XIII.
Death
EXPANSION, TRANSMUTATION, GUIDANCE, GRIEF, RELEASE
When we are weighed down in grief from the brutal impact of a world designed not for our safety or authenticity, but for our submission and repression, Death emerges to offer companionship and guidance.
Death knows that the nature of life is not simple. It cannot be limited to binary understandings of “good” and “bad” nor “healed” and “unhealed”. Though we are taught to see ourselves as incomplete beings needing to earn our nourishment, Death knows our complexity cannot be contained by the denial of our emotions, our bodies, and our spirits.
Instead Death comes to us like a phoenix illuminating the night, transmuting the heaviness of this compulsory self-denial into a fierce sense of selfdirection. They remind you of the power of your body, of your community, and of your ancestry by way of embrace. Death yearns for us to release stories of our separation and to come home to ourselves as sources of pleasure, connection, and play. Death urges us to burn away that which brutalizes us and confines us, and let the ashes of our fires bring us hope and rebirth.
While you may be saturated with grief, rage, love, and longing if Death has come into your life, do not be afraid, for they come with the reminder that this is one step on your journey. A step that you have encountered before and will encounter again many times over. Yet, each time you have come to this place—you have returned anew.
Death simply asks for you to be with what is and to let things unfold. They ask for you to cherish the complexity of the world around you, rather than deny its richness. They ask for you to see yourself as the cyclical being that you are and take flight.