible and hands shaking, I started the my visit would warm up her heart a bit. was broken once again by her loud engine, backed slowly into the street, announcement, “Stop trying to fix me! and drove toward home. I watched We spoke quietly and covered Love me, and let me go!” conversational topics from the weather as the darkness swallowed up Julie. I to the holidays. We talked about eggnog, I knew I could not have imagined this—I shuddered, but not because of the cold. cats, Colorado, snow, mittens or gloves, heard the words as clear as any. My eyes Driving home, I felt completely and our favorite blankets. She seemed so flew open to see her position unchanged disoriented. The experience with Julie far away, even though I sat right beside save for the full smile now spread left me teetering on the edge, questioning her. I could touch her, but I could not across her face. “What did you say?” I what I thought I knew. If her words were seem to reach her. I could see her, but it whispered. true, if part of her believed that loving felt as if she wasn’t really there. Finally, meant accepting and that accepting I spoke. “Julie, can I just send some Her eyes still closed, she answered, meant allowing and allowing meant compassion and love to you while I sit at “Nothing. I am just sitting here.” letting her go, then... your feet?” “Oh, sorry,” I replied. I closed my eyes Then what? Was death the answer? Did “Sure,” she said. “That would be nice.” again and heard, she need to go? Was something calling I positioned myself on the hardwood “Don’t judge me. Love me! Now!” her? floor, wedged between the couch and a If I were to be authentic in my coffee table. The draftiness invited me I pulled my hands back as my eyes acceptance and genuine in my love, I to keep my coat wrapped around me; I opened. No longer comfortable on the would have to choose to authentically felt grateful for my scarf. I took a deep floor, I got up and returned to the seat accept and genuinely love her, no matter breath and imagined a beautiful light beside her. She sat still. I could see that what. surrounding Julie and me, then glanced she had relaxed. up at her. She had closed her eyes and Hours later, head still spinning, in the “Julie, I don’t judge you. I just don’t looked a bit more relaxed. I closed my darkness of the midnight hour, I grabbed understand. But I do love you,” I replied eyes, too, then softly placed my hands my coat and stepped outside. I walked aloud to her silent shouts. on her ankles to share a simple human and thought and thought and walked, touch, a physical connection, a kind This time she opened her eyes and oblivious to the weather or traffic gesture. I wanted her to feel nurtured looked at me, the sadness returning, her going by, completely lost in tumbling, and to know that I cared. smile slipping away. “I know you don’t crumbling beliefs that were now and forever changed. We sat in silence for a moment, me on judge me. I am glad we finally met. I am a bit tired now.” I understood this as a the floor, her in the chair, when I heard I thought I was a healer, a helper. cue to leave. her yell out at me, “Let me go!” I thought I could heal her, help her.

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 25 I thought that life was always the received one of the first invitations. With I grieved her loss, I also felt something right course, that staying was morally no RSVP received, I was uncertain as more: The death of her body was superior to going. But I could not hold on to whether or not she would be able liberation for her soul. No more pain, no to those thoughts. Never again! Leaving to come. more hurt, no more missing home. Julie me forever changed, Julie had released died so that she could live free. Through When the party was in full swing, I such a charge in my heart and detonated tears I smiled, and between sobs I decided to offer cake and refreshments such a blast in my mind that I had to laughed. engineer a new construct of beliefs and a to our jovial guests. Carrying a tray into new structure for understanding. the living room, I stopped short. For an instant, in what felt like an endless Julie wasn’t lost. In time, I arrived home. I crossed the moment in time, I saw Julie sitting on Julie had found her way home. threshold, tossed my coat aside, and the end of the couch, turtleneck sweater, grabbed my phone. Heart thumping, mom jeans, and knee-high black, As Julie’s sweet soul was delivered into palms sweating, mind clear, spirit strong, military-style boots, looking at me with the light, something birthed in me that I messaged her: “I choose to love you, no a twinkle in her eye and a mercurial evening. I determined to disarm my matter what!” smile. She looked at me, then into me. I heart and cleanse my mind from any blinked, and she was gone. preconceived notions about suicide. I She did not respond. decided to immerse myself, a willing Julie was gone. student and apt pupil, into the twilight Three weeks later, my eldest daughter class held between life and death. I dared hosted a party at our home, and Julie That night after the guests were safely listen to Julie’s wisdom and heed her home, the dishwasher loaded fully, and advice: Don’t judge. Love. the counter tops cleared, I got the call. I dedicate this book to Julie—not because |advertisement| Julie had committed suicide. She had of her tragic end, but because she found her way home. showed me a new beginning. On hearing the news, a flood of emotions poured through me. Tremendous Coma sadness, a deep ache, waves of guilt, and Communication then a powerful, still calm. A feeling buried inside came to the surface of Following & Cherishing Steffany Barton, my heart. Perhaps loosened by the the Spirit in Dementia RN, is a medium, vision I had had earlier that afternoon, Delirium.Coma.End of Life Reiki healer, and or unearthed by the experience speaker. She works when she silently screamed, I felt an passionately to overwhelming sense of her relief. connect those Rather than sensing a harsh ending, I in the spirit world with loved ones had a glimpse of her rebirth. Like an on the physical plane. Her religion is unstoppable, bright, and fiery sunrise, kindness, and she practices love. www. she had become the light emerging, steffanybarton.com chasing back the darkness, heralding a … new dawn. … I sank further into this feeling, dipping my heart into a healing pool of hope. Beyond the human loss of her body, I felt an enormous, eternal gain for Julie’s spirit—a free, unencumbered, unbounded soul now dancing in the light.

