Stardust Meadow

GET THE PSYCHOPOMP! Short Skit By Anne-Marie Keppel Delia’s Story:   I am 96 years old and I am dying. I have lived an incredibly wonderful life caring for those who are dying and I am not afraid.   My body is doing strange things… Cold then hot, great thirst, then not. I am in and out of deep, deep, peaceful sleep, with periodic sensations of a great lightness of being and pure bliss.   Then, I am back to my dry lips and aching bones. Fortunately, the meditation practice I have been doing for the past 90 years is helping significantly. This is fortunate as I am now unable to speak or communicate with those around me. And, as it turns out, dying is the most challenging episode in all my years that I have ever encountered. As I can gather, my daughter is flying in from wherever she has been, I can’t remember, and my son is on his way too. In the mean time, they’ve hired this unbelievably attentive young woman who is called ...

In a recent and wild maternal ancestral search, Irish roots grabbed me heart and ankles and pulled me across the Atlantic. I was so excited to venture on my own away from my treasured family and thrilled to finally fulfill my childhood dreams of haunted castles, abandoned buildings, faerie magic and banshees. And, because I am a Death Doula and Funeral Celebrant by profession and have watched way too many people holding their breath during funeral services, I was, and am, intrigued by the “show” mourning of keening . I Googled for months and planned visits to the most haunted buildings in Ireland, where the most wicked witches once lived and “must see” cemeteries. I wanted to get creeped out a bit and come home with some really good stories of all of the haunted places I had visited. I had my map highlighted, GPS programmed and, because I am practical, I watched multiple YouTube videos on tips for driving on the left side of the road. But, here’s what actually happened. The pl...

There is this call… Echoing through the astral plane, rumbling through the bones of our ancestors and tearing through hospitals. It’s a beckoning for those privileged with life to look at their own mortality… To peer into the cavern of questions that we were told as children would swallow us up whole if we looked too deep. It may be that our collective unconscious is sensing an impending doom… our earth has reached 7.7 billion and perhaps the next massive plague is not far away. It may be that we are desperately trying to find something real in a society that is severed from its root and is increasing shallow (swipe left). Or, perhaps after we get sucked into ancestral research like millions of us currently are, we have a personal desire  not to be forgotten  like they were. Less than 100 years ago our babies were born at home, our sick and elderly died at home and the family witnessed it all. Now since life cycles are no longer home-schooled and the only deaths we se...