‘Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.’

NORMAN COUSINS

Meetings with death are an important part of any shaman’s initiation. I remember hearing with a fascinated horror that the Mayan shamans of antiquity had to go through nine ritualized deaths, each more terrible than the last, in order to serve their people.

My father was a powerful man. We didn’t see eye to eye. He died in 1995 at the tender age of 56, just eight weeks after being told he had cancer. It was a shock to us all. He had hardly had a day’s illness in his life.

The week he discovered his cancer, Susannah, Reuben and I were on a winter holiday in Norway. I dreamed about my father every night, and during the days I was unusually aware of him, but I didn’t know why. One day I felt like stretching myself and set off on a snowboard down a steeper slope than I’d tried before. Once over the ridge, there was no way back. I suddenly felt very afraid. I sat down, looking at what was ahead of me. I felt paralysed and was berating myself for biting off more than I could chew. Suddenly, I was aware of my father. I felt him sitting beside me. I realized that the fear I was feeling was in some way his, not mine. I didn’t understand it, except that I knew he was afraid of heights. No longer overwhelmed, I stood up, said goodbye to my father’s fear and, leaning forwards into the slope, took off.

When I came to a halt at the bottom of the slope, I felt both elated and, strangely, inconsolably sad. It was only when I returned to the UK to hear the news of my father’s illness that I realized that I’d been unknowingly preparing for what was to come.

I only saw him once during the short time of his illness. Over that weekend visit, I had the chance to both witness his extraordinary dignity as he lost control of his physical body and to thank and honour him for all he’d given me. The dignity with which he faced his illness made me so proud of him. He also did his very best to restore some peace with Susannah by welcoming her to join us for our last Friday night meal together as a family.

One very sweet moment from that weekend stands out for me. Reuben, following his own impulse, decided to massage his grandpa. He did it with such uncloaked tenderness and presence, and my father was visibly moved.

I got to him three hours after he died. I had been working in Antwerp and got back as soon as I could. I’d asked the hospital not to disturb his body until I arrived and they’d very kindly agreed. I entered his hospital room at 11 p.m. He looked more peaceful than I’d ever seen him. I took his hand and sat with him, sensing his spirit still close by.

The presence of death has always brought me deep calm. That day, my heart was full of feeling, like a wild river, fast and unpredictable, and I took the ride with my father’s spirit all the way downstream to the deep stillness of the ocean.

After three hours of being with him, thanking him for his life and what he had passed on to me, I was in a deeply altered state. I saw my father’s father, who had died a year and a day before, arriving in a beautiful old Rolls Royce. My father loved those old cars and had traded many of them in his time as an entrepreneur. In my late teens, I’d sometimes had the great adventure of delivering cars to customers in London.

Once my dad asked me to drive a bright yellow Silver Spirit Rolls Royce from Liverpool to London. Unfortunately for him, the customer didn’t take the car. I had the weekend in London with it. I was only 18 and my friends and I decided we ought to use the opportunity to try and get into Stringfellow’s nightclub.

We were all in torn jeans, long before they were fashionable. I parked up 50 feet from the entrance and watched as my friend asked if we could come in. He was rudely refused.

I slowly drove up, wound down the window and asked, ‘Is there a problem?’

‘This guy doesn’t want to let us in,’ my friend replied.

I looked enquiringly at the doorman. ‘Why ever not?’ I asked.

The doorman did a quick double-take and changed his mind. ‘I’m sorry, sir. Of course you can come in. May I park your car for you?’

Appearances, it seems, count for a lot.

My reverie was interrupted as I realized my grandfather had come to escort my father. I let go of his hand and watched as his spirit stood up out of his body, took the keys from his dad and drove off.

The atmosphere in the room changed dramatically. I took my dad’s hand again and was dismayed to feel its empty weight. It was more like an inanimate object than a human hand. I crashed back into ordinary reality and felt the shock of death’s finality. My father’s body, which when I had arrived had still seemed to contain him, had gone ice-cold. He had gone.

In the months that followed his death, I dreamed of him many times. Apparently he hadn’t realized that he’d died. I can’t tell you for sure that the father I met in my dreams was more than an apparition based on my feelings and memories, but my experience was that I was with him in real time.

