For death does not do us part.
The betrothal of dying…
A journal entry from RA YUKAWA. Musing on ’s essay,
I’m not ready to go yet, but I’ve come to understand that dying is something I was born to do.
I think that the strongest thread connecting us all is that most miraculous experience which we so famously call birth and death. It's the Alpha and Omega rite of passage we're all fated to take. And I deeply admire those who've been chosen to be birth and death doulas. I, myself, have heard the call and answered. But, as I illustrate through Lord Rasquiat in TAOT’s memoir entries, the call doesn’t necessarily wait to be answered. The call is more of a simple signal that the answer will soon face you, whether you figure yourself ready or not. How shall you show up? You can’t run from your destiny…
I am going to die one day, people I love are going to die one day, there is no way around it. I find some solace in knowing that we can't run away from it. I also find some solace in knowing that everyone and everything before me has died, too. I'm not going to be the first. Death is a process deeply embedded in the fabric of the universe alongside the beating of hearts and the rhythms of breath we hardly notice. Thomas Hübl, in a reflection on the Tao Te Ching, says we are a part of millions of years of living and dying that we can trust.1
I doula through honouring the dead, as well as honouring those at the end of life (especially deers that are hit by cars). I assist in their crossing over by offering prayers, light, owó to their kins, and after a year of their death, in human time, I aide their elevation in other realms, by saying the names they were known by, building altar spaces, maintaining grave sites, venerating, doing the work that needs to be done on Earth, for their soul in Æther. I re-immortalise the vital essence of who they were, or the legacy they built, when they were here in the flesh, with my art, with my religion(s).
Death is a ritual in itself, and it's a ritual that the body knows how to perform regardless of the circumstances and the pleasantries.
My lifelong practise of indigenous Yoruba religion (also known as Ìṣẹ̀ṣe, but oftentimes just called Ifá) teaches me that. Death isn’t over when it’s over, death is an ongoing ceremony. Some of our loved ones have sudden deaths, from deliberate acts of violence, to unintentional murder (my beloved deers). Some die without making peace with themselves and those that they’ve hurt. Ifá has taught me that death does not do us part. That we can connect with and care for those loved ones’ souls, in death particularly, and that we can do so in a way that extracts the poison from bloodlines and repairs the damage of lineages, for the throughline of our families, our communities, and our planet, “seven generations back and seven generations forward.”
In that way, for me, Ifá has made death a superpower. It’s given me key understanding for a fulfilling life; the understanding of death, as an eternally dynamic introduction to more life—a traditional and communal pillar for becoming. (It’s even in the spelling of deceased. De- meaning “coming off of, from, away, a reversal.” Cease meaning an “end, stopping, shut down, a halt.” Together, we have something to the effect of: The reversal of an end.) I believe that, essentially, everyone who practises Ifá is a birth and death doula in their own right.
I asked the Agave, "What am I waiting for?" The Agave said, Death isn't extraordinary; we do it all the time.
I also tend to doula in the way that I show up in my relationships and friendships. I am the living wake; I taste of orchids in a room, wishing spirits godspeed. I am a pain that sometimes feels almost euphoric. When I walk into a person’s life as a loved one, there is an inevitable fluttering of my wings, which ushers in a butterfly effect of chaos, death, destruction, and suffering; an upending of their life, the end to an aspect of their identity—a transition and metamorphosis.
Cells shed and regenerate on the daily. You’re quite literally not the same person you were yesterday.
Pieces of myself die every day. Philosopher Andreas Weber reminds us that every time we breathe out, we breathe out carbon, bits of ourselves. And every time we breathe in, we breathe in bits of others that have been exhaled. Living is a practice of reciprocity. Every experience I have had with death is accompanied by life, and so it is. One does not exist without the other.2
Likewise, my loving embrace welcomes a cosmic change, as nothing thereafter will ever be the same. I reckon we all leave some sort of imprint on others, making some calibre of impact.
We impress ourselves upon that which is around us in such a way that makes us unerasable.
Yet, I can only speak for my impression, my imprint, my impact, and it’s as intense as a rebirth, yet
…as effortless as walking into another room.
And as I’ve become more aware of that, I’ve become more confident in myself, more confident in the fact that I’m nothing to play with. Getting close to me is getting close to a fire that is guaranteed to not only warm your heart, but burn your soul. A purification of sorts—you must come nude, or not at all. As do I. You will probably wax and wane in and out of my life, or I in and out of yours, but you’re in hands that will do their best to honour your comings and goings, in my own Alkhemical way, now and forevermore.
Calling me the Kiss of Death, go ask your egúngún ‘bout him.3
With each rebirth that I’m a small part of, I learn how to move more wisely and gracefully, as a doula by nature, in my way of living, my artistic profession, and my very being.
I remember crying because I didn't want Sydney to die. I didn't want to lose her. I loved her. I do think learning to love myself and learning to love life was the first step in learning to accept my own death and the death of others I love.
I believe there’s something more to be said from Sydney, pertaining to the subject and statement of that last quote. It made me think
and I’m still in thought . . .
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