Death As An Advisor

The fact of death is already present, whether I acknowledge it or not. When I allow it into my awareness as a valued advisor, it brings a different quality of attention to life.

Perhaps because I am growing older more quickly than I like or ever imagined, I have noted that a number of people close to me have died over the past year. I recently began to reflect on a teaching in the books by Carlos Castaneda – and referenced in my own book, Spirit Paths: The Quest For Authenticity – about the striking repercussions of fully realizing that Death is stalking all of us. As a master stalker, it can best be held as a teacher and advisor, as well as foreboding and terrifying.

“That everyone dies is a given in life. Everything that has a beginning has an end. Everything. So the only question is: when your end comes, will you be ready? Will you have fully lived the time and opportunity you had, or did you fritter away your power?”
– Spirit Paths: The Quest for Authenticity

This teaching is becoming even more important to me than in the past as I review what my time on this planet has meant – what I have learned, what I have accomplished, and what I will leave behind. In retrospect, a full review of what I consider to be an ‘evolutionary’ life is daunting. Welcoming Death as the consummate advisor has actually been a thread, albeit often a tenuous one, through much of my life. I can see that I have learned quite a lot under Death’s tutelage.

When I allow death to stand beside me as an advisor, something in me becomes very clear. The recognition that my time and energy are not unlimited changes how I relate to my life. It brings my attention to how I am actually living, rather than how I imagine I am living. In that awareness, I begin to see my choices more directly.

This clarity is not something I realize through effort. It appears when I stop looking away. The fact of death is already present, whether I acknowledge it or not. When I allow it into my awareness, it brings a different quality of attention to my life. I begin to notice what I am doing with my time and energy in a more immediate way.

I see how much of my life has been shaped by patterns I did not consciously choose. These patterns feel normal because I have invested energy in maintaining them. My identity, my beliefs, and my ways of being continue because I continue to give them energy. When I see that clearly, something begins to shift.

In the early 1980s, I was new in Austin, about to have our first child, just beginning a mortgage, and suddenly unemployed. Having completed my Masters degree, I was also at the end of the relatively safe runway of college life and needing to stand fully on my own financial legs for the first time.

I pondered all this while wandering aimlessly through the new shopping mall, ostensibly looking for any kind of job. I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I walked right past a “Help Wanted” sign attached to an almost closed storefront gate. But it caught my eye.

I remember standing outside the opening and looking up at the name of the store: Waldenbooks. Would I be happy as a sales person at a store in a mall?

I was caught in a very long indecisive moment. I really wanted to just walk past, but I couldn’t justify not at least seeing what the job was. So, I went inside. By the end of the day, the manager was showing me how to run the register.

One of the best things about the job was having long periods of time wandering among shelves and display tables stocked with new hardback books. One evening, my attention fell “randomly” on a boxed set of three books, Carlos Castaneda’s original Teachings of Don Juan trilogy. I had never heard of either one, but the hook was undeniable.

That evening, I went home with the boxed set under my arm. (Though the box is now gone, I still have the original books.)

That chain of ‘coincidences’ changed my life entirely. Had I not followed that unexpected nudge, you would not be reading these words today.

There is an inertia to these patterns. They persist because they are familiar and because they have been reinforced over time. Without awareness, I experience them as simply the way things are. With awareness, I begin to recognize that they are maintained through my participation.

This recognition brings me to a different relationship with responsibility. I see that I am responsible for how I live, not as an idea, but as a direct experience. My life is not happening apart from me. I am involved in its creation and continuation.

When I try to place that responsibility outside of myself, I feel the loss of power that comes with it. Blame and explanation offer a temporary sense of relief. They do not change the underlying reality that I am the one making choices. Death, as an advisor, makes that difficult to ignore.

Some years later, and following a series of desperation jobs, I saw a notice in the employment section of the local newspaper. A new program sponsored by the Texas Hospital Association was looking for a writer and an illustrator to develop teaching materials for a public education initiative around the potential of new technologies in health careers. Having always been interested in writing and blossoming new technological breakthroughs in health – including nuclear imaging, EMS, and air ambulances – I decided to see what that was about. I interviewed and was offered the position of writer the same day.

What I anticipated as short-term employment led to a 15-year career that wound through a variety of support programs, but resulted in my first small body of publications.

Fear and attachment are part of this landscape. They reinforce what is familiar and make change feel costly. I can see how I hold on to identities, roles, and relationships because they give me a sense of stability. That holding on requires energy, even when I am not aware of it.

At the same time, I recognize that holding on does not stop life from moving. Life continues, whether I engage with it consciously or not. Avoidance delays change, but it does not prevent it. When I see that clearly, my relationship with avoidance begins to shift.