The dreams went on for a whole year before one night, in a ceremony in a huge tipi out in the wilds with a shaman from Mexico, I saw my dad’s spirit on the other side of the river that separates the living from the dead.

It was close to dawn and the drums had been going all night and the fire was artfully tended and shaped into the image of a firebird that flew, with the help of the fire keeper, from the west of the tipi at sunset to the east, just in time for sunrise. There the great bird rested in front of a moon-shaped altar, fashioned from clay and decorated with flowers.

The ceremony was an extraordinary and life-changing experience for me. Earlier in the night, supported by the mesmerizing effect of a fast-tempo water drum and songs from the shaman’s tradition, I’d found myself wandering in another world, pristine and unpopulated by other humans. The buildings were ancient pyramid-like structures. Everything was red earthy colours and dazzlingly bright turquoise.

I wandered round and eventually came to a magnificent black step pyramid that was humming with power. I started to climb the steps. At that point, from far away, I heard someone calling my name. I looked around, but couldn’t see anyone. The calling was insistent. I didn’t want to leave where I was, but I felt compelled to follow the sound.

I suddenly found myself back in the tipi with Aurelio, the shaman, standing in front of me calling my name. I looked into his eyes. He smiled a warm smile and then pointed to the design on his belt buckle. The geometric shapes, colours and patterns that I’d been exploring were engraved and painted on his buckle. He laughed and I fell straight back into that magical world.

Eventually, I came to a river and sat down on the bank. I started to sing. I knew I was calling, but I didn’t know to whom.

As if in response to my song, I saw a long line of people emerging from around the base of a hill on the other side of the river. We were all singing the same song.

And then I saw him. Amongst the thousands of people on the other side of the river, there was my dad. He looked so well and seemed so happy to see me. I couldn’t speak to him, but for one precious moment our eyes locked. I knew immediately that he had arrived. He was okay. And the deep tension that I’d been carrying in my heart since he’d died seemed to dissolve.

I left the river and pyramids behind me and found my way back to the tipi by following the sound of the drums. I opened my eyes for the first time in many hours and I was with the fire. It danced, phoenix-like, smoking fiery blue and orange ash. The fast rhythm of the drums seemed to be inside my blood. I could feel the medicine vibrating in my cells. I couldn’t contain the joy I felt. I felt my heart bursting like a star. Everything shimmered in and out of focus in the first light of the dawn. My heart had expanded beyond the canvas walls of the tipi. I could feel the rhythm of the Earth under me. I felt the wildlife around us. Everything was in its place. The love I felt for everyone and everything was totally overwhelming. I had no choice but to let go.

For some wonderful time out of time, my individual sense of self evaporated. There was no thinking. There was no body. There was only a humming vibration as ancient as the Dartmoor stone, as wide as the sky and as free as the wind. There was only love. But that love was a destroyer as much as a creator. It was death as well as life. It was all directions at once and nowhere at all.

And in the force of that love, at the centre of it all, the water drum and the rattles held the beat. As I returned to an individual sense of self, that rhythm was my life raft in the vast ocean of the unknown.

It was the shaman’s song that brought me back. The traditional food that signalled the beginning of the end of the ceremony was being brought into the tipi; sacred corn, buffalo meat, fruit and grains, all beautifully prepared, filled the tipi with a delicious smell and my body’s response told me I was ravenous. I was back, and I watched that firebird dancing in the flames, born again fresh from the warm grey ash.

Something had died in me during that night in the tipi. I felt lighter and the experience of meeting my dad’s spirit and the dissolution of separation that had followed it left me looking at the world through different eyes.

In the overwhelming moments that had led to letting go, I’d seen my own body in a grave. In what was like a speeded-up nature movie, I’d seen my flesh being eaten by the worms and my bones nourishing the Earth. And, unlike the first time I’d met death in a shamanic ritual, I’d felt no fear.

