B. Personal Experience With Death
This talk is recounted from conversations with people involved in the caring of B before, during and after his death.
Those of you who read this, in this lifetime if you’ve never felt what it is like to die may consider yourselves fortunate. There may be others of you who have had a death experience and may consider yourselves fortunate also. It all depends on your point of view.
At the end of our lives we will all experience death and at that time our feelings on the subject may change. But then, it will be too late.
The services described in these pages are available to anyone who asks.
From the dawn of man, where, out of respect for the deceased the body was protected from the scavenging of animals; to the rituals, rites, and ceremonies of the ancient Sumerians who lived in the Tigris-Euphrates valley five thousand years ago; to Judaism, where there has been a tradition of how death and mourning is handled for thousands of years, there has been a respect for death and how it affects the living.
Why then, in our society, has the process of death been given to the priests of commercial consumption? The blood is pumped out of the body to be replaced by a clear chemical fluid which is just to give the body a life-like appearance when the body is viewed at the memorial service. No respect for the dead, just for the vanity of the living. To speak of the dead we use the words passed away or departed as if they’ve taken a vacation and will be back to see us when they get back. You can invest in real estate where your body will be interred decades before the event. Caskets are made of expensive woods, with fancy brass hardware and extravagant silk linings. The richer you are the more you can invest in the thousands of dollars necessary to die. Thousands of dollars to die? It doesn’t cost anything in monopoly money to die. What costs is the price to society of removing tradition from the process of death. There is not much available to help the dying person prepare for death and there is even less in a support system to help the mourner handle the grief. The mourner instead becomes someone who has to entertain “guests” at their most vulnerable time. The people come and talk about anything but the deceased as if they were at a local singles bar.
In the middle of 1985, G. was approached by a man who had previous connections with the Institute for help with that person’s passage through death. B had a large malignant tumor in his chest next to his heart. The doctors on the case had attempted to operate and then had just closed his chest back up. The tumor was inoperable.
The fact is, B didn’t call G. until he had only hours left to live. He had accessed all the medical channels available to him. B was forty years old, he wasn’t ready to die and he wanted more time. He felt his death was imminent and he had not completed his work. Was there anything that could be done?
As it turns out, B had a remission for six months. For a year he lived in Santa Cruz and visited the Institute often. It appeared to people in the Core Group that B was at the Institute because he had business to take care of.
R: “I got connected with B through the play. He spent some time with Kelly and me when we were doing rehearsals for the ‘Creation Story’ a year ago. We felt that he was around the play to “get” something. We were aware that he had been on death’s bed just recently ad had recovered for who knows how long.
“The connection I made with B seemed to be with his essence. I was in his physical presence for what amounted to only hours and had little interaction with his personality, yet I felt a strong connection with him which seemed to persist even after he had died.”
When it was time, B moved back to Grass Valley – where he had spent most of his life-and made contact with the Institute.
Although I.D.H.H.B. had the Terminal Midwifery program and The American Book of the Dead for over ten years, no one had died in such a manner that would allow them to work as intimately with a Practitioner of the Core Group as the situation B was offering. The guidelines for the Clear Light Funeral Service had been written over ten years previous when it was not known if, other than the mortuary staff, the body could legally be handled; we now knew we could. Just that change alone would allow more possible to be done with the service.
Also, a new edition of The American Book of the Dead, to be called The Practical Guide to the Labyrinth, which will be the third book in a trilogy with the Human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus
And Life in the Labyrinth, and also an updated version of the Terminal Midwifery program coming out later this year will use information gained directly from working with B and the preparation of his body for burial after his death.
There were two distinct areas for working with B. Pat and Adelheid worked with B while he was still alive. They helped him prepare for his upcoming death and would be present when he died.
After he died his body would be prepared for burial using the guidelines of the Clear Light Funeral Service. There was a list of seven men from which four would be notified at the time of B’s death and would prepare the body; washing and purifying it, dressing it in the burial shrouds and then putting the body in the casket.
One night, no long after he had moved back to Grass Valley, B was so concerned that he would die violently and unconsciously that he could not get to sleep. He had incredible cramps in his right arm and leg which had become paralysed from the spread of the cancer. He was in such pain that he cried out. Anna, who B was staying with, called and G. told her to let B know that he could work with the sensations.
