DIY-ing Consciously
When I worked in music, most of my time was spent supporting developing musicians without major labels to support them. We really had to do a lot ourselves in terms of marketing and promotion - and I actually preferred it that way, “diy.” It was more work but it gave us more freedom.
The play of DIY-ing and dying, comes from this idea of a natural death, away from institutionalized care. We live in a time where many systems and institutions are collapsing, and many are feeling a call to community.
Just like birth, dying is the most natural thing. It is safe. It is not a medical event. It is not an emergency.
It is possible to “DIY” consciously if we begin to talk about it from childhood, through elderhood, with our partners, our parents, our children, our community. It’s important to start with our future generations. This is where honoring and holding rites of passage throughout life is of importance too, so that we may step into each new chapter fully while letting go and mourning what parts of us need to die. Oftentimes it is incredibly difficult to embody this after a terminal diagnosis because of our cultural conditioning. A lot of doula courses teach us that our work is with legacy and life review, but oftentimes at the time of dying, this is too late so it is important to do throughout life.
This is why my work with caring for individuals isn’t the only work to be done. Community gatherings and creating spaces to talk about death, grief and transition are equally as important.
We can “DIY” at home, in community. We can have a memorial outside of the institutionalized funeral home setting. We can be buried in the earth without vaults and metal boxes. We can be sung to and bathed, anointed with oils after our spirit has left our body. DIY-ing naturally is possible.
DIY-ing consciously is a spiritual practice that takes a lifetime. None of us know how we will be when our time comes no matter how much we plan, and yet, we can practice acceptance, letting go and staying in the heart through each earthly encounter throughout our lives as an offering to the death that will come.
