by Lee Hilfiker, M. Ed., Therapist, Shamana
With my recent encounter with the death of my grandson, dealing with my own grief, I found myself drawing on my years of experience as a professional counselor, spiritual advisor and shaman. Although I have worked with death and dying, both in a clinical setting and as shaman, this recent call to do the “medicine of death” has taken its medicine to a deeper level. The title of this work was not by my own selection; rather, it was given title by the sacred plant itself whose knowledge of death is great, even by its name, “vine of the Dead”.
Spirit is pushing me harder to share the teachings and increase my work in the field of shamanic medicine work. I have consulted the spirit of death as my advisor, entered into ceremonies for healing my own grief, and consulted my years of journaling on death, those teachings given to me by spirits.
I would like to share with you some excerpts from my journals, possibly for my own healing but hopefully a gift to you in your dealing with the many encounters with death we experience in life. There are so many encounters I could share, from my masters paper, “From Death to Life” (which caused a bit of questions from the review board as they thought I had it reversed the title) or from my personal encounters with death, and from the Expressions of Healing, a state wide art exhibit I organized after surviving breast cancer in the early 90’s. Rather, let me share with you some of my personal experiences with death, this year of 2007, with the hope that it is helpful for you.
While engaging in the sacred ayahuasca plant ceremony in the jungle of the Amazon, the plant instructed me to preserve its teachings through journal entry for my work as a shaman. The following is excerpts from my recent journals of 2007
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In the darkness of the night, in the village of the Shipibo people of the Amazon Rainforest, the plant spirit of the ayahuasca, vine of the dead, spoke to me in vision and with voice. I sat looking out at the night jungle where soft lights and shadows filtered through the trees. At first, I thought the light and images seemed to have its source from a light far in the distance. All that reasoning drifted away as I surrendered to the plants medicine.
The light began to dance images, forming the gifts of vision, provided by the spirited plant. Tiny, symmetrical, intricate patterns of dots made a spider web grid between me and whatever I looked at. From up in the trees, an owl image formed and I acknowledged its presence, hearing its call to me by my name, Owl Medicine Woman.
Owl, looking straight into my eyes, conveyed to me that my work is “Walks With Death”, and then its shape shifted into jaguar.
Jaguar appeared, holding a cloth in its mouth, containing a baby. What a curious, somewhat humorous presentation of a jaguar stork. I wondered what the jaguar was going to do with the baby. There was an altar in the tree limb below Jaguar that tipped up and down, like a teeter-totter, seemingly beckoning jaguar to place the baby there on the altar. Jaguar lowered the cloth holding the baby, hesitating for a moment, but did not place it on the altar; instead jaguar rocked back and forth, lowering then retracting the baby several time, never placing it upon the altar.
Finally, jaguar retracted the baby for the last time and leaped up to a higher limb of the tree, far above the altar. I asked jaguar to explain the meaning of this vision. In place of jaguar’s response, the vine medicine began to speak.
“Listen,” said the vine, “Hear the birds of the night call to you. I will guide you in The Medicine of Death. You carry the medicine of death. You were initiated with the medicine of death from before your physical conception. The medicine of death, like ayahuasca, gifts opportunities to experience spiritual expansion in its inclusion with creation, just as your engaging with the spirit of my vine brings you visions into creation’s web.
Know that I am in you and will always be within you, no separation between life and death for they are one. Like a birth of realization that you, and all humans are creation itself. All are one, not separate. There is no separation from the stone beside your foot just now and the medicine within my vine. The medicine of death shows you the condition of your soul, your energy, your mission. So, if you are calm, if you are steady, if you are helping others, it is because you are in alignment with creation, not separated from it. Death and life are one but perceived as opposites, separated only by the perceptions within the field of duality, within space and time.
Encounters with death are medicines for living. Death can be teacher, advisor on the art of living, but death can also be a gifted encounter with its tuning the soul’s energy body of the survivors to a higher vibration. This is the gift that death brings to the process of evolutionary creation.
This opportunity can be witnessed by those who have changed their life, their seeking, their work, their passions, their spiritual beliefs to a higher octave of being, as a result of being touched by the light energy of those who pass from this realm and into the realm of light, outside of time and space or through the light in, what you call, a near death experience
Watch closely as the spirit sheds the work of the soul. A spark of light can be seen, like a glowing halo that encompasses the body, expanding and encompassing those within the room. This is death’s gift to bringing mankind closer to becoming beings of light. Death is an evolutionary process.....” Journal entry, January 2007
Through the teachings from the medicine of death, throughout my medicine work and that of the voice of death's spirit, I have become aware that the spirit of the departing leaves its body and returns to its nature of light and love. This is the time in which grieving survivors feel the loss of the physical touch but can “feel" the light of their loved one within their heart. This too is an evolutionary state of love. Love and light is what all of creation, the Great Spirit, is.