G. “Tell him it’s a muscle spasm, not violence. His body is in contraction, but he is at peace. Be calm, at peace.
“Say to him, ‘Look at me.’ Establish eye contact with him. ‘This will not last forever. It will be over soon.’ Like in childbirth. Take him through like you would a mother in labor. ‘It’s almost over. Breath.’
“He might think he can’t make it, but no one’s ever failed yet. What is there to make, anyway?
“He’s thinking of living. Dying is the opposite. No maintaining. No saving face. No breathing. Surrender to it.
“It’s not like birth. With voyaging, cut loose the painter.”
Anna. “What is a painter?”
G. “The painter is the rope that ties the boat to the dock. Cut the rope, let go.
“Say to him, ‘See the struggle within the body, far far below you. See the body seven or eight dimensions below you and watch the struggle of the body from far above.’
“Like in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Vogon poetry. The most horrible poetry in the universe. The guy is strapped into his chair so he won’t commit suicide while listening to it. His secret: enjoy it. Deliberately enjoy it.
“Deliberately enjoy your spaasm. It’s a dance. A cosmic dance. The being is exiting from the body. Fighting is the body’s response. The secret is to enjoy it. Your whole body. Don’ think of spasm or pain. Convert it to a dance.
“It’s just not like any dance he’s ever done before, that’s all. At least not lately.
“The way to deal with his inability to concentrate is to help him convert the spasm to a dance. You can chant in tempo with his spasms. A group could chant in unison. Not in steady 4/4 time but in Navajo free time.
“If you have trouble, we can have some drummers come over and drum for him.” This made real sense to B because of his previous associations wot the Mevlevi, the whirling dervishes, he knew about the beat and the dance.
At the time B moved back to Grass Valley, G. was suffering a bout of pneumonia. G. came with P to the house where B was staying. He didn’t want to go into the room that B was in and give B some illness that would hasten his death. He asked this to be communicated to B.
P. “We could hear B chuckle. He was still fairly strong at this time. He said, ‘What can he give me that I’m not already dying of?’
“We went into the bedroom where B was staying. He was lying next to the oxygen tent which had been set up for him. G. sat in a chair at a respectable distance from the bed.
“After greetings and B’s condition was brought up to date, it was agreed that the Institute would help with B’s terminus and G. would direct it. G. wouldn’t be personally involved, but he would be there.”
G. asked B, “What was the purpose of your life, one purpose?”
B. “To have a body that sees and responds only to spirit.”
G. said, “Look around the room and see if there’s something you can do without. What do you regret leaving? Look around the room and ask if you would regret leaving this or that.”
B said, “Friends in the work.”
G’s response was, “No, that’s too hard. One thing.”
B found one thing. G. said, “Use that as a touchstone. That one thing will access this entire lifetime for your.”
G’s next question was, “Is there anything you would like to have in the next lifetime? Any purposes you would like to have in the next lifetime? Set your purposes for the next lifetime before the maelstrom hits. The chaos and turmoil of the terminal experience, psychologically and physically along with certain aspects of the transit experience will take all of you energy and you won’t have the energy or time for much else.”
B’s response was, “A body related to spirit.”
G. said, “That’s a good aim.”
“Check for unfulfillments in this lifetime. If you have unfulfillments they will draw you back…
“Is this reality to you? The arrangements for your body, the mortuary, the living will.”
“Yes and no. It is and it isn’t.”
G. had said that up until the last, B still thought that he was going to live. The animal in him was still fighting or life.
P. “I had the feeling that he had accepted his death but not completely.”
R. “He had mentally accepted it. The impact hadn’t hit him yet that this was it.”
P. “Yes, Whole Body Agreement hadn’t taken place.”
R. “If I were in that position I can imagine that I could accept it mentally but that when it came down to the nitty-gritty, I might really have to work to get that acceptance happening totally.”
T. “That’s something I remember from the Intensive last year when we did the Last Hour of Life Exercise; until you actually die there is an unreality about it when someone tells you that you’re going to die. It doesn’t make sense. Because they had been told they were going to die in an hour a lot of people lay down on the floor and started doing their readings and breathing as they had been told and their touchy-feely goodbyes. I felt there was an unrealness to their responses because they couldn’t feel the impact of what was supposed to happen.”
P. “On the way back, we had a conversation in the car. G. said, ‘The life of the machine is part of the universe, so in the machine coming to the end of its life isn’t something that is separate from existence in the universe. It is part of the universe.’ We were talking about how people make a separation when they die.