I experienced a glimpse of Julie, this amazing woman, this friend in life and teacher in death, awakened in joy. While

26 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org The Suicidal Trance

by Richard Heckler

Richard A. Heckler, PhD, is the author other instances, people are no longer able of an illuminating study of people to recognize support when it is, in fact, who survive suicide attempts. In his available. book, Waking Up, Alive, he describes the descent to suicide. The following “… The trance is a state of mind and body passages are excerpts from his book, that receives only the kind of input that reprinted here with his permission. reinforces the pain and corroborates the person’s conviction that the only way “As these stories unfold, we can identify out is through death. The trance marks critical components of the decline the moment at which the world becomes toward suicide. The stages of the devoid of all possibilities except one: descent are these: Pain and suffering suicide. remain unaddressed. …The person then withdraws behind a façade designed “… Despite differences in detail, everyone to protect himself or herself from who attempts suicide enters the suicidal further hurt and to cloak the suffering trance. underneath. However, the façade only “Suicidal trances can be identified by intensifies the slide toward a suicidal certain common characteristics. trance. Ultimately the trance narrows the person’s perspective until the only “They appear extremely logical, with inner voices that can be heard are those a premise and a rational series of that enjoin him or her to die. arguments that encourage suicide as Richard A. Heckler, PhD, is the director a reasonable response to pain. These “… Early in the withdrawal phase, people of the Hakomi Institute of San Francisco, arguments are powerful, especially still make some effort to stay in touch and a trainer for the Institute throughout when created by someone who has with the world and hope for at least the US. He is an Associate Professor of become emotionally deadened—whose some promise of better things. But when at JFK University reservoirs of faith, trust, and hope have hope finally dies, people no longer see or (Orinda, CA) and is on faculty at CIIS run dry. hear anything outside their own minds— (San Francisco) and the Union Graduate the tight spiral of thought that tells them “Suicidal trances appear as resignation, School. Richard is the author of Waking to die. While this shift may occur just in which a person stops caring at all Up, Alive and Crossings: A New moments before a , it about the state of his or her life. They are Psychology of the Unexpected. can be months or years in the making. frustrating and frightening to family and A colleague of mine from Louisiana, an friends; it seems as if there is no force experienced therapist for many years, strong enough to persuade the person to contemplated suicide for over a decade. act on his or her own behalf. She described this mental state as ‘an almost totally separate reality, in which “Suicidal trances ‘beckon.’ As the trance your world may not look or feel so intensifies, it becomes more insistent limited and painful to anyone else, but that the person finally complete the act. it does to you. You enter a very powerful These urgings most often take the form trance.’ of voices entreating him or her to take the final step, or of images presenting a “During the latter stages of the descent, picture of the final act. people lose faith that their predicament will ever change. Their strength is “Finally, this type of trance includes depleted and they are deeply stressed. a particular vision of the future: an Some people are never able to leave their illusion of eternity in which the future is chronically destructive surroundings. In projected as an endless repetition of the other cases, there is just no one able or present pain and disappointment, never- willing to push past their façades. In yet ending and hopeless.”

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 27 in spirit A Karmic Act by Andrew Holecek

The suicide of a loved one is one of it a teaching and a powerful inspiration beings, then the karma is softened. the most painful events imaginable.1 on the spiritual path. Suicide solves Because is so critical, it is Even if we believe in , the nothing at all, it only shifts the problem to helpful, revealing, and tempering, to ask traditional Tibetan view concerning another state of consciousness. yourself before you do anything: what’s suicide doesn’t comfort those left my motivation? Why am I really doing behind.2 It’s mainly in Pure Land Scholar Damien Keown adds, “A person this? This reality check can save you lots Buddhism, especially the Japanese who opts for death believing it to be a of trouble—and future lives. schools, that the Tibetan stance is solution to suffering has fundamentally softened. This is probably due to the misunderstood the First Noble Truth. The third constituent is the act itself. theistic view of exoteric Pure Land The First Noble Truth teaches that This is the clearest aspect. We either do doctrine. In this view, it’s okay to leave death is the problem, not the solution… it or we don’t. Unlike the other three, this a hellish experience on earth if we’re What is significant is that through the aspect is usually black or white, yes or heading to a heavenly Pure Land. This affirmation of death he has, in his heart, no. We either step on the bug or not. 3 is another example of how one’s view embraced Mara” The fourth constituent is having no of the afterlife influences the actions we To reconcile disparate teachings, regret or rejoicing in the act. We look take during life—including the conscious and to address questions about the back upon what we did without remorse. termination of it. karmic implications of suicide, it If we’re glad we stepped on the spider, Carl Becker, speaking in terms of the helps to understand the four aspects we’re in karmic trouble. But if we feel Japanese schools, writes: of a fully established karma. What is deep regret, and vow not to repeat such a karmic action made of? How are the an act, we have lightened the karmic There is nothing intrinsically wrong with consequences of an act established? Even debt. taking one’s own life, if not done in hate, though the topic of karma has entered anger, or fear. Equanimity or preparedness the public domain, it is perhaps the most If each of these four constituents is of mind is the main issue. The important complex topic in Buddhism. Only a fully complete, then the karma around the act consideration here is not whether the enlightened Buddha can understand is heavy. If we want to kill something body lives or dies, but whether the mind karma. We will limit our discussion to out of anger, the thing we want to kill is can remain at peace and in harmony with how karma can help us relate to suicide. clear, and we celebrate the act of killing, itself. …[T]he early Buddhist texts include Understanding the aspects of a fully then karma is fully loaded. many cases of suicide that the Buddha constituted karma also helps us relate to If we take these four aspects and apply himself accepted or condoned…. suicide is any action and its karmic implications. them to suicide, or , we can never condemned per se; it is the state of What is it that packs the karmic punch? better understand the reality of such mind which determines the rightness or How can I soften the blow? acts. If we want to kill ourselves, the wrongness of the suicide situation. In order for an action to have complete first constituent is often unclear. Are we Matthieu Ricard, speaking on behalf karmic repercussions, four components really trying to kill ourselves, or simply of the Tibetan approach, offers this must be fully present. The first is the trying to kill the pain? Most suicide different view: object, or target, of the action. If we take victims are terribly confused, and the extreme example of killing, the therefore the target of the act is not clear. By committing suicide, you destroy object would be the thing we’re planning The first constituent isn’t complete, and 4 the possibility you have, in this life, of to kill. If the object is really clear—be it the karmic implications aren’t as heavy. realizing the potential for transformation an insect, an animal, or a person—the The second aspect, our motivation, is that you have within you. You succumb first component is complete and the also not clear. The motivation of most to an intense attack of discouragement, karmic impact is loaded. which, as we’ve seen, is a weakness, a suicide victims is to remove suffering, form of laziness. By saying to yourself, The second component is our which isn’t a bad motivation. Sometimes “What’s the point in living?” you deprive motivation, which is the most important. people kill themselves to hurt others. yourself of the inner transformation that If we want to kill something out of In this case the second constituent would have been possible. To overcome an malice, then that aspect of karma is would be complete, and the karma obstacle is to transform it into an aid to clear and complete. If we kill with correspondingly heavier. But a fuzzy your progress. People who’ve overcome a the intent to feed our starving family intention softens the karmic impact. major trial in their lives often draw from or ourselves, or to save other sentient 28 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org Many suicide victims, because of the intensity of their suffering, simply don’t know what they’re doing. It’s almost as if they’re drugged or stunned by the intensity of their pain. If you’ve ever been shocked with overwhelming bad news, or immense trauma, you know the bewilderment that accompanies such a blow. You just can’t think clearly.

