I feel the need to address what I am sensing in the many emails I receive. Some of you have purchased and read “The Art of Death Midwifery,” some have not. Nearly all, however, ask when I will create more learning materials for this path of service. In that request, I hear the ego voice wanting more and more…and, believe me, I understand that. But if you truly work the technique given in “The Process” and “The Practice,” volunteering with your local hospice and keeping a journal of what you encounter, you will discover that you have years of deep practice to do just with that. Just with that.
My spiritual mentor says that there are two tasks of the spiritual path and that applies to any spiritual path. The two tasks are, first purification, then consecration. In “The Art of Death Midwifery, “The Process” is the act of purification while “The Practice” is the act of consecration.
Therefore, regarding this particular path of service, by purification we mean aligning and toning the physical and subtle bodies to act as unobstructed channels. It is only by becoming as clear a channel as possible for Divine Will to flow through us, that we will be effective as spiritual death midwives. In the path of service we call “The Art of Death Midwifery,” the template for the spiritual warm up we use for purification is called “The Process.”
We never master “The Process.” It is not something that we do for a while and then set aside looking for something else to intrigue us. We must continually cleanse and purify our vehicles both dense and subtle daily, to filter out the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual toxins that we acquire by virtue of being in a human form. It takes great discipline and dedication to do that work tirelessly but unless we are willing to undertake that responsibility, to perform over and over the act of purification, we will not be channels of anything more than white noise and static.
After purification comes consecration. Consecration means having an ideal to which those energies we have created during the process of purification are then directed. In our case, we are consecrating our energies to serving the dying as unobstructed channels through which Divine Will may flow. It means remaining a focused loving presence to one who may be experiencing tremendous suffering. It means not allowing ourselves to collapse into that suffering but remaining a calm guide….bringing order out of chaos, breathing love into fear, staying centered in the face of unspeakable sorrow in the knowing that we are all safe, we are all surrounded by love and we are never alone.
This is an act of what my teacher calls Tikun Olam. It is our act of repairing the world by taking the experience we call death all the way up to God…in whatever form you choose to envision God to be. Tikun Olam is not mastered in a day…or a week…or a year…or a lifetime. If you choose to do this work, you have the tools provided in the book to begin an act that has no end. I hope you choose to begin.