Death—A Fruition of Possibilities - A Mindful Approach to Dementia & Psychedelics
About a month ago, my husband, Henry, stumbled upon the YouTube podcast of Oprah Winfrey interviewing the renowned psychic medium Laura Lynn Jackson. We were spellbound by Laura’s matter-of-fact explanations of the Other Side and how we each have a Team of Light forever guiding and protecting us. She mentioned her new book, Signs, which I am currently reading. We all have signs, and when Henry was still talking in the beginning of the dying process, I contemplated which sign Henry would be. Upon waking, I told Henry about my query, and I whispered to him, “I believe you will be a star.”
“Yes, but it will be a twinkling one,” he answered without skipping a beat. In the days after my husband’s death, my daughters and I have seen twinkling stars in the night sky, and also an unexplained appearance of an orangish twinkling light and even a shooting star. My granddaughter, with no explanation, decided to add three twinkly stars to a card she had written when her grandfather was dying. Laura Lynne Jackson’s message is that our loved ones are always with us, life on the Other Side is a brilliant one, and that our relationships continually unfold even after a person leaves their body.
Messages from the Other Side are more easily accessed by some people, psychic mediums like Laura Lynne Jackson, and also by my long-time friend and psychic medium who has also been a mentor to me. Yes, at times, I have had messages come through me from people who have recently crossed over. They are always messages of deep peace, resolution, and a sense that all is perfect. It is clear they do not want those remaining on Earth to suffer, have prolonged sadness, or live with regret. Happiness based on love and kindness is always what is wanted for us here.
Henry and I shared an unwavering perspective that includes more than what meets the eye. It is a sensitivity to integrating the energy around what appears to be before us; more than the linear—the “this and that” of duality. We are advancing in our learning with new scientific research on what consciousness is. However, ancient teachings already included, rather than dismissed, this greater understanding of the whole. Infinite wisdom comes from this source; love springs from the same well. It is we who may not allow its admission into how we live our lives, how we think, how we perceive the world.
In the sharing of some details of Henry’s death—only to a very small circle that also shares this way of being that most people make fun of—I am mustering the courage to bring a glimpse into some of the possibilities and potentialities here that invite in a wider perspective of the death experience.
By training our hearts and minds to bring an awareness of knowing, like having your antennae tuned in, the experience shifts and cultivates a sacredness unencumbered by attachment or ego; a sacredness that reflects a purity of light and love. A sattvic energy of wholeness can reign and touch hearts forever, as it has mine, through the death experience of my husband, Henry.
Though Laura Lynne Jackson focuses on signs after someone has passed, we can look for signs even before. Exactly one week before Henry’s death, I had an extreme visceral, albeit momentary, smell of death when I casually walked by Henry. This knowing wedged its way into a deep knowing—a sign even though there were no outward signs.
In one of the last days when Henry was still speaking, he handed me his mala beads. These beads, blessed by the Eminent Kirti Tsenshap Rinpoche over twenty-five years ago, were Henry’s most prized possession. He softly commanded, “I want you to put on these beads and wear them. Take good care of them for me.”
In that moment, I was completely taken aback. It took several more days to realize that was Henry’s goodbye. He was ready to unburden himself of all worldly possessions in his preparation for the ultimate. Clearly, that was a sign.
Two days before passing, my sister-in-law asked if I had thought about removing Henry’s wedding ring since her father, my father-in-law, had a wedding ring that needed to be sawed off after he died. I answered that I had tried earlier that morning but couldn’t get myself to do so. It was an emotional hurdle I wasn’t prepared to move past. So that night, my two daughters lovingly stated, “Mom, it’s time.” I knew this simple act was of great proportion. Energetically, it was ending the marriage. It was releasing me as the wife. It was allowing this being who was my husband for forty-five years to take the final steps of this journey alone.
This is an inevitable preparation in the dying process and one free of the encumbrances of others’ burdens, energies, needs, expectations, or emotional traumas. It is a gift to allow and support the other’s journey at this crucial time. To make my process easier, we turned it into a ritual with a special Indian brass holder, in which the three of us joined in to take off all our rings and place them in the brass holder together.
Though giving me the mala beads or taking off my wedding ring may seem perfunctory, they actually held great energy shifts in the dying process. These could be considered signs along the way, guiding the nature of how the dying process can be held: in love and support rather than sorrow and pain.
These two acts followed after Henry had endured agonizing pain. That is the part of the journey that I continue to contemplate deeply. I have asked several respected teachers their opinions, and I have sought to find solace in writings over the ages. We know suffering is one of the Four Noble Truths. We know Jesus died on the cross. Suffering and pain are part of the human experience. Henry certainly had his share in those last days just preceding the very final days that were both pain-free and medication-free.
Did experiencing the pain bring such a degree of suffering that it released his will to stay attached to a physical form? I may never find a satisfying answer to why Henry was meant to endure such pain; it is important to sit with the mystery while the heart remains open. I can point to medical mishaps, but moreover, I believe how things transpired were meant to be. Though initially traumatized during those 24/7 days of excruciating pain, I learned to not let Henry’s pain take over my ability to provide kindness, love, and support to hold the space for his experience. There are no words that can describe the deep bond my youngest daughter, who lovingly and expertly managed the situation, and I forged through that experience. At the deepest level, there is a choosing of challenges that may not be comprehensible to others. Each person’s journey is unique.