The third constituent, the act of suicide, is complete. We either kill ourselves or we don’t. There’s nothing fuzzy here. This is where the karmic repercussions mostly arise. The fourth constituent, having no regret, or even rejoicing, is completely absent. There’s nobody to rejoice in the act. Our action has cut off the last component.

Of the four aspects of a fully constituted karma, only the third is clear and complete. Two of the other three are hazy and incomplete, and the fourth doesn’t exist. Does this mean it’s therefore okay to commit suicide? No, the Tibetan tradition is clear on this. Understanding these four components is to comfort those left behind, not to can put the fear of karma into us. This I list all these books to show that suicide instill a justification for suicide. There’s is wholesome fear, the recognition of the survivors are not alone: My Son … My Son a reason why the tradition speaks of karmic implications of our actions.7 … by Iris Bolton; Touched by Suicide: Hope dreadful karmic consequences. We and Healing After Loss by Michael F. should heed these warnings. Suicide is a serious karmic act. But for Myers and Carle Fine; Life After Suicide: those left behind, understanding the There are extraordinary stories of A Ray of Hope for Those Left Behind by four aspects of a fully constituted karma lamas in Tibet being led to execution E. Betsy Ross; Night Falls Fast, by Kay can soften the pain, and shed some light by the Chinese. Some of these lamas Redfield Jamison; Why Suicide? by on a very dark event. would eject their consciousness (phowa) Eric Marcus; Do They Have Bad Days before the execution, an act that would in Heaven? by Michelle Linn-Gust; normally be considered suicide. Some Survivors of Suicide by Rita Robinson; masters have said that these lamas Notes: When Nothing Matters Anymore: A were doing phowa as a way to prevent Survival Guide for Depressed Teens by their executioners from accruing the [1] About 2300 suicides occur every Bev Cobain; Healing After the Suicide of enormous negative karma of murder. In day (18.4 suicides per 100,000 people). a Loved One by Ann Smolin and John these exceptional cases, which only high Suicide is often in the top ten causes of Guinan; Suicide: The Forever Decision by lamas are even capable of performing, death. Michelle Linn-Gust, president Paul Quinnett; No Time to Say Goodbye “suicide” is the best karmic act.5 For of the American Association of by Carla Fine; After Suicide Loss: Coping the rest of us, no matter how we try to Suicidology, offers this word of advice: With Your Grief by Bob Baugher; rationalize it, suicide is a negative act. “When someone dies like that, all Recovering From Your Child’s Suicide Unless you are a realized being, whose anyone can think about is how the by Mort Schrag; The Power to Prevent every breath is taken to benefit others, person died. Let go of how that person Suicide by Richard E. Nelson and Judith you cannot kill yourself in a positive died and remember how they were in C. Galas; The Silent Cry: Teen Suicide and state of mind. life. A life shouldn’t be defined by a Self-Destructive Behaviors suicide.” In other words, don’t reify the by Joan Esherick. Buddhism cannot put the fear of God event, making it the defining moment of into us because it’s a non-theistic a person’s life. [2] Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche says that a tradition. There is no creator principle, person who commits suicide will spend no God in Buddhism, and therefore no Parents Surviving Suicide, a support all the time they would have naturally one to judge our actions.6 But Buddhism group, recommends the following books. lived (had they not committed suicide) www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 29 in the bardo, and that during this time emotions to be truly existent. In other and pleasure, not as objects before they will re-experience their suicide 500 words, reification is the root problem. If us, but as the radiant clarity of our times each day. His Holiness Khyentse you take your thoughts and emotions to natural state. Thus anger, for example, Rinpoche says: “When a person commits be real, you will act upon that imputed when experienced dualistically, is an suicide, the consciousness has no choice reality. irritation which we may indulge in or but to follow its negative karma, and it reject, depending on our conditioning. may well happen that a harmful spirit But look closely at your mind, which Either way we are caught up in it and will seize and possess its life force. In is what meditation invites, and you act out of it. But when aware of anger as the case of suicide, a powerful master will discover the empty nature of a manifestation of clarity, its energy is a must perform special kinds of practices, whatever arises within it. You will no very fresh awareness of the particulars such as fire ceremonies and other longer be so affected by thought and of the situation. However, these rituals, in order to free the dead person’s . Meditation teaches you to particulars are no longer irritating.” consciousness.” See the sections on the relate to your mind instead of from it, practice of dur that deals with these as Stephen Levine put it. This simple [5] See Tsomo, Into the Jaws of Yama, Lord harmful spirits. maxim has enormous implications for of Death, p. 139 for other instances of relieving suffering and ending karma. It religious suicide (the self-immolation of Bokar Rinpoche said: “Buddha said that summarizes the fundamental difference Vietnamese monks in protest of the war), suicide is an extremely negative act …it is between samsara and nirvana. This is and related issues. said that committing suicide is far more the essence of enlightenment. (This is serious than killing another person. also a reason why people drink or take [6] According to the teachings on Committing suicide means killing drugs—to alter (soften) the relationship emptiness, there are no “things” in the deities that are the essence of our to the contents of their mind.) reality. Because there is no-thing to be body. That which motivates a person created, there is no need for a creator of to commit suicide, and consequently to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche says, “Once these things. kill his or her own deities, is karmically you have the View, although the [7] The teaching on the trishiksha, or more serious than the motivation delusory of samsara may three trainings, empowers the value leading to killing someone else.” arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in of good karma. These three trainings Question (to Bokar Rinpoche): “Is it not front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, are shila (discipline, morality, conduct, said that a person who commits suicide and when the clouds appear it’s not character), samadhi (meditative will do it again five hundred times in particularly disappointed either. There absorption, stability) and prajna (insight, future lives?” is a deep sense of contentment. You wisdom). Each training builds on its chuckle from inside as you see the facade predecessor. So without the ground of Answer: “Yes, that is correct, and yet this of samsara and nirvana; the View will good actions, meditative stability and does not happen systematically.” keep you constantly amused, with a then wisdom, will not arise. Without little inner smile bubbling away all the these trainings, enlightenment is not Lama Lodo says: “It is impossible time.” possible. Morality, ethics, and good for beings to kill themselves while conduct (karma) are the basis out of in a positive state of mind. This is a Patrul Rinpoche says, “The practitioner which the entire path evolves. contradiction in terms…. Buddhas never of self-liberation is like an ordinary kill themselves.” Karma Lekshe Tsomo person as far as the way in which the says, “To die with a bad conscience is thoughts of pleasure and pain, hope and Andrew Holecek karmically lethal.” fear, manifest themselves as creative is an author and energy. However, the ordinary person, [3] See “Buddhism and Suicide—the Case Buddhist spiritual taking these really seriously and of Channa,” by Damien Keown, Journal teacher who presents judging them as acceptable or rejecting of Buddhist Ethics, Volume 3, l996. This from a contemporary them, continues to get caught up in article is notable for its many references perspective, blending situations and becomes conditioned by on the topic. Recall that mrtyu-mara the ancient wisdom attachment and aversion. Not doing (The Lord of Death) is the second of the of the East with this, a practitioner, when such thoughts four maras. modern knowledge from the West. He arise, experiences freedom: initially, by teaches on the opportunities that exist in recognizing the thought for what it is, it [4] It is beyond our scope to explore the obstacles, helping people with hardship is freed…” complex reasons why people commit and pain, death and dying, and problems suicide. A close study would suggest it is Longchenpa says, “[F]reeing or liberating in meditation. He is an expert on lucid largely because of a highly inappropriate thought does not mean ignoring, letting dreaming and the Tibetan yogas of sleep relationship to the contents of one’s go of, being indifferent to, observing, and dream. Find out more about his work mind. The heart of inappropriate or even not having thoughts. It means at www.andrewholecek.com relationship is taking thoughts and being present in hope and fear, pain

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www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 31 in spirit Living into Dying: Suicide by Nancy Poer

