This is a true story, told as well as I can remember it, a tale of my most recent brush with death. I thought it appropriate to share it now, a year later, at Samhain, in honor of my friend Beaver Chief and all of those who have passed on this last year.
Some details have been changed to maintain anonymity.
One year ago, I lay in a hospital bed, groggy and floaty from morphine, trying not to move too much, because to move meant more pain than I cared to handle. My memories of that time are colored by agony, fuzzed out by pain and amnesiac drugs. Small shards of reality that stabbed into my consciousness at the time remain: bits of murmured conversations, someone's warm comforting hands holding mine, soft fingers rubbing my feet while grounding me into my body, a soothing moist swab on my lips or a gentle stroke on my brow.
I'd had a large abscess in my abdomen, which the doctors cut out as best they could; then blood poisoning set in. I lay in the intensive care unit for a week, tubes going in, tubes going out, hovering between life and death. While I was there, my coven members rallied -- they cleaned my house, paid my bills and surrounded me on the astral and in my room to be with me, to support and care for me and to allow my experience of what seemed like almost certain death to be a gentle one. They never gave up on me, though the doctors prepared them for the worst, which is what they expected.
In the ICU, immersed in pain and drugs, when I swam to consciousness I had a million questions. "Where am I, and how long have I been here?" I asked. I thought I had been there for months. "Why am I here; why are you doing this to me?" I asked questions that my fuzzy pink sweater of a brain could not process, much less understand or answer... what do I want, who shall I see, will I stay or will I go? My feeling was that it all just hurts, some more than the rest, but that's mostly all I cared about.
The thing that I remember the most about my ICU stay was feeling I was closed off from those around me. I could not communicate with them. I could hear and understand what they were saying but could not say anything verbally myself. It was very frustrating. Now, I can barely imagine what it must have been like trying to communicate with me when I had a respirator tube down my throat. I remember getting very angry at all my coven mates, because they're supposed to be psychic, dammit! They had me try to write out what I wanted, but no one could understand what I wrote. Looking at my scribbles now, I can remember what I was attempting to say, but I can certainly see why they could not decipher it.
Most of the time, I rested assured that those that I loved and trusted would see to it that the best was done for me, even if it sometimes hurt. And I loved them all, the worried faces, so serious -- I'd try to crack a joke, but they looked at me blankly, not understanding. They also didn't find it amusing when I stole the glass of ice off the table and consumed half of it against doctor's orders. I thought it was funny, though. I didn't take any of it too seriously.
Except the pain. When the nurses came to do another procedure, I cried. "Haven't I suffered enough?" I pleaded. They didn't listen; they wouldn't allow me to close my eyes forever. I threw tantrums or just glared from my hospital bed prison, where I was tied to the bed and they wouldn't untie me. (I was tied to the bed so that I wouldn't pull the respirator out of my throat in my drugged state.) I told them this was nonconsensual, joking but serious too. They didn't laugh at that either. Now and then, my lover had to leave the room because he started to cry.
I also remember feeling incredibly sad. I felt as if all of my efforts in this lifetime had been for nothing. The feeling that I was drowning in anguish was overwhelming. I felt too that being here on the Earth was not terribly important to me anymore. I felt I could easily let go of my body and drift away without any remorse. But I also felt the constant presence of those who were standing watch over me, protecting me, as if they were holding onto a slender strand of thread that kept me precariously tethered to my body. It felt as if it might break at any moment, and they knew this, and so they guarded it and me from death's sway.
Most of my vague recollections of my time in the ICU and my visions there have been confirmed by my friends and coven mates. It was the second very close brush with death that I have had, so I was determined to remember as much as possible about it. Much of the astral underworld journey I describe following, my then-girlfriend (who accompanied me) experienced as well and confirmed.
The night that I came closest to death, the night of my underworld journey, is the one that is easiest for me to remember. In the past, my experience has been that when I leave my body I go to a recognizable place, not necessarily a place I have been before but an earthly location. I see people doing normal things. Other times, when I was a child, I have gone to the place of the light, which is the only way I could describe it back then. It was like swimming in a thick atmosphere of sparkling iridescent light. I can always tell the difference between astral experiences and dreams by the quality of the interactions. If it seems like "real life," it is an astral trip; if it is more like a Fellini movie, it's a dream. Dreams change and swirl around me; people's faces change, and places turn from one to another. On the astral plane, I may not know where I am, but I can recognize it as a "real place." I would say that my near-death experience happened on the astral plane, because it had the internal consistency of that rather than dreams.
Before I went in, I was aware of what was going on around me. I had been taken off the respirator, and I was aware that my sister was concerned whether I was breathing well enough on my own, about how much oxygen I was getting. I remember her asking for someone to come check me and the feeling of a scarcely concealed urgency to get me back on the oxygen I needed to stay alive.
Then suddenly I'm floating in a void, or at first it seems so. This is black, inky darkness with no beginning and no end. Soft sounds echo from far away, until I realize that they come from next to me.
