Recently, I have started working in a mediumship circle-- to learn to connect others with their friends and family in spirit. It's surprisingly easier than I expected. This post is about my changing ideas around death, my growing awareness of the spiritual world, and the passing of loved ones.

Seems odd to open my blog with some thoughts on death and dying, but I actually don't see this as a particularly somber topic. Back in my sociology days, I went to a talk by Elizabeth Kublar Ross very near her own death. I remember thinking how fascinating it was to study death as an academic discipline but I was too afraid to explore beyond a tertiary and fleeting interest.

In my spiritual practice, I am not wed to a particular belief pattern about passing, but I am open to a variety of ideas. I am not sure if it matters so much holding onto one particular ideology. I will quite openly make fun of some of the ideas floating around the ether about it, but largely I am pretty open minded about the reality. The research out of the UK that focuses on your consciousness existing apart from your body after your body dies is quite fascinating to me. It's a more nerdie way of looking at the evidence around what happens when we die by simply changing the language away from your "spirit" to your consciousness. I find it all so curious, but then I am also finding that applying some of my new ideas in practice is helping me better understand my own grief processes.

Yesterday, I found out that a family member who I am not close with, but did think was an awesome person chose to pass after an extensive and painful battle with a terrible disease. My immediate family and I didn't know it had gotten this bad. The person who passed has always been kind and particularly lovely to my own child. It was this odd moment to reflect on death and dying for me. One I am still thinking about now as I type.

There is another family member, closer by relation but more distant in current relationship who is nearing his death. My spouse is contemplating how to potentially assist in offering peace to this person. I am not sure how to best support my partner.

A little over a year ago, a young relative, who again, I was not close with, passed suddenly and tragically. I haven't reached out directly to the immediate family, but sent money and then thought about my own grief in solitude.

All of these experiences with grief and death are coming into a stronger focus in no small part because of my recently expanded ability to listen to the dead. For years I refused to listen or see what I knew I could sense. I was terrified and I thought it was dumb to even spend any amount of time focusing on things that "didn't matter." As my practice in the craft continues to evolve, I decided to be daring and join a mediumship circle. Thus far, it's been amazing.

There is something so calming about talking to spirit people. Of course I am always worried that I am going to get it wrong, be talking to myself instead of a real person, but, all of my experiences have been validated thus far. Even with an animal. The more I practice, the more comfortable I am and the more peaceful of a process it is for me. In a weird way, it is almost ironic-- I have spent so much of my life being fearful of death and now I am communicating with some part of life that is beyond our empirical minds. I am more open to understanding my relationship with it as I age. I find it comforting and lovingi and whole. Things that I have legit made fun of at different points in my life. So my relationship with death and dying continues to evolve.  How about you? How has your relationship with death and dying changed over the years?