It was 1988 when I had the opportunity to take part in a burial ceremony with Batty in the ancient land of the Cathars in a place called Lavaldieu in the Languedoc region of France. Death is considered to be one of the great teachers in shamanic cultures around the world and as soon as I heard about the burial ritual, I thought, Those old shamans must have had fun dreaming up the rituals for us apprentices to take part in.

The burial ceremony involved digging our own grave. As the sun set, we voluntarily entered that grave. The shaman ‘drummed death into our grave’ and then held our ‘funeral’. This was followed by a night in dialogue with death.

It was midsummer and the ground was hard, dry and rocky. I’d spent the whole day with a good friend called Steve, digging that grave with a pick and shovel. It was hot and exhausting work and by the end of the day I was quite happy to get in there and die!

Our instructions were not to fall asleep, but to look at our lives from the point of view of having already died. What regrets did we have? What had we left unfinished? What did death have to show us about the effect of our lives on those around us?

After all that, we were to ask death to give us another chance. We were warned that death was a tough negotiator. What could we commit to if we were given another year to live? What would we change?

Assuming that we came to an agreement, at sunrise we would be ‘reborn’ and have the opportunity to declare our intent to the rising sun.

My grave was deep. I’d lit a fire using fast-burning wood and bracken and covered the embers in a layer of sand in order to stay warm during the night. The grave was covered by pallets and there was enough space to squeeze in at the head end and a breathing hole at my feet. Once I was in, a couple of logs were rolled into place one and a half feet from my face and the tarp was rolled over them. I then heard the sound of my friend shovelling earth on top of the tarp.

Batty began to drum. I hadn’t thought that I would be afraid, but as Batty called, ‘Benevolent Death!’ into the grave, I became truly terrified. Benevolent Death is the name Batty used to describe death as a teacher, a conscious being, who we can come into relationship with before the end of our life.

I was on the verge of panic, but I was determined to stay put. Up above, my funeral was taking place, but I was too preoccupied to listen. As instructed, I began to talk to death. I asked him to kindly give me some time to arrive in the ritual before he came to get me.

Apparently death was listening and loosened his grip on my heart. I settled in, shaken and suddenly aware of what a serious business this was! Slowly, my fear returned and seemed to increase in intensity with each breath, as if someone was turning a fear dial. I was covered in a clammy sweat and my body was shaking. I began to think that I was genuinely dying. I remembered that I’d felt this fear of death once before.

Five years before, some friends and I had gone to Glastonbury Tor for a winter solstice ritual. I’d had a terrible night. I’d spent most of it in a kind of numb terror, certain that I was dying. It was truly a dark night of the soul. I’d felt beyond useless. I’d done nothing of any value with my life and now it was over. My friends had tried to console me, but I was lost in the mire. Everything seemed a threat. The hedges seemed wrathful dragons. The land was full of dark energy and I had no protection whatsoever.

I felt a fool. I’d expressed my doubts about doing a ritual on the Tor, but my friends had persuaded me, and against my better judgement, I’d gone along with them. Why had I been so stupid as to go against my own instincts?

It was the longest night of the year and the darkness seemed without end. When the sun eventually rose, the relief I felt was beyond words. I’d made it through the night and the sun was returning. And I’d been given a serious warning. I made a promise not to involve myself further in amateur rituals.

In the grave at Lavaldieu, here I was again. But this time, I was being held by a medicine man and I knew I could safely let go. Still, my fear reached fever pitch. My breath was short and fast and I was again close to panic. I talked to death, telling him about my life through my chattering teeth. But with each sentence, the feeling of death’s presence became more and more intense until I felt as if I was being crushed.

At the peak of my fear, without warning, and strange as it may sound, I went from the most intense fear I’d ever experienced to the deepest calm of my life! I’d let go and travelled through the eye of the needle to the other side of my fear. My body seemed to spread out in the warm sand. I didn’t recognize myself. I was being held in the embrace of the Great Mother and I felt totally at ease. I wondered if I’d actually died. I knew I’d passed through the first gateway of the ceremony and I still had the whole night ahead of me. From this place, I was able to do my work.