“How can there be a coming and going when there is only one place?”
R. “Isn’t that like the body is a tunnel through Creation. It’s always there, it’s just a passage, it’s permanent.”
P. “G. said how to leave the body. ‘You feel as if something is dropping away from you, not you pulling back away from it. You stay still, let the body drop.’
“The first time that I saw B in the chamber, I absolutely knew that the birthing chamber and the death chamber were the same. The function of the midwife is the same in both spaces; to allow for the natural process to occur.
“The use of a midwife in the birthing chamber is to help the mother remain centered and to keep her in good contact with the baay. For the terminal midwife the job is the same–to stay in good contact with the being of the voyager and to allow the natural process of death to take place. In this case, that means to provide for the process of physical death of the body, for the being to proceed with as little interruption or interference as possible.
“G had said that the process of dying is very much like the process of birth. As a matter of fact, the sequence of events is exactly the same pattern in both cases. One instance of this is there is a time of transition-type breathing and preparation for crowning (when the baby’s head first becomes visible) in birth which occurs also in the death process. The contractions become more irregular and intense for a period of about five or six cycles and then there is a definite change in sensation and the baby or being is ready to be delivered.
“With the mother there is seen a period before labor starts of nesting, preparation, anxiousness and/or nervousness. In the case of the terminal voyager there is a period of tying up life-ends, putting right any leftover business, cleaning relationships and generally readying the mind for the transition that will occur.
“While it may appear that there is an end to life in the process of death it actually is a passage from one life to another. There is definitely the sense of birth occurring. The death of the machine is the birth of the essential self. There are long periods of labor to be undergone with much the same kind of training and practice for it as you can achieve with the birth of a child.
“There was another aspect to what we were asked to do- to keep the death chamber as alive as possible by not allowing the normal twentieth-century policy of sedating a person out of his mind when they approach the pain of death. The most necessary part of working with the physical aspects was to be able to respond to the requests of B about pain and pills and follow his lead when it was time to stop eating and drinking. There is a certain tendency to deny the reality of death ‘by continuation’, to supply organic life substances, air, food, and water. When the body is ready to quit living it starts sending out the signals of no food, no eliminating and then no air.
“That’s what happened. B stopped eating after a while, even though two days before he said that he still enjoyed food, then he stopped eliminating altogether, then he stopped drinking anything more than a sip and started just living on what little air was coming in through the oxygen tubes. There was a very definite statement on his part to stop the pain pills as well and the night before his death, he went for many long hours with no medication, even though he was in much pain.”
A. “For the first two weeks which I spent in the house, I felt uncomfortable in B’s bedroom. It seemed like such a very personal space, and I felt like an intruding stranger. It was only a few days before B’s death that the space to me became less personal and I felt more and more at ease in the room. After B’s death, I was drawn to the room. It felt like such a right space to just sit quietly and do nothing.
“It was a bit astonishing to me that although B was so very ill, he did not relax his face much. Most of the time, even sometimes when I thought he might be asleep, his mouth kept twitching into a certain little smile. It reminded me of what G. once said about how it is possible to observe the play of personality across a person’s face. A few days before his death, B’s face relaxed, his eyes were partly open, but he seldom reacted at all to the goings-on around him. A few times people wondered if he was unconscious, but I was sure that he was there-he just did not interact with it anymore/ It reminded me of what I once read about Zen meditation practices: ‘They just sit there with their eyes half open and -nothing.’
“B was using his energy to work on himself. One day Lori told me that B had asked her to explain to the people in the house what he was working on. She said that he was taking it down the the last cell. He was taking the knowledge to every cell. The knowledge seemed to be impressions. A few days before his death L told me that B had completed what he wanted to do — ha had taken it to every cell.
“B chose a time to die when most of the people who were around him the last few days happened to be at the house together. I think it must have been around 2:30 p.m. when P and I got ready to go for a drive. Someone mentioned that B’s breathing had changed. We went into the bedroom. With every breath he made a little noise like a sigh.
“I remembered times when I had breathed like that and it had felt very comfortable, so I did not connect it with dying. P mentioned that it was a kind of breathing that happens at childbirth. We decided to go for a drive because we did not think B close yet. We went to P’s car. The passenger seat was full of stuff and P took some time to clear it away. We were in the car ready to go, when B’s mother came running out of the house and asked us to stay because B’s breathing had changed.
