written october 2023
a reflection on autumn and the transformative experience of death
In earth-based spirituality, nature in all of its forms provides guidance, wisdom, and healing. The seasons, elements, animals, plants and weather all provide us with medicine and healing.
autumn✧˖°🍃༘⋆
As the old year wanes, in Autumn, the crisp air announces the beginning of something new. The lungs take in fresh inspiration and guidance while the colon gets rid of grudges, hurt, sorrows, feelings of unworthiness. Autumn teaches us to value what we have and to grieve for what we have lost.1
returning from death
I don’t often share the details of my near-death experience. It was nearly a decade ago. I had taken a prescription medication and suddenly felt very strange. I started violently coughing, my nose was running, my eyes itching. It was difficult to breathe. I soon found myself on the ground. It felt as though my lungs were no longer expanding and contracting, but simply spasming in an arhythmic manner. There was a sudden heaviness in my chest. As though my chest were being compressed by an unimaginable weight, comparable to an elephant I thought at the time. I recall seeing a series of faces flashing in my mind’s eye.
Followed by a calming sensation washing over my body, relieving the pain. Next I was looking down at my body from above. As I watched myself still struggling to breathe, I questioned if I was ok with dying? I was. I didn’t feel any desire to reenter my body.
I’m unsure of where my consciousness went. It was very apparent that for some duration of time my consciousness journeyed elsewhere. I woke up several hours later feeling confused because I was certain I had died. Why am I still here?
This all happened in my bedroom which now looked odd. For some reason I felt compelled to rearrange my entire room, and create an altar where I began mediating for hours every night. I made a poster for my wall, a mantra of sorts, “The root of suffering is attachment.”
It was all very bizarre but I didn’t question it. Although confused and a bit frightened, I returned with a sense of inner peace. I had an intimate experience with death. The thing most people are most terrified of.
I tried to integrate my newfound awareness that our consciousness is capable of leaving the physical body and traveling to other realms. An understanding that I am not my body. One day I will again shed this physical vessel and journey elsewhere. I live life with full acceptance that this lifetime could end at any given moment.
Death is not an experience of extinction, it is an experience of transfiguration. I’ve also learned it’s possible to repeatedly experience metaphysical death and return to my physical body renewed on some level.
I feel like it was necessary to die in whatever timeline my near-death experience was initiated in. I see how essential it were that I became committed to learning how to meditate, to remembering how to leave my physical body at will to enter other realms, and not fear the process of dying.
My experience guiding my father into the afterlife a couple years ago, provided more insight on transitioning from physical form and journeying through different realms of the afterlife.
the cycle of exchange
Plants capture heat and light from the sun and store it in their flesh. When we eat plants and the animals who eat plants, we absorb that stored-up heat and light, which powers every heartbeat, every step we take.
A tree breathes out the oxygen vital to animals. Animals return the favor by breathing out the carbon dioxide vital to the tree. The tree, through its roots, takes up life-sustaining water. Through the leaves, the moisture returns to the sky so it can fall on the earth once again as rain. There are other exchanges as well, but if even one of these cycles is interrupted, the tree perishes. It becomes dead wood, whose cycles of exchange with soil, air, plants, and animals are carried out through a complex process called decay. New trees will sprout and grow, the exchange goes on. Everything owes its existence to cycles of exchange. 1
The medicine of Autumn is a reminder of this wisdom. Like the trees that shed their leaves to experience new life in a different season. Their shed leaves blanket the floor of the forest in decay that nourishes new life.
When in the forest I struggle to get over the fear induced by the sound of leaves falling. It is as if they echo reminders of impending death. It takes some getting used to the feeling of walking on a soft bed of compost. Questioning what matter of decomposition you are about to step into?
surrendering to death
I desire to again surrender to metaphysical death, to decay so that my spirit may evolve. I desire for parts of me to die each night when my consciousness leaves my body. I desire for my trauma to be left behind when I awaken once more. I await grief being left behind. Slowly reclaiming my physical vitality. My mental body in alignment with my physical body so that I may properly nurture both. What I need to experience is a change of seasons.
I suffer a spiritual exhaustion; an exhaustion that can only be remedied by a sort of deep slumber. A mental + spiritual slumber that restores much needed balance. A slumber that allows me to process my pain, sorrows, feelings of unworthiness.
Sometimes I need a mental retreat from the everyday world. The physical body still here but visibly the soul is elsewhere, off somewhere processing, healing, integrating. I’ve decided to take yet another break from twitter/X. I’ve been further shedding parts of my old self, deleting older substack posts and brainstorming a new creative direction. Spending my days alone in my room. Confronting my ego and my shadow. Shutting down my inner critic. Silencing my mind. Cooking, resting, starting new supplements, doing my hair and nails to feel a deeper appreciation for my physical body. Enjoying my low pain days. Reimagining my future.
the trees know rest
I think of the tree elders that are wise enough to surrender to death/deep slumber each winter. They go dormant. Their bark, much like a layer of fat, provides insulation and keeps the tree alive throughout winter. The tree elders know that there are phases to death/rest, a preparatory stage of shedding before the deep rest, and resurrection with the next change of seasons.
Community acts much like the bark of a tree elder. Encompassing us with love, support, the nourishment and resources we need to make it through a change of seasons. Symbiotically caring for and loving one another. Community can take many forms: natural or supernatural. Loved ones, friends, plant allies, ancestors, spirit guides, healers/practitioners.
This is the beautiful time of year when many honor, feast and rejoice with their ancestors. The dead return from the ground in new form as spirit. I cherish being greeted by otherworldly presence, extending one foot towards the veil—the dead meets the living.
- Cowan, Eliot. Plant Spirit Medicine: A Journey into the Healing Wisdom of Plants. 2014
keni sekhem 