I feel that I am in a boat of some kind. There seem to be a lot of people there with me, too many people for such a small boat. We glide through the black water toward fires burning on a shore. As we approach, I begin to make out shapes standing in the mouth of a huge cavern. We are approaching an underground grotto and the mouth of a cave that opens even further into the Earth.
A couple figures on shore stand next to the fire, one holding a snake staff with a light dangling from it. I sense snakes all around us. Off in the distance, I hear the sounds of muffled crying (am I crying?), shrieks and weird sounds. The main person seems to be a woman dressed in dark cloaks. I cannot see her face at first. I feel the person on my right tense up and realize that my girlfriend is in the boat with me. There are other people as well... I can't make out all the faces, but I am comforted, knowing it is people I like and trust. What more could I ask for?
We glide to a stop in front of the woman in black and climb from the boat. She greets me as if she knows me. I wonder who she is, and then I know. It is a goddess I have known for many lifetimes, Hecate. She speaks to me with her mind or her energy; it seems to be the same to me. She asks, "Why are you here? Why have you come to the crossroads tonight?"
I answer, "I must decide." That's funny! I think. What must I decide? I don't know how I know this stuff. I realize I am standing all alone with her... where did everyone go? "All are alone with me at the end," she answers.
I sigh with relief. So this is the end? I can finally let go of my body, of my life? Of the pain and effort of living day-to-day? She answers that only I can decide that and that this is why I am here. I get it now. I remember the River Styx and the boat and the toll and that she is the guide to the underworld or land of the dead. "So am I dead, then?" I ask. "No, child," she answers. "Not yet."
I feel my sister and girlfriend and friends pulling me back now; I feel the pull on my energy and my heart. I feel sad... everyone will be sad if I die just like that! They will feel bad, especially anyone who did not come to see me in the hospital. I smile with a momentary pang of guilt for things left unsaid to friends and lovers, and at the same time I feel triumph over those on whom I want revenge. I hope they feel really bad!
Hecate reminds me that I must make a decision and soon. If I am to stay alive, I must fight death. "But I want death," I say. It is so much easier! My girlfriend floats back into my consciousness and tells me that everything is effortless. I glare at her. "Why don't you listen to me when I tell you that?" I ask her. "It's easy enough for you to say that. You're not the one dying!"
I feel my lovers, friends and family all pulling. "Please fight," they say. "We know that you can do it! You are strong; you'll kick death's ass!" I laugh in spite of my acid mood, knowing that if I fight and win it means more pain, much more! Not only the pain of recovery but the future and all it holds for me, for all of us. But I finally agree. I will fight. Hecate smiles at me. I feel like I have passed some kind of test. And I somehow know that I must be willing to give up my life -- if I really want to live.
A flying dragon comes at me. It is blue and steel-gray, and it has huge, shining, sharp teeth. Death rides it like a war steed, sickle poised to strike me down. I use my magick. Death was not expecting that. All the power of my coven (which is considerable) is with me! I hit Death with a lightning bolt that damn near knocks him off his dragon steed. I realize I too am on a flying creature of some sort, all fire, red and gold, and we seem to know one another. I also have in my hand, as if it has always been there, a lightning-bolt sword. Fire blazes from the tip, and it shines blue with electricity. I feel as if I am in a science fiction movie. I don't watch too many of those, but I imagine that this is what it's like to be a superhero! I smile as I narrowly duck another of Death's attacks.
We are in a vast open space; everything is dark, and I can barely make out a lush landscape. There are stars shining above us, very far away, reminding me of the Earth and all her beauty. I feel my loved ones again urging me to fight harder. Will I need to defeat Death? Do I need to kill Death? Has anyone ever done that? What will that mean? I wonder a million things at once. We again fly at one another as if in a comic-book combat, clashing swords, sparks flying. I am almostunseated myself this time. I am glad for all my early horseback riding. It helps me as my mount twists and turns and moves like no horse I have ever ridden. I get mad, and I am formidable when I am mad. I was playing at it before, like it wasn't real... just a game, right? Maybe it's just a dream? What if it is not? What if this is all real, and I really am fighting for my life? I never thought about it like that, hearing the phrase in the past. Actually fighting. Does everyone go through something like this? Hecate laughs and says, "I wondered when you were going to get with it!"
Now I am genuinely fighting for my life, I feel an urgency that was not there before, and I know that if I do not succeed, I will die. This lifetime will be over for me, and my lovers, friends and family will mourn and miss me. I will not get to see my new love unfold or to tell my other lover how dear she is to me. I will never get to see my friend and maiden initiate her first student or see my best friends smile or hear them call me a crack again! I will not get to see the Goddess and the Craft blossom into the world. Nor will I see my sex activism work make a difference. I suddenly miss all of my loved ones very much, and I want to live. I am determined to live, and when I want something, I get it -- just ask me!
All of a sudden, I am on foot. The fight is over, and Death bows, sweeping low before me. "That's all you needed to do, child," Hecate says.