I wish I, a retired hospital RN, could articulate my experiences with you and your readers about death and dying. Not only regarding those in my care at the hospital but family members including my young child. Protocol has many times needlessly interrupted the natural processes of dying. I spent years weeping on my long drive home because of many unnecessary medical interventions, especially when I was on the code team, which was not a voluntary position but built into the unit where I worked. I had a different attitude at the end of my career from the one I had at the beginning. Thank you for the article.
I have also been a participant in a lot of hospital deaths, in the moment, and in the lead-up.
I will die at home, as did my father and grandmother, unless I die from yet another really bad bike accident, but I am really trying not to have another one of those...
COVID panic I told my husband if it came to that, to put me out in the backyard and let me die under our big old pine tree, but under no circumstance take me to the hospital.
My mom, dad, stepmom, stepdad and father in-law all died at home. Most were decent deaths although hospice outright murdered my mother. I don't want hospice around either.
My advice is to get a medical power of attorney. Your agent can make most health care decisions consistent with your known wishes (or your best interests if wishes are unknown). Also get a living will. A legal document that states your wishes about receiving (or not receiving) life-sustaining treatment if you become unable to make decisions for yourself due to a terminal condition or permanently unconscious state.Each state has different laws regarding these documents but I believe, at this time, they are your best options to make sure your wishes are fulfilled.
Yes, Snapped Ginger, AND a Health Care Proxy, and do NOT let your guard down (if you still have your mental faculties) in hospital and medical situations.
I've also worked in the medical industry and saw what really goes on. (I was in medical transcription in oncology, where patients look like starvation victims towards the end, but they keep taking that chemo, because that's where their god is.)
Forgive yourself. The propaganda for the medical industry is HUGE. At least you awakened now.
This piece names something many families feel but can’t quite articulate: death has been turned into a managed procedure instead of a human transition.
The system is excellent at intervention, billing, and protocol. It is far less equipped for meaning, presence, or honoring what a person actually wants at the end of life. That’s how people end up surrounded by machines instead of loved ones, receiving treatments they never chose.
The quiet counter-current is hospice and palliative care. When used well, they return the focus to comfort, clarity, family, and dignity—often at home, where the person belongs.
The real takeaway for me is simple: decide your values before the crisis. Write them down. Share them with your family. Make sure your care reflects your life.
"death has been turned into a managed procedure instead of a human transition."
Well put, I'd say the exact same can be said of childbirth. They now schedule C sections to the precise date and time several months in advance to 'streamline the process' ($$$) . 'Cradle to Grave', indeed.
My dogs had a litter about 4 years ago. I built Mom a whelping box which she automatically knew the purpose of. One evening I was working at my desk when I looked over to see a newborn pup. Mom didn't make a single sound during the delivery; what notified me of the arrival were the sounds of her cleaning the pup. Over the next 2 hours, she delivered 6 more without a sound or single sign of distress; she just cut the chords, cleaned them up, and began to nurse, all instinctually. No Drs, drugs, or procedures needed, just as nature/God intended. (I understand the need for Drs when there are complications, but childbirth has become this awful, intrusive procedure that serves the industry, not the family).
You’re pointing at the same pattern from the other end of the timeline.
Birth and death used to be human thresholds — family-centered, instinct-guided, and held in relationship. What we’ve built instead is a system that tends to standardize, schedule, and monetize those moments.
Your story about the whelping box is a clean reminder that mammals carry deep, built-in intelligence for birthing and bonding. Humans have that too — and when conditions are supportive and low-risk, many families choose approaches that protect that physiology: continuity of care, minimal interventions, freedom to move, and immediate skin-to-skin.
At the same time, it’s also true that modern obstetrics can be life-saving when complications arise (breech, hemorrhage, fetal distress, etc.). The tension people feel isn’t about rejecting care — it’s about who’s in charge of the experience and whether interventions are used when needed or by default for convenience and throughput.
Maybe the middle path looks like this:
Protect the normal, support the natural when pregnancy is low-risk
Use skilled medical help promptly when there’s real danger
Center the family’s preferences and dignity in both cases
Same arc as with death: less conveyor belt, more conscious transition — at the beginning and the end.
Appreciate you bringing a real-world example into it.