In our daily routines, in the stress from our “doing”, we forget our “being”. We may find ourselves on “automatic pilot” until encounters with death brings us awake again, into our sharpest perspectives of our spiritual being. Let us see clearly through the gifts of our tears.
The Incas of Peru had an expression “The flowering of my tears” which expressed all the growth potential of understanding, compassion, appreciation, after a long period of suffering and grief. During the long, dark night of sorrow, our tears water the seeds for the flowering of our spirit to grow.
Think back to your flowering of tears, your encounters with death through anger, fear, threats to your life, shock, loss of a loved one, and more. Once death is integrated into our life as medicine, we are set free to see its perfection and the medicine of healing and growth it can bring to our soul, our spirit, and the evolutionary process we are all engaged in. I am grateful I have been called to work with the medicine of death. The vine of the dead gifted the title, The Medicine of Death and it has taken me many months of working with the spirit of the vine, that resides within me now, to come to a greater appreciation and understanding of the title's meaning.
These are the teachings that Great Spirit has called me to live and to share. I have helped with others who are dying, done ceremony for those who have passed and counseled those who are grieving their losses. I have experienced the moment of the last breath of my parents, the loss of my sister at the same age that I am now, coached those who are preparing to take their last breath, done ceremonies with many others, and experienced my own brushes with death. I have personally experienced these teachings, gifted by Great Spirit through the vine. But it was the encounter with the passing of my grandson that brought all these teachings deeper into my understanding.
It was a three o’clock in the morning phone call that brought me into my medicine body, the medicine of death was calling me. The doorway leading beyond time was opening. My five month old grandson had stopped breathing, SIDS, and was being transported by helicopter to Minneapolis Children’s Hospital.
When I arrived at the emergency I found my daughter holding her son closely over her heart, his head resting on her shoulder. He had passed from this life but his presence, his life force, was felt throughout the room. There was a slight movement of air, which has always been a signal for me, from Spirit, to pay attention and begin the medicine work.
A song came to me immediately that had come to me again and again on a vision quest in the mountains of Mexico several years ago. It was at this vision quest that I was gifted owl medicine, and the name Owl Medicine woman, by the medicine people in the mountains. Gently, quietly, within my spirit ear I could hear that song, the song of the spirits in the wind.
Spirit of the wind come to me,
Spirit of the wind come to me,
Spirit of the wind come to me
and carry me home.
The song signaled me to enter into my shaman’s body and begin the death rites. Opening my mesa, my sacred altar, I felt the comfort of its medicine strength. Immediately, one of the medicine stones I had received from my Sami ancestor’s land of Lapland, above the arctic circle in Sweden, called to me. The stone spoke, its voice was clear. The black heart shaped stone guided me to place it on my grandson’s back, behind the heart chakra, and guide my daughter’s hand to hold it there. As I prayed in Sami song and shook my rattle around them both, I could feel the spirit of my grandson with us, no longer in five month old form, no longer limited by size and age, but in an expanded soul’s consciousness. His presence was that of a mature angel , aware of all that was going on, all that was being said and felt. Just then, I could see a cord of light radiate out from his tiny body, into my daughter’s hand, connecting it with a light force that enveloped them both. His light spread beyond them, encompassing my son-in-law, and his spirit glowed throughout the room. The teachings of the vine, the medicine of death, was evident.
The Spirit of the gentle wind passed over me again. I carefully unwound the charkas of his physical body , unwinding their connections to his auric body and then gently severed the cord that appeared to connect him to his physical body. He hovered there, a few feet above his physical body, and I beckoned him to come with us as we left the hospital for the trip home.
His light is close, we “feel” his presence. Discussions about death, expressions of the deeper meaning of life and our spiritual journeys, are manifesting within our family , with our friends and with many others who had not met my grandson but “feel” the medicine. He has inspired me to write and share these stories. During this time of his transitioning between dimensions he is gifting many with his medicine of death.
Beginning in 2008, Lee will be offering training in the Shaman's Medicine of Death, encompassing shamanic counseling, working with the mesa, the soul, energy and light, walking between worlds, levels of consciousness, and much more. For dates and more information on training go to www.sacredway.net