As a ‘dead man’, I looked back over the life I’d lived. I had many regrets. I regretted the many times I’d played the victim and blamed the bastards who were ‘oppressing me’. I saw how I’d actively played a full part in causing the situations in which I’d felt the most pain. I regretted how mean I’d been with my love for the people who’d mattered most to me in my life and how passive I’d been with my dreams.

So much became clear to me in that grave. I was so deeply involved that I hardly noticed that I’d fallen into a dream.

I was seven and was standing outside the doors of a great abbey, asking to study with the Cathar masters inside. I was told I was too young and to come back in a year.

A year later, again I knocked on those great doors. This time, a nun let me in and I was instructed to sit on a wooden pew and, whatever happened, not turn around.

I became aware of an old man in a dark cloak and hood sitting in the pew behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there. I so wanted to turn around, but I daren’t do it.

The man spoke. ‘Put your hands out in front of you, child.’

I did. The man passed an object over my head and placed it in my hands.

‘Take a look.’

I opened my eyes. A short sword in a black leather scabbard was in my hands. I took it out and saw that there were inscriptions on the blade, written in a language I didn’t understand.

‘This is your sword,’ the old man told me. ‘It is your sword of power. We are all born with one. Learn to use it well. If you do not, its power will turn against you. Dedicate it to what matters most to you. If you do not, it will cause you untold problems.’

I thanked him and he told me his name.

And then I woke up again in my grave. I was shocked. The dream had been so real that I was amazed that the sword was no longer in my hands.

In the morning, after some final negotiations with Benevolent Death that involved making clear commitments to tie up the loose strings I’d seen during the night, I was welcomed into my new life by Batty and my companions. Around the fire, I shared the story of the sword. Batty told me that I should look out for that sword or even find a way of making it. It was a representation of my power, dedicated to the purpose of my soul.

That made sense to me. I thought I would find it quickly, but in fact it would take 10 years. It slowly dawned on me during that decade that the process of bringing visions into physical reality wasn’t something I could rush.

Meeting death as a teacher was an invitation to mature. Gone was the ‘I’m gonna live forever’ certainty of my adolescence. Death’s presence was real, and my life, imperfect as it was, felt like a precious gift.

I was well aware that I’d made promises in that first burial ceremony to clean up my act. I had letters to write. The perspective of the grave made apology a must. I apologized for blaming past girlfriends for our break-ups. I wrote to teachers from my schooldays to apologize for my behaviour at school. Death had been clear that cleaning up the past was important. However, the most important thing was how I chose to live from now on. The ritual in Lavaldieu wasn’t a one-night stand. I knew that in order to go deeper, like any relationship, the one with death would require my attention.

In 1990, I did another burial ritual, this time with Victor. Having kept the pledges I’d made in that first ceremony, I found this one much calmer. Death had become part of my day-to-day life, and during that second burial, I found myself feeling much more at ease with the reality of mortality.

Burial ceremonies became a regular part of my own initiatory journey as my dialogue with death deepened. A year later, just before our son was born, Susannah and I dug a round grave in our tiny back garden at home. We covered it over with small hazel thinnings, and covered the trees with blankets and canvas. We lined the grave with sheepskins and, one at a time, we spent 48 hours in the dark in dialogue with death. It was the perfect preparation for becoming parents.

Naturally, we knew that our lives would change radically with the arrival of a child and this rite of passage gave us the time and space to pray for help. I prayed with all my heart that life would show me how to provide for my young family. I prayed for help from the spirits, from my ancestors and from life itself to find the way to be the best father I could be. And all the time, death stood over my shoulder, reminding me that all things are temporary and that one day I had to let go of everything and return my body to the Earth.

Death has taught me how to appreciate life. Death’s invitation has been to be present, to taste my food, to smell the earth and to dare to love in the sure knowledge that I and all that I love will pass away.

Many people I’ve met along the way have assured me that death is as simple as taking off your shoes at the end of a hard day’s walking and that our spirit lives on forever. But when I asked, death was clear: ‘You don’t know what’s next and that’s how it’s meant to be and part of what makes life so very sweet. The best way to prepare to meet me is to commit fully to living your life in the way that makes most sense to you. If you do this, when I come for you, you will die as you have lived, with a smile on your face.’