A couple of years ago, I was asking my plant and spirit guides, “What is mine to do?”. One evening as I was going to sleep, I asked for wisdom and guidance from my dreams regarding this question. I had a vivid dream that night where I experienced divine source telling me that I deeply know, saying to me “You are Death’s Messenger.” I awoke as I sat straight up in bed, screaming “Noooooo!”.

In receiving this dream, I more openly acknowledged my curiosity around death. I’ve been asking human beings and the plants about Psychopomp (work of guiding souls to a restful place of death), conscious dying, and the threshold of death. There is so much mystery in it, and so much to explore and learn. I’ve been guided in doing a small amount of Psychopomp, and feel that I am to share this and other work at the threshold of death, even as I don’t really know. The role of Death’s Messenger is a path I am discovering.

Some weeks ago, I felt a deep level of sadness. I began to consciously notice and acknowledge thoughts and visions I have around death, and to what they relate. I noticed how these thoughts and visions come for me when I begin to feel disconnected from what I feel is my purpose in life and/or when I feel unable to communicate and relate effectively with others. I felt paralyzed, more strongly before than I ever have. I experienced this as shadow energy, reflecting on how I generally hide rather than share much about the thoughts or feelings. This time, I shared about it with my teacher and a few other dear loved ones close to me. In sharing of my thoughts around death, even though I have no intention of acting on them, I had fear of upsetting others, embarrassment and shame. I felt contraction in my heart. There is nothing wrong with me, my life is beautiful, I thrive rather than just needing to survive, I am so blessed in being alive and with so many choices in life, and yet I still felt so sad. Loved ones listened, expressed love, compassion and concern for me in different, very supportive ways. They navigated with me, staying with me, even through challenge. I felt how I had sadness, however how the thoughts and visions also seem to have some connection related to the message of death, my dream about “death’s messenger”, and my soul. My teacher guided me with wisdom she has received about thoughts of death related to the soul’s purpose. Through powerful work and breathing practices, I worked with my guides in support of my soul inhabiting my body, my ego quieting, following my heart, connecting with nature and deep expansive mystery through the heart. A couple of weeks later in a follow-up session with my teacher, she shared wisdom with me that I have been resisting taking action, and she gave me a breathing practice to do with my tree guide, and several items of homework to take action on, including rewriting my Context For Living (representing a blueprint for my life) from the perspective of how divine source aims and works through me, rather than from the perspective of ego, of “I”.

I was challenged in hearing, accepting, and reflecting on that I’ve not been acting. I shared with a friend of mine who was so supportive around my experience in having thoughts of death, and also in offering how she has moved through similar experience. Her wisdom shared with me is to do the next thing, to take the next step each day. How interesting. I noticed in myself resistance come up to this as well, around how that feels like “not enough” to me. In breathing with my tree guide and other plants and asking about this, I received that this is big, in that it is real and powerful. Taking action, rather than resisting acting, each day on the inspirations and ideas that I have that come from my heart, no matter how small, is real. This is how I am to hear, follow, and learn to what my soul is consecrated. From basil (Ocimum basilicum), I received that the plants and trees are powerful teachers for us in doing this, as they live effortlessly from their nature, following to what they are consecrated. Through connection with them, our being is infused with this wisdom and with being with what is real.

This is a beautiful, wild time. The energy of the eclipse and other energies present in our world and cosmos affect us all. There are so many songs and threads weaving our lives. In my own experience, it is no coincidence that I facilitate a women’s herbal circle, and we have been working with the plants and the energy of the chakras, among other aspects of the magic of 7 (7 chakras, 7 plants, 7 medicines, 7 directions, 7 sacred truths, etc.). In August, we worked with the heart (the 4th chakra) and Lemonbalm. In September, we are working with the throat (the 5th chakra) and Basil. The sacred truth of the 5th chakra is surrender to the divine of our own personal will.

May it be in beauty.