Sacred Cycle: A Modern Pagan View of Death
Modern Paganism is a term used to describe a wide range of modern religious movements that are influenced by the pre-Christian traditions of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Wicca is part of the Pagan community and itself is a diverse religious tradition. Understandings and teachings on death and the afterlife vary. Therefore I can not present “the” pagan view on death, but rather “a” pagan view on death. As a Wiccan elder I will both try to present a general view reflective of the broader Wiccan community as well as my own understanding of and experiences with death.
As a child I spent many summers in the countryside of North Eastern Pennsylvania visiting my grandparents. They lived in a small cottage on several acres of property, most of which was forest. I would often go for walks in the woods and spent countless hours playing in the shade of the trees or among the weeds and bushes. All these years later I still love being outdoors, in all seasons, no matter how hot or cold, and especially among the trees and critters of the woods and forests.
I am also a gardener and have spent countless hours planting, growing, watering, and fertilizing the tomatoes, hot peppers, herbs and eggplants (which the squirrels love to steal!) that I grow every year. This time spent with nature, whether in the woods or with my hands in garden soil, has helped me learn about life and death.
They have been gentle teachers of the sacred cycle of life, death, and regeneration. In my many hikes I have seen how the leaves fall, rot, fertilize the soil, and ensure future growth. I have found spots where rabbits or other critters passed away. Their bodies were consumed by hundreds of mouths (bugs, bacteria, and scavengers) allowing the elements of the body to be absorbed back into the soil and nourish the roots of plants. Now, flowers and shrubs sprout from their bones!
In the garden I have used compost made from dead leaves, bugs, and scraps to give life to the soil from which vegetables grow (and feed the squirrels who take from my garden!). Life is fed by death. Life grows out of death. It is a sacred cycle that has been in continuous motion long before human beings existed on this earth.
Pagans see the world as an interconnected, impermanent, and constantly moving system of which we humans are but one part. We see death not as an end - something to be feared - but as a new beginning on the sacred cycle of which we all turn. This cycle of birth, growth, death and decay, and regeneration is Earth’s basic life sustaining process. And it is constantly going on all around us.
I am a supporter of green burials, a funeral practice that avoids embalming the body and using cloth shrouds or biodegradable caskets placed directly into the earth so that that body may return to the soil. As a Wiccan I acknowledge that I am a product of Mother Earth. I am made up of elements of the earth and at death I will return to her. To paraphrase the Hebrew Bible, “Out of the dust of the earth I was made, so to the dust of the Earth I shall return.”
Wiccans see reflected in the four seasons the cycles of life, decay, death, and rebirth. Spring brings with it a rebirth of life that sprouts forth from the soil. Summer is the bright and warm height of spring’s creative power. Autumn is the start of decay and the march towards the cold of winter, which brings barrenness and darkness.
Samhain is an ancient festival of Gaelic origin observed at sunset on October 31 to sunset on November 1. It is the midpoint between the start of autumn and the start of winter. For Wiccans, and other Pagans, Samhain is a time of the final harvest and a night to honor the dead. I celebrate by preparing a dinner for family and friends and hosting a ritual with chants, prayers, and songs to celebrate life and death. We honor our ancestors throughout the year, but especially at this time.
Bonfires are often lit with outdoor rituals at sunset on October 31st and offerings of dried lavender, sage, mint, and rosemary are cast into the flames. I have led group chants around many bonfires and enjoy looking up at the night sky at the stars that my ancestors, as well as yours, gazed upon themselves in the years past.
One year I hosted a candle ceremony in the courtyard of a Unitarian Universalist church where participants offered candles to their ancestors and said their ancestors’ names as they rang a hundred year old bell that belonged to my paternal great grandmother. As we told each other stories about our departed loved ones we laughed and cried, and danced and sang. It was a moving experience and one I will not soon forget.
Reincarnation is the most widely held view of an afterlife among Wiccans. Many believe that at death our spirit/soul goes to rest in the Summerland, a realm of happiness and youth, for a period of time until we are reborn into this world.
I personally am skeptical of reincarnation, the Summerland, and concepts such as a soul. I believe that my current existence is the result of many different conditions and physical elements. Upon death my body will decay and its elements reabsorbed into Mother Earth. I go into the soil that nourishes the roots of a tree that makes oxygen. I become part of the root, the tree, and the air! “I” or rather the elements that made “me” will exist in many new forms and continue in this sacred cycle. As for consciousness, I am not sure if it “lives on” after death, but I lean towards the belief that in a way it too is absorbed back into the natural world.
Whatever the individual views may be, all Wiccans and other Pagans treasure the precious gift of life we have now. We view death not as something to be feared, but rather as a natural part of a beautiful life sustaining system of life, death, and regeneration: the sacred cycle.
Whatever you may believe, remember that life is precious and to cherish every encounter.
May peace and good seasons be with you. Blessed be, blessed be.