“We went back into the bedroom. Several people were standing around the bed, B was still doing the same kind of breathing. Anna, B’s former wife, asked me to get the beeswax candle which we had saved for the moments of B’s death. When I fetched it from the kitchen, I noticed that B’s father had arrived and was sitting in the living room. B’s mother was telling him what was happening but he did not come into the bedroom at that time. Back in the bedroom, Lori was sitting by the bed holding B’s hand. She was breathing with him, telling him to stay centered and remember the teaching. P was pushing down on B’s pillow, I assume she thought the pillow was hindering his breathing.
“The rest of us, five more women, were standing or sitting around the bed, looking at B. He was still doing his sigh-breathing, then he stopped for a long time. I thought he had died, but then he started breathing again. He interrupted his breathing a few more times and then stopped.
“I remember that at that moment I had to fight this panic which was welling up inside me. It was the same kind of panic which I felt with my mother–that I was failing the dying person because I could not be present. Physically, there was nothing for me to do. B had asked that for first hour after his death we all would sit quietly with the body, then in the second hour P was to to the readings from the ABD.”
P. “When B’s body died it was like sitting watching someone go out of themselves and join something else. He was completely awake although he had been semi-comatose for several days, and virtually comatose for hours before. All of a sudden his breathing drastically changed and his face took on a bright aware look, his eyes opened–he had been looking out of the slit of one eye for most of the last day and probably was not seeing much, if anything. When he opened his eyes he was definitely looking into somewhere else, making little tiny sounds like ‘aaoohhch,’ long sounds that went with the breathing and seemed to open up the air someplace in front of him, directly where he was looking. He flowed into that place in long pauses, like birthing a baby, out a little with each contraction and then back in a little between contractions until finally the whole body comes through in a little splurt and you can check the cord to see if it is wrapped around the neck and turn the baby on its side so that it can breathe. In B’s case we had only to follow the flow of his presence as it moved into that chamber.
“His passage was not to ‘somewhere else,’ but so close he appeared to remain right in the room with us for hours and hours after. When, with D’s and R’s help, we placed his body on the guerney and wrapped a sheet around his body, and then placed the prayer shawl around his head, the warmest, sweetest smell and feeling came over the whole room and B had a smile on his face.
“In the ABD it says to leave the body alone for half an hour, you don’t touch it let the being get familiar in its new surroundings and then you give the readings because the being is in a receptive state and it can take instruction. It’s ironic that B only wanted the reading done in the second hour.
“G. has said that when it comes time for his death , he wants everyone to have a party up until the moment of death and at terminus everyone is to leave the room so he can get his bearings in this new space without all the confusion to distract him.
“For twenty-four hours after B died I felt that everything I was eating was B. I’d smell him and see him in every posture my body got in. I had images for days. I would see him in what I was doing. My hand would be in a certain position and I would recall washing his hand or moving his hand on the bed. Everything was related.”
R. “Yes, I had that for about twenty-four hours also.”
T. “I had been working on a computer art video of the original version of “How I Raised Myself From the Dead in Forty-nine Days or Less” with G. There had been a lot of communication with a person named B, a man who had been associated with the Institute in the past and had been responsible for helping the Institute move to Grass Valley some years before.
“When it was announced that B would be dying soon, there was a meeting called for those people from the Institute that were interested in caring for Balir and preparing his body for burial.
“It is not a pleasant thing to think about and my imagination ran wild with the possibilities that could happen with a dying person. But because of the death exper-ience of my own, and also because I was working on “How I Raised Myself from the Dead” it was a situation that I wanted to be part of. I chose to be responsible for gathering the implements needed, communication with the funeral home, and also gathering together the team when it was needed.
“It was decided that only men would take part in the washing ceremony for B and a list of seven names was prepared from which four names would be used for the actual ceremony. We would be on call as we didn’t know what time of day or night B would die or even what day he would die.
“My wife K and I met with B that evening. We were apprehensive as we were being squeezed into an intimacy with a person neither of us had known before and I was going to take part in an extremely delicate and intimate situation with B after he was no longer alive.
The house was a beautiful, large Victorian, approached from a winding series of roads in the hills back from the main highway. We parked our car in front of the house and made our way up the crunchy gravel driveway to the side entrance of the house. It was dusk, and the early evening light filtered down through the trees.
