The Departed

All Hallows Eve

All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day.

Hallow. I’ve heard that before, surely.

Our Father, Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name…

hallow

/hăl′ō/

transitive verb

1. To make or set apart as holy.

2. To respect or honor greatly; revere.

The Departed Souls.

We all have departed loved ones we’ve known in this life. We all have departed ancestors. Some of whom we remember… and some, generations passed, that we’ve never met.

We are connected to all of them.

I cannot talk about your life or your journey, but I will address The Departed in mine. Nothing has taught me how to respect life the way death has. Death, grief, passing, transitions, the evolution of the soul and the interconnectedness of us all, regardless of realm - this is deserving of reverence.

Hallowed is the Grand Design, and I do not mean that in a mechanical nor a “woo” sense.

The soul does not die when it is disembodied.

It’s a process - and as far as what that process looks like, how long it takes, where it ends up, I am not going to pretend in the SLIGHTEST to have those answers, but I know it’s not “nothing” — and I also know it is not a uniform experience.

This much I know because, certain departed souls, you can still feel them. Others, you cannot. And when you can and cannot feel them, you get a sense of something I don’t know how to explain.

They are not all doing the same thing, from my vantage point and experience at least. I could be wrong, but to the best of my ability, I will say what I have experienced and know or strongly believe to be true, given my life experience up until this moment.

It is two days before All Souls Day. The period combines and is known as AllHallowtide — a season of holyness, of saints, of honoring The Departed. A declared time of reverence and prayers for any souls that may be struggling.

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Tonight, there’s unfinished business I’d like to address.

In modern-day America, it is what we call “Halloween” tonight - what a bastardized disgrace. This is a time to honor the Departed, not mock them in costumes and debauchery.

This keeps us disconnected from the ancestral realm at a time when the veil is said to be especially thin, which does nobody on either side any favors. Certainly not The Departed, certainly not our ancestors, and certainly not us, the descendants— the ones still in the Earth realm in human form.

The ones who still have the opportunity to finish the business we incarnated for.

However, it is a day other cultures (my ancestors certainly, likely yours too) have understood differently and treated with reverence; that I appreciate.

I am familiar with death. I am familiar with receiving communication from The Departed.

I am familiar with recognizing within myself the heavy load (this may be a flaw in my perception) to be carrying not just “your life”, but the lives of the ones who did not get to finish theirs.

They were cut abruptly short. I only know two people who have died of natural causes in old age. Everyone else? My peers. These were not lives that were able to be completed, they were not souls that got to actualize in human form. Not this go-around, at least.

And have us, the “living”, actualized to our maximum? If I were to die now, that answer would be no.

It’s wise to pay attention while we’re here, because when we disengage with illusion and stare the Great Work in the face and step forward, we are liberating more than ourselves.

Liberation is done for everyone else tied to us who, for various reasons, did not get to do that in their last go-around.

---

I don’t think it’s doing anybody a service to pretend like they came here to die the way they did, as if it was all for a reason.

I don’t know the reason. Maybe the reason was a series of choices and circumstances that resulted in an outcome of death.

That seems a lot more reasonable than thinking someone incarnated here just to die a tragic death before they could actually live out their life.

“Why” is probably the most lethal question I’ve ever asked, and it has never been answered. Maybe the reason we ask why is because we aren’t contending with the above statement.

Maybe, in our unnatural and fabricated world of predictability, absolute undisputed facts, such as Death, are not able to be understood.

Death is a truth, just as much as life, and you cannot have an absolute truth make sense in a world of delusions.

Not a fun thing to say, probably not fun for you to read — but I am not interested in telling (what I believe to be) lies.

Sometimes things fucking hurt. It’s wise to stare that searing fact of reality dead in the face and learn from it. Our actions are NOT without consequence. No one is exempt.

Perhaps, sometimes people die because of a long-running series of repetitive actions that, when met with a certain set of circumstances, result in tragedy.

Perhaps, that is something we do not want to accept, because if we accept it for them, then we must also accept it for ourselves.

Oh, shit, you mean if we aren’t mindful of how we are living, we could actually in some form or fashion be the cause of our demise? You mean, even if we are mindful, something beyond our control might happen and we can still die, without any warning?

Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

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The truth should be seen and told.

If I do not learn from my loved ones, The Departed, my ancestors, well, in my opinion, I would be disgracing them.

Responsibility and power TERRIFY people. That is why we (as a collective) are so eager and happy to pawn it off to the next psychopath in a suit who will take care of all those life things so we can go back to our TV shows and routines, living like an endless trust-fall in a forest of paper trees.