One of the most poignant and difficult needed. This is spoken of in all religious threshold experience, find new resolves issues in human life is suicide. The traditions. The experience of the soul and a deeper meaning for living. reverberating pain that can echo from through this intense process will take this deed is one of the most monumental time. Everyone has known someone who has sufferings in human existence. This can made a choice for suicide. In modern be the experience of those who are left, Interestingly enough, the one who life, it can seem at times that it is not as well as for the one who has died. We commits suicide is often more attached worth going on living. But we have can have empathy with someone facing to the body than others, and wanting opportunities for transformation here a seemingly impossible situation. No more from life than they feel they are on earth as in no place else in the one in good conscience can advocate receiving. They are often caught up universe. So the situation of suicide calls impossible suffering. But the ending inside the walls of their own negative for the greatest love, compassion, and of life through euthanasia or suicide is perceptions of life. The threat to the forgiveness that we can summon. Life clouded with problems. physical body of disease, pain, or will go on here and beyond. It is good age (such as in the case of Ernest to hold that person as objectively and The whole realm of suicide is a gray area. Hemingway) can hardly be tolerated. Yet clearly as possible, so the restless soul What is a true suicide? Often we don’t in taking their life, they find they have of the suicide does not impact our lives know the inner soul condition of the one eliminated a part of their being to which unduly. We need to give unconditional who has died. Was the individual “out of they were actually deeply attached warmth and support to ourselves as well him- or herself”? Was the person “beside and then must make an enormous as to those who have died by suicide. We him- or herself?” The very language tells adjustment on the other side. For this could not alter their choices and need to us that the spirit, the higher self, may not reason, it may be helpful if the body of release them to their journey of learning. have been in command of their actions. a person who has committed suicide not The raising of Lazurus is a helpful Certainly disorientation through drugs be cremated. In a natural death, the body Gospel reading for a soul who has and alcohol is a common component has been preparing for the separation of died this way, as well as all books and in suicides. We can understand body, soul, and spirit. With suicide, this prayers of a spiritual nature. Ultimately, someone driven to despair through preparation has not taken place. The when the lessons are learned, they will depression, pain, or blindly following person is suddenly thrown into another move on to another realm of existence. others (i.e., epidemics of adolescent existence. It helps to have the body They are cared for by loving spiritual suicide). Therefore, we can aid those remain longer as a point of reference helpers. Though at first so blinded with who have died in this way by holding on the earthly plane as the individual loneliness that they cannot perceive them with the most positive thoughts adjusts to a new existence. such loving help, eventually they will possible, including the benefit of a doubt realize the goodness in the universe and regarding their decisions. The person committing suicide has can once again make a heartfelt choice rejected the gift of life and entered the for life. The tragedy of suicide is the belief that spiritual realm prematurely, out of it will end all the problems and pain. season. The desolation of being in limbo This is the materialistic view, that we for a time can be one of great loneliness. Nancy Jewel Poer, cease to exist, we “get out.” But this is In reports of near-death experiences, lecturer, author, and far from the spiritual reality. You can often those who attempted suicide artist, is producer of kill the body, but you can’t kill the soul and returned to life have not had the an award-winning and spirit. That is just the point! Soul uplifting, light-filled meetings that are documentary on and spirit go on. But how? The soul that reported by the majority of those with conscious dying, The continues beyond death still holds all near-death experiences. Some have Most Excellent Dying the untransformed passions, addictions, reported great darkness and lower of Theodore Jack sufferings, instincts, urges, hopes, ideals, beings, and most will never try it again. Heckelman, and the classic book, Living and desires that it had in earthly life. It is a view held by many who hold into Dying: Spiritual and Practical With the elimination of the body, there reincarnation as a world-view that only Deathcare for Family and Community. is no possible way to satisfy those urges once in all lifetimes might an individual She has also written a children’s book, and passions, or to transform them. seek this type of death. Many who have The Tear: A Story of Transformation and The soul is tormented with desires tried suicide out of despair and been Hope When a Loved One Dies. Find out that cannot be fulfilled, for there is no brought back to life can, through this more at www.nancyjewelpoer.com. body to fulfill them. A “purification” is

32 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org The Face of the Divine by Karen Wyatt

Excerpt from her book, What Really Matters: 7 Lessons for Living from the Stories of the Dying