There is something in me that knows what is true. This knowing is not abstract. It shows up in direct experience, often quietly. When I act in alignment with it, there is a sense of coherence. When I do not, I feel the dissonance.

This dissonance becomes more noticeable as my awareness increases. It is harder to overlook or explain away. I begin to see that I am making choices in each moment, whether I acknowledge that I am doing so or not. The question becomes whether I am willing to recognize those choices.

When patterns are seen clearly, the possibility of change appears. That possibility is not always comfortable. Change can involve the loss of familiar identities and the uncertainty of not knowing what comes next. Fear remains present in that space.

In 2001, my partner and I were enjoying leadership in two movement-oriented programs that were substantially rooted in spiritual practices. Between us, we developed and supported two closely related communities that continued to grow in number and loyalty.

That year, the owner of the studio decided to move to another state and so would have to close or find an alternative. Unexpectedly, she proposed that we buy the studio and take over its management, and that presented a dilemma. While I had some business experience by that time, we had never owned or managed a movement studio. There were no guarantees of success and the potential of failure was daunting.

The choices were clear. We could pass, and two established communities would both lose their center, or we could take a chance and do what we could. We chose to purchase the studio and do our best to give the communities a chance.

Just more than 7 years later, and after our best efforts, the studio finally closed. Based on the efforts of the original owner and our work to continue to provide a home for two communities, the studio remains a beloved memory by many in the spiritual communities in Austin.

Also, during that time, the first shamanic journey circle in Austin was formed. Eventually it became the Shamanic Community of Austin, which remains a substantial center of shamanic spiritual practice in Austin.

I do not need to remove fear in order to choose. I need to see it and recognize its influence. When I do that, I am no longer completely directed by it. I have the ability to act in alignment with what I know, even when fear is present.

Choice begins to feel less like preference and more like alignment. I start to recognize the difference between what is easy and what is true. That recognition does not force a particular action, but it brings clarity to what I am doing.

Authenticity begins to take on a different meaning. It is not something I define in abstract terms. It is expressed through how I live. It shows up in small, everyday actions – in how I speak, how I use my time, and whether I follow through on what matters to me.

These actions reflect the larger pattern of my life. They are not separate from it. When I look closely, I can see the consistency or inconsistency between what I know and how I act. That seeing brings its own form of clarity.

Resistance continues to arise. When change challenges the way I have known myself, there is a pull to return to what is familiar. That pull can be strong. When I am not aware of it, I follow it without question.

When I recognize resistance, something changes. I am no longer completely identified with it. I can see it as a pattern that is present, rather than as the only reality. That recognition creates space.

In that space, there is the possibility of a different choice. I do not always take that step. At times, I return to what is familiar. Even then, I see it more clearly. That clarity remains.

Over time, this process deepens. I become more willing to see what is true, even when it is uncomfortable. Denial becomes harder to maintain. Once I see something clearly, I cannot fully return to not seeing it.

Death remains present throughout this. It gives context to everything I am doing. The finite nature of life brings my attention back to what matters. It removes the illusion that I have unlimited time to postpone what I already know.

What matters is not something I arrive at through analysis. It becomes clear through direct experience. It is reflected in the choices I make and the actions I take. I can see it in how I live.

This awareness does not require that I resolve everything at once. I am not asked to have a complete understanding of my life. I am asked to see, to recognize, and to choose.

That is a simple process. It is also continuous. Each moment offers the opportunity to see more clearly and to act in alignment with that clarity. I do not need to wait for a different time.

When I stay with this, even imperfectly, my life begins to reflect a deeper alignment. It feels more honest and more fully my own.

I can say with certainty that I have not always heeded Death’s advice, nor have I sought it as often as I might have. Still, I like to think that I listened closely enough that part of my legacy of life on this glorious planet is that I have lived with integrity and grace, loved deeply, learned truly, and shared faithfully everything I could.

Who is to say what the inspiration was for that leap of faith and imagination in 2001, or the urge to see what the writer position had to offer almost two decades before, or even the decision to walk into that bookstore in 1981?

It seems clear, though, that a thread winds through all those apparently spontaneous and random choices. In hindsight, whether I knew it or not, the inspiration came from a part of me that is leading toward weaving an authentic legacy beyond when Death reaches out and touches my shoulder.

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The award-winning Spirit Paths: The Quest for Authenticity, by Gerry C Starnes, offers more insights about the Journey of Personal Evolution.
www.SpiritPathsBook.com

Contributing Editor: Stephanie Reynolds, Ph.D.