Dying Well - A Holistic Guide for the Dying and their Carers by Richard Reoch (published by Gaia Books, 1997, £11-99, ISBN 1 85675 019 1). Reviewed by Nicholas Albery.
Dying Well is the ultimate New Age guide to dying and is an inspirational and practical book that will appeal to anyone who believes in the benefits of massage, aromatherapy, Bach flowers, tuning in to earth energies and the like. My wife, for instance, turns to this book more often than I do, and I suspect that with its gentle pictures and airy spirituality it could grate on those of a more sceptical persuasion.
However, I am always on the look out for ways of supplementing the meagre supply of Christian prayers for those who are dying, so my main interest in the book was the following interesting example of a meditation - or aid to structuring one's thoughts - that a carer can use to help a person realise that he or she has complete 'permission' to let go and to die:
We are both coming close to a great change. Sometimes when you are asleep I wonder if you have died. I wonder if you are at peace or in pain. I wonder what is in your heart and passing through your mind. It is not easy for me to express this, but today there is something I need you to know. It is more important than anything I have said before.
What is happening to us seems unreal and yet it is as if there is nothing more real. Everything seems so uncertain, so sad, so filled with fear. Yet there is also something very clear, very certain, very wonderful.
It is as if we were entering the mystery of your death together. Together, we are about to enter the mystery of life after you are dead.
You have been in such great pain, you have suffered more than any of us know. Your suffering brings up all the pain we have been through together and all the pain of the people around us.
There are times when the pain is so great, we feel we must have failed in some way and gone wrong somewhere in our lives. But this pain is not punishment. It is an essential part of our lives. All of it has made us what we are.
Everything we have been through together has been bringing us to this moment. Everything has been part of the design: each moment of happiness, each moment of love, each disappointment, each tragedy. It is all woven into the fabric.
So much seems unfinished. So much seems ragged and incomplete. We have to let go of this pain of holding on. Whatever is left, will be taken up by others. Nothing has been lost, nothing has been wasted, nothing has been in vain. Your whole life is complete.
None of us want you to suffer for us. We don't want you to hold on for us. We don't want you to fear that you are abandoning us. We know your time has come. We want you to complete your journey. We want you to be at peace.
You are completely free. There are no chains holding you back.
The luminous universe is waiting. There is nothing more to fear.
In the same way that none of us can possibly disappear from your life, you can never disappear from ours.
I wish I could have loved you and cared for you better. I'm doing the best I can for you now, with all my heart. I want you to die knowing that and take this love with you in your heart.
If I know that you have understood this, then the uncertainty and the sadness and the fear are all bearable. What will matter is the love we have for each other. It will be there through all the changes ahead. It is the one thing that remains clear, certain and wonderful.
Be free. Completely loved. The universe is waiting. Go in peace.
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
Book Orders: To order any of the other Natural Death Centre or Global Ideas Bank books.
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