bury me with the stars

at the end of the second week we each conducted our own earth burial ceremony, this was definitely a gateway point, the energy intensified ten fold for me that day. this ceremony was probably the one thing i had the most fear around before going to mexico, and suitably ended up being my favorite day in the desert. earth burial is a traditional form of initiation in many shamanic traditions, it is a ceremony of death and transformation, renewal and rebirth.




our task was to dig our own grave using a pick axe and once inside tell our life story to the earth. i don't think i have ever felt so content as the hours i spent in that hole in the ground as i chatted my way through a thousand flooding memories laughing uncontrollably almost all day! the earth was cool even in the heat of the desert sun and the weight of it on top of me gave the most incredible sensation of being held; completely, there was nothing within me that couldn't just trickle away into the soil and be soaked up by the earth mother. you could tell her anything; she's heard it all before!



emerging from the grave i was completely white, caked in the baked earth. i wanted to stay like that forever. i couldn't see myself but i imagined the saddhus from india covered in ash from the fires of the dead, i imagined that was me. my body felt light, like i was made of it and my heart felt like it might burn right out of me. i remember thinking, then, and every morning since. "ok im dead, what do i want to do today?"