Bars by Steve Snodrass

A year ago for the Easter weekend I was at a friends in Santé Fe working on a creative project.  I was up early that morning and witnessed an amazing lunar eclipse.  We had a productive day and a wonderful Easter dinner and celebration. I made the conscious decision to stay for dinner and delay a three hour drive home.  I was in a very peaceful, harmonious and at one with myself and world place when I left Santé Fe.  I got lost on the way home taking a short cut and it was now dark.  All this set me up to be at an intersection 2 miles from my house at precisely 10 pm.

The Universe wanted me to be right where I was on Easter last year at 10 pm.  It was there a crazed dog ran in front of my car and I hit it.  Something I didn’t think I could ever bear to do.  In that split second everything changed.  In milliseconds mad, scared, confused, panicked and in shock.  I did not do one thing I thought I would have or expect others to do in the same situation.  I wanted to stop but I was scared.  My dog was in the front seat with me and I kept rolling for a few yards, then I thought a car was coming to follow me and I freaked and sped up.  Within seconds I was going 60 miles per hour plus on dirt roads, less than one mile from my house.

At the last turn I decided it was not safe to go home, what if someone followed me there?  As I sped to get out site, my heart raced, I was lucky I didn’t skid, I pulled into an area and turned off the car.  I waited.  Remembering this was an area where a crazed local dumped dogs he would shoot thinking they chased his cows.  There I sat in my sweat and fear for 10 minutes, looking for headlights, trying to get my head around what just happened because my heart was crushed.

At some point my sane voice said this is ridiculous go home.  So I drove home, without lights, pulled up to the house, emptied my car quickly and put it in the car, like a criminal would do.  I was afraid to let my dog out to do its business.  I came inside and tried breathing, meditation, music, and hy0pnosis to calm my spirt and go to bed.  I was afraid to drive that car to work the next day, afraid to go by that intersection in our small town.  Afraid to leave my dog at home. I was officially acting like a criminal and a fugitive at large.

I did go to work but I spoke to no one about it. It was my secret. My husband was out of town.  I held this secret along with incredible shame, guilt and judgment. How could I do that? I love dogs.  I would never forgive anyone else for not stopping, how could I not have stopped? What kind of cruel, self-righteous hypocrite am I?

I would have burst at the seams of emotion had anyone asked. I went to a friend’s house the evening after and wanted to share, but she had a story to share first. How her dog ran away and they never found her and did I know that if you hit a dog, you can call it in so an owner will know?   Three days after this happened there is a story about a wounded dog on the front page of the newspaper.  A couple asking for donations for surgery because there dog was shot at 10 pm, in Marvel on Easter Sunday.  Yea, what are the odds two dogs where harmed the same night in a 10 housing, one intersection community?

The grief and judgment was tearing me up inside. I had dreams of Michael Black and Ferguson cops (that was recent in the news) with mantras saying “it is between the two of them, you don’t know, you don’t know”.  I wanted to help the couple but feared retribution.  I know I was being asked to work with compassion but I could not find the path.  I was angry at the dog owners for letting their dog loose.  I was angry at myself.  I remembered all the times I made marginal calls and put my dog in harm’s way but got lucky. I went from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. All the while a voice kept saying “you don’t know”.

To bring you up to date.  I worked with Animal Control and they were grateful as the dog had two injuries, one from an air gun and one that fit being hit by a car.   They believe the dog was running mad having been shot and darted across the road in front of my car.  They confirmed that it likely was not safe to stop that night and that I could receive funds if my car was damaged (the law in Colorado). That felt like a paradox and so far from what my heart and mind needed.

The dog lived, had many surgeries by donation in Denver.  I am grateful.

I am still struck how I went from such a peaceful place to feeling and acting like a criminal. I don’t know what would have happened had I had a confrontation that night.  My emotions were stoked on fight or flight. I was so far from any Barb I knew or recognized, I was not in any mind.  I remembered that we indeed all have in us the ability to love deeply and perform unthinkable acts of kindness AND the ability to cause harm, to even kill another.  It is visceral and possible.  And it happens every day.  It is precisely what makes violence beget violence.  Someone has to be brave enough to step out of the madness and do something different, something radical means something opposite.

It took me some time to heal my mind, body and spirt from this event.  I gave extra thanks this Easter.  Blessing the dog, the couple and myself.  I took another oath to remember that “I don’t know” and don’t need to know.  I will do my best not to judge that those “in it” and remember they must answer with their soul’s path and to Source. It is none of my business.  I promised myself self-compassion and renewal – this is what will heal the world now and help to create a new order.

The beginning of this new astrological New Year, I invite you to do the same and see how it changes your perspective.

‘I Am Death’ SoulCollage® card by Barb Horn

They say things happen in threes.  Three is my favorite number.  The past few months I have experience three transitions of people I loved.  One unexpected and unplanned (collapse not revived), one expected and unplanned (chronic illness) and the third unexpected and planned (suicide).  Many souls are choosing to transition as the veils between here and there are thinning (the influence of Neptune in Pisces here for a while).   We keep often keep our knowledge that death is inevitable at bay.  When it does happen close to us it is impossible to ignore.  The impacts of someone passing impacts each of us differently, just as in life, each beloved influenced our lives uniquely.  Add to the mix we each have a different relationship with death.

Death, regardless if expected or not, planned or not, is a game changer for those involved.  Death is many things, but one of the few things in life that stops time and takes our breath away.  Death awakens.  Awakens us with vibrations of life, forcing our attention on our own alive body and how we are living or have lived.  It is a strong and uncomfortable vibration.  Death awakens us to our impermanence and to our fragility.  Death interrupts our illusion of control.  Death gifts us a void we didn’t ask for but a void we get to chose what to do with. Even believing, accepting and or understanding that death is part of life, doesn’t help that much when in the depths of actually navigating what comes up when someone you love dies.

Death, like all things in life, it is neither good nor bad, right or wrong, those labels are not helpful. Human nature wants easy and quick answers to short circuit the pain.   If we can put something in a box with a label like good or bad, somehow, it will fill the void and give us a “pass” on the process of healing.   Labels provide a path to predictability outcomes in our mind.  As part of being human, we attach to outcomes and how we think or believe things should be.  This provides feelings of safety, control and power.   We do so easily as if we know everything we need to know about ourselves, others, nature and the mystery of Source.

If for a moment, when we are able, we get rid of good and bad, right and wrong as useless labels and instead look at all things with equanimity.  This helps us gain a perspective that can serve our grief.  Viewing something with equanimity, doesn’t mean you don’t care or are ignoring it, quite the opposite.  It means you are not giving it 100% over you in order to gain clarity on what exactly is yours in the situation to give voice to, take responsibility, heal, let go or whatever is needed. To identify what you need and feel to make decisions that serve you.  Rather that projecting what you need onto others, demanding what they should do, creating drama and trauma, suffering and confusion.

This perspective is one of many to employ, not “the” perspective.  Viewing death with equanimity is viewing death (or anything) as simply the next thing we get to experience, navigate, participate, endure, conquer, fail, explore, learn, grow, ignore, resist and the list is infinite.  Whether that thing is death, illness, job or relationship loss or winning the lottery, getting married, having a child, purchasing a house or getting a promotion – you get to experience.  It is just the next assignment in the classroom.   From that perspective, it is not personal in quite the same way.  The range of choices available for our response expands.  And we make different choices.  No choice is easy when we lose a loved one and are grieving.  But this isn’t about ease; in fact if it was easy it wouldn’t be valuable, and an important step in making a mark on your soul.  It is about finding choices that resonate with you personally while allowing others the same freedom.  And that is where complications come in.

Death either separates you from or moves you closer to yourself, Source and others. It is a choice. And it might be a choice you have to make over and over in the grieving process.  Death seems to awaken the crazy in people.  Death interrupts the expected and predictable.  People, families, and friends do and say things they would not otherwise do or say.   Things that hurt others, ourselves, defy logic, are confusing, selfish and a host of other low vibrations.  These choices separate us from the very people we are seeking comfort or whom we share grief.   Crazy making happens in families and with friends at death when we allow our fears and lack of control to make the dying or transitioned person’s death about us and our own fears and needs.  In doing so, we cannot discern clearly the needs of the dying or others involved from our own.  Others needs are clouded and muddled by our own fears and needs.  And the choices we make from fear, hurt and confusion separate us from ourselves, others and Source.

Our relationship with death reveals much about our relationship with life and how we believe we are living fully or not.    American culture fears aging and death.   We are more upset when a dog dies in a movie than if 20 people die in the same movie.  Anti-abortionist fight for innocent babies but not for humans on death row or the people who die every day from gun violence.  We spend billions of dollars to keep from aging and in the last few days of life ignoring how either are keeping us separated from a quality life.  When death enters our sphere we are surprised and create drama and trauma to avoid it at all cost (look at our medical, insurance, economic systems that reflect this avoidance) and keep us separated from being present in daily life, separated from a fulfilling life but also from fully engaging in the dying, death and grieving process.  Death is taboo to talk about, taboo to experience or look forward to, and aging is one step toward death so it too is taboo, but I will take your billion dollars to make you believe you can escape it.

We do not have to be afraid, in fact fear separates.  Death exposes.  Death exposes truth, vulnerability and our common humanity.  It is in that exposure, that vulnerability we choose to shut down, turn away and separate or reach out, upward and inward.  And that is when healing occurs.  Giving proper space to the duration, frequency and magnitude to death and grieving.  Death exposes things that were or never could never be spoken, expressed, named, told or revealed.  Death releases all that, if we allow it too, otherwise we carry it with us like a bag of bricks, into this life and perhaps the next.  These exposure and release is an uncomfortable and messy even taboo.  Our culture says it is taboo to give voice to anything but light and love about a person who has died.  Whatever else might be exposed, forget it, get over it and move on.

Perhaps this exposure doesn’t have to be so mysterious and taboo if we give it permission.  Everyone is imperfect in life that is part of being human.   We do not love equally, even if we strive to do so, we do not.  No one does.  We all have and will withhold love for some, pour out excess for others and be love neutral for others.  This may manifest in how we give gifts, money, sex, our time or possessions as an example.  We do this for a host of reasons, including for protection, acceptance, fear, safety, honor, expectations, power, perceptions, roles, dependence, security, survival, control and for love to name a few.  We may not even be aware of it, but we all love unequally.  We are complicated souls in this human experiment.

As such, when someone dies your experience of their love and that loss, may not be, no- will not be the same as anyone else.  If you wanted love from someone who while alive was not able to give it to you, or you could not receive what was given, you will experience their loss differently than someone who was showered with love and could accept that shower.  That is reality.  The problem is we don’t allow space for the full range of experiences.

We believe that by listening and accepting a different experience of this passed beloved person, perhaps a harsher, not so “they were amazing” experience will invalidate my experience that this person loved you.  They could not have done that to you and loved me.  Our desire to be seen, heard and witnessed can result in behaviors that feel like to others we are asking, even demanding that they accept our experience as their own.  To others on the receiving end, who have a different experience, sharing a different experience can feel like others are puking on your own experience and process. It feels like you have to give up your experience to make room for theirs.  Neither is likely true, especially if we can make room for all experiences.

Listening and acknowledging another’s experience is not the same as agreement.  Intellectually we know that others experiences do not invalidate our own, but our hearts are slow to follow, especially when grieving.   Sharing our experiences and being witnessed is healing.  Sharing doesn’t require agreement to be healing.  A willingness to expose our humanity and common vulnerability in death and provide a safe space to do so liberates and transforms shame and guilt into peace, compassion and relief.

Death exposes the universal truth that we are not perfect in life and our gifts in death will not be perfect either. Sometimes the best gift we give someone is who we were not and that drives the other to seek what they need rather than get it from you.   Think about that, many gifts from your parents are likely related to whom they were not, what they could not give or do – and you found a way to fill that void.   We all impact someone(s) positively and etch a quality, nature, meme, attitude or such on their souls. That is how you live on in others.   We all have hurt others in some way as well, intended or not, aware or not as part of the human experience.  Those experiences etch on others souls as well, and are a gift, not good or bad, right or wrong.  That too is how you live on.  Naming those hurts, giving those voices and witnessing is healthy, liberating and healing.

Death either separates or moves you closer to yourself, Source and others. It is a choice.  I invite you to be open to all experiences when someone transitions, for yourself and others.  Create space and time to be vulnerable and expose your truth.  Name what someone who has transitioned etched on your soul, whether it is a labeled positive or “I will remember to not do xyz” or equivalent in nature, they are all gifts, all part of being human in life and death.  Take it, use it and remember you to will leave the same rich complicated bundle for others when you transition.  Develop a relationship with aging and death that serves your everyday life and choices, you will be happier, live full with the time you have and create way less drama and trauma around your own death and those you love.  What a gift, to be fully with those you love in life and in their transition.