The Death Ritual: Guiding Him Home. Carrying Him One Last Time.

I’ve hesitated to share this because it is so personal, but also because it is sacred. This is the story of the death ritual I did for Patrick — of what it means to help someone you love cross over, of what remains between the living and the dead. It is the most intimate work of my life. I offer it here not as instruction, but as witness.*

This is about spirituality. And yes — I am a mystic. But I also live solidly within this world. My feet are here, now. My hands tend to this life. I believe in what we can see and touch. But I also know — not merely believe, know — that there is more than this. We know that consciousness doesn’t live in our brain. Even scientists are beginning to explore this, turning to quantum physics, mapping the edges of what they once dismissed. The afterlife, the soul, what lingers when the body has stilled — these are no longer just the realm of faith or myth. And if we begin from the truth that there is more we don’t know than we do, then bowing to the unknown — meeting it with curiosity, openness, humility — becomes the beginning of real spirituality.

These are my beliefs. I share them openly. But I would never tell another person they should believe what I believe. Spirituality is not about authority. It is about standing at the edge of mystery and having the courage to say: I do not know, but I am willing to listen.

And so I speak of death. I speak of the death ritual. I speak of the work of helping a soul cross.

A death ritual done by a shaman is not for the living to feel better. It is not for show. It is not to tidy grief. It is done because when the ties of love are deep and fierce, the soul may linger. The ritual helps loosen the binds that tether the soul to this world — not to sever love, but to allow it to take a freer, truer form. To let the soul go where it is meant to go.

Because souls do linger. And when someone dies in your arms — as Patrick did in mine — the tie is almost too strong to break alone. That love, that bond, can call a soul to stay. Out of devotion. Out of unfinished promises. Out of the unbearable closeness that death tries, but fails, to tear apart. And so a soul can hover. Can hesitate. Can remain, even becoming what is called an intrusive entity — not out of harm, but because neither the living nor the dead are ready to release.

The death ritual is necessary because the path beyond is not clear. The underworld, the afterlife — these are dark, sticky places. It is easy to lose your way. The shaman knows the route. The shaman helps guide the soul over the rainbow bridge, through the threshold, into the land of peace.

Our ritual began as it must. The shaman built the circle of safety. The Four Winds were called. Jaguar Mother came to protect. The Ancestors gathered to light the way. I was given a stone and breathed into it — because the stone could hold what my heart could not. I poured my storm into it: grief, fear, anguish. And when my center finally steadied, I spoke.

I spoke to Patrick. I spoke everything I needed him to hear, everything he deserved to know as he crossed. I do not remember all the words — they poured out from beyond thought, beyond memory — but I remember the truths that rose through me:

You are my eternal love.

Thank you for what you gave me. My life would never have been as beautiful without you.

I am so enriched by the life we built together, touched by the love you gave me. You were my best friend. My soulmate. The strongest, most beautiful man I have ever known.

I will always honor you. We will never truly be apart. And when my time comes, I will find you. But now, you deserve peace. You deserve rest. Thank you for keeping me safe.

And this is what most will never know, never witness, never give or receive:

The night Patrick died, I held him.

Not his hand. Not his shoulder. I held him. I bore his weight. I cradled him in my arms the way you hold the person you love beyond words. And at the time, I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing. I was hoping. I was willing him to stay. I held him because I loved him. Because I couldn’t let him go. Because I believed — I needed to believe — that he would live. That somehow they would save him as they rushed him to the ambulance.

What was rare was not his dying — there is no gift in that. What was rare was how he was met at the edge. That he was not alone. That in his final breath, he was cradled, carried, held by the one who loved him most.

As I spoke in ritual, I felt it again — the weight of him, just as I had felt it that night. And as I spoke, that weight began to lift. Slowly. Gently. As if he trusted me once more to help him let go.

And I have been asked, more than once: Was it hard to let him go? Didn’t part of you want to hold on? And I have answered, every time, without hesitation: No. I never thought of clinging to him. I only cared that he make it where he was meant to go. That he be at peace. That love help him cross.

The shaman confirmed it. He was crossing.

And because grace moves in ways that leave no room for doubt, something else came — quiet, unbidden, unexpected.

Later, after the ritual was complete, my best friend — far away, knowing nothing of those final moments — shared that Patrick had visited in her healer’s space. He spoke. He shared what only he could have shared. And through that, it became clear:

He had crossed. He was at peace. And what mattered to him was that he had been held as he passed.

Even now, as I write this, a red hawk circles me — a sign, perhaps, of what I have known all along: that love did what it was meant to do. That what remains between us is not a tether that binds, but a bridge that endures. A bridge between worlds. A bridge I helped him cross. A bridge I will cross too, when my time comes.

This is what the death ritual is for. This is why we do it. To guide the soul safely home. To do what love demands, even when it breaks us. To let go, not because we want to, but because we must. And in that letting go, to make a promise: that love does not end. That love becomes the path.

If this touched you, or if you’ve walked your own path of loss and ritual, I welcome you to share your reflections. We heal through story, through presence, through the courage to name what is true.