“We removed our shoes and B’s mother let us in through a beautiful cut glass and oak door. The room we were let into was a high-ceiling room with bookcases lined upon two facing walls and hundreds of books lined up in rows on the floor that hadn’t been catalogued in the huge personal library on the bookshelves.
“There were several other people in the room and there was a definite aura in the house. There was a tension, an expectancy and hushed tone one usually finds in a sanctuary. K and I washed our hands and browsed through the impressive library. We were told that B wanted to see us but that we had to wait until he was able to gather the strength to talk.
“After a short while we were sent for and ushered in to B’s room. Eyes closed, his brows knit in concentration, his gaunt frame lay back on a dian which faced a wall of picture windows which let in the last of the evening light and lit the large open room with the last few rays of the sun. Slowly, his chest rose and fell in a labored breathing.
“His eyes opened, looking ahead, then turned and focused on us. A moment passed and he exhaled ‘Hi.’
“What do you say to a man who is dying, knows he is dying, and is going to use everything he has spent his life on learning to know to go through the death transi-tion as conscious as he can? ‘Hello,’ I said.
“K and I introduced ourselves to B.
“We didn’t want to impose ourselves on B but at the same time he was low on energy and we didn’t want to waste the time he had available to talk with us.
“I said, ‘B, I feel awkward about this but I should let you know that I will be one of those taking care of your body after terminus.’
“That’s good to know.”
“Is there anything you would like to know about the ritual?”
“We can talk about that at another time.’
“Also, are there any words or music that you would like repeated during the ritual?’
“No, I trust what you say will be appropriate.’
“His eyes slowly shut again and we waited to see if he would have the strength to talk again.
“The sky was nearly dark now; we could see a few stars through the trees. The room was dimly lit from a lamp. The room was quiet and still, there was an air of expectancy.
“B frowned and said. ‘Once a year there is a Sufi night of power. It is never the same night from one year to the next.’ A pause. ‘Tonight is such a night. I would like you to join my friends and me in a zhikr, if you would like.’
“Yes, we would like to join you.’
“I will let you know. I have to get some rest.’
“We left the room and went to the kitchen where we helped clean up the evening meal dishes.
“After about an hour, B’s girlfriend L came out of his room and said it was time for the zhikr. We followed her into the room. There were five of us and we arranged ourselves in a circle with B who was lying on the bed.
“I don’t have the strength to physically keep up with you but I will be with you.”
“The Dervish music rose from the tape recorder and we joined in. It might seem that one should be honored doing a zhikr with a dying man, at his request, but to me it seemed a distraction, but I wasn’t there to impose myself on the situation. One of the things I had just learned from E.J. that to be a Practitioner working with the dying was that one should be invisible, part of the furniture.
“That night was the last time we saw B alive. The precise schedule that we had put together was no longer needed. Pat and Adelheid took over most of the burden of taking care of B and helping his family.
“We had no idea how long it would be before B breathed his last breath. It could be this night or it could be weeks or even months away. I felt like a doctor on call with the hospital, at any moment I could be called away from whatever I was doing.
“There were things to do. His body was going to be cared for by us. The funeral home had been contacted and agreed to let B’s body be prepared by us. There were implements that were needed and the guidelines had to be finished that would help us prepare the body for burial.
“I found it difficult taking on the responsibility of coordinating these preparations. I had been at the Institute less than two months and felt a beginner in these matters.
“For example, D was going to make the casket. He is a good carpenter but had never built a casket before. He had some questions that he wanted me to find answers to.
“So I called Mr. Br at the funeral home. I had been to see Mr. Br at the funeral home to see the room where we would be doing our work/. We had developed an amicable relationship and I felt comfortable calling him.
“He was a grandfatherly man, in his sixties and had a deep gravelly voice which could be very smooth and comforting or the sound of granite fracturing.
“Mr. Br, we have a carpenter who is going to make the casket for B and he needs to know some basic information so he can proceed.’
“Okay, what would you like to know?”
“Well, how big is the hole in the ground they put the casket in?”
“What do you need to know that for?’
“The carpenter needs to know the maximum size he should make the casket so it will fit in the hole.”
“He seemed amused. ‘Don’t you think you should be thinking of the minimum size?”
“I see your point. We had been thinking of putting the casket in the hole in the ground instead of putting the body in the casket.’
“Are there any laws or regulations concerning the casket or what it is made of?”
