From the article:
“Don’t wait until you’re at death’s door to explore your passions, deepen your relationships and find your posse.”
“Take command of the space. No matter where death occurs, you can bring calm and meaning to the room.”
(photo by Michael Macor from the article)
Here you can listen to Joe Donahue’s interview with Kevin Toolis, author of this fascinating and very instructive book about his experiences in Ireland around the passing of his father. Relevant to all of us, this is not just about the Irish experience but what we can all learn from their ancient cultural traditions surrounding death and dying
My Father’s Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love and Die
From the article: ““Famous last words” are the cornerstone of a romantic vision of death—one that falsely promises a final burst of lucidity and meaning before a person passes. “The process of dying is still very profound, but it’s a very different kind of profoundness,” says Bob Parker, the chief compliance officer of the home health agency Intrepid USA. “Last words—it doesn’t happen like the movies. That’s not how patients die.” We are beginning to understand that final interactions, if they happen at all, will look and sound very different.”
Here is a good resource page for prayers for the dying in the Catholic tradition, including scripture readings, prayers at bedside, graveside and for mourning.
image courtesy of asik.site
Sadhguru gives a very clear and informative 9 minute talk about the dissolution of the energies at death. Including: Five basic manifestations of energies: Samana Prana Udhana Apana Viyana their characteristics and how they leave the body. Hell and Heaven as experiential realities during the passing process. Some hints about practices to help the voyager, how cremation can be beneficial.
From the last sentence: “There are many rituals to see that your influence, that you can somehow put a drop of sweetness into that non discerning mind so that the sweetness will multiply many fold and they will live comfortably or they will live in a certain self induced heaven, that’s the idea behind the ritual if it is done properly.”
This is so clearly presented, well worth watching, a real eye opener!! The Importance of Death Rituals.
They say that stress is 10 percent action, 90 percent reaction. Here is a great exercise from the LRS Readers Course (and also the book Practical Work on Self by EJ Gold) that will help you deal very effectively with, yes, even the Long Island Expressway.
Individual Exercise: The Pond
Purpose: To strengthen your ability to tolerate the states experienced in the Labyrinth.
Exercise: Our reflex reactions toward the manifestations of others are the chief cause of the automatic arising of lower-emotional storms within the organic body. Think of the organic body as a calm pool of water, and the shock of impressions from one who is for us a “walking-source-of-irritation” as pebbles. The ripples from dropping a pebble in the water would represent the reverberations that spread through the body. As we would expect, certain pebbles cause greater effect than others. Also, we should be aware that reverberations occur not only on the surface but under the surface as well. This week, we will “open the water” before the pebble so as to offer no resistance to the pebble; thus the ripples do not occur. We could learn to “open the water” before the reflexive reactions of the body are engaged from the impact of the annoying manifestations of others.
