Professor with terminal cancer uses illness to teach

 Professor Monte Bute


Bute has terminal cancer, and he' been using his personal perspective to enlighten students on the process of death and dying in a class called Life of the Mind.

Students in this master's level course dive into philosophy, medieval history and literature.
In a recent evening class, they watched the film "The Seventh Seal," by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.

"Anytime I feel very Lutheran and tortured I try to watch it," he said.

Watching The Creation Of An Ancestor

I’ve just come from sitting vigil with a dying neighbour and her family, staying with her body until the undertakers came, remaining with the family for a little while then coming downstairs into my own flat. The nights have closed in and I feel securely surrounded by the lives above me, around me, all of us doing our living and dying, childrearing, grieving, enforced rites of passage and unconscious day to day existing. I wasn’t with this family as a priestess or Pagan but as a neighbour who came to see how Maria was doing. We all knew she was dying but I arrived at the point where dying became death and was priviledged to be welcomed by her family into that intense process.

What a lot of death there’s been in the last few weeks. Of course, death occurs at every moment but lately I’ve been surrounded by a more than usual number. There’s a feeling of skill and accomplishment  in not being confused, frightened or thrown off balance when confronted with the absolute facts of death; remaining grounded and present creates a particular atmosphere, whether one is robed and formal or in houseworking clothes, not least that the family doesn’t have to be concerned about someone wobbling around while they’re absorbing devastation.

I was going to post the following closer to Samhain but it feels appropriate to do it tonight. Back in 1997 when I ran the Pagan Hospice and Funeral Trust Caitlin Matthews, one of the Trustees, wrote liturgy for what we hoped would become a regular event, Ancestral Remembrance Day. I came across the old papers for the event and found them still relevant. These words later entered Caitlins book, A Celtic Devotional.



Viajan bien, Maria.

Ancestral Remembrance Day

Caitlin Matthews

This format is a suggested one only: it includes ourselves as well as our ancestors an offers opportunities to clear away what is outworn in order that the renewing tide can recycle all burdens that are clogging up our lives. Please use what you will of it, adding or changing details for your personal need and circumstances. The wording has been purposefully planned to be inclusive of all spiritual traditions. You can use this format as a personal celebration or can adapt it for small group celebration, according to need.

You may wish to set up a simple shrine. This might consist of photographs of dead family and friends, some flowers or a plant, a candle or objects from the natural world that feel ancestral to you. Our prayers and ritual patterns need not be formal. Remember your ancestors as human beings, speak to them the way you would if they stood in the room with you now. The most important thing is that we bring love and perhaps forgiveness. Forgiveness is a releasing and letting go from binding ties of fear, anger, frustration and jealousy: allowing such emotions to freely go, we simultaneously release our ancestors and ourselves from complex ancestral bequests which, without forgiveness, tend to cascade from generation to generation.

Finding new ways of celebrating and honouring our ancestors is a challenge but the rewards of such remembrance are far-encompassing. Think of ways in which you can publicly mark your own ancestors: tending family graves and decorating them at Samhain, marking and hanging wreaths on your own trees and bushes in the garden, setting up a votive light in a window, organising small gatherings among neighbours and friends, are a few of the ways we can bring our public spiritual and ancestral celebrations to a wider and more public forum.

Remember, we will be the ancestors to our decendants. Whatever patterns we lay down now will help change attitudes to death and bring the ancestors back to our communities in warming and loving ways.

SONG OF SAMHAIN
I am the hallow-tide of all souls passing
I am the bright releaser of all pain
I am the quickener of the fallen seed case
I am the glance of snow, the strike of rain.
I am the hollow of the winter twilight
I am the hearth-fire and the welcome bread
I am the curtained awning of the pillow
I am unending wisdoms golden thread

PRAYER FOR CHANGE
Weaver of Life, Reciever of Death, you teach us time and eternity and the blessings of change. In the silence of our meeting reveal to me how I also need to change. Sacred silence. Your merciful compassion is my guide.

