The loss of my parent has been a particular sort of experience for me. We believe there should be a natural sort of order to death based on age. But the truth is, no one escapes it, nor consciously determines when it arrives.

This year my father exited this earthly plane. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share some things about the man I called Papa. My father and I were not close in terms of what a traditional family looks like, but there was always an unspoken and knowing undercurrent of vast love between us that spanned beyond time and space. He was the oak tree that stood mighty and grounded. My childhood was extremely challenging, and I wanted to fly away much of the time, but he kept me tethered to this world. His roots were deep and strong, strong enough to support us both, and I could not help but deeply feel who he was in my life.

I could see all his qualities so clearly, because he was so consistent. He valued doing things, even the smallest of them, with care and attention. He would labor for days, weeks or even months on projects, whatever it took. He ensured they were completed, “the right way” so they would withstand the test of time. He lived his life as that of a craftsman.

He showed uncharacteristic integrity, which meant he did what he said and never needed to say what he did. In this way, he was able to show up for others with what I’m going to refer to as a ‘light touch’. He allowed space for people to be who they were, while supporting and offering an elevated expression of what was possible.

He faced death with courage, even with fear being ever present. His was a painful and difficult death. About six months before he passed, he shared with me all the things he did not want to experience. And in hindsight, I now realize it was all a premonition of exactly what he experienced. But he orchestrated the perfect circumstance to support his facing of all the things he was afraid to, and in true fashion, he did it with humility and grace. This is probably what I ended up admiring the most; and this became the last lesson that he imparted to me.

Now I know that we usually share all the wonderful things about a person when they pass; and even so, what I shared is not one iota of who he was. That being said, my father was not a saint. As a matter of fact, he had some characteristics that were very ‘unsaintly'. And isn’t this part of the true beauty that makes us all who we are? I love him and honor all of him, I’m proud to call him my Papa.

What comprises each of us is so complex. And yet we all experience fear. We are all, in every single second, bringing both light and shadow with every breath we take. And in so doing, we are creating the opportunity for all the dark areas to be exposed by the light. This is a death of sorts, when something that lived in the dark is exposed to the light, it can no longer function as it did. And death is what we are really all afraid of. But what may not always be realized, is that there are many layers to this fear; and this fear of death does not only apply to physical death. 

At the personality level there is our outer fear, this is the prime fear pattern that you are here to traverse. This personality level fear then grows to include collective fears, for example, the fear of change. But at the very deepest level, at the very precipice of consciousness, lie the most ancient of human fears. These stem from one prime source – the fear that there is no underlying order to the universe. This is in fact a very normal state of consciousness for the mass of humanity.

The fact of death leads directly to the question of the purpose of an individual’s life. Life is about transformation, and death is the symbolic movement from one stage of consciousness to another. When death is faced, it is a symbolic letting go of your hard-earned knowledge. It is the ultimate purification in which you meet your own end and are reborn in a higher plane. Death, in the transformative sense, is available to each of us in every moment and it takes tremendous courage.

When confronted, this transformational death gives you an edge in life – putting you under pressure to find your life’s purpose and take the risk of following your individual dreams. The amount of life you feel is directly proportionate to your willingness to face the fears that appear to ‘threaten your dreams’. And the truth is, that fear never really threatens your dreams, only your mind sees it that way. When you are entrenched in the dialogue of your mind, and let’s face it…most of us are, then you will fail to see the true nature of your fear.

To live in the continual acceptance of death means to live in the continual thread of the unexpected. Your mind would have you believe that your life’s purpose lies in the future rather than in the here and now, but that simply is not true.

You must look deeply in to your fears now, in order to find your purpose, because your purpose actually lies within your fears. This is why, in many mystical traditions, it is said that you must die before you can live.

Survival has given us a powerful purpose. In The West, fear for our survival has been greatly diminished. Because of this, fear has shifted to the fear of purposelessness. Now instead of individuals being afraid to die, we are more afraid to really live. The fear of not finding your purpose is still really dressed up as the fear of death. Most individuals do not even want to think about whether they are fulfilling their true purpose or not, as it is a deep-seated and prominent fear. We instead choose to compromise and just fall in line with the belief that we are trapped by the system – by money, by responsibilities, by government. People are afraid to appear selfish and follow their dreams, even though those dreams will be of far greater service to the planet than anything else they do.

There is no one that can take your fears from you. Others can only help illuminate those fears so that they can be accepted. Wholeness comes about as all your deepest fears are embraced. Once you are able to see those fears for what they are – yourself holding you back from your own potential – only then can you begin to see how to live so entirely within the present moment that death cannot exist. When you can make a conscious choice, with awareness, to continually surrender yourself in to your own deepest fears, and in doing so, dying, then you can begin to realize that your true purpose is to live as an ultimate creation of the creator, co-creating creation itself.

Grimes, Angie. “From the Void To Creation” Expert Profile Magazine, Autum 2024 Edition: 63-64. Print.