The People on the Periphery — And Why They Matter

The other evening I was eating dinner at Whole Foods' outdoor café when a young woman turned around and looked at me as though she knew me. After a moment, I remembered. "Oh, you're the twins!" 

About a year ago, she and her sister, both 25, were scrutinizing the produce, wondering not just about organic vs. conventional but also the nutrient value of different fruits and vegetables. I found their interest in health refreshing, and we engaged in a lively dialogue. They told me a bit about their colorful pasts and how they were committed to taking good care of their bodies now. I congratulated them, and we spoke of "bad habits". I said, "Well, no matter what recreational drugs you may have used, at least you're not addicted to nicotine!" There was an uncomfortable silence. Then one sister admitted, "Actually, we both smoke."

Astonished, I said something along the lines of, "Why are you bothering about organic foods if you smoke?" Perhaps I was not quite so zealous, though knowing how I feel about cigarettes (can't abide them from 50 yards) I probably was. Then our encounter ended and I went back to my regularly scheduled life.

I was unlikely to have thought about these girls again. Yet here they were, with Rowan (both names have been changed) clearly itching to share.

"I stopped smoking two months ago!" she crowed. She quit cold turkey, and said even though she found herself craving a cigarette about a month in, she held to her resolve. When I congratulated her, saying, "Your lungs thank you, your liver thanks you, your whole being thanks you! And now you can taste food again!" she agreed, "Yes, you said we had it backwards by focusing on organic food if we were smoking."

"Did I say that? How rude," I apologized. But Rowan held firm: "No, you were right." Her sister Miranda still smokes, but I said with confidence, "She'll quit when she's ready."

As her sister reappeared from within the store, the pair got ready to leave, and Rowan's parting words were," It's the best gift I could ever have given myself!" I felt she was delighted to have the opportunity to share her win with me, to complete the circuit and receive my acknowledgment, because I don't think there are a lot of other older role models in their lives.

Honored, I reflected yet again on what I've come to call "the people on the periphery": those with whom we interact only briefly, perhaps once or twice in our lives and never again, yet who leave a lasting impact. A man who overheard our entire exchange said to me after the girls left, "You instigated that change for her." From my perspective it had just been one of the thousands of casual conversations I have with people over the course of a year. It's a great blessing to realize what we may not realize: namely, that every word matters, every action counts, even, especially, if we never see or learn the outcome.

Here's another example: I've had the same hair stylist for 17 years, though I only visit her seasonally and each cut lasts less than half an hour. But we cover a lot of ground in that time. Nora (real name) is also a hospice volunteer, and several years ago told me about a wonderful book called Deathing, which shows us another way to approach our final passage — including practices you can use, even at distance, to assist a loved one in crossing the threshold. I bought the book and absorbed its teachings. At the time, no one's death was imminent, though I have a 100+-year-old friend and my mother had serious heart disease.

When my Mom was close to the end of her earth journey this past January, I used the Deathing techniques with her. She was unconscious, but/and, hearing is the last sense to go, and medicine has demonstrated that people can hear what is being said even in a coma.

The next time I saw Nora she was telling me about a recent death workshop she'd attended, and how she was feeling she "didn't really know anything," compared with the other participants. I exclaimed, "That's not true! If it hadn't been for you I would never have known about Deathing or been able to use those tools with my mother! You're a blessing in my life." She was grateful for the mirroring.

Perhaps we have the most profound effect on those we see just once in our lives. Perhaps one wise word to a stranger changes the trajectory of their life. The periphery of the supermarket is where the fruits and vegetables are located. Maybe living at the edge (but not necessarily on it) is the healthiest place of all.

Reimagining Death: The Elephant in the Room

Woody Allen famously said that he didn't want to achieve immortality through his work; he wanted to achieve it through not dying. While we celebrate birth, its corollary, exiting the Earth plane, is feared only slightly less than public speaking — at least, in the Western mind.

As someone with a gerontology (study of aging) background and an abiding love of elders, I've been exploring positive aging and death-related subject matter for years. I'm currently reading two complementary books with mirrored titled: From Age-ing to Sage-ing by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and Sage-ing While Age-ing by Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine's book has been eye opening, not least because she articulates much that I've discovered/remembered on my own awakening journey, but also because she ratchets up my knowledge to the next level. In Chapter 11 (number of Aquarius), she focuses on soul development and references the work of regression therapist Michael Newton, PhD.

Suddenly I read, "All regressed souls speak of how much easier death is than birth. With death there is a release into the light. With birth there is an entrance into density." Of course! It's easier to expand than to contract.

And this awareness dovetails beautifully with another stunning book I read last year, Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life by Anya Foos-Graber.

Deathing is the real deal on conscious departure. We're not meant to die alone and afraid, maintains Foos-Graber. This definitive guide — the first of its kind I've seen, and it was published in 1989 — spells out clearly how each person can prepare for an informed death. Since most of us avoid any discussion of the subject, the very concept of a 'how-to' manual may sound frightening. Yet like MacLaine, Foos-Graber maintains that death can be a light-filled, spiritual experience.

We have a lot of help entering the world: we emerge from the body of our mother with attendants such as doctors, nurses, midwives, spouses and friends at the ready to welcome us and tend to the birthing mother. But there is no corresponding death ritual to support us in exiting the body we've inhabited as we return to the Great Mother of All.

Through two teaching stories, Foos-Graber shows us what both a typical, unconscious dying and a planned 'deathing' experience look like. The second half of the book provides step-by-step instructions and simple exercises such as breathing, visualization and remembering the Love that you are, to assist you in releasing the body and making a conscious, even joyful, departure from this life — and to support others in doing so.

Plus, we can rehearse while alive! Foos-Graber writes, "By practicing ahead of time with an eye toward this spiritual life insurance, you can increasingly live in an atmosphere free from fear and ignorance. A correct grasp of how to die necessarily produces an expanded philosophy of how to live more abundantly, however long or short your time of physical life."

As I was reading this book, a friend of mine's husband surrendered to cancer. Here's how she described his conscious death: "He squeezed my hand and left his breath here to begin to inhale the ethers of elsewhere. A gentle wave of joyful contentment spread out in ripples of sparkling delight. He was free again and slowly twirling in the softly glowing wonder of it all. This ethereal mist of farewell whispered through our home for an hour or so and then was gone."

So let us bow to that elephant and embrace its wisdom, rather than indulge in what MacLaine refers to as "amphysteria" ~ a condition of forgotten fear, usually of a place. We have no reason to fear expansion into the Light of All. And the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesh is revered as the "Remover of Obstacles". We can ride the elephant of awareness right on into the next adventure.