I agree with all of your points, particularly birth and death being opposite ends of the timeline of this particular journey... the soul is eternal, not just after 'death', but reaching back before 'birth'. Materialism does not acknowledge any of this and has lead us into alien territory.
When you zoom out, birth and death stop looking like start and finish lines and start looking like doorways in the same house. The body comes and goes, but the awareness moving through it has a longer arc than the material frame can explain.
Materialism flattens that arc into a narrow window — what can be measured, billed, and scheduled — and everything outside that window gets treated like it doesn’t exist. That’s the “alien territory” feeling you’re pointing to.
But most people still feel the bigger continuity in their bones:
the sense of presence before words
the intuition of purpose showing up early in life
the unmistakable recognition that something of us is not exhausted by the body
When that wider view is allowed back in, both ends of the timeline soften. Birth becomes arrival with memory nearby, and death becomes departure without annihilation.
Very cool... Doors of Perception come to mind, whatever Huxley's true mission or "employers" may have been.
I'd love to escape this society (before I leave this world) and live amongst free thinkers who can consider possibilities outside of the mental cages that have been constructed for us. But at least we have 128 types of toothpaste to prove we are 'free'!
WordUp, I hear you. That line about 128 kinds of toothpaste always makes me smile — choice isn’t the same thing as freedom, and a lot of what we’re offered is just surface-level variety.
The deeper freedom you’re pointing to — being able to think, question, and live with people who are open to possibilities — is real, and it doesn’t actually require disappearing from the world to begin. Small circles of like-minded folks, honest conversations, and a willingness to see things clearly already start to loosen those “mental cages.”
Huxley’s Doors of Perception is a good reminder that perception can open up, but we can also cultivate that clarity in grounded ways — through awareness, connection, and living more deliberately instead of on autopilot.
So even if we’re still in this society for now, we can carve out pockets of that freedom, find our people, and live a little more on our own terms each day.
Yes, my youngest probably would have died had I not been in the hospital. He had a true knot in his umbilical cord. I didn’t have to have a C-section though because his heart rate was ok when I stayed on my side.
That's the medical industry's intention, to violate a person "from the cradle to the grave". And EVEN BEFORE the "cradle". Procedures are performed en utero.
Yes, ultrasound, invasive procedures and drugs are all harmful to the child and mother. Next they'll probably make burial plots subscription services to reap profits from the grave in perpetuity.
Ultimately the food, ag, and chemical industries are all owned by the same few nefarious entities, thus making people sick and prone to winding up in the 'healthcare industry' for treatment. Air, water, and soil are all intentionally poisoned with metals and synthetic polymers that destroy the health of all organism on Earth. Nonstop wars, etc etc. Absolutely evil.
Yes, "WordUp", I couldn't agree more with this statement of yours:
"Ultimately the food, ag, and chemical industries are all owned by the same few nefarious entities, thus making people sick and prone to winding up in the 'healthcare industry' for treatment."
It has been my experience with deaths. That writing down and sharing your wishes with with family, are only things that are hoped for. Not all those hopes, will actually happen. A person needs to live with that, knowing that your death just like your birth has nothing to do with you. And everything to do with the living.
Tea Tephi, there’s a hard truth in what you’re saying, and it’s one many people don’t want to face.
We can write our wishes, we can try to shape the conditions, but once that threshold is crossed, the field shifts to the living. They are the ones making the decisions, carrying the grief, dealing with the system, and interpreting what they think we wanted. That’s just the reality of being in a shared human world.
But I would add one layer to your point.
Our passing may be handled by the living, yes — but the quality of our leaving still belongs to us.
How we meet that moment… the state of our mind, the peace or resistance we carry, the coherence of our relationships before we go — that’s not taken from us. That’s something we cultivate while we’re still here. And it has a ripple effect on the people who remain.
So I see it as a bridge between two domains:
The inner domain — how we meet the transition, the meaning we’ve made of our life, the peace we’ve come to.
The outer domain — how the living handle the body, the logistics, the rituals, the system.
We can’t control the second completely. But we can influence it by being clear, communicating, and most of all by how we live and relate to the people around us now.
And you’re right about birth and death having that shared-field quality. None of us enters or exits in isolation. We’re always in relationship, always part of a larger human fabric.
