This morning, just a little bit before we woke up, our dog Barney died.  Barney was a great dog.  He was both very funny and very wise.  He lived with me for exactly 11 years, and turned 13 years old this month.

Barney had been sick for a week or two, and I knew his end on this plane was near.  He was not in any pain, but basically decided to stop eating the last few days.  At 3 am this morning, I woke up and was asked to get him a bit of water.  He lay on the bed and lapped some up from the bowl, and then sank back down into a deep sleep.

For the past six weeks, Barney has been engaging me in early morning talks on "Shapeshifting and the Art of Dying."  It has been quite an experience, to say the very least!  Only yesterday morning, he told me that he was working on preparing a conscious death.  Barney is what some might call an old soul.  He was very comfortable and familiar with what he called "timeless methods," especially those that involved a deep centering and connection with the underlying currents of All That Is.

I am impressed with how beautifully Barney chose to die.  It seemed to be very peaceful, elegant and gentle, and I am certain that he moved with grace from this reality into another realm.  Here are a few words from our talk yesterday.  Perhaps they may be of use to you too...

...You are right to apprehend that death is actually much more of a group process than you have been inclined to believe.  Humans tend to portray death as a solitary journey, but that is not a truth I know.  My experience has revealed that death is much more group oriented than living can be at times, though living too is most often a group process.

Death is a journey of becoming and, as such, there are always helpers along the way.  I think at times humans desire to make it a separate experience in order not to open to the shared commonality of our ever-becoming. Perhaps there has been planted a fear about death so that humans would not try to seek out smaller deaths in which they would be given the opportunity to see other perceptions, access other dimensions, and glean the nature of other alternate worlds?  

Once you pierce or go beyond the veils that hold these fears, you will see that death is a momentary switch from one mode of reality to another.  In order to shapeshift, you must become familiar with death, understanding of its nature and ways in the world.  This is the 'big fear' that must be worked with in order to approach the deeper layers of shapeshifting, and it is why I call death an art.  For it is necessary to learn from its ways.  As one becomes more familiar and adept at this art, one soon becomes an apprentice to death, and death begins to reveal her secrets and her majestic smile.

After Barney died, our whole family worked at preparing his body and making a place for it to return to the earth.  We went out to collect rocks, then returned to dig a hole and lay Barney on the ground.  We sat in a circle and told stories and memories of our friend and teacher, and were especially happy that we had just taken him up to Hatcher Pass, a mountain area we all like, and that he had played and ran around like a puppy,  barking at ground squirrels and paragliders. 

For every memory that one of us told, we would add a flower.  Then, when all the flowers were covering him up, we put the earth back and made a stone circle over the grave.  It felt good to say goodbye in this way, and I am glad we did it all together.  It also felt good just to DO something, and it made me wonder if it wouldn't help when anyone dies -- beloved human or animal -- that we might take a more physical and active role in helping to return their body to the earth, saying goodbye with our hearts, not just pretty words, crying if we feel like it and laughing if we feel like it, and thus opening ever deeper to the experience of death and living.

Today is a beautiful day -- the sun is shining and the skies are gorgeous in Alaska.  As I stood outside on the back deck, face to the breeze, looking out over Barney's stone grave, I was reminded of that old saying,  "Today is a good day to die."  A most excellent day, indeed.

Goodbye, Barney.  We will miss you.  Hope you have great fun, pal, wherever you are.