When I first learned that Andy was holidays are often awry in a home where in the kitchen where I could see pictures being admitted to our hospice service, I someone is dying. I could surmise that of the children, their artwork, and placed a phone call to a medical school Andy’s condition had taken a turn for special notes they had written to him. I classmate of mine who was by then a the worse sometime around the previous was moved by his deep and visible love cancer specialist. Andy’s diagnosis of November, exhausting his energy and for his offspring and imagined the gentle advanced squamous cell carcinoma of interest in tending to superficial things and supportive care he must provide to the face was a condition I had never such as holiday decorations. them. seen before, and I wanted some expert advice before I went to visit him for the I swallowed my fears and entered the Returning to the living room, I realized first time. My friend told me that this house as Andy called out to me that the that Andy and I had not yet discussed is a disease that is often brought on by door was open. It took a moment for my his medical condition: the cancer that years of smoking, alcohol abuse, neglect, eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the had ravaged his appearance. It had and self-loathing. Warning me that living room where the window shades destroyed his nose, left cheek, and part he has found these patients to be the had been pulled tightly closed. When of his mouth, leaving him with a gaping most difficult to care for in his practice, I could see more clearly, I found Andy hole in the middle of his face. Somehow, he described the insurmountable sitting in a rocking chair near the door I thought, Andy had purposely directed issues they experience: severe pain, with an unfolded square of four-inch the conversation to other, easier topics isolation, and low self-esteem due to the gauze carefully taped over the left side until we both felt safe with one another disfigurement of the face caused by the of his face. He greeted me warmly and and could handle the discomfort of this spreading cancer. Before we hung up offered a handshake, apologizing for the subject. In a straightforward manner, he added, “About twenty-five percent darkness that was necessary because the Andy told me the history of his cancer, of these patients take their own lives cancer had invaded his eyes and caused the failed surgeries and treatments, and during the course of treatment, so be light to be excruciatingly painful for the eventual realization that nothing prepared for that.” him. As I gathered myself and found a was going to stop the progression of this seat on the couch facing Andy, I noticed deadly disease. He had lost the ability All of my fears were confirmed by that that the TV set was tuned to CNN with to chew and was limited to a liquid diet, phone call. I was going to be taking the volume at a low murmur. though swallowing even a milkshake on a huge challenge with Andy as a was becoming difficult. His cancer patient and I wasn’t sure I had enough My mind was racing, trying to decide doctors expected him to live only four experience or confidence to be his what questions to ask and how to begin, to six months, but he was determined, doctor. In addition, I was still healing when Andy spoke first, “So tell me about despite the pain and horror of his from my father’s suicide and wondered if your work with hospice—how did you disfigurement, to live as many days as I could withstand the potential of losing get interested in it? What do you like he could manage. Seeing his children a patient to this same fate. However, I best about this type of medicine?” Just grow and providing them with as much had to acknowledge that this is what like that, Andy and I were chatting away love as possible was the motivation for had unfolded for Andy, our staff, and as if we were two old friends discussing his every action and the justification for for me. For some reason we were being life, our children, and the presidential carrying on despite his suffering. brought together and I needed to be open election that was coming up in the fall. and ready for all possibilities. I was stunned by Andy’s selflessness Suddenly I recognized that I felt and calm determination. There was not As I stood on Andy’s front step, knocking completely comfortable and at home a trace of bitterness in his heart as he on his door for the first of many visits, sitting here with a man whom I had coped with his devastating condition I noticed an odd combination of expected to be my most difficult patient. and painstakingly cleaned his wound in decorations visible on the outside of Andy had completely disarmed me front of the mirror every day, struggled the house. There were Christmas lights with his pleasant and outgoing nature to take in enough liquid calories to keep hanging from the eaves and a cardboard and his concern for my comfort and from wasting away, and balanced his Halloween jack-o’-lantern in the wellbeing rather than his own. I learned pain medications to remain totally lucid window. This was notable for the fact that he was divorced and had two pre- and alert for his children. In his presence that it was the month of May and tulips adolescent children who lived with their that day, I felt I had encountered a rare were blooming in a planter near the mother but stayed with him two nights individual, a spiritual master of sorts steps. But this confusing array was not a week. He was an adoring and proud who devoted his entire existence to really surprising, for time, seasons, and father, directing me to a bulletin board the good of others. However, I would