That’s why these conversations matter. Even if our wishes aren’t followed perfectly, the act of speaking them plants a signal in the people around us. It gives them a compass, even if they can’t follow it exactly.
So I’d say: accept the limits, like you’re pointing to — but don’t underestimate the power of the signal we leave behind.
Appreciate you bringing that grounded perspective into the discussion.
I appreciate what you have said here. I was responsible for the end of life care for two close family, in last decade. Their responsibilities, finances, health, well being and ultimately their deaths fell right into my hands. What I have learned is....if in the course of your life you surround yourself with kind loving people and are kind and loving back to them. Then things probably will work out the way you wanted. And there will be peace. If your life is filled with acrimony towards others, and they toward you with no peace achieved in life. Then there is no chance, that things work out. People have to take your wishes to heart. It is the people around you that do that. And it matters.
Tea Tephi, what you just shared is lived wisdom, not theory—and you earned it the hard way.
You carried that responsibility for two people at the end of their lives. That tells me you understand something many never do: end-of-life care isn’t just medical, it’s relational. It’s built on the quality of the bonds that were formed long before the final days.
What you said is simple and true:
If a person has spent a lifetime building goodwill, kindness, and real connection, then when the time comes, the people around them want to honor their wishes. There’s trust. There’s care. There’s a natural desire to give them a peaceful crossing.
If the life was filled with conflict, resentment, broken ties… then even written wishes can fall apart because the relational field is fractured. There’s no shared ground to stand on.
So in that sense, the “preparation” for a good death isn’t just paperwork or directives — it’s how we live with each other every day.
It’s the tone we set in our relationships.
It’s the bridges we build or burn.
And you also touched something else quietly: the burden carried by the one who steps up. The one who manages the finances, the health decisions, the final moments. That’s not easy work. It takes strength, patience, and a lot of heart. People don’t always see that from the outside, but it matters deeply.
What I hear in your experience is this:
Peace at the end is seeded in the middle of life.
Kindness compounds.
Relationships are the real “advance directive.”
And when those pieces are in place, the transition can be handled with dignity, even inside a system that often makes it difficult.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. It brings the whole conversation back to what actually counts.
One should only fear death if they work for Pfizer et al. I grew up with the myth of the Hippocratic oath--because of the prevailing propaganda, I actually thought doctors believed in it. Do no harm. How naive! I was able, in all sincerity, to tell my mother, two days before she died, that she was the perfect mother. She laughed at me, but I explained that perfect and flawless are two different things, she did the absolute best with what she had. I have always been grateful for that opportunity.
It is far better to find Christianity (God) way before you have to face death. The peace that will come to you is unbelievable! But as they say better late than never. Thank you For a well written article.
As a culture, we’ve been deprived of honoring our physical passage into the spiritual realm, and forced into the medical complex where the last few dollars can be wrung from our corpse. Death is not a failure of life, it’s a natural process that’s been hijacked from us.
This story sums it up. A friend lived with his parents, both in their 90s. The mother was healthy and functioning, even made a midday meal daily for the friend when he came home for lunch. One day at lunch she asked him to do a number of things when she died, and he laughed her off and said just make me a list so I don’t forget anything. When he got home after work, there was a list on the kitchen table, had done the dishes, laid out the dress she wanted on her bed and was peacefully dead in her armchair. She KNEW. The father, who was sitting in the same room said she told him to get a haircut before her funeral. He passed 13 days later.
> we’ve been deprived of honoring our physical passage into the spiritual realm
Isn't that us ourselves depriving ourselves from connecting with our spiritual origins? Nothing or no-one is forcing us to fully embrace the materialistic soulless world and the especially dark medical system. It's our choice. It's called the planet of the free will for a reason.
When the time comes around to say goodbye to our terrestrial incarnation just make sure you are at home with the family to facilitate the passage. Golden rule. If at all possible.
There are going to be a lot of people dying with no family around. MANY women, myself included, didn't have children. I am preparing for the possibility that I might die alone. Yes, I have a strong spiritual life. Of necessity.
I hope that my mother can find that spiritual connection before she passes. She has been largely indifferent to religion.
