There are particular herbs that we have explored and used with people over the years, specifically to aid in the walk towards accepting death and surrendering to the journey. Unfortunately, all too often life is preserved well passed it being healthy and happy. With advances in medical technology and drugs, many people have increased life spans. Our attitudes to death have changed massively in the last couple of generations. Others have instinctual knowledge that although they’re ‘not ready’, death is knocking loudly, forcing them to come to terms with a shortened life span. Many people fight hard for survival and the will to live can override the death sentence passed to them by the doctors. Often feelings of shock and denial arise over the diagnosis, which then give rise to feelings of not being ready to accept or welcome death as part of their journey. Hearing that we are going to die soon is scary and often induces a sense of panic. Each come for their own personal reasons, but often people are searching for a way to survive.

DeathĪs herbalists, many patients come to see us who already have a terminal diagnosis. We find ourselves at a point in time where our addiction to consumption and hoarding wealth is destroying the very eco-system we rely on for life. Addictions often manifest to mask feelings of lack and inadequacy. There is never enough, enough gifts under the tree, enough food on the table, enough time, enough space, enough money. In contemporary society, community rituals and happiness are often replaced with the feeling of lack. In the past, society marked and celebrated the movement through the wheel of the year, feeling the cycle of life close by, witnessing it first-hand through the strong links to the land and seasons that farming and foraging have. Simply being outside and welcoming in the new verdant growth of spring, observing nature’s rhythms and celebrating with community was once the norm. Easter is the celebration of the Spring Equinox, a rebirth of the soil and the land after winter’s colder, dormant times. The general populous, grows up with a disconnect to nature. Here in the West, we are raised in a culture where community rituals have been commercialised and turned into festivals of consumption, like Easter, Halloween or Christmas. Our society’s current paradigm, Capitalism with its model of constant ‘growth’ is stuck in the summer season always moving and growing and never taking stock and stopping to decline, regroup and restore. If we look at the bigger picture, it seems clear that separating ourselves from death, which is a natural transition of the life cycle, is leading our society to the point of suicide. We create rituals around death, and also as medicine to support people’s emotional and spiritual state as they walk towards their own death. In our practices as clinical herbalists, we use our local herbal allies to support and aid the shifting of perceptions, especially the fear and anxiety that can often surround death. If through life, we had the space to practice non-attachment and imagine death and dying, we potentially could live more fearlessly with increased joy, and have less anxiety when we arrive at the end of our life. Yet rushing through life leaves little space to practice being in the liminal state, little time to dream and explore mystery and the unknown, and so many people become scared of death. “Why are we here?”, “What happens after we die?” are some of the biggest philosophical questions that arise in our lives. Yet living under the pressure of Grandfather Time, we are often too busy to consider our place within the cycle of life and death. The sands of time are moving through the hour glass continuously, we are all moving towards death. Our lives can be sweet precisely because they are finite.

Rosemary seedlings celebration of life