If the gods are generous, one of the most powerful gifts we can ever be given is time to die. It is not necessarily an easy gift to accept, nor a welcome one, but it allows us time to prepare, to ‘put our house in order’.
In many old-rooted traditions, there is an understanding that we take on the debts of our parents, who themselves hold any unpaid debts of their parents, and so on; it is a duty of living an honourable life to ensure that we don’t leave our descendants with unnecessary burdens. Some debts create tangles that restrict us from moving on from the land of the living to that of the ancestors, leaving us emotionally and spiritually bound up with problems we are not able to resolve. In some traditions, the period of mourning includes the task for those left behind of untying any tangled threads, releasing the one who has died, giving the responsibility to clear up another’s mistakes and complications to those still living. For many in modern Druidry, some or all of these ideas are an integral part of understanding death and dying.
They certainly are for me, and as a result I feel it an obligation of honour to ensure that there are as few tangles as possible ongoing in my day to day life. If I begin the day with meditation and prayers, stepping from my altar with a sense of peace, that peace comes from knowing that it would be acceptable if today I were to die. It may not be welcome, or easy, but it would be OK. For if my life is in order, and I have left little for my family to do on my behalf, there is a freedom in my living.
Philosophers have spoken of this for millennia, as have theologians of many religions: when we are ever aware of our mortality, comfortable with the immanence of death, it inspires us to be more wakeful in our living, to be more present in each moment, conscious of the way our feet touch the ground, our breath weaving us into the wind and the skies. This is no morbid attitude, but a part of our Druid muse, for this is about the complete integration of death within life that is nature’s soul.
The very real benefits of preparing for our death are many and various. I shall present a few here that seem to me to be most poignant as I write. The first is that it inspires us to clear up any complicated relationships, and not let others develop. There is wisdom needed in this process, courage, respect, generosity, but also responsibility. It is relevant in terms of our relationships with other human beings, but also with the wider tribes of our lives, with nonhuman animals and the environment, all of which, as Druids, we also perceive as people.
The second is about objects, the stuff that clutters our lives, and it is about uncluttering. If we sit down and look around us, it is useful to consider, to imagine, what it would be like for a loved one, a child (or parent), to have the job of clearing it all up, of clearing it all out. This is not just about making it known who will inherit what, for we usually only do that when there are items of significant financial or spiritual value. It is about the rest. With some arrogance we might consider our lives would be interesting for another to sift through, and that the process of clearing is for many an important part of grieving, but it is also an exhausting and lengthy task handed over to folk who are often in the thick of all too busy lives. We don’t need to clear ourselves out before we are gone, but we can keep it a little tidier. The stuff, after all, can loom over us like a dark and heavy cloud, and it can make a huge difference to the way we live, how we live and how we keep our home environment, if we address it face on.
The same is true of chaos we might have in our bank accounts, financial debts and mortgages: these modern currents of energy. We might imagine that dying would be an easy way of throwing our hands up in resignation and walking away from the mess … but others, those we leave behind, will have to deal with it when we are gone. Would your partner, child, parent, friend – whoever becomes your executor – know what bank accounts you have, pensions, insurance policies, premium bonds, magazine subscriptions and so on? Do you? (A strange question, but many actually admit they don’t.)
Perhaps most poignant, when we are facing the gateways ourselves, if we are able to do so with the spiritual strength and inspiration that Druidry offers us, there is most often a strong desire to tidy it up. It isn’t only that we don’t want to hand the mess over uncaringly. There is a craving inside to get things straight before we go. We know that to do so will afford us a much welcomed sense of peace. And that is a peace we can share with those who will grieve our loss.
So how can we do this practicably, as an integral part of our Druidry?
Every Samhain nature offers us the teachings we need about how to die. In our temperate climate of distinct seasons, the rites of Samhain are a gateway into winter, and winter is a time of dying, of letting go, of releasing back into the land. So is it a perfect time to sit down and sort out our lives in preparation for death.
Starting with the practical issues, what needs to be done? A beginning is to ensure that your Will is up to date and legal, signed and witnessed. If you don’t have a Will, get one done; it need not be an expensive act in terms of legal bills (there are websites to help, but I would encourage folk to drop by at a local solicitors and ask what their service is). If you do have a Will, make it a part of your Samhain to re-read it.
Have a think about a Living Will which looks at whether or not you’d like medical treatment towards the end of your life.
The next thing to do is to leave an updated list of all your bank accounts, direct debits and monthly payments, pensions, insurance policies and so on. List your debts (both formal and informal). Make sure the list is dated so that any executor will know that it may not be accurate; it nevertheless gives a good idea for those who are going to clear up your life when you are gone.
The other part of preparing to die is the work of organising your funeral. Do you know whether you’d like to be buried or cremated, where the burial might be or what you’d like done with your ashes? Although it isn’t possible to leave your wishes laid out as a legal document, wishes written down beforehand will usually be taken into consideration by those we leave behind, especially if we’ve discussed it beforehand. Samhain is an entirely relevant time to do this, with the energies of the gods taking us towards winter.
With a copy of your Will that is easily accessible, you might like to have a copy of the ritual you’d like used for your Rite of Passing; contact details for the celebrant you’d like for the rite would also be useful. If you haven’t bought a coffin already (some can be used as storage boxes, even bookcases), details as to the coffin you’d prefer would help the one left behind as they wade through the grief and all there is to do. If it is important that you are buried with certain religious or magical items, make that clear too. Although often those grieving like to be wholly involved, making decisions as expressions of love, it is also enormously useful for them if they have an idea of what you would have wanted.
Allowing Samhain to be a teacher, this is also a good time to consider the emotional issues, those tricky relationships that we have ignored for so long, yet which irritate when we remember them. Some relationships can be solved simply by us working on our own attitudes, and as the darkness of winter opens out before us this is a time of self-reflection, of letting go the dross that compromises our peace.
Of course, at the dusk of each day, as Druids we make prayers – as the world eases, relaxing into the darkness, letting go the tightness of its form and identity. And this time is, if we are awake to it, another source of teaching about death and dying. Sitting in the garden or the meadows, or even at an open window, feeling the light slip away as darkness seeps in, filling our environment, feeling it in our breath allows us to feel it in our soul, our song, as we too shift. We can, if we wish, become tight and resistant, alert to danger in the dark. But if we relax with nature, we can stay in harmony with it, each day we have the opportunity to understand a little more, and a little more peacefully, the nature of death.