When Scott admitted that he had been wrong about the covid injections, he still didn't totally get it. He claimed that those of us who chose not to vaccinate did so because of our distrust of the government and industry. But that was not the case for most of us. We knew that we were not in any more danger of death than we were from any other respiratory illness (unless we went to the hospital, but that's another story). We also knew all of the potential problems with these shots, problems that were just waved away by the "experts". In other words, we had serious concerns based on medical science, not just a lucky hunch.
Like you said, "I know of multiple other instances where individuals who were long considered 'experts in propaganda' made the decision to get the COVID vaccine—something which I view as a testament to just how effectively the vaccine was marketed."
It seems like the study of just how that happened would have been right up Scott's alley if he had been willing to admit he had been duped rather than just "unlucky".
I know what you mean. I had COVID in September of 2020. Some symptoms were weird but I wasn’t really that sick. I knew something was fishy from the beginning but after that I had zero fear about it. I never intended to get the experimental shots or give them to my children (I stopped vaxxing when my youngest was 1 1/2 years old) but the way many people freaked out and believed the propaganda made me feel like I was living in the twilight zone.
One of the codes I witnessed early in the hospital phase of my career particularly had me wondering why it was taking place. Fortunately an older attending physician came in and stopped it. He then proceeded to lecture the team on the condition of the patient and the inappropriateness of the disturbing the patient’s exit with a full code. He was right. But people need to be aware that hospital staff often does not know the patient well and come running to a code full of adrenaline and a head full of protocols and procedures. Getting your general desires into the heads of your family and friends, and perhaps the “chart” is a way to avoid the full code. Use the avenue that you trust the most. If you fear being taken too soon just tell your family about organ donation desires.
Worst thing ever for patients was stopping the visitation. It is needed.
It is sad he paid with his life 😢 after getting the lethal covid vaccines 5 years earlier in 2021.
I am seeing a surge in unexpected deaths within 5 years of receiving the covid deaths. It is almost as if they contained a built-in death timer for "5 years". See Mark Crispin Miller's substack for ongoing reporting of the injuries and deaths: markcrispinmiller@substack.com
I am still scratching the area where I unfortunately received one covid shot 5 years ago and am still testing at over 5,000 for detection of spike protein antibodies, (roche SP blood test) !
Possibly this maybe from exposure to all the ongoing shedding from those injected with covid mRNA vaccines.
Not 100% sold on Hospice. They push you to do drugs before it's time. I let them talk me into morphine and was in charge of it when it should have been my dad's decision. And they pointed at him and said, "look at him" when I knew he could still hear. My mom had a stroke here at home, but died in a hospital. I wish I'd moved her here. My dad died here at home and is likely where I will die. But Hospice can be improved, too, trust me. They are not infallible.
We've got a local outfit: Karuna, a Buddhist bunch. They are VERY good in-home hospice. Buddhists respect clarity of death, and probably have more cultural connection to it than the materialistic west. I've donated, and plan to subscribe to them when needed. They may be a global outfit, but I don't know. They are here in Australia.
Yes, I am sure some people have good experiences. We didn't. We were pushed into it, and once my dad heard her say that he quit. He had Parkinson's, not cancer. I was not impressed. They should leave those decisions to the patient and I should have thrown her out instead of believing that morphine wouldn't kill him.
Thanks. Great article. And for me quite timely as I hit my 80th birthday a couple of weeks ago. And the reality of death feels closer than ever. This provides me with a way to discuss what's important with the people who need to know my desires. A problem I've read about is the medical profession often pays no attention to desires like no venting. How do I assure this doesn't happen? I feel no one will be with me to prevent this when it's deemed necessary by some ER doc. Thanks again
You might look into an Advance Directive if you haven't already. Whether they are actually honored by this corrupt profession is another matter though.
When my father had terminal metastatic prostate cancer at age 67, he ordered a dog tag that said DNR, and wore it constantly. He was able to die peacefully at home but the dog tag might have helped if medical personnel were involved.
Make sure you have a POLST form and have it posted in your home. POLST stands for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment and it's something you usually set up with your Dr.
