While revisiting my book Carol’s Lives, I was struck by how two passages from Chapters 18 and 19 still echo truths I continue to uncover about “death” and what it means to truly live. Writing those words years ago, I couldn’t have known how deeply the message would keep evolving—how much life would keep teaching me to die before I die.
From Chapter 18 (“Shelter from the Storm”):
I had known the me-Rick soul had had other suicidal lifetimes. Characteristically, always choosing an early exit when despair consumed them. It was our way of pushing the reset button, as if life were a video game.
In my early teens, I remembered telling my friends that I would likely end up killing myself. I had shared this in a very calm, matter-of-fact way, using much the same tone that my peers would use when relaying how they would become a doctor, teacher, or lawyer when they grew up. It had startled my friends, which in turn had surprised me. What was the big deal with this life, anyway? I did not have a reason to kill myself yet, but also could not find anything wrong with that idea, either.
And from Chapter 19 (“The Fear of Living”):
When we finally did return home to Vancouver, I immediately stopped volunteering at the palliative care program. I had come to understand that death and dying had never been a fear I needed to overcome. The fear had been about living, and what it was to truly live a life. Admitting that to myself eased both some tension and the fear itself.
So many times, when doing the most ordinary things in life, completely without warning, I would become anxious and panicky. Now it clicked. I had a fear of living!
Death Is Not the Opposite of Life
It’s been five years since Carol’s Lives was published. Life continues, and so does my understanding of death. Readers who resonate with the book often see “life and death” differently, recognizing that death is not the opposite of life. The opposite of death is birth.
Life simply is—it contains both birth and death. In that sense, death is not a terrible thing. A caterpillar must “die” for a butterfly to emerge.
Without the human-imposed fear of death, perhaps we can consciously let go of what no longer serves—not through suicide, but through a new kind of dying, an inner release.
As a child, death was my favourite subject. My mother would stare, scold and threaten me to stop talking about it. I would fall silent out of shame or confusion. We were told not to touch anything a dead person had touched—but isn’t that everything? my little mind wondered.
Now that my mother herself is dead (sorry mom, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.), I can finally return to my favourite subject with openness and clarity.
If you have died before, the fact that you are hearing me now means death is not the end. And if you haven’t died before, how do you know what it’s like? Since you don’t know what it’s like, how can you say it’s bad—or even taboo?
Once we remove the taboo, death reveals itself as something simple and profound: either leaving or growing.
- Leaving means releasing the physical body, or anything that feels stuck.
- Growing means transmuting energy from one form into another—allowing the old to die so the new can be born.
Dying While Living
The deeper insight is that we can experience this “death” while still alive. We don’t need to leave the body. We can die within the physical structure—within the mind that’s already in place—without decomposition.
Maybe that’s what alchemy truly means: to die within the body so we can grow beyond our old human self, leaving behind what we no longer need.
On the path of ascension, death becomes a friend. She frees us from the entire architecture of the human experience so we don’t get stuck forever. Imagine the nightmare of never dying—of being trapped eternally in the same form.
Perhaps we are in the midst of a collective death right now—especially if this is the last lifetime in the cycle of lifetimes. Even as physical deaths occur, we’re often drawn back by the gravity of life: karma, unfinished dreams, lost loves. That gravity pulls us into another incarnation.
May death, then, release us from returning in the old way—from being pulled back by the weight of life—so we come back, if ever, by choice alone.
A New Definition of Death
Traditionally, death is seen as the end of life—the end of identity. But what if death is simply “letting go”? What if it’s not an ending at all, but a liberation into something more expansive—a new beginning?
The old consciousness fears the body’s return to dust and the loss of self. Most of life is spent resisting death, pretending it won’t happen. But what if we allowed it? Isn’t that the final step into enlightenment—no longer fearing death, but embracing it?
What if death, happening while we’re still in human form, also releases ancestral energies that linger in the body? What if it’s not a funeral, not a tombstone, but a process that frees us to realize ourselves?
Let the old fears of death die. The New Death brings new life. It allows us to remain in biology, but in a transformed way. It ends the long cycle of lifetimes. It frees us from ancestral imprints and thoughts that aren’t truly ours. There is such beauty in this death.
Death has always frightened humans—so much resistance, so much wondering what happens next. But death can serve us as cleansing, releasing, expanding. It can bring the death of hardship, suffering, and lack.
Embodied death is freedom.
Death can be one of our greatest healing tools. It washes off the mud and grime of human life, clears the underbelly of ancestral conditioning. It is the final frontier of human consciousness.
Death isn’t a one-time event. It can happen many times—once a year, once a decade. Like a great storm, it can be intimidating, but when it passes, everything is clear, fresh, and new. Then we are free to live, unafraid to die.
Let death serve you, rather than frighten you.
Living My Dream
And how do I “die” now?
It might seem ordinary to someone else, but for me I’m living a dream come true life: living by the ocean, with the beach just steps away; owning my home in the city; doing what I want, when I want; exploring the corners of the world.
This is my New Death—letting the old ways go while fully living the life I once feared.
