Modern Western culture conditions us to step away from that precipice as quickly as possible. We are conditioned to see death and painful longing as problems to be solved rather than as sacred landscapes to be revered.

Where death touches our lives, it transfigures the inner landscape. Nothing will ever be the same after someone we love has left this world. Whether they drew their last breath at one hundred or never had a chance to draw their first breath at birth, our loved ones who have died seem to teach us the most about being alive.

we can cultivate our intimacy with these sacred spaces. It takes some effort and courage to consciously break through the veil that Western society has spun around death. We are conditioned to see death as a failure rather than as a pilgrimage.

Each time I sit with someone whose heart has been shattered, or bear witness to someone as they take leave of this world, or gather my community to celebrate the life of a loved one, I have a sense of being lined up with my own inner architecture. There’s a geometric resonance. It feels like a homecoming.

Grief can open the door to holy desire, which in turn leads us into the arms of that which we yearn for.

Miao Shan’s humility was not compliant; it was subversive!

Stephen Levine, revered for his pioneering work with conscious dying,

The alchemy happens in a circle. We need to weave together our threads of care and transfigure this tapestry. It is only together that we can reimagine the territorial treaty we’ve inherited as a generous invitation to a communal feast. Look around. Your allies are everywhere. And they love you.

Let us engage, and even invent, practices that feel aligned with our own spiritual sensibilities. Trusting our soul’s innate knowingness, flinging ourselves into the mystery. Practicing in multiple spaces, with diverse communities and alone, allowing your edges to melt into the One. Then letting your heart break open all over again when you