As an ICU nurse of 24 years, I have dealt a lot with this issue. I have had patients that have had living wills, advanced directives, with explicit instructions of what they want and don’t want for end of life care. There often was that family member who could not let go and would not honor their loved ones wishes. So, it’s not always the medical profession not following the patients wishes but the family. As nurses, we would often say what’s the point of having advanced directives, living wills etc...when they were so easily ignored.
I recall a conversation I had once with a family member that went something like this, “How fortunate you are that you know your loved ones wishes and end of life requests because most people don’t, but how sad that they are not being honored.”
A friend who is Chilean and Christian once told me that North American rejection and repulsion of death seemed bizarre to her. Even the notion of allowing a funeral home to prepare bodies instead of having cherished family members do so was alien to her culture.
The Mexican, Central & South American view of going to the cemeteries to celebrate the lives of loved ones is special. The Ofrenda in the home, to keep the memories alive. LOL I really enjoyed the viewpoint of the Disney film, "Coco." Ancestor - not worship - but - grounding in the Ancestors, makes Death a part of life.
My friend attributed most of it to being Catholic but since Catholics in the US & Canada don't follow these traditions (as far as I know), I would say it's more about Hispanic culture.
Another profound article that is so timely to me. My dad died back in July 2025. He lived 10 hours north of me so it wasn’t easy to be with him during his final months. And he had burnt many bridges with friends who were essentially picking up his slack for so long. He was a weird recluse boomer. Born in ‘48. Died at 77. He was a decent dad, all things considered. But one thing he always despised was the medical establishment. And always insisted, year after year, especially nearing the end, that he would refuse to be placed in assisted living, or resuscitated if it were an option.
Well, how his mind changed when he was admitted to the hospital for the final time, literally lying on his deathbed, with me by his side, when the nurse asked if he wanted CPR. He said “yes, I would like to be resuscitated”. I immediately intervened and said “dad, are you sure? I’ve heard you say for most of my adult life (now 53) that you adamantly oppose that”. He replied by stating, “son, I don’t want to die”. He was not the least bit religious and was actually quite cynical against religion (cynical of everything, really). And I know he was terrified of death his whole life. Was always vegan, ate organic whole foods, walked regularly, etc. All to keep the reaper away. Well, it got him anyway. Prostate cancer. Never went to the doctor to get exams even having a paternal history of it. RIP, Dad.
'No atheists in foxholes' comes to mind. Scott found a connection with the divine at the end and the father of a friend who had been a life-long atheist did too. Our brains live on story, it's how we understand the world. But the atheist story doesn't have a satisfactory ending. We need a better one if we are going to let go. Especially if a person hasn't felt that connection already.
Like a baby forced to leave the comfort of the womb and discovers the love of a mother (and father hopefully), so it will be when we are forced from this life. If we profess Christ as our Saviour, he waits to receive us with open loving arms (reading the Bible gives much comfort in this regard).
I wish I, a retired hospital RN, could articulate my experiences with you and your readers about death and dying. Not only regarding those in my care at the hospital but family members including my young child. Protocol has many times needlessly interrupted the natural processes of dying. I spent years weeping on my long drive home because of many unnecessary medical interventions, especially when I was on the code team, which was not a voluntary position but built into the unit where I worked. I had a different attitude at the end of my career from the one I had at the beginning. Thank you for the article.
Thank You, Ginger.
I have also been a participant in a lot of hospital deaths, in the moment, and in the lead-up.
I will die at home, as did my father and grandmother, unless I die from yet another really bad bike accident, but I am really trying not to have another one of those...
During the big stupid
COVID panic I told my husband if it came to that, to put me out in the backyard and let me die under our big old pine tree, but under no circumstance take me to the hospital.
My mom, dad, stepmom, stepdad and father in-law all died at home. Most were decent deaths although hospice outright murdered my mother. I don't want hospice around either.
Gotta' be careful about what the machine "offers", because it is in the habit of giving it...
;-/
My advice is to get a medical power of attorney. Your agent can make most health care decisions consistent with your known wishes (or your best interests if wishes are unknown). Also get a living will. A legal document that states your wishes about receiving (or not receiving) life-sustaining treatment if you become unable to make decisions for yourself due to a terminal condition or permanently unconscious state.Each state has different laws regarding these documents but I believe, at this time, they are your best options to make sure your wishes are fulfilled.
