Historically, Rosemary has a longstanding relationship with Deathwork: Romans carried sprigs of it during funeral processions and ritualistically decorated the body of the deceased to help soothe them in the afterlife. During the Middles Ages, Rosemary was burned to fend away evil spirits so that these spirits could not consume the souls of the deceased, especially during the time of The Black Death. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia said of Rosemary, “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love remember.”

There are many ways in which one can work with a Death Doula. The common misconception is that a Death Doula sits bedside for hours or even days as a body labors into death. Although this is a branch of service a Death Doula could offer, there are many more. 5 to be exact. Let’s lay them out here.

Grief Deserves Grace

It’s the shared underground current

To the pulsing heartbeat of all humankind

The common thread of finely woven sacred string

That serves a season of all lives

It’s birth. It’s death. It’s grief

And this grief deserves grace.

Death is a universal hum, forever singing inside the bones of what is. It exists not only as a necessary transition for our physical bodies, but as a guide for our emotional and spiritual bodies. We are living through and bearing witness to many types of Death in our current timeline; a surging, tsunamic amount of grief and loss is pouring through our collective communities right now, and these feelings can be absolutely paralyzing to our nervous systems as our bodies struggle to process the violence and trauma of what we are continually enduring. These crumbling foundations have opened powerful doors for opportunities to form more authentic relationships with our shadow selves, and with Death in all its shapeshifting forms on a deeper, more intimate level.

The deepening curiosity to explore my own shadows during this time led me to enroll in the Deathwives’ online Deathschool program…..