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 33 eventually learn that the previous of our existence through his eyes that side of his face he said, “I’m so sorry that decades of Andy’s life had been quite a were sharpened and enlightened by you have to look at my ugliness.” different story. suffering. Each time we met, I marveled at his equanimity, his total acceptance Bursting into tears, I hugged him as I By his description, Andy had been an of his life circumstances. Though he cried, “Oh, my God, Andy. You are the angry, self-destructive man in his earlier fought with every breath to remain most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” years, drinking too much, too often, and alive, he was fully at peace with the He whispered, “Thank you,” as tears ignoring his general health. His out-of- knowledge that death could come at silently trickled down his right cheek. control behavior had led to the demise any moment. He never questioned why of his marriage while his children were he had this disease but understood that In the end, I recognized that Andy, in still very young. Deep inside, he despised this is just the path his life had taken. his simple and straightforward manner, himself and his life and cared little His ability to surrender to the events had allowed me to look at myself in the about anything or anyone. But sometime of life as they unfolded created an aura mirror, to have the courage to behold after being diagnosed with cancer, of calm wisdom and clarity about him my own ugliness. And he had taught everything changed. As his face became that was profoundly tangible to those me how to live with my wounded and increasingly disfigured, he spent more in his presence. Andy was my teacher damaged parts, slowly incorporating and more time alone, eventually holing and guide during that year as I learned them into my awareness, gradually up inside his house and never going out about suffering, purpose, paradise, and increasing my compassion toward in public. With hour after hour of time surrender through his life and death. myself and letting go of my expectations available to him for contemplation, he for my life. In Andy’s face I could see was forced to look at himself and life One day near the end of Andy’s life, the truth that life, no matter how it in general. Watching the news on CNN I helped him change the gauze that unfolds, is perfect in its own mysterious became one of his favorite pastimes, and covered the wound on his face since his and fascinating way, and being awake as he took in the stories of tragedies and arms and hands were now too weak to enough to witness that unfolding is all struggles around the world, something perform that task. As I cleaned away that really matters. inside of him began to shift. He saw some drainage and dead skin from the himself as part of a larger picture, a piece of the puzzle of life. He recognized that suffering of one form or another |advertisement| came to every person, of every race and ethnicity, in every part of the world. His tragedy was just a fraction of the tragedy of the whole planet. But at the same time, he witnessed all the beautiful ways in which suffering was overcome by people helping one another, reaching out and sharing from whatever portion they had been given in order to enrich others. Over time, Andy had been profoundly changed by both his own suffering and his immersion in the suffering of the planet. He awakened from those years of contemplation with the knowledge that giving his love to his children—for however many days he could hang on— was the only thing that really mattered for his life.

Andy managed to keep himself alive for another year after becoming our patient, and I had the privilege of visiting him on many occasions. Always ready to discuss current events, such as the recent crash of an airliner in the East, or the then-current conflict in Africa, or the competition for gold medals in the Olympics, Andy enabled me to see both the tragic and glorious moments 34 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org Death Salons: Where Dying Is Always in Style by Mary Reilly-McNellan

