"The Strangest Phenomenon"

For the last 7 years, I’ve been talking to the oldest and wisest people in our communities. when you are 89 or 102, or 96, death looms large. When you are very old, any breath could be your last. And yet the elders’ relationship with death has changed my perception of life.

If one thing even the smartest people in the world cannot solve it is this…what happens when you die? And yet there’s enough mystery around that moment of death, it’s worth exploring .

Last summer I led a retreat to witness the total eclipse of the sun in Oregon.

I had seen a total eclipse when i was much younger. But I can’t say I fully appreciated the rarity of the spectacle.

Leading up to the eclipse, I read and heard so many stories about how, in the moment of totality when the daytime sky turns black…and the sun’s corona becomes this ring about light around the moon…people emotionally unhinged.

During this retreat in Oregon, one lady on my retreat accidentally recorded the moment. In just a moment I will play for you the audio of the people in our group, during the moment of totality.
During the eclipse I was standing next to a very close friend whose mother had just passed away.

As I’m staying here next to my friend…and the moon is covering the sun…and the light is dimming…you hear the sounds of the animas, confused by the sudden loss of light, the wind is blowing, the shadow of totality is approaching for the westerner horizon at 2400 mph…it’s just otherworldly.

And my friend is crying…saying this dimming of the light is what he thinks his mom experienced when she was in the hospitality, her life fading away.

I had seen an eclipse once before and I had sense of what was coming. I puy my hand on my friend’s shoulder and told him “just wait…you’re about tot see something spectacular.”

Let’s listen the audio of people’s reaction:

[AUDIO OF PEOPLE’S REACTION DURING THE MOMENT OF TOTALITY]

The light you see in a total eclipse is just beyond words…there’s a warmth, a love…a GLOW…something I equate to what people talk about when they see the LIGHT and are transitioning down this tunnel to their down death.

I’d like to think this moment gave my friend comfort …a little hint that when things go black, and the light is gone, there might be something unimaginably spectacular yet to come.

I shared this story of the eclipse during a yoga workshop. A student, Tracee, approached me after and described her relative, Julia…who recently passed away at 100 years old.

[TRACEE DESCRIBES A GLOW ON HER THIS 100 YEAR-OLD’S FACE BEFORE SHE DIED]

Sometimes people, in their moment of death, seem to reach for this glowing light.

David shared with me the story of being with his mother when she passed away last year at the age of 94.

[AUDIO OF DAVID DESCRIBING WHAT HIS MOM DID AT HER MOMENT OF DEATH]

Before people die….do hey see something? Do they feel something?

Over the past 7 years I have interviewed so many older people in their 80’s 90 and 100’s…I almost always ask, “Are you scared to die?”

Here’s how Ed, 96, answered the question…are you scared to die?

Ed: “Am I scared to die? No no no, I welcome it!”

In all the times I’ve asked an elder if they are scared to die, 9 out of 10 answer like Ed. When it’s time, they’ll be ready. They welcome it.

How could something so uncertain be so welcoming?

Rachel described two experiences she had losing people close to her…

[AUDIO OF RACHEL]

Does the nature of an eclipse… foreshadow what’s to come at the moment of death?

It’s hard to say…

But for anyone who has ever done a yoga class…the very best part at the end, when you lie down and let go…that’s the corpse pose…Savasana

What would be a good yoga class without a great Savasana?

What would be a good life with out a beautiful death?

In each of these podcasts I like to guide into a moment of letting of go. Take a moment to relax.

You may have heard Anne Lamottt’s quote “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

So let’s do that

Let go of whatever was going on today…let it go..l

Whether it’s death, or divorce, changing jobs, moving into something new…the uncertain and unknown tends to be frightening…but we can choose to come to it as an opportunity for a new birth…

Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, “Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them. but life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves…

Today, let’s come to the unknown as an explorer…