“No, you can make it out of cardboard or particle board if you want. Or it can be a body bag. No matter what it is, it’s put in a concrete liner in the ground. Most are made of plywood. The dimensions of a plywood box are to make efficient use of a 4×8 foot sheet of plywood. We don’t make caskets here, we just sell them. Call any casket company and they’ll help you.”
“Okay Mr. Br. Thanks for your help.’
“It was a little after two weeks after the night K and I met B that he died. There were two or three times during that time it was thought that B would die.
“I found it difficult coordinating preparations. I had a list of things needed but it always seemed that I would remember to purchase them at the time and place where I couldn’t. I never remembered on my way to the grocery store, or during business hours. After twice when it seemed possible that B was close to death, everything that was needed came together. There were buckets that were needed; sponges, surgical gloves, aprons, candles, boards, sheets, shrouds, that had to be made, water for Purification Service, and the small things whose importance is not related to size, such as matches to light the candle.
“B died in the early afternoon on a Wednesday, not really remarkable from any other day that week. Work on the new studio was going on at that time and I felt prepared, so a lot of the anxiety had gone. Someone came out from the house and said, “B died five minutes ago.
“The calmness vanished and it was now time to do the job that we had been waiting for. Because of readings that had to be doe at terminus and to respect the family’s wish for time alone with B after his death, it would be at least three hours before we would be needed.
“Telephone calls were made and the people who would be a part of the ritual were notified. The casket was loaded into the back of L’s VW van and I trundled off to town after stopping for some spring water and some fresh cut straw for the casket and pillow.
“After showering and dressing at home I was told that the funeral home closed at six o’clock and we would have to wait until Thursday morning to do the ritual washing. D, R, and I met and discussed the upcoming work. The fourth member of our group, D, we would meet with the next morning. We talked through the ritual as it would be performed the next day adding suggestions and familiarizing ourselves with the procedures. D and R left to go to B’s house to help load the body into the funeral van.”
R. “I had sensations when driving over there with D that B was above and watching and the ironic thing was, he couldn’t tell anybody. He was watching all aspects connected with his death going on and he wanted to laugh because he was right there, he could see and hear everything but he couldn’t tell anybody. I kept finding my viewpoint drifting off to that same viewpoint of seeing all these things going on and hearing these people talking about him and he’s right there. His attention is right there. He can see it and he can hear it.”
“It was about seven-thirty in the evening when D and I arrived at the house. As everyone who entered that house realized, there was an uncomfortableness that increased as one neared proximity. As we approached the door we saw A standing there on the porch. She was radiating energy. A’s and B’s two children were standing there wide-eyed and asking questions. ‘Mommy, can I have some yogurt?’ ‘Mommy, where is Daddy now?’ ‘Mommy, I want some yogurt. Can I have some?’ “Is Daddy going to be gone for long?’
“As the front door opened, there was a sensation of buzzing and vibration in the air. I felt as if we were stepping into an elevator. Anna was the lift operator or guide who acclimatized or helped us shape-shift into the proper chamber for entry.
“As we moved deeper into the house, we both noticed there was an element of humor present. In the kitchen where a group of people had gathered there was this in-credible levity.
“We waited in the kitchen, fitting ourselves in with the level of humor and intensity that was present.
“There was a knock at the door. A opened it and a short, fat man dressed in cheap brown polyester pants and a short-sleeved white shirt appeared. He had bright blue eyes and slicked-down blonde hair. He carried a clipboard in his hand.
“I followed the signs,” he said as he poked his head in the room. “Do I have the right place?”
“Yes, you have the right place. Please come in.” Anna replied with a chuckle.
“He walked in with an air of relief, ‘Well, you never know, sometimes…I have had the experience of assuming it’s the correct place and it isn’t. I walk up to the house and say ‘I’m from the mortuary,’ and they immediately start wondering who has died.’
“There followed a short but direct conversation between Anna and the man having to do with the cemetary and the location of the plot.
“It’s Sierra Cemetery isn’t it? “Yes.”
“And he’s got a nice spot under a pine tree doesn’t he?’
“Not pine. You won’t find a single pine tree in any cemetery.’
“Oh… why not?’
“Too hard to maintain. And after all, unless you wish to pay a gardener you don’t need pine trees.’
“No, Blue Spruce is what he’ll be under.’
“I see, I didn’t realize Blue Spruce grew around here.’