Yes, Snapped Ginger, AND a Health Care Proxy, and do NOT let your guard down (if you still have your mental faculties) in hospital and medical situations.
Hi Snapped Ginger,
I've also worked in the medical industry and saw what really goes on. (I was in medical transcription in oncology, where patients look like starvation victims towards the end, but they keep taking that chemo, because that's where their god is.)
Forgive yourself. The propaganda for the medical industry is HUGE. At least you awakened now.
This piece names something many families feel but can’t quite articulate: death has been turned into a managed procedure instead of a human transition.
The system is excellent at intervention, billing, and protocol. It is far less equipped for meaning, presence, or honoring what a person actually wants at the end of life. That’s how people end up surrounded by machines instead of loved ones, receiving treatments they never chose.
The quiet counter-current is hospice and palliative care. When used well, they return the focus to comfort, clarity, family, and dignity—often at home, where the person belongs.
The real takeaway for me is simple: decide your values before the crisis. Write them down. Share them with your family. Make sure your care reflects your life.
A human life deserves a human ending.
— Lone Wolf
"death has been turned into a managed procedure instead of a human transition."
Well put, I'd say the exact same can be said of childbirth. They now schedule C sections to the precise date and time several months in advance to 'streamline the process' ($$$) . 'Cradle to Grave', indeed.
My dogs had a litter about 4 years ago. I built Mom a whelping box which she automatically knew the purpose of. One evening I was working at my desk when I looked over to see a newborn pup. Mom didn't make a single sound during the delivery; what notified me of the arrival were the sounds of her cleaning the pup. Over the next 2 hours, she delivered 6 more without a sound or single sign of distress; she just cut the chords, cleaned them up, and began to nurse, all instinctually. No Drs, drugs, or procedures needed, just as nature/God intended. (I understand the need for Drs when there are complications, but childbirth has become this awful, intrusive procedure that serves the industry, not the family).
You’re pointing at the same pattern from the other end of the timeline.
Birth and death used to be human thresholds — family-centered, instinct-guided, and held in relationship. What we’ve built instead is a system that tends to standardize, schedule, and monetize those moments.
Your story about the whelping box is a clean reminder that mammals carry deep, built-in intelligence for birthing and bonding. Humans have that too — and when conditions are supportive and low-risk, many families choose approaches that protect that physiology: continuity of care, minimal interventions, freedom to move, and immediate skin-to-skin.
At the same time, it’s also true that modern obstetrics can be life-saving when complications arise (breech, hemorrhage, fetal distress, etc.). The tension people feel isn’t about rejecting care — it’s about who’s in charge of the experience and whether interventions are used when needed or by default for convenience and throughput.
Maybe the middle path looks like this:
Protect the normal, support the natural when pregnancy is low-risk
Use skilled medical help promptly when there’s real danger
Center the family’s preferences and dignity in both cases
Same arc as with death: less conveyor belt, more conscious transition — at the beginning and the end.
Appreciate you bringing a real-world example into it.
— Lone Wolf
I agree with all of your points, particularly birth and death being opposite ends of the timeline of this particular journey... the soul is eternal, not just after 'death', but reaching back before 'birth'. Materialism does not acknowledge any of this and has lead us into alien territory.
Thanks for your reply.
Well said — that’s exactly the thread.
When you zoom out, birth and death stop looking like start and finish lines and start looking like doorways in the same house. The body comes and goes, but the awareness moving through it has a longer arc than the material frame can explain.
Materialism flattens that arc into a narrow window — what can be measured, billed, and scheduled — and everything outside that window gets treated like it doesn’t exist. That’s the “alien territory” feeling you’re pointing to.
But most people still feel the bigger continuity in their bones:
the sense of presence before words
the intuition of purpose showing up early in life
the unmistakable recognition that something of us is not exhausted by the body
When that wider view is allowed back in, both ends of the timeline soften. Birth becomes arrival with memory nearby, and death becomes departure without annihilation.
Same journey. Different doorway.
Appreciate you naming it so clearly.
— Lone Wolf
Very cool... Doors of Perception come to mind, whatever Huxley's true mission or "employers" may have been.
I'd love to escape this society (before I leave this world) and live amongst free thinkers who can consider possibilities outