Depending On One Another

What do we carry with us all the way to the deathbed? We have wondered what happens when our anxieties and fears make their way there with us; what it means to loosen our hold on the patterns that no longer serve us, and to make space for whatever comes next. In the wake of a solar eclipse, we were invited to consider surrender as a sacred practice of release.

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The Death Education Project understands surrender as something we do in relationship. Community can help us name what we are still carrying and hold us accountable to laying those weights down. This first requires calling forth the patterns that keep us from releasing. Sometimes this means returning to the places we felt we barely survived—not necessarily the physical places themselves, but the stories that remain there—and meeting them with the selves we have since become.

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We believe that what nearly ended us may also become a place where healing begins. When the death we once escaped calls us back toward something unfinished, we return to our medicines: ritual, our grandma’s recipes, our mojo bags, spirit, relationship, vulnerability—soft fronts and strong backs. It is through this mixing of medicine and community that we practice meeting the unknown, releasing what can no longer accompany us, and living [and dying] beautifully.