“They don’t. Colorado Blue Spruce. It’s the only place where you can get a good Blue Spruce. Absolutely maintenance free.’
“I see.’
“And they’re very pretty. All the cemeteries have them.”
“I see.” “ It was an engaging conversation and it was pursued with great diligence. Everyone’s eyes were twinkling with glee, including the mortuary man’s. Yet, none of us, for an instant forgot what we were doing there.
“The rest of the details were worked out and the people moved into the room where B had died, to remove the body.
“The two mortuary men brought the gurney and we went into the room where B had diec. There was an appropriate mood of mourning; not heavy-handed or overdone, but appropriate. Underneath the mourning was a n excitement. The mourners wanted a few last minutes and then we went to the bed to put the body on the gurney.
“P and A had lightly cleaned the body and dressed it in pajamas and had arranged it so that it could be moved easily to the gurney.
D. “I remember when we physically moved the body from the bed to the gurney. I had the legs and R had the torso, carrying most of the weight while the two women helped on either side. When I went to lift the body I was surprised at how heavy it was and remarked at how heavy it was later to R.”
R. “My response was- I had marked this down notably- I was surprised at how light the body was. It must have been a difference in our perception, because I actually had the heavier part of the body.”
The body was wheeled out to the driveway and put into the mortuary vehicle by D and R. There was a procession of four or five vehicles which followed the mortuary van to the funeral home. The sun was going down and the sky was a brilliant red. It was after business hours at the mortuary and we would have to wait until the following morning to do the washing of the body.
The next morning we met early at the Flour Garden, a local bakery and coffee shop and had a small breakfast. D still wasn’t with us, we would meet him at the funeral home at nine o’clock. I felt somewhat queasy. I didn’t want to do this but I was going to do it anyway.
T. “We took the VW van to the funeral home. D was pacing nervously back and forth in front of the mortuary. Hoping the brakes would hold, I backed the van down the sloping driveway and we slid the casket out of the ban and into the hallway leading to the embalming room. We then took the buckets, boards, candles and other utensils wer would be needing into the embalming room.
“There, inside the door was a gurney with a body covered by a blue wool blanket. The name tag laying on the blanket said, “B T.”
“The room was all white, with an off-white tiled floor. There was a sink in one corner with cabinets above and below. Frosted glass windows along one wall let in the morning light. The room was small. There was one table against the windows with more cabinets. The other table, parallel to the first one, was white enameled metal with troughs around the edge leading to a drain.
“The room had about it the smell of being used for its purpose, more than too much. It was a room of dreams, where I had been before. It was a room of rebirth stations, which had about it the psychic clutter of a large city bus station in which the vinyl flooring has worn through to the sub-flooring from the countless feet traversing from entrance to exit. It’s open twenty-four hours a day, the bums and transients collect because it is cheap, and there is the possibility of panhandling or robbing those that legitimately need it for their travels from one place to another . It was in this room that were to perform our duty with B.
“A, B’s ex-wife wanted to be in the room with us as we performed the ceremony. She didn’t want to participate, she just wanted to be there. It felt good with those involved and Anna had worked with B and the ideas and she could be trusted to be emotionally stable enough to share the space with us.
“The funeral attendant closed the door behind us and said, ‘If you need anything just let us know.’ It was surprising as we expected to have someone in the embalming room with us as we were in their workspace. The feeling was good.
“A. noticed there were overhead fluorescent lights on which were turned off and a bug repellent candle was removed from the room. Anna went over to stand by the windows as we went to the sink, first washing our hands with soap and water and then performing the ritual washing of our hands. This involves holding an earthenware pitcher in our right hand as we pour water over our left hand. Then the pitcher is put in the left hand and water is poured over the right hand. THis is repeated three times. We then put on surgical gloves.
“Purification boards were laid on the white enameled table. These were planks, shellacked to be waterproof, on which the body would lay to keep it from contacting the table.
“The gurney with B’s body was wheeled parallel to the table and we gathered around the table and gurney in such a way that we could easily move the body onto the table.
“The body was uncovered, still dressed in the blue-striped pajamas from the night before. His arms were crossed in neophyte fashion over his heart. His lips were drawn tightly over his teeth in a death grin. His eyes had sunk a little into the socket and his eyes peered out at us from half-closed lids. No matter where we were in the room, all of us had the feeling that B was watching us.
