Midwifing Death and the Gift-Giving Paradigm
When I think of the sacred Earth Mother and the sacred Dark Mother of the great yoni-verse, or song of the sacred gateway of all life, death and regeneration, I feel a deep, expansive stillness, wrapping around me like a warm velvety blanket woven with the wisdom threads of the ancient wise grandmothers who have gone before me. The really ancient ones-the ones reaching out across the timeless expanse of this stillness, piercing my heart, beckoning me to wake up to my whole/holiness, as a woman, made in the image of the Mother Goddess herself. I see before me the dancing primal mothers of Africa-whose legacy of love, justice with compassion and equality remains encoded in our mitochondrial DNA.
Opened up by the love of the ancestral grandmothers, I feel the deepest sense of mystery and magic holding my being, and I feel the sacred truth that we are all born of the Great Mother. I feel this has always been true, and always will be, even though the current twisted male-dominant paradigm would have us deny our beginingless beginnings. This paradigm, the mind-set of which I have termed the patriarchal mind-set, or pms, has claimed all of women's sacred blood mysteries as its own, tricking itself into believing that men give birth to women from their ribs, and gods give birth from their thighs and foreheads. The patriarchal mind-set, or pms, has broken the sacred hoop of life and forced it into a straight line, with no connection between beginnings and endings.
This pms has also co-opted the mystery of death, disconnecting it from life and rendering it an enemy. The sacred regenerative cauldron-womb of the Norse goddess, Hel, was corrupted by patriarchal christianity into hell, a frightening place of eternal burning and damnation. Medusa, sacred snake-haired crone hag, meaning "holy", was beheaded, an act considered by the pms to be heroic, in order that men might conquer death and become immortal. Conditioned by such painful distortions, we of western civilization suffer from a deep-seated fear of death, the mother, women, menstrual blood, birth and life. We have all but lost women's ways of knowing; however, our truth cannot be destroyed and remains embedded in our cellular memory, now giving rise to a worldwide collective remembrance as women gather to share and support one another in our awakening, as we are doing here and now.
As one who has been working on reclaiming women's mysteries and magic for many years, I have felt called to find this hidden knowledge about every possible aspect of life I am capable of uncovering and understanding. Genevieve Vaughn has defined for us the basis of community-that of gift-giving and sharing, as she reminds us that "muni" is latin for "gift". In applying this creative wise-female vision to death and dying, I have come to see that death does not have to be the traumatic, life-denying event we are told it is. Death can be a peaceful passage into the next world-the swinging door back through the yoni-gate of mystery (show slides).
I have had the honor and privilege to midwife beings in their dying-animals and humans alike. What stands out for me the most is that when beings feel safe, the process of dying can unfold organically, peacefully and beautifully. My mother's death was such an event. Like so many women, she was a survivor, which was a hard road for her because of the legacy she inherited from her mother, who had been institutionalized at the beginning of the 20th century, like so many, many women, when it took only one signature to claim a woman insane, usually done so by a male family member or male physician. My mother's mother was a brilliant woman, enormously talented and creative who suicided at the age of 54. My mother had heard for many years from her mother that "it was a man's world." I am sorry for my grandmother's pain and for not having the opportunity to know her. I stand now as the lineage holder of my motherline, saying no to further oppression and violence towards women. I know both my mother and grandmother are proud of me, as I carry on with their vision.
My mother, an only child, was the daughter of her mother's pain. With that legacy, she grew up afraid and angry. Who wouldn't have? She was also creative, talented, brilliant and innovative. I decided a long time ago that I would help my parents die, and not place them in a home if I could help it. While they both did have to spend some time in a convalescent hospital, I was committed to being there for them, to aid their passages and to provide an alternative to an uncared for ending of their lives.
