The Last Ecstasy of Life

Phyllida is an Irish poet, bard, psychotherapist, wise woman and soul carer of the dying, who is also the author of A Celtic Book of Dying, the path of love in the time of transition, which I have also reviewed in these pages. She spoke at Mystics and Scientists last year and more recently on our webinar platform. She spent her young adult years as a Catholic nun in Dublin, and trained for 10 years with Elisabeth Kübler Ross, whose transformative retreats were about life, death and transition. Phyllida herself had an NDE in 1973. All this background informs the deep life wisdom of this most recent work on Celtic mysteries of death and dying, based on her decades of work. The four chapters discuss the nature of the human being in relation to birth, life and death, how the elements leave the body, and the last ecstasy involving the departure of the soul. She weaves many beautiful poems throughout.

We all have the potential to make choices that are life-enhancing and love-giving in the context of Phyllida’s view that life is neutral in essence, holds no good or bad outcomes – it is all experience and has potential for growth. For her, ‘spirituality is a living organic expression of life and therefore evolutionary in essence. Spirit is what we are: it is an innate wisdom or knowing that pervades our whole consciousness.’ (p. 15) We are individual expressions of life force itself in service to life and the divine. Spiritual aspiration is to embody a soul-led life rather than an earth mind driven one. Phyllida explains her understanding of the subtle bodies, the soul and the field consciousness in relation to the Universal Heart, which represents compassion without judgement. Nor should we deny parts of ourselves, but rather bring them into the light of conscious integration where fear is cradled in peace. And she insists that we are all on the spiritual path, whether we recognise this or not.

I live as a stone lives

Just gathering stories

I live as a stream lives

Just letting them go

I live as a tree lives

Sure of my standing

I live as a bird lives

Just singing my song

I live the silence in the wind

I live the silence between words

I live the silence in the seas

I live creation deep in me.

The chapter on the elements of earth, fire, water and air leaving the body is a highly instructive guide, with both explanations and valuable recommendations for practice. There are also visualisations that can be read out loud, similar to the Tibetan tradition. Phyllida’s experience is that what is not healed revisits us at death, so carers can help by affirming forgiveness as a loving presence. It is also important to have released blame and judgements if one is to die in peace and harmony. She writes that our spirit home is spacelessness and timelessness, and that our consciousness expands at death as we prepare to make our transition. Birth brings us into human form, while death releases us, and both are natural processes.

The story of our wounding may be more ancient than we are, and some of our choices may well be based on unconscious resonance with a dead ancestor. Interestingly, Phyllida identifies the reptilian brain as the receptacle for such unfinished business. She discusses six natural feelings that need to find expression if they are not to become dysfunctional: anger, fear, jealousy, love, grief and sexuality. We need to listen to our own inner guidance and follow it to freedom. In her view, we are divine beings learning to be human and can all access the healing power of Love, which we essentially are. There is great compassion in this approach.

The final chapter embraces the sacred mysteries of both birth and death. Phyllida disagrees with the religious view with which she was imbued as a nun that the physical is inferior to spirit. She recalls that she even to the extent of self-whipping, representing a hatred of self and the body, which she interprets as a fear of eros – quite the opposite of the Tantric approach. She reminds readers that dying is a natural act, and describes the use of holy oils in the last rites. Like Michel Odent in relation to the birth process, she is wary of too much technological and human interference. She writes that the more evolved we are spiritually at the time of death, the more joy we can experience in the dying process, but of course this is a lifetime of work – ‘we get the death we are prepared to die’ and ‘those who live soulfully die fully into soul.’ (p. 135) The review process may involve regret at actions of non-love, which calls for self-compassion. Her view on organ donation is that this may keep the soul earthbound - and the organ will still be pulsating with the vibration of the one who died. (p. 144) There is deep life wisdom weaving throughout this chapter, making it as much a guide to living as dying. The final section contains pertinent questions and answers, along with some beautiful Celtic blessings and poems. I recommend that readers study both books as primers on the art of living and especially of dying as a preparation for a journey that we will all undertake.

Your Dying

When your own song seduces you

Back into the symphony again

Let your throat widen into eternity

And rent the seas apart with the force of your passion

So that life may play the strings of your soul

In total magnificence. SEA [so be it]