REMEMBRANCE OF ALL INSPIRERS
I remember all in the realms of light, the dear ones and Holy Ones whose vocation is a template for my own, whose life-ways have opened my own pathway especially. May they enjoy concord, joy and felicity.

PRAYER FOR RELEASE OF BURDENS
As the year falls into darkness I ask my souls’ teacher to help me recognise what is finished, not to manipulate the powers of life and death to keep alive what is really worn out this year. I relinquish the fear and pride which may have restricted the flow of universal vitality into my life. May all the worn out things that I have harboured find their true rest and eternal home.

PRAYER FOR ANCESTRAL RELEASE
Wise Men, Wise Women, Holy Ones of all generations, I call to you to send a blessing upon all who are stuck in the past and walk the spirals of an in-turning maze: may your wisdom lead them by fresh and fruitful pathways to the blessing of the present moment. Please show to me the ancestral patterns which I inherit, the pathways of the maze which I sometimes tread myself. Help me to be aware that these pathways are not my own patterns, that I have my own way to walk.

THANKSGIVING FOR ANCESTRAL WISDOM
I give thanks for the golden links of lore that our ancestors remembered and which spill into our hands: for the treasures of tradition, for the rich heritage of wisdom, for the ancestral experience which I inherit in every cell of my body.

PRAYER FOR SOULS PURPOSE
Glad Giver, True Taker, as the raven stoops upon decay and cleanses the earth, so also do you take to yourself all scattered beings, keeping safe their souls. In the mercy of your silence I stand between life and death. May the life-blood in my veins bring me to perfect mindfulness of my souls purpose.

PRAYER FOR THE PASSING OF THE DEAD
Into the hands of the Grandparents of Life and Death I commit the souls of all who have passed from this life. I remember my own dear ones. May they find peace, clarity and restoration.

CONSIDERATION OF DEATHS PROSPECT
I consider the moment of my own death: may I be well prepared and worthy to enter the Land of the Living. May my life be lived with virtue and integrity, may my soul friends help me prepare for my death, however unlikely it now seems, that my dear ones are not weighted down with cares and responsibilities that I could have spared them. I make frank appraisal of the things which I have left undone which must be completed before I die. I consider also the legacy of wisdom I bequeath to my decendents.

HONOURING OUR LIFE
Glad Giver, True Taker, you hold the threads of life within your hands; both the greatest and the smallest creature is in your care; as I enter the cave of your silence I am remade, as the day is reborn of the night.

CONCLUSION
I light this candle to shine as a beacon for those who go homewards to their death.
May all who have died without anyone to mourne them or bid them farewell

be blessed and released from their wanderings.
May Holy Ones and Wise Ones from the realms of peace guide all wandering souls to their true abode.
May all who have died violently and without opportunity to prepare their passing

be peaceful and enter into the treasury of souls.

I raise this light for all who fear death.
May they learn that the dark is no darkness at all, that the end of this life is but the beginning of another way of living.
The blessing of love, light and life
Be upon the ancestors
Now and forever.

I've Got The Fear

NB - I'm really sorry about the irratic links. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Old Woman made her presence known and the old woman, she mixed up some of the redstain soup powder stuff and the sacred sisters drank it and got a bit affected. They laughed and made a couple of bad jokes, and lay down on their beds and drank more. And people kept on talkin’ and singin’ and tellin’ stories and the sisters got dreamier and drank more of it, and soon we knew they were somewheres with bright colours and new music and good feelin’ air and then, almost all at the same time, they crossed over and left their meat behind on their beds.

Anne Cameron

Daughters of Copper Woman

The Woman’s Press p65

...Cleopatra sent to Caesar a letter which she had written and sealed; and, putting everybody out of the monument but her two women, she shut the doors. Caesar, opening her letter, and finding pathetic prayers and entreaties that she might be buried in the same tomb with Antony, soon guessed what was doing. At first he was going himself in all haste, but, changing his mind, he sent others to see. The thing had been quickly done. The messengers came at full speed, and found the guards apprehensive of nothing; but on opening the doors, they saw her stone-dead, lying upon a bed of gold, set out in all her royal ornaments. Iras, one of her women, lay dying at her feet, and Charmion, just ready to fall, scarce able to hold up her head, was adjusting her mistress's diadem. And when one that came in said angrily, 'Was this well done of your lady, Charmion?' 'Extremely well,' she answered, 'and as became the descendant of so many kings'; and as she said this, she fell down dead by the bedside.

