Views of Death 

 Death is that which most people are afraid to talk about.  Afraid because they do not know what to expect, afraid of the unknown.  To some death is feared because we are afraid to lose the ones we love, we are afraid to be without them.  Some do not fear death at all.  Because they have been taught through their culture that death is another passage of life, or that death is the way to be with God.    Death must be understood in some way to all of us in order to get through life.

In the Wiccan culture Death has its own aspects, it is something we do not fear, for we know that death is just another step in the circle of life.  Most of us believe that When we die we go on to another place, all of our past lives are evaluated and it is decided what we shall learn in the next life.  For life is a series of lessons that are learned sometimes easily and sometimes not so easily.   We are learning so that we may obtain our ultimate goal in the end, this may take many lifetimes and many lessons and some lessons may have to be learned more than once if we do not learn it properly the first time.

Each culture has its own set of beliefs on death.  The Christians ( this is just an example, not saying that any culture is wrong in their beliefs) believe that when you die you obtain that glorious step into heaven to be with God in all the wondrous glory that is heaven.  That you have earned this by being faithful to your God and Religion.  This is a very simplified explanation.  I cannot believe in this method of living and dying however.  I cannot believe that God/Goddess or whatever the higher Deity, would set some of us up to be rich,  some poor, some to have horrible illness, some to live only a short time in life.  I cannot believe that he/she would let so many people starve and so many bad things to happen in the world if we all only had one chance to live.  Wouldn't the lessons be the same for everyone.

In our culture we believe that sometimes if the life is a harsh one and full of trials then it is a lesson that we must learn, maybe so we will better understand the next life that we must lead.  Or maybe just so later we will be able to understand how another person would feel.   Each lesson that we achieve prepares us for the next step.

This is a unique perspective on life and death.  Personally we all must face what we have to in order to get through.  I have lost someone close in my life and I am about to loose another, this gives one the aspect of death that no one whats to face.  Losing someone you love.  We grieve, but not for their passing so much as for our loss.  We grieve for us, for we will no longer have that person in our lives and we will miss them.  It is hard even when we understand, and it takes time to be able to put it in a place where we can talk about it and not cry any more.  It is never easy and the best way is to not do it alone.  We do not want to share our grief, we want to tough it out.  But to bottle it up inside is not the best way to do things, it tends to lash out at others who have no idea why.  Share, Cry, be Angry, put it in its place, a place of understanding, and a place where the pain is not so bad.

In the words of Starhawk:
"In Witchcraft, death is always followed by rebirth, loss of restitution. Witches believe in literal reincarnation.  But in a world view that sees everything as cyclical, death itself cannot be a final ending, but rather some unknown transformation to some new form of being.  In enacting and reenacting the death of the god, we prepare ourselves to face that transformation, to live out the last stage of life.   the God becomes the Comforter and consoler of Hearts, who teaches us to understand death through his example."
 
 

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 This page last updated on January 29, 1998