Yet there is nothing solid to land against when you live in such a way, and if we’re being honest with ourselves, there is truly no one outside of ourselves to blame.

Before I go off on grievances with the living, which also includes me, as I notice the same dumbass tendencies within myself,

Let me return to The Departed.

Pardon me, I often have to redirect my mind, and brevity is not my strong suit.

---

The Departed.

I believe I owe the ancestors of mine that I never knew my prayers, respect and acknowledgement. My gratitude.

I believe I owe the exact same toward every single person I have loved who is now among The Departed: Every single person I called friend, best friend, love of my life, boyfriend, fiance, comrade, spirit-twin, cousin, aunt, grandmother, guide, teacher — the exact same.

And wherever they are on their journey, I want to make sure they are supported. What a crazy way it is to live in this mechanical age, void of reverence and allergic to vulnerability, immediately “moving on” as soon as someone leaves their body.

They’re still alive.

I remember when we scattered my cousins ashes in September.

We were in a group at first. I scattered most of it into the ocean with the others, but I kept some of it. I didn’t know why but I couldn’t let it go. I thought maybe, maybe I’d put some of the ashes into a necklace, or something, and take it with me.

He loved music, he made music himself and was incredibly talented, maybe I could bring him with me each time I perform, it would be like he could be there too, in some form.

THEN, I got home. I was here for maybe 60 seconds before I got right back in the car and drove back to the place where we had scattered the ashes.

No way. I was NOT going to keep any of his ashes.

I had a horrible, sick, sinking feeling that if I kept “him”, I could potentially be holding him back from moving forward.

There is no way I am going to do anything to obstruct his journey, and Lord forgive me if I have; sometimes I wonder if grieving is something that grieves them.

---

So, I went back alone. It was a strange juxtaposition.

It was a bright, sunny, Florida day. Off to my right, in the distance, there was a family, playing in the shallows. Off to my left, in the distance, there were people fishing under the bridge.

Life was surrounding me. The sun was so bright, shining down upon me. Life, in all of its aliveness, was so loud.

Then, I opened the container the remains of his remains were in.

I knew it all had to go into the waters. Words were whispered, and after some time, I put the remains of his physical body into the ocean. I also put the wooden container into the water as well; there is no way I am putting something that once held my cousins ashes in the trash. No, it will go into the sea, it is made of wood, and has his ashes on it, it’s all returning to the source of physical life on Earth.

I thought my desire to hold on to “some” of my cousins ashes was a gross misunderstanding of death on my part. He is not his body. That was his body, but he is not confined to that.

He is his soul, and his soul has made one of the more overt and obvious demonstrations of life beyond disembodiment (“death”) that I’ve ever seen; but given his personality, that is not a surprise to anyone at all.

I salute him. He’s a good person. And a bright soul. He has brought comfort to the ones who were closest to him since he departed. That’s incredibly remarkable, to be able to do that so soon after exiting the body.

I’ve seen a lot, but I haven’t seen that before. Not on the scale he’s done it on. And the brightness, he’s had it about him.

---

When I was at the water, two piercing thoughts entered my mind.

One was, “One day, you are not going to have a body. You do not know how long it will be until you have a body again.”

This was… something I cannot explain. I could feel just how… temporary, fragile, and truly incomprehensible of a gift it was, to be alive in a human body.

Who was I to live in such a way?

Who am I to neglect my body with absent-mindedness, not enough rest or sleep, not enough food, not enough exercise, poisoning myself with nicotine, who am I to do this?

This is not wise, because the time would come when I will no longer have this body, and there are so many things I take for granted about being a soul within a human body that, oh Lord, if I do not appreciate and act accordingly, what a tragedy it would be, to see how I neglected my time in human form.

That was a necessary message, as I have been in a state of chronic self-neglect for years.

The second was, “Surround yourself with life-affirming things! Surround yourself with life-affirming art, life-affirming colors, life-affirming symbols, life-affirming situations, people, places!”

I stood in the juxtaposition… it was as if, wait— I have a picture to illustrate with.

I shared this image many months ago here. I just thought of it.

Remember when I snapped a photo right as lightning struck and it created this trippy picture? I took this image at night, but the right half of the image looks as if it is daylight. There is a notable split down the center.

The Veil - Brought to you by a lightning bolt

In those moments there, surrounded by bright Sun, surrounded by life, yet so acutely close to death, as I poured out the physical body remains of my cousin, I felt as if I was the very line in this image.

I felt as if I existed directly in the seams of the realm of life, and the realm of death - the realm of earth, and the realm of the astral.

As if I were hiding within the veil, not actually living on either side.