Plutarch, Life of Antony (LXXXV.2-3, Dryden trans.)

When Crito heard, he signaled to the slave who was standing by. The boy went out, and returned after a few moments with the man who was to administer the poison which he brought ready mixed in a cup. When Socrates saw him, he said, 'Now, good sir, you understand these things. What must I do?'

'Just drink it and walk around until your legs begin to feel heavy, then lie down. It will soon act.' With that he offered Socrates the cup.

The latter took it quite cheerfully without a tremor, with no change of color or expression. He just gave the man his stolid look, and asked, 'How say you, is it permissible to pledge this drink to anyone? May I?'

The answer came, 'We allow reasonable time in which to drink it.'

'I understand', he said, 'we can and must pray to the gods that our sojourn on earth will continue happy beyond the grave. This is my prayer, and may it come to pass.' With these words, he stoically drank the potion, quite readily and cheerfully. Up till this moment most of us were able with some decency to hold back our tears, but when we saw him drinking the poison to the last drop, we could restrain ourselves no longer. In spite of myself, the tears came in floods, so that I covered my face and wept - not for him, but at my own misfortune at losing such a man as my friend. Crito, even before me, rose and went out when he could check his tears no longer.

Apollodorus was already steadily weeping, and by drying his eyes, crying again and sobbing, he affected everyone present except for Socrates himself.

Knowing that John would be in control of his death was a tremendous source of comfort for me as well as for John. Indeed at a stage when MND had almost totally eroded his dignity, knowing he would have that control gave some dignity back to him. John's death was sad but my grief at losing him was tempered by the control he had over the way he died. Having said our goodbyes, I held his hand as the barbiturate overdose took effect: he fell into a deep sleep which was followed by unconsciousness and, after 20 minutes, death.


"kaze sasofu / hana yori mo naho / ware wa mata / haru no nagori o / ika ni toyasen."
 
More than the cherry blossoms, Inviting a wind to blow them away, I am wondering what to do, With the remaining springtime.

Asano Naganori

I’ve been around an unusual number of deaths lately and it’s made me slightly panicky. I’m not afraid of death but the more deaths I come into contact with the more worried I become about my own and the people I love processes of dying.

You’ll know that I’m a supporter of voluntary euthanasia which has become better understood in recent years even if it remains an impossibility for most of us who don’t have the resources to arrange a trip to Switzerland. Now, rather than heavy-handed legislation preventing us from taking direct control of our lives it’s the dear old market economy. As voluntary euthanasia becomes more attractive so more centres will be created and the cost will come down. I hope that happens soon. The free market is much better respected than people’s basic needs.

What’s making me anxious is the way in which I’ve seen people die recently, in ways that have been described as natural, but which have not been so. Doctors getting the willies around analgesia and not giving enough so that a patient who is in the final stages of dying lingers around in pain for longer than necessary: the intent is clearly to keep doctors safe rather than to offer the dying person anything. Nurses who frankly detest patients, something I find so repulsive and disgraceful that I don’t know where to begin. Nursing in the UK changed out of all recognition as soon as it became professional, something that I was in strong support of when I was a nurse myself, but the results have altered my opinion 180 degrees.

There are many other sites that discuss the shameful attitude of too many people who are in a nursing role and it is a fact that you can starve, face a serious risk of acquired infection and are certain to be subjected to contempt if you’re unlucky enough to find yourself on a ward of any description but more likely if you’re on a long stay medical (low status) ward. Which is where many of us will die. There’s nothing you or I can do about it since the causes are numerous and beyond our individual control, but this is the way it is, and it frightens me. I do not want to be at the mercy of miserable, cruel people; to have my symptoms rather than my self treated; to spend my last weeks in pain that can be dealt with but isn’t, or surrounded by people who don’t speak English and who therefore can’t care for me. That basic communication is no longer considered necessary for health care professionals is a measure of how hospitals now function.