“B’s skin was a pale yellow, and as we reached under to lift hm, we were surprised to find that he was cold. B’s body had been kept in a refrigerated unit overnight to slow down decay as he would not be embalmed. To me, the body had the feeling and consistency of a chicken fryer taken from the meat counter at the local supermarket. With a minimum fuss we placed the body on the embalming table. A sheet was placed over the body and his clothes were removed.
“Before we proceeded, we asked for B’s forgiveness for any action or omission that might offend him. I sat down to read The Sacraments, a body of work un-published by G. to be read at such a gathering, while the others started the washing of the body.
D. “During the washing I was shifting attention from the body to the effect the body was having onB’s being. With the shift there were subtle differences in the atmosphere in the room, specifically smells. Sometimes the boy smelled like a dead body there was a smell of death in the room. I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t putting too much attention on the body thereby putting a hold on the being of B.”
R. “I treated his body how I would want my body treated in the same situation. That strengthened the bond between my presence and the body and B’s being. “In working with the Bunraku puppets, I learned how to treat an inanimate body. It doesn’t have the self-motivation or power and when they do happen they’re not automatic. All the presence can do is descend upon the body. There isn’t the spark. I felt I was being directed to just cradle his head out of a sense of respect for that body. It wasn’t to invoke B back into his body.”
T. “I noticed that it didn’t matter what was going on around you R, you looked around from that position. That was your post.”
D. “One of the things that struck me during the washing was the readings. The sound, vibration, was appropriate and if any thing happened during the service it had to do with the meaning of the Sacraments and the sound. They had an effect of purifying the ritual itself and probably accomplished more than the ritual.”
T. “For the first half hour in the room while doing the readings, I felt a strong presence in the room with us, then it left.”
“After the ritual washing of the body we rewashed our hands donning clean surgical gloves and started the Purification Ritual. Over the chest of the body, spring water with a little vinegar was poured from an earthenware pitcher while the words, ‘Thou art purified, thou art purified, thou art purified,’ were recited. After this was done we placed a cotton sheet over the body to dry it.
“When the body was dry, it was time to put the shrouds on. The shrouds are made of linen and consist of a headdress, trousers, and a blouse. First the headdress, shaped like a helmet and extending down the neck, was put on. R cradled B’s head with loving care. It was important to treat B’s body with respect. Just because his being was not there and couldn’t respond was no reason to treat his body with carelessness or disrespect. Next, the trousers were put on and pulled up to the waist. The blouse was a little more difficult to put on as the body was in rigor-mortis and the waist of the blouse had not been made large enough. After struggling to pull the blouse over the stiffened arms for an awkward moment, we had to cut the seam up the side of the blouse to get it over the arms. It was important to deal with the situation so there would be a minimum of disturbance to the Purification Service.
“D and R spread the straw in the bottom of the casket, filled the small linen pillow with straw and brought the casket into the room lining up the casket with the body. A cotton sheet was placed inside the casket diamond fashion with the points at the head and feet and both sides. His prayer shawl was placed inside the sheet.
“Next, we raised B’s body and placed it in the coffin upon the cotton sheet. The lower three corners were folded with the points meeting over the heart.
“This was an emotional moment for us because it was not like putting B’s body in a coffin, but more like putting him in a manger. Anna came up and watched and we waited a moment to gather impressions of what we were seeing.
“We put on the lid of the casket pushing the wooden pegs only halfway as Anna had jokingly told us that B had planned to raise from the casket in three days and he wanted as little resistance as possible as he would still be gaining his strength.
“B, in the coffin, was wheeled out for the cooler where he would remain for three days, until the funeral service. He had not been embalmed to keep the integrity of the life’s blood in the body.
“It was over, we had done our job and we had done it well. We gathered at Tofanelli’s Restaurant, had a small lunch and gathered ourselves together for reintegration into the daylight world.
“It was a rare experience for us, one that may never repeat. That evening as I took a bath, laying in my bathtub coffin, I spent hours looking at my hands, slowly moving them around and gazing at them. Slowly and faintly I began to see the difference between my own being and physical being. For several days afterward, I felt the deadness of my physical body and the separation between that and the aliveness of the being that occupies that body and moves it. How do I use that in the voyage through the Labyrinth of my own Work and the preparation for the Work, and for the eventual Death that will take me through the final and beginning voyage through the Labyrinth?”