Funny, because I have been feeling that way for years, which brings me to my next Departed mention, one that prompted me to come to the computer and start writing tonight in the first place.

I am grateful for that moment. I don’t know if that was my cousin, if it was my own soul, I don’t know. Maybe both.

That was what I’d call a Memento Mori moment, when one is simultaneously and acutely aware that they are alive, and they absolutely will die.

What makes a Memento Mori moment medicinal, as opposed to upsetting or traumatic, depends on one’s own ability to digest life.

Yes, that was… incredibly intense. And yes, it reminded me, TO LIVE. Because how many of us, are inside a body and have a pulse, but are DEAD?

To raise the dead, when we hear of this in religion like Christianity, often it is (in my understanding and belief) not literally God promising to revive a corpse - the point of knowing the Source, Creator, God, Love, Christ, Pure Consciousness, is that it brings you to LIVE while you are still alive. Implying that prior to knowing the Great Force, God, we were alive, but not living. We were the walking dead.

Look around, it’s never been more obvious. I am one of them too. When we notice, that’s the best gift we can be given, because you can then do something about it.

LIVE.

I have a duty here, and I need to finish it before my time is up. Or at least know I gave it my everything, because although I’ve fought like hell and I am one tough son of a bitch (paradoxically also incredibly sensitive), I know I haven’t given it my all yet.

There’s still things I’m afraid to do, that I haven’t done yet! Those things need to be faced! That right there, the hard stuff, the terrifying stuff, the “let me do 100000 other things before I get to that one thing” stuff — that’s where the Great Work is.

---

The Departed Soul I was going to speak on was Dylan Smith.

Dylan Smith is a man I spent nearly a third of my life with, my former fiance, first love in this life, really nothing else compares to that - he died in October of 2021. It’s now November 1st, 2024, at 12:33 AM. The anniversary of his death was about a week and a half ago.

That day and night, I was silent.

I wrote a HUGE piece on Substack that is still in drafts. It’s long enough to be a book. I spoke to him in the way I speak to him. I did not post shit on Facebook or put on a display for the public, although there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so.

I actually felt a sense of guilt for NOT doing it.

Why didn’t I?

I became angry, actually.

Which, I’ve spoken with him about in my way, he knows it’s not something he’s done, he knows it’s me going through it. If anybody knows how my temperament works, it’s Dylan. He knew me since I was what, 14 years old?

Anyway, my prayers and conversations with him are just that, with him.

I didn’t because… I did get really angry.

The anniversary of his death is acknowledged on his actual birthday, October 17th. That used to be my favorite day, it was like the best holiday to me, I used to make him all this stuff and collage/design photo albums, make him art and buy whatever I thought he'd like (nothing crazy here, we didn’t have money, but I could still buy a dope T-Shirt)

Kinda like this — I got him this for one of his birthdays and this picture was on said birthday:

Celebrating Dylan’s birthday was the best day. I loved it. It’s strange that it’s also his day of exiting this world too.

Technically, Dylan died in the early morning hours of October 18th. But… he didn’t complete that Earth day. And who knows if he even slept or not? I don’t know. We were not together when he died. It had been his birthday only a few hours before.

I think it hurts a lot because I miss him and wish I could turn back time, but I cannot.

So, we say it is Oct 17, his new “heavenly” birthday, but wow. Oct 17/18 is a BRUTAL day now, aint that funny?

The day that used to be my favorite is now one I dread and when it hits, I feel as if I’m drowning in something I’ll never come out of.

There is no grief like the grief toward him. None. Not to discount any other death or loved ones, the grief is literally different for each person, but holy shit. I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Dylan - he played one of the most, if not the most, singularly pivotal role IN MY LIFE.

And he is gone.

I never considered it’d be possible for him to NOT be on Earth at the same time as me. Not once.

---

So, that day came about.

It was fucking brutal and no I did not talk to anyone about it and no I did not say anything on the internet.

I had just returned to my apartment - the week prior I evacuated from Hurricane Milton, as it made a direct hit exactly where I live.

Two weeks prior, we had Hurricane Helene, and as Hurricane Helene was passing through, I discovered one of my long-time close friends (she also knew Dylan) had committed suicide.

Then, I had to call her family and let them know she was dead, and why.

I did write something about Joey. I don’t remember writing it. I’m still not close to “processed” that this has happened. But, I did speak about her here, and you can read about her.

She is so beautiful, you can see her picture on the post I made about her below. I knew her since I was 18. I am 35 now. I met her through Dylan’s older brother. Neither one of us were sober back then, but years later, after I got sober, so did she, and we spent many years as sisters in sobriety together. I even got to be in her wedding.