Bringing our dying home seems to be one way to ensure that they will at least be paid some attention, and in the UK there are groups that will support us. But this work disproportionately affects the elderly and it’s hard for a person in their 70’s or older to physically care for someone who’s ill. Some statutory help is available and, once again, of an almost universally poor standard but nevertheless if they can do the heavy stuff and then get out it relieves some of the burden from people least able to cope with it. Even this barely acceptable offering is threatened by government cuts.

In reply to my blog of July 09 Joseph offered the following:

Amongst the Heathen Norse, it was not unknown to kill someone with a weapon when they were too old and infirm to fight. Doing so would offer them the chance to enter into Valhalla (because they had been killed by a weapon) rather than dying the "straw death" (dying in their bed of straw) and being denied even the chance of such a hero's reward.

Now, I’m not proposing that we immediately run off and follow this example, but it does illustrate that there are different cultural attitudes to bringing and receiving death than those we’re familiar with. We live in Christian societies, we were brought up, knowingly or otherwise, as Christians and many of our attitudes remain Christian. Often that’s entirely fine but when it comes to this incredibly sacred event it’s not automatically good enough or appropriate for Pagans.

How can we make use of this research, which seems to demonstrate that a naturally occurring chemical in a plant well known for it’s shamanic properties, reduces misery? (The comments following the piece show just how dreadful palliative care in the US can be, when medicine and populist ideology collide.) Using LSD for similar purposes has a solid history. Our counter culture cousins may or may not be using psilocybin when they become terminally ill and Pagans with our dedication to the natural world, could discuss in practical terms if, how and why we would use it too.

We do so much work in the non-practical: envisioning this and that to release wandering souls, energy work, working with God-forms, and it seems clear that this helps distract us and give us the illusion of control. Just like non-Pagans few of us work with the dying and so can be unprepared. When we’re confronted by the reality of someone in extremis it’s very tempting to unleash a panoply of techniques to distance ourselves from them.  I can tell you that if anyone imposes Reiki on me when I’m dying I will haunt them for a good, long time.  Ditto if any crystal is brought near me. Neither do I want anyone singing over me or twanging a tuning fork in my ear when my heels are going black because I haven’t been moved for hours on end. What I want is to be touched with compassion and care, to have my skin cared for, to be looked in the eye, to be seen as a living, precious individual in the active process of dying.

I dearly want someone to be compassionate enough to hear me when I say I’ve had enough; to bring me the equivalent of hemlock when I ask for it, someone who knows how to source it, prepare it and administer it; someone who will stay with me fearlessly as the drug gets to work and who will care for my body when it’s over. That could be a nurse or doctor. A competent drug dealer would do. But how wonderful if it could be a priestess or priest.

Sacred Dying

Megory Anderson of the Sacred Dying Foundation brought the following piece from the New York Times to the attention of her Facebook friends: Making Sure Patients Don’t Die Alone. The article demonstrates how enlightened young doctors can be but it also throws light onto the way we perceive death and dying: a failure to cure, an opportunity for litigation, perhaps something rather shameful. It is extraordinary that something as basic as someone being around when a person dies makes the news.

Paganism has an uneasy relationship with death. We talk about life, death and rebirth, celebrate Samhain, honour deities Who deal out death as well as Those from Whom life flows knowing that They’re often one and the same. But when it comes to the reality of the end of life we are, unsurprisingly, products of our societies. Fragmented, isolated, we can perform endless ritual and still find ourselves helpless in the determinedly real and unromantic event of death.

So many of our rites of passage are organised to be performed at seasonal gatherings but of course when we begin actively dying we’re unlikely to be able to travel, to be away from the things that make living and sleeping less uncomfortable, to have time between medical appointments or simply to have enough energy. The Pagan dying, like everyone else’s dying, disappear.

