Tag Archives: Michelle Ghilotti

Death — A Living Experience?

How can we make death a living experience?

Speak about them, do things in honor of them (and speak and speak and speak about them and honor and honor and honor them as much as you want or need to, even if others think you need to be ok by now or be “further along” because it’s been however long)…

Your heart is your only timeline and the medicine is or can be the ritualistic nature of the honoring that feels good to you (and that inspires you to feel).

It/this/all makes me feel closer to them (*reminds* me I’m still close to them — and heals).

Speaking of honoring them — do so, too, by being the reason someone who might feel like they’re dying inside (for whatever reason — there are many), smiles or thinks they’re worthy and / or feels treasured, whether they be stranger or family member.

We planted trees in Africa this past August in honor of my Mom & Dino and, as these special moments always do, it fulfilled us and gave us purpose, furthering healing (last photo is the night Dino died).

The land in Africa gives you life (helps return your life back to you in so many ways (it’s how I have felt during both trips there)— do visit in this lifetime if you can), so to return some of that life back to the earth *for* the earth in honor of our beloveds is full circle.

This is the full circle…

Life.
&
Death.

As we ask in conscious dying coaching work, how can we make death a living experience?

This is just one (or two) of the way(s)…

Let’s make happiness your business by creating your authentic brand…

To the best of the rest of your life!

Life is good!

Mama Heart Strings (We All Have ‘Em)

This is how every parent must feel after getting through another big moment with their kid(s) ~ for us, six months plus of planning for our Nolan’s Kenya trip/conservancy work and getting him back safe (we *all* got back safe last month)…

A moment of relax and enjoying the fruits of your labor (I’ve caught a glimpse of what’s up ahead, #collegeprep, #emptynest).

I’m not ready? Are you ready? WERE you ready?

What a FUN life continuing to watch him move about the world AND boy does this all pull at the mama heart strings.

Let’s make happiness your business by creating your authentic brand…

To the best of the rest of your life!

Life is good!

Kenya!

Kenya! Africa’s land, big sky and animals made me feel five or 10 years old again!

This second visit, similar to the first, I felt awe, the kind that only nature, the natural world, science, space or the many arts (or healing arts) might elicit.

Part of the magic of safari is that everything is only ever a maybe (part of awe is not knowing what you’ll see, when you’ll see it or how you’ll react or how exactly it’ll change you…).

Simply put, the wild doesn’t do what you want it to do (and that’s awesome).

There’s no order, just a wish…no “to go”, but simply a wait and see and be in the moment, and the only super size being the majesty of the animals you might, if you’re lucky, catch a long glimpse of.

What we’re privy to as we shhh and watch is a circle of life that reminds us of the many little deaths — and lives! — we, too, experience, sometimes all in one day…

You see every season play out before your eyes + inside your heart (also in just one day): winter, spring, summer and fall.

You exclaim with joy, you shield your eyes, you reflect, you get quiet and retreat, you’re on the edge of your seat —

We saw death on this trip…there’s an awe in it we don’t often allow in — such beauty, too, of course, in the life…a baby hyena, baby monkeys, baby leopards, baby elephants…even the scene of a mama & baby Thompson gazelle still connected by the umbilical cord…

We call the journey safari, but we could easily name it reverence.

Thank you, Kenya, THANK YOU.

Let’s make happiness your business by creating your authentic brand…

To the best of the rest of your life!

Life is good!

Conscious Dying…

“I came back to life!”

A good friend I did my ecopsychology apprenticeship and vision quest alongside told me about a roommate of hers who, a few times a week, would yell this out from her room in the morning upon waking…

I found it one of the best things I had heard in awhile…and one of the best visuals as I tried to imagine all of it…her friend, the pitch at which she might have said it each time, Brenda hearing it and what her reaction each time might have been, especially not knowing and being surprised, perhaps, each time it came…the laughter that must have come some days.

Sweet perfection.
Funny.
Important.

Imagine if we had this level of excitement and awareness of the ability we have not just to enjoy life, but TO live the magic of keeping our breath, heartbeat or organs working EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Each 365.
And another.
And another.

Each set of 24 hours.
And another.
And another.

In many ways, this simple phrase doesn’t just acknowledge LIFE (and that we have it and get to wildly LIVE it another day). But acknowledges the mystery (and mysteries) of and IN it all…

There is so much mysteryyyy. And remembering this helps us ultimately innovate in our lives. Innovating is not a business thing, it’s a whole life thing).

I was supposed to bring at least one person with me today on this first day of adding Conscious Dying & Death Doula work to my coaching practice and brought these two gorgeous souls with me.

And ~ energetically behind them there are so many more ancestors who brought their color, wisdom, joy and all their physical and spirit-ual promise inside some pretty deep life experience.

Life experience is our everything.

What do you most want to do with yours on this day, month or new year of life?!

Let’s make happiness your business by creating your authentic brand…

To the best of the rest of your life!

Life is good.