Death. It is the monster under the as though death will never reach out and Los Angeles in 2013, featuring formal bed that terrifies, yet fascinates us. touch us. lectures, musical performances, It permeates our news, novels, and readings, and aptly themed foods. It was nightmares. We don’t like to talk Thankfully, the times they are a way to bring together people who don’t about it, and yet we can’t seem to get a-changing, and death seems to finally mind talking about death and dying, enough of it. The Grim Reaper has be making its way out from the dank and all topics and points of view were been so banished from our collective darkness and into the light of day. welcome. Subsequent Salons were held consciousness that we rarely permit One group that is working hard to in London, San Francisco, Los Angeles this unwanted intruder in our homes, reintroduce this hushed topic back into (again), Philadelphia, and Houston, and opting instead to spend billions of the mainstream is the Order of the Good future ones are planned in 2017 and dollars annually to have our loved ones’ Death (OOTGD), headed up by founder 2018 in Seattle and Boston, respectively. remains incinerated, or pumped full of and Los Angeles mortician, Caitlin Rosenbloom wants to eventually publish toxic fluids and buried in unnecessary, Doughty. Named for a Brazilian order of a book of essay versions of the best resource-wasting containers. There’s Catholic nuns committed to providing DS talks over the years, but mostly no getting around it: Death is still not proper funerals for the deceased, the hopes to keep exploring new topics and considered a fit topic for cocktail party Order began in 2011 as a group of funeral voices, while keeping the Salon events discussion, in spite of its overarching industry professionals, academics, themselves “feeling personal.” presence. and artists, all hoping to reassure our culture that death is a perfectly When asked to cite some memorable and When made its American respectable—and even engaging—topic impactful DS presentations, Rosenbloom debut during the Civil War in the 1860s, for conversation and study. By 2013, said, “That’s a really tough call, but I the process was touted as an innovative Doughty and University of Southern think the ones where people mixed way to temporarily keep California medical librarian, Megan powerful personal experiences with a at bay so the dead might be transported Rosenbloom, had cofounded the “Death greater cultural or historical context are home for proper burial. Instead of family Salon” (DS), an event branch of the Order the ones that really resonate for a long and friends, professional undertakers that encourages larger conversations time. [The Order’s executive director] began handling all arrangements: on mortality, mourning, and their Sarah Troop’s talk called ‘Los Angelitos: from cleaning the body, to digging resonating effects on our culture and The Rituals and Art of Child Death in the grave, to closing the coffin. Once history. Following in the tradition of Mexico’ gave a great historical/cultural death care was taken out of the home the eighteenth century salon, in which background of her culture’s practices and commercialized, the industry Europeans met socially to discuss and how she turned to them in her time mushroomed and became the multi- myriad topics, annual DS gatherings of loss. There wasn’t a dry eye in the billion dollar business that exists today. seek to “bring death acceptance to the house.” Squeamish about the various natural masses” by offering a collegial venue for processes that accompany death? No members to creatively honor their inner Rosenbloom doesn’t think that it’s problem. A funeral professional will be . Conferences, public events, morbid to face one’s mortality; rather, happy to whisk away all audible, visible, and online community participation all it is practical, thoughtful, and can help and olfactory evidence of your loved serve to increase discussion of this often us to live fuller, richer lives. And she one’s demise. In a few days, you will be taboo subject, and self-described death sees our culture moving—slowly but invited to view a refurbished version of geeks attend DS to stare down their own surely—towards death acceptance. “I your dear one that has been emptied of mortality and its associated anxieties. think the ‘death positive’ movement fluids, pumped, plumped, and prettied. Salons range from historical and medical [in which people are open to exploring And you will no doubt find comfort in discussions to musical performances— their thoughts, feelings, and fears about the fact that he/she received the best all sharing the common denominator of mortality] wouldn’t be able to exist send-off you could afford, all while death. if people weren’t starting to see that keeping you at a safe distance from the death denial is a real problem that can distasteful realities of death. Doughty and Rosenbloom note that have real effects on people’s lives and the goal of DS is to encourage people their experiences surrounding death,” And yet, we are grieving longer and to talk about death in healthy, smart, she says. “There are so many people harder, and we continue to live our lives and creative ways. The Order’s first advocating for death acceptance in so Salon was a weekend event held in many realms now, and their messages

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 35 are being heard and seen as important most. It should be noted, too, that the Mary Reilly-McNellan and beneficial more than ever before. gatherings are not intended to replace has been a volunteer That said, whenever there is a cultural grief counseling, but rather to offer editorial assistant with shift towards something, there will an opportunity to gracefully and NTM for the past four always be groups that fight against knowledgeably make peace with the years. Her interest it. The trans-humanists, for instance, idea of our eventual demise. in environmental advocate for finding a technological conservation has led to solution to immortality, a notion I find “For most people, death will always be a new-found passion absurd and psychologically damaging. scary,” says Rosenbloom. “But I think for promoting green burial, and she is I don’t expect death denial to disappear what the [Death Salon] movement does is currently working with a local team overnight, but I do think we’re moving provide safe spaces for people to engage of volunteers to bring this sustainable in the right direction as a society in this with this scary topic so they can face it tradition to Boulder. arena.” and make important decisions that will make things better for themselves and Death Salons are one more course in their families instead of denying the the smorgasbord of available end- inevitable.” of-life social franchises—like Death Cafes, “Death Over Dinner,” and The Perhaps we would all benefit from a visit Conversation Project—all intended to the Death Salon—it may even recolor to bring people together to stimulate how we look at dying. discussion and planning about what For more information, please visit www. is still a fairly off-color subject for deathsalon.org.