So, I brought my mother home to die. Her full story is in my book, so I will only briefly share it here. She spent three days with us before passing, and I watched her change from frightened and anxious-what they call "end stage anxiety"-- to open, peaceful and surrendered-without the aid of morphine. I treated her like an honored guest in my home, creating an environment of peacefulness, beauty and love for her. I transformed her room into what I call a beauty field with flowers and candles, low light, and soft music. I often sat quietly with her, holding her hand, gently coaching her to let go, and giving her permission to die, letting her know that we, her children, would be ok. As I cared for her in this loving way-the same way a mother would care for her child-I witnessed the armor she spent a lifetime acquiring simply fall away and her anger and rage melt into a deep peaceful surrender, without fear. During the last moments of her life, I spoke gently into her ear, as it is said that hearing is the last sense to leave, and guided her into the loving arms of the Great Mother. She had even called out to her mother during her dying process. I rarely heard her speak of her mother during her life, as I think it was too painful for her. But in her death, it was as if she saw and felt her, calling out to her, saying "mom." My mother reached a consciousness of openness in a very short time during her dying, really, when I think of the time she spent in rage in her life and how identified she had become with it. She was able to open to letting go in grace.. I was holding her hand, and guiding her, and then she simply did not take another breath-there was no struggle or resistance. Her face appeared smooth and young looking, with a peaceful expression that surprised me. It was truly a miraculous and beautiful death.
The time of her death was marked by a warm, golden, early morning sunlight filtering through the windows as the sounds of singing birds heralded a new day. Since she died on April 15, which, in America is tax day, I couldn't help but feel her wry sense of humor about the two sure things in life she would talk about-death and taxes. She remained in her bed for three days at home. I would periodically go to her bedside and visit with her throughout those three days.
My children were at home, and they were a part of their grandmother's passing. At first they were frightened, but when they saw that the face of death could be peaceful, they were able to be present with their sadness and grief and move through it. Nothing was hidden from them.
Since I have been a midwife assistant at many births, I was used to feeling that sacred precious energy of new life, and my mother's death, her birth into the next realm, felt exactly the same way as a birth into this life. I simultaneously felt sorrow and joy at her passing. My sorrow was not for her. She had passed quietly and gently. It was for me, feeling the absence of my mother. However, at the same time, I felt an indescribable joy, because I was witness to a process of such undeniable exquisiteness, and I thought who would ever believe me that death can be beautiful?
I maintained the beauty field for her for three days, bringing in fresh flowers and candles, keeping her room like a temple. I showered her body with flower petals. Family members came to be with her and felt moved by the simple presence of what death looks like-no makeup job from a morturary, no hiding her body from view-just death, simple, serene and very present.
In midwifing death in this way, I feel the gift I gave to my mother was the love of the mother. It is this love we are sorely lacking in our lives. In a gift-giving paradigm, I envision that everyone would be well versed in what motherly love is and how to give it. Children would be raised in it and would therefore internalize it, growing into adults who would know how to give and receive love. Death would not be equated with violence and war, and women would be respected as the givers of life-the most precious gift indeed.
In my work with the dying, I have been inspired to find a way to help mend the hoop of the circle of life, bringing death back into the circle as part of, rather than the cold, uncaring opposite of life as it is seen in patriarchal cosmology. This patriarchal opposition has created a dualistic split between life and death, good and evil, dark and light, female and male, right and wrong, etc., with a white male elite at the top of the dysfunctional dominating hierarchy, instilling the idea of the necessity to be "god-fearing". In a mother-love paradigm, god-fearing would be unheard of.
This oppressive conditioning has devastating effects on who we are as sentient beings as well as on our Mother Earth, as we all know too well. In order to find an understanding of how our ancestors dealt with death from an integrated life experience, my passion to find the truth about women-centered culture and our ways has brought me to a study of ancient pre-patriarchal cultures.
A major key to this understanding is to know that in our ancient heritage, death was always associated with regeneration and never stood alone, as archeologist and linguist, Marija Gimbutas, has so eloquently shown in her comprehensive volumes, Language of the Goddess and Civilization of the Goddess. The Death Goddess was always the Goddess of Death and Regeneration, from the Paleolithic through the Neolithic. Regeneration in the womb-cauldron of the Great Mother gives us the vision of the wholeness of life, affirming the passage of death as necessary in order that the flow of life continue, like a river cascading over a mysterious edge, turning into a wondrous waterfall. This forgotten regenerative aspect of life through death, so revered and respected by our earliest ancestors, and hidden from view in patriarchal religions, is indeed the mother's gift of life, of which we are all a part. It was women's sacred practice as priestess to serve as midwife to life and death, as the shemana, shamanka, or shemama, as I now call her. The remaining great temples of Malta and the great womb tombs of Neolithic Europe are the ancestors' gifts to us of this primal wisdom.
