End of Life
Sacred Passage Vigil
About the Vigil
What if how we die is our greatest living legacy? A sacred rite of passage entrusted to the doula and family wherein our priorities, last wishes, and spiritual fulfillment are carried out?
What if creating sacred passages through the enactment of a Vigil ensures the cultural shift from a death-denying culture to a care and healing culture at the end of life? “Restoring death to its sacred place in the beauty, mystery, and celebration of life while contributing to the evolution of consciousness.”
The Vigil is the final attendance of life performed in a rite of passage during death. It is an intentional ritual that fulfills our last greatest journey of life.
Our last living legacy that connects us to the destination we hold as our spiritual home.
It is how we make the cultural shift–begin to genetically re-encode this journey with sacredness and our true humanity, acknowledging our shift from form to formlessness.
More Information
about the Vigil
Click the question to read more.
It is a period of time, planned in advance of nearing death–of “vigilance” during the final days and hours of life.
It’s a time of watching over, attending in a prayerful & sacred way, an ordinary way—according to the dying person’s wishes.
After working with the MJE Wishes and Care Plan OR after having gathered the desires and wishes for the journey in advance or on the spot.
- Have they stopped eating, drinking, talking?
- Are they in bed all the time?
- Are they sleeping or inward most of the time?
- Has their breathing changed a lot?
- Do they not want to be moved?
- Is there little or no fluid from either kidneys or intestines?
- Has the skin color and temperature changed?
- Prepare you and others for the Vigil
- Plan the last great journey/last living legacy.
- Honor beliefs & practices while staying true to my own.
- Bear witness and connect within the subtle realms and nearing death thresholds.
- Planned in advance or on the spot.
- Enacted and offered by the doula and loved ones.
- Includes everything, everyone, and/or any setting the person might desire to experience (or not experience) during the end of life
- It includes the act of staying awake, keeping watch, maintaining and guiding the Vigil plan–before, during, and after active dying.
- Massage Therapy
- Reiki
- Toning using music
- Anointing with oils (before or after death)
- Finding, matching, and easing the breath
- Planning and/or performing sacred rituals
- Bathing rituals
Example of a Vigil Plan
“This Plan speaks to how I want my Vigil conducted as I’m dying. The most important part of this plan is the feeling I want around me – a feeling of openness to the great and wonderful mystery that is life.
As people visit, conduct Vigil, or take care of me, I want them to do so in a way that honors the sacredness of this dying process I have entered. Know that I love all of you and deeply, and appreciate your presence in my life and in my dying.
This is not just me, so please love and help my family as they try to help me and also as they begin to anticipate the time after I’m gone.
Honoring these wishes will allow me to open even more deeply to the ground of being and to die in peace and love.”
To help create the atmosphere I want, please do the following:
- Make sure that sandalwood incense is always burning on the altar. At night, have candles burning. On the wall alongside my bed, I want pictures of my family and friends.
- As you feel comfortable, I like to be held, touched, and caressed. Use my guided visualization of the pond in the meadow often throughout the day.
- Meditate with me if you have a practice. When possible, especially at the very end, please wheel my bed outside on to the deck so I can be under the sky, the stars, and the trees and feel the fresh air on my skin.
- After I die, tell stories about our times together especially the touching or funny ones. Let my body be taken whenever the family feels ready.”
A planned sacred ritual during the final phase of life entrusted to the doula and family wherein your priorities, last wishes, and spiritual fulfillment are carried out.