Through the years I’ve occasionally been asked to midwife the dying. In some cases, this involves escorting a soul into the afterlife. Once I know they are alright and have been met by ancestors or spirit guides, I return back to the living and they move on. It has sometimes been only a few minutes afterward that they take their last breath. It is such a sacred privilege to serve others in this way.
There are other times when people die by accident and their friends or relatives have contacted me to check in on them to make sure they are alright. A particular heart-wrenching case was a friend of a family member who accidentally killed himself. This young man, full of life who loved to hike and fish the beautiful North Carolina mountains had big plans. He wasn’t ready to die, but he did, choking on his own vomit after drinking too much and falling asleep on his couch.
Once I was notified and reached out for contact, his spirit showed up immediately and his regret and desperate attempts to stay attached to the physical world were overwhelming. I became extremely depressed, engulfed by darkness and could not stop crying as his own emotional response poured through me. I would wake in the middle of the night with his spirit in my bedroom, begging for help but not wanting to accept the only help I could give. He was solely focused on me and, no matter how I tried to get him to simply turn around and see what was on the other side, he refused.
I held space for him as a mother would do for a grieving child and processed his emotions to help dissipate them sooner. I didn’t try to stop feeling his pain or put a barrier up as protection. Instead, I let it all pour through as an ever-flowing river, knowing that it is all of ours to bear and each of ours to heal. It was two weeks before I felt his soul release, collapsed with exhaustion and surrounded by loving guides to take him home when he awoke.
In working with this man's soul, I took myself through the stages of the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence. I needed to begin the journey by seeing everything as separate. Then I looked for the reflections in those same separate things. Next, I took charge and began to manipulate what I could see and experience to consciously focus on a greater perspective to bring about the highest and best in response. Then I began to absorb these reflections, taking in the energy of them until an assimilation organically happened and the mirror disappeared. This is the point where we no longer look out at the reflections as separate because we have become them.
This process is one I often consciously move through with various experiences and teachings, but I know that it is what we as a Collective are moving through as well. The wisdom of the Principle of Correspondence tells us that everything reflects everything else. What we experience in the world is mirroring our own inner landscape and, when we heal parts of ourselves, our experiences out in the world change to reflect that healing. Correspondence forms a synthesis that is both simple and all-encompassing. It is simple because it is a law by which we were created and provides a continual mirror-reflection feedback system that helps us to live most effectively in the world. I looked at this young man's death as a metaphor for my life, the evolution of humanity and the life of our planet. The all-encompassing aspect of Correspondence is the reflection of the evolutionary process of a soul and of all creation. That's a deeper conversation for another time.:)
After midwifing this painful transition, Steve and I went into the mountains for me to recuperate. I sat by the rushing creek and pondered this young man’s grief as a mirror for us all. He made some mistakes. He didn’t fully understand the gift of this physical experience and he ran out of time. No matter how he tried, it could not be undone. We who are still in physical form are surrounded with opportunities to honor the gift of life and do what it takes to birth new possibilities for ourselves, our planet and humanity. When we miss that chance, stifled by fear or apathy or waiting on some future event to make things easier or dreaming that someone will save us, it is much more than a heartbreaking story.
What will you do today to live fully in each moment and honor the sacred gift of life?