The first inhaling breath of babies and the last exhaling breath of the journeying soul is really what this blog is all about. The pandemic has revealed thousands of souls taking their last breath every day. Tomaso‘s last breath pulled me mysteriously into the realm of breathing consciously, even though I’ve been an on and off meditator since the mid-1970s.

We are all walking each other home. That’s how we can most contribute to a fact of life most people would rather ignore: our own and everyone else’s death.

The pandemic has intensified what was already prevalent in our modern westernized culture: isolation and disconnect from each other. In the past, death took on a social context. It was a right of passage encompassing the entire community, family and village.

Nowadays, we suffer less if we create a network of people to participate in this initiation that is everyone’s inevitable death. This is the healthy way to provide long-term support for everyone involved.

Even though this act of community rarely exists, now it is nonexistent. Nurses are left to hold the hand of the dying. Zooms or Facebook live streams are set up for the dying person to gasp one last goodbye as their loved ones look on helplessly in their quarantined locations.

By becoming genuinely loving and aware, your strength and kindness as a caregiver can be an example that it isn’t what we “do“ but what we “are.” This quality of being paves the road for others to excavate their own natural compassion and open mindedness towards death and the unknown.

Often the dying person is the example to inspire those suffering around her to find acceptance in the fact that is death.

Death is a developmental stage in our maturation process.

It also is preparation for deathless enlightenment. Om