On a more pragmatic level, we recounted Henry’s two high-dose journeys with psychoactive mushrooms. One was five years prior, the other two months back. Both times Henry experienced great discomfort. The first seemed like a six-hour panic attack. While the second was also very difficult, it was less so than the first. Henry was able to gain an awareness while in a state of distress to observe his distress. In the integration session, it was clear Henry was battling with the ego to let go. This reminds me of the great epic battle at Kurukshetra, a battleground we had visited in India, but a victory that can only take place through spiritual unfoldment, as recounted in the legendary tale of Krishna and Arjuna in the Mahabharata.
I believe both these experiences were a training ground to meet the dying process. The similarities between high-dose journeys and the journey in actively dying can mimic each other: possible physical discomfort, letting go, ego death, the potential of reuniting into oneness.
Holding space for Henry in his dying process reminds me so much of how space holders do the same in a psychedelic journey. The importance is to let each person journey through their own remembering, the tugs and pulls of their own destiny, and to navigate the compass of their own heart and mind, while the person(s) protecting that experience for the other remain calm, at peace, with a heart emanating loving-kindness.
My daughters and I were tuned into Henry’s heart and mind and his clear motivation to die at home in peace. We each picked up on his signs: a casual conversation on a beach walk with one daughter over a year ago, in which Henry articulated his desire to die at home in the winter of 2026; a journal entry in my other daughter’s journal just a few months back, in which she noted the same thing; repeated conversations with me about using the quietude of the winter to read inspiring writings, to cultivate a meditation retreat-like existence, to remove himself from the chatter and cacophony of the world as he returned to the deep familiarity and comfort of silent stillness within; to channel the heart and mind toward peace in order to meet the dying process. Unspoken was the aim to drop any fear, or at least as much as he could, so he could be open to the dying experience.
My role was to deeply listen from the depth of my heart, knowing Henry spoke a deep truth. By sharing the journey every step of the way in this blog over many months, I hope you have a glimpse of just how we were able to cultivate all these guiding principles rooted in deep mindfulness throughout the journey of dementia.
Those final days, and even those after Henry’s death, have brought so many lessons, changed my very existence, my way of being. When Henry was no longer speaking and his eyes were closed, though silent, there was a profound exchange of understanding. This included messages that reached my heart and mind. My daughters experienced the same thing. We heard, without words, some of his messages.
For instance, one morning we were recounting the quiet hours of the preceding night. Henry was positioned in the hospital bed next to us in the king-sized bed. A specific word had come to each of us in the dark quietude: “Ease.” Upon waking, we shared how we each received this clear edict in one solid word from Henry. It felt significant. Henry was always at ease, and he moved through life with this inner calmness. We are to do the same.
Energy is at work; it is we who can tune into it. Some, like Laura Lynne Jackson, may have a natural proclivity; others, a deep intuition that can be accessed; while others train to gain sensitivity. However, if anyone is open to a greater understanding of life and death, we have an opportunity to witness another’s dying process and prepare for our own within this wider scope.
On that Tuesday morning, a few hours after I had smelled the scent of death, Henry called me over to say, “This is a good place to die.” I recorded the ensuing brief conversation and shared it with my daughters the following week, just two nights before he died. At the end of the two-minute recording, he said he only wanted me with him when he died.
So on that last day and into that night, besides a brief goodbye, my daughters respected this wish of their father. I relished in the peacefulness that abounded as I lay by Henry’s side. At a certain point, like a lightning bolt reaching my inner depths, the true meaning of those words surfaced: “It is not that he wants to be alone with me. It is that he knows that I, alone, can create a space for him to be undisturbed; to have only his bubble of energy guide him to the portal.” With that understanding, I removed my hand from the lovingly light touch connecting us, knowing a liberation from the body was imminent. This understanding and my actions were affirmed when speaking to my mentor a few weeks later, when she said to me, “The real gift you gave him was the space for his own energy.”
Most people are caught up in such fear of dying that the full potential of the process may not be accessed. The journey itself can be more encumbered or less constrained. There is even the potential to cultivate an atmosphere of safety and love so that the person can move with total abandon, with a fearlessness not commonly taught in our society. Extracting the small self energetically opens the space for the person to inhabit those last minutes or hours fully in their own inevitable way of exiting. The love surrounding and protecting the process, in Henry’s case, was palpable, yet not interfering.
Moreover, with such a peaceful passing and last days of the dying process, the hours after Henry’s death allowed for even greater potential. A transfer of energy that I cannot describe in words but was experienced imprinted new life into me. When deep connections are there, this is a possibility. When openness born out of trust reigns, then this is possible. Yes, signs can be found like Laura Lynne Jackson explains, but the living energy of a spirit can also be profound in those moments and hours after dying. Yet, are we available to this potential? Are our antennas in tune? Do we actively cultivate a greater understanding of consciousness? Of energy? Of human potential?
Fear of death may be a driving force in our cultural narrative, yet it was not one in the marriage Henry and I had. Rather, we had mindfulness practices around impermanence, of letting go, of surrender, and even of training the mind upon death. The mindful journey that Henry and I shared reached its culmination in the dying process and Henry’s death. This journey was the final chapter of a forty-five-year partnership, marriage, karmic reunion, and of two spiritual companions. Death was not the finality but the fruition of all that is possible.
- Lauren Alderfer, PhD.