It doesn’t help that, like giving birth, dying happens in its own time. I like the analogy of midwifery for both birth and death but there are important differences: if a labouring woman encounters difficulties the midwife needs to be technically skilled because things can go very wrong very quickly. There is nothing to go wrong in the physical processes of death. Many physical symptoms can be relieved, many psychological processes can be facilitated but the outcome will always and inevitably be the same. It can even be (whisper it low) tedious to be with a person who is dying when they just don't die. Birth midwives learn to sit on their hands, be attentive and act swiftly when it's needed. People attending the dying learn to be attentive and do very little, actively.

Dying is a high energy event, it draws people to it, we all want to be in some way connected to this ultimate drama. Being involved with death brings out the worst as well as the best in people perhaps because there’s no set way to ‘do’ it. As the dying person becomes less connected to the everyday world there's a risk that they become a means for others to take a little limelight. All that  unfocused energy around death and dying has to ground somewhere, and when doing nothing is the most important thing to do we can all get frustrated.

You’ll know by now that I trip up over the word ‘Healing’. I don’t like it because it’s routinely abused, particularly so around the dying. The only healing for death is death itself and it’s self evident that this hasn’t been thought through or even thought about by a great majority. People offering candle lighting, prayers, ritual and so on for the ‘healing’ of a person who is actively dying would be horrified to think they were actively working towards someone death, or conversely that they were holding a person unnaturally in a life that is finished.

The Sacred Dying Foundation is one of the premier resources around death and dying, offering ways in which to focus some of that instinctive anxiety and interest, to be helpfully involved. The following is reproduced with kind permission.

10 Tips for Vigiling and Establishing Sacred Presence

Megory Anderson

Reclaim Grace and Dignity for Your Dying Loved One
10 ideas to engage family and friends in “Spiritual Presence” for your loved-one.

1: De-clutter the bedside area. 
  Set the space apart using candles, music, etc., to create a calm, peaceful atmosphere.  This will be the “sacred space” around your dying loved-one.


2: Within this physical sacred space, keep the focus of any conversation on the dying person.   
   Allow intentional conversation with or about the person, but no idle chatter among visitors: keep that outside.

3: Take cues from your loved-one regarding practical matters.
    If there is no indication that s/he would like to discuss or handle practical things, keep these things well away from the sacred space.  If you know the person’s wishes regarding privacy, make sure they are respected.


4: Take turns or assign someone as “door keeper” to shepherd the transition from the outside hubbub to the sacred space.
It can often be helpful to establish a daily or weekly schedule with family members.

5: Take cues from your loved-one regarding not only physical needs, but emotional and spiritual as well.
Don’t take center stage with your own emotions.  While your own needs are certainly valid, if all eyes are on you and the comfort you need, consider stepping outside the sacred space to allow the focus to re-shift to the loved-one.

6: When s/he begins actively dying, the most important element of vigiling is your calm presence.  It is a solemn gift.
To hold this quiet space so your loved-one can transition as easily as possible, use tools that you have already gathered in a “vigiling toolkit”.  Items to include: special objects to hold that have personal or religious meaning (a prayer shawl, a favorite scarf, a rosary), reflective readings or books or prayers, music, candles (flame or battery).  Traditional prayers are often used, but other favorite readings can be appropriate, too.  The idea is to personalize these items for your loved-one.


7: If you are at home, don’t be surprised if family pets want to participate. 
If possible, let them behave naturally: on the bed or on your lap, etc. 


8: Friends/family who can’t physically be there during this time can still be involved from afar.
For example, someone long-distance could be in charge of mass communications, informational emails, etc.  There are many online choices such as candle-lighting websites, creating a Facebook page with updates, and other internet options.


9: Ask absent friends/family to vigil with you at a designated time once or twice daily.
They could do this from anywhere in the world, simply taking a few minutes in shared thought/prayer, listening to music, lighting a candle, etc.