Easy to say I’d give anything to bring you back. Much harder to say, I will continue to live, and I will LIVE in a manner that honors you… I will live a life that, if you get a chance to peek in here, I hope will make you happy.

That’s why I didn’t want to talk about Dylan’s death.

It was another reminder that more of what I’ve known in this lifetime is dead than alive. Another reminder that more of what I’ve built is demolished than standing.

And perhaps, what I didn’t want to admit, was it was more of a reminder that more of ME is dead than alive — and there is nobody to blame for that except me.

Then the grief feelings hit, I prayed to him/spoke with him, I wrote what is an unreleased and very LONG entry of the story of our lives together, and it sits in drafts, because I do not know that I’m ready to share it yet.

But Dylan, he is the reason I was moved to come to the computer tonight and start typing about The Departed.

I can’t remember how old we were here. Maybe 19 for me and 21 for him, or 20 for me and 22 for him? IDK, but I do remember this evening. I remember laughing and feeling loved.

I sit here on a blanket a dear friend from home made me.

I have candles all around me that I have yet to light.

I have prayers that I have yet to speak.

I have a small altar next to me, containing the belongings or images of Kaitlyn, Dylan, Shane, Corey, and… Lord, I just realized, Connie, I need to find her picture. I took those things with me when I evacuated for Milton, and I’ve not even unpacked everything yet.

There is also a briefcase in my closet, I moved it in there and closed the door incase the hurricane blew out the windows and water got in here. The briefcase belongs to one of my uncles.

It contains the photos and writings of my/our ancestors, his grandparents, his aunts, his uncles, people I’ve never met, but he blessed me with taking me out to dinner one night and telling me about the family. It’s actually incredible.

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I suppose they would be my great aunts. Well, these women, they were truly something.

And at least one of them, she wrote beautiful poetry.

You can tell she had such a fierce and wild spirit — a spirit that wanted freedom, a spirit that would question anything that seemed to obstruct that freedom.

Absolutely brilliant, absolutely fierce.

I realized I need to bring that out here too, because my intention was to say prayers and do a meditation for The Departed.

They passed away before I was born, but if things truly are the way they are written in many ancient texts, then our ancestors, whether we know them are not, are just as much a part of our being as we are, in many ways.

I don’t just mean on some empty mechanical level of “genetics” — no, their energy, their spirit, their karmas (actions) - they are with us too.

And what of The Departed whom we do not know, and who are not our ancestors?

They, too, are a part of us. Ultimately, we are all connected. Tantric/Esoteric Buddhists described Life, or the very Nature of Reality as the “Bliss Void Indivisible”.

Are the collection of our thoughts, actions, minds, bodies, souls, so different? No, they are not.

None is exempt.

Not from what I’ve discussed in this post, anyway. As far as the path of “total liberation” and having the bodies dissolve and merging into some God-state, that’s way above my head, and I am not going to speculate on how that works.

For now, I need to make sure I make my life work. For now, I need to make sure I take care of myself and my duty here on Earth and tend to my Work and Purpose.

For now, I need to say prayers for The Departed.

I needed to write about a few of them apparently. Something urged me to.

Especially with Dylan.

I will release the story of Dylan some time soon.

I remember when he died. He appeared to me multiple times. Twice in very vivid, specific dreams, and once, well, once in another way that I won’t detail.

He had a specific message for me in one of the dreams. I still remember it. He gave me instructions on something he wanted me to do.

It’s not writing on Substack, it’s something else. I tried to do it in 2022 and hit one of those walls and absolutely could not go any further. I felt as though I’d permanently snap, not from anger but the grief and a few other things. Unfinished business, I suppose.

Now, I wonder, if something that I’m currently working on is going to wind up satisfying the request he made.

Because unbeknownst to me, until recently, what he showed me in the dream three years ago that I needed to do, is actually happening now.

I did not do that intentionally either. But it’s technically here. What to do with it, that remains to be seen. I am not going to disclose what it is, until it is done.

For now, I will likely set this up to be released, because some big weight within me felt like it wanted to get out, as if some of The Departed wanted to be discussed like this.

I felt the surge literally moving me forward toward the keyboard. So, it does feel lighter now, but I must finish what I set out to do originally.

However you honor The Departed, whether your ancestors, your loved ones, or all beings, whether related to you or not - feel free to share in the comments.

How do you honor The Departed? How do you support them in their transition through the other realms?

How do you honor your own life? How do you use your intimate understanding of Death to create a more intimate understanding with Life?

Tip of the hat and salute on The Day of the Dead, All Hallows Eve, and The Dark/New Moon.