To all the Death Doulas
I recently created a post for my IG account asking if Death Doula training programs are operating with multi-level marketing strategies. I knew this idea was controversial but it feels important to me so I posed it anyway. What I did not expect was the intimacy of the private messages I received about how deeply this complex questions triggers people who are trying desperately to find ways to honor their callings to serve the dying and the dead. While provoking conversation is often my goal, I also want to respect the nuances of these questions and their myriad answers and the limitations social media enforces on truly engaging in discourse.
Later that evening, after communicating with many throughout the day about their responses to my question, I settled into bed with my monthly book club selection, What We Wish Were True: Reflections of Nurturing Life and Facing Death by Tallu Schulyer Quinn. Quinn speaks of vocation and honoring her calling into her own by referencing David Whyte’s words in his work, Consolations:
“A true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves, breaks our hearts in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place. We find that all along, we had what we needed from the beginning, and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had undertaken the journey … The authentic watermark running through the background of a life’s work is an arrival at generosity … Perhaps the greatest legacy we can leave from our work is … the passing on of a sheer privilege, of having found a road, a way to follow, and then having been allowed to walk it.”
Today, in gratitude for the way death workers respond with their true answers to my very hard and provocative questions, I too offer David Whyte’s words as a blessing to us.
Dearest colleagues, while I hope we continue to think about the systems developing around the work that we do, may we never lose sight of the vocation death work has called us into. We are called, singularly and collectively, to remind our communities that we have the path forward living inside of us. We know, in our hearts, in our minds, in our ancestral wisdom, in the work of our hands, how to hold one another as we live, as we die and as we care for our dead. The work of returning our society to holistic death care is the vocation we are called into as we practice our crafts. We may not know how this work will sustain us, but we can always trust that we are called. We are needed. We are necessary. And together, we are making an impact on the world around us. May our hearts be filled with generosity as we find what we seek, always knowing that everything we need is already within us and following the path forward is always enough work for today. In gratitude, Jade