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36 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org green burial council 2016 – A Breakthrough Year from Kate Kalanick, GBC Executive Director and Ed Bixby, GBC Board President

2016 has been a busy year for the This demand for choices and the desire Green Burial Council (GBC) and the to be more involved with deathcare natural burial movement. Forming is highly visible in our baby boomer new partnerships within the funeral population. This generation is one of industry—with the National Funeral consciousness and passion, driving Directors Association; the International change in many arenas, but most Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral profoundly in the environmental sector. Association; and the National Home They have a passion for our earth. Funeral Association—has given the Boomers have fought for clean air, water GBC critical leverage to create the right and soil, access to and development of public educational opportunities. The alternative energy, and the promotion increased acceptance by the members of recycling. And now, as 80 million of these conventional deathcare boomers consider their end-of-life industry organizations has improved the options, there is a desire to tread as viability of this third burial option. The lightly out of this world as they trod industry’s embrace has also allowed new while here. They want options that partnerships to form with groups like resonate with the way they have lived the Funeral Consumers’ Alliance, which their lives, and conventional burial and has worked to promote better public cremation do not fit the bill. understanding of the funeral industry’s role in the natural burial movement. This year, as never before, we saw many incredible funeral directors and The raised visibility of the GBC through cemeterians embrace green alternatives our speaking engagements with these to conventional deathcare. In many various groups has expanded our ways, 2016 was a breakout year for opportunities in the public arena. In both green burial advocates and the 2017 the GBC will have a platform at funeral industry itself. We expect the the Green Festival Expo, the largest momentum to continue in 2017. and longest-running sustainability and green living event in the US. We will be presenting in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC. One thing we have seen consistently across the US is that the public is ready for the deathcare sector to change. People want options and are concerned about how deathcare choices affect our planet.

www.naturaltransitions.org | NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE | 37 media Seven Songs for a Long Life Review by Mary Reilly-McNellan

Terminal illness is not usually week, six months, associated with gaiety and frivolity, but or hopefully then, Strathcarron Hospice in central longer. But as Scotland is not your average facility. hospice nurse Laughter, music, and sheer exhilaration Mandy Malcomson are found in abundance in the recently reminds us, “They released documentary, Seven Songs for are all still living a Long Life by SDI Productions Ltd – to me.” And she UK. From the moment we meet Tosh shares their gift of O’Donnell, a delightful, fedora sporting song, harmonizing gentleman who croons “I Left My Heart with her charges in San Francisco,” it is clear that this is as we learn the no ordinary end-of-life documentary. moving and deeply There are tears, yes, but mostly we are personal stories elated by the music of life—and death. of a handful of As filmmaker in residence, director Strathcarron patients. Amy Hardie spent three years sharing the hearts and souls of patients in the There is Iain, a music lover and former (or perhaps because of) the knowledge day care ward of one of the country’s motorcycle racer with multiple sclerosis that life is fleeting. largest free palliative care hospices. And who is determined to stay on his feet There are moments of sorrow as well. although they were initially hesitant as long as possible. “I’m ill, I’ve got lots Wheelchair-bound Nicola suffers to speak with Hardie, the patients of problems, but I’m still alive,” he says tremendously from pain and loss of eventually find their voices. Oh, do in his lilting Scottish dialect. Another independence. “She’s finding strength they ever. patient, Julie, methodically works on the decoupage memory box that she from somewhere—I’m not sure where,” Music has always been a fundamental is creating for her family, not wanting notes nurse Malcomson. Yet she and element of Scottish culture, so perhaps to complete it. And we are swept away Nicola transcend her pain as they it is not surprising that Strathcarron with her as she joyfully dances and harmonize to an REM song [“Hold boasts so many gifted vocalists and roller skates with her daughter in spite On”] that reminds us that everyone dancers. We are enchanted by patient of her Hodgkin’s lymphoma, determined hurts sometimes. Nowhere is this more Dorene as she sings, “Wouldn’t It Be to enjoy what time she has left. “I try evident than at Strathcarron Hospice, Loverly?” while doing to hold onto time,” she says. “But each and we become intimately entwined in for her myeloma. Initially uncomfortable day just gets quicker and quicker.” We the patients’ struggles and challenges about sharing her gift of song, Dorene are enchanted by white-haired Alicia as they navigate the course of their quickly loses her self-consciousness as as she sings “Will You Go, Lassie?” with illnesses. But the patients prefer to sing a the melody carries her—and the viewer— a twinkle in her eye, laughing as she different song that they share together— to a place that transcends the knowledge reminisces about her late husband and one of joy, love, and presence in their that life will be over in perhaps a day, a former career as a midwife. “I’ve had individual journeys. And Dorene sums a really gorgeous it up beautifully as she shares Sting’s life,” she bubbles, in “Fields of Gold.” spite of her cancer. As the film’s website notes, “Just as it A highlight takes a village to raise a child, it takes of the film is a community to help face your own experiencing the mortality, making the process of dying sheer joy of the itself safe, individual, and as gentle patients as they as possible.” toe-tap, dance, and bop to the beat of Agnes’s “Release For more information about this Me” while getting uplifting documentary, please see www. their hair done and sevensongsfilm.com. hands massaged— cheerful in spite of

38 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org Kindness Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. – Naomi Shihab Nye, 2016 Counseling, Needs Assessments He came to Earth just long enough to burn away Community Education, Referrals some deep, ancestral madness, Natural Deathcare Advocacy learn his big lessons, teach his big lessons and leave a legacy in the hearts of those who knew and loved him Integral Institute He came to Earth just long enough to become something excruciatingly perfect, in his way; Holly Blue Hawkins to climb upon the Leviathan of Life PO Box 2094 and ride the great wave like a master, once; Aptos CA 95001 with his lean, young, masculine body and 831/588-3040 his tattoos and his rakish stubble of a beard

He came to Earth just long enough to slice through our consensus reality, Hotdogging on a snowboard to the stars… ©hollybluehawkins

40 | VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 | www.naturaltransitions.org