The elements of fear and denial currently existing in our supposed modern death practices can keep people bound to a morbid, life-denying, dissociated experience of both life and death. If we cannot see death for what it is-a passage from this life into the next realm of mystery that serves the spiral of life in completion of the great round of the Goddess, then how can we see life for the complete and total gift of exquisite magnitude that it is? If we live in fear, how can we begin to know how to gift one another?
Meeting death in the gift-giving paradigm means to wake up to our life and reclaim our healing ways. We are still feeling the effects of the women's holocaust of the inquisition, which mostly go unnoticed and unspoken except in places where we can all nod in agreement and dare to speak of our herstory about what happened to our foremothers. And in the unspoken realms, we are deeply affected by the collective grief and loss women experience cross-culturally, and have been for 5000 years. Women's healing magic understands that life and death are one, moving in a seamless ebb and flow of creation. This magic knows the greater whole, and that we are all connected through our breath and blood, gifts from the body of the Great Mother.
Women's sacred cultural view of life and death is a nurturing one. It is not that there is an absence of pain and suffering in this view. It is, however, a life-sustaining cosmology, as woman bleeds life into form, suckling it at her breast, and tending to it in death, guiding it on its way through endings to new beginnings, as if we are nurtured in life at one breast and nurtured in death at the other. In this view, economics would not determine how well one is tended to and cared for in their passage. Love would be gifted, and would be its own reward.
Our early ancestors/ansisters seemed to enjoy a kind of ecstatic oneness with the Mother-it is this ecstasy I believe to be the womb-essence of women's true religion. Like our primal African mothers, whose rock art shows their celebration of life, let us dance together, sing, create, love, and share all our unique gifts through life and death. And the primal grandmothers will dance with us in celebration of our re-membering.
And now, I want to ask you to share with me a vision of motherly love in death and dying. I want to take you to the Wildzone, described by author and artist Patricia Reis as "strictly female space, woman-centered, woman-defined, woman-loving space. It is where women find each other as support and resource. It is where women's culture is formed" (Reis, Daughters of Saturn p. 36).
MEDITATION: The Wild Zone
Close your eyes, if you wish, and take some deep cleansing breaths. Allow yourself to relax and open, letting go of hurry and worry. Let your mind calm, and allow a sense of peace to wash over you. Breathe in nurturance from all around you, from the endless supply of love in the yoni-verse.
Allow the grandmothers of timeless time to appear before you, beckoning you to open into trust, beauty and joy. Allow a sense and or image to come to you of a loved one who is dying. Perhaps is might even be yourself. See them surrounded by caring and loving women who are tending to them in grace. See the space filled with beauty協lowers, candles, soft music, draping cloths, soft light, sweet smells of flowers and incense. Hear the women as they begin to quietly sing, forming a circle around your loved one. Their sound is like a lullaby. You sense your loved one feeling safe and surrendered. There is a feeling of wonder, magic and peace. The presence of mystery fills the space, as the natural organic process of life recreating itself unfolds. You sense your loved one beginning to let go, listening to the gentle guiding voice of one of the women who whispers softly in their ear, guiding them to let go, into the arms of the Mother. The midwifing women are the priestesses of the Mother on the side of the veil of flesh, blood and bone, ushering this precious life into the waiting arms of the Great Mother on the other side, in seamless continuity.
It is said that our true nature is 10,000 times brighter than the sun. Allow the warmth of this truth to emerge, as your loved one surrenders to the limitless space opening before them. Your loved one easily passes from this life to the next, and you remain, feeling the awe of the eternal flame of life, as it changes form. You remain, holding the space for your loved one to journey forth in a showering of the blessings of your love. There is nothing to fear. There is only love. You feel the presence of regeneration, and marvel at the truth that endings are new beginnings.
