My mama died 11 years ago today. My eldest child, my son, died a year and two months ago. My maternal gramma, the first great love of my life, died when I was 17, and pregnant with my firstborn. My maternal grampa died while I was sitting on his lap, when I was 2. My father died when I was in my early 20's. I don't remember how old I was when my great aunt Bunny died, but she was 101. All my aunts and uncles have died. I can't count the number of friends who have died in just this last year alone. It is inevitable. Our loved ones will die and leave us grieving, or we will die and leave them grieving. Dying is a part of life. Grief is the cost of love.

In the words of Alberto Villoldo, We are luminous, undying, beings on a journey through infinity. When the shamans in the high Andres do prayer ceremony they use two threads, a red thread and a silver thread. The red thread represents our jouney through the earth, our biological journey, our journey on the mother. This is called the red path. The silver thread represents our journey through the stars and this is the great journey that all the shamans prepare for. This is the way we all travel, on the earth, and through the stars. The goal of all the shamanic teachings is to learn to leave this life alive, to bring our consciousness with us. We are assured infinity. That’s the nature of everything in the cosmos, and as she changes from one form to another, so do we. Our task is to understand the scope of our journey and to participate in it consciously.