10: Don’t worry about making practical calls immediately after s/he passes.
Spending some time in silence can be profound and meaningful.  Then, consider designating one person to go do practical things while one continues to sit quietly for as long as possible.

© Megory Anderson 2010
www.SacredDying.org  

Love without need

I visited intensive care today to see a woman who I’ll call Jane. Jane’s life has been a tragedy from the word go. Born into very unromantic misery, brought up by uncaring people in a harsh environment, working full time aged 9. In Britain in the 20th century. Seeing this person in the street – prison and facial tattoos, staggering about and often incomprehensible – you might cross the road, but like many roaring, frightening people she’s very sensitive and exposed and I feel tearful when I think of the life that was wasted by the adults whose only vaguely gracious act was not to forget to feed her.

This person isn’t Pagan and I don’t visit her in a chaplaincy role, she’s part of our community, she’s appallingly ill and so we visit. I spent about 10 minutes there today and was struck by the strangeness of it all, of every individuals’ need, including my own, being focused through this reclining, semi-conscious lens of a person. The excellent, professional nurses yelled at her in that loving, patronising manner than many nurses have: “Hello darling, I’ll just aspirate your tube.” Her lover, Dan, has miraculously and instantly cleaned up his own problems while he spends as much time as he can at her side. He’s terrified of being left alone. Dan has found status and purpose since Jane has been in hospital. People who would not normally give him the time of day are now treating him kindly and with respect.

What are my reasons for visiting? They’re complex and not fully conscious and I hope that my main impulse is compassion. Jane and I are not intimate friends, there’s a limit to how much time we want to spend in each others company and we don’t have a great deal to talk about beyond having a bit of a laugh. Jane hasn’t got a religious bone in her body but my own needs incline me to offer something that isn’t fear or determinedly, superficially, upbeat. My need to make sense of this situation is as present as anyone else’s, but I hope – I really do hope – that my need is not so desperate that I impose it on Jane.

Jane is dying. She’s not physically alone and there’s a great deal of intense feeling in her room. I wonder, through my own clouded lenses of understanding, about peace. Everyone knows she is dying and no one close to her can bear it, it’s just such an unmanageable, fearful prospect for them. They’ve informed the funeral director, a wake at the pub has been arranged, but these are practical matters, the right and proper actions of responsible friends making forthright plans. There’s a mismatch between what’s being planned and what is being felt. There is no peace in the room.

I stood where Jane and I could make eye contact and spoke quietly to her, saying that she was safe, that she was loved. It’s impossible to know absolutely what is ethical or right or wrong when speaking with someone who can’t speak back, who is in extremis and I would, I believe, feel very desperate if a priest came to me as I lay dying and began imposing his view of the world on me. I know I would want quiet, centred people around me who would not want to hold me back or push me on. But I have a developed personal understanding of how I might approach my own dying and the dying of the people I love, I have a foundation for how I approach the dying of people who know what I do and who deliberately want me present. I have little idea what is right and wrong when I’m with Jane.

What I want to do is to shift the focus of practical support onto Dan, to get him some professional, hospital-based emotional sustenance so that he can begin to reduce his desperate need for Jane not to die. I want to find some impossible compromise with the miraculous, brilliant machines that do more than keep Jane alive, they’re making her body comfortable and safe. And they’re so noisy: the technical mattress and covers hiss, the ventilator whispers, alarms blare.

I want, for my own comfort, to speak to the part of Jane that is not a devastated human being, which is nevertheless intimately joined with every part of her human experience, to remind that most vital part of her that everything is as it should be, that it is safe, that there is nothing to fear. And so on. I want to make it familiar so that I no longer feel helpless.

My husband is so much better at this. He visits more than I do and Jane knows him better. He feels no need to do anything other than hold her hand for 10 minutes a day, to talk about the mundane which is precisely what Jane would wish to talk about most of the time, at the same time as bringing transcendent love with him. In the room he’s not as grounded as I am but he has much more capacity to simply bring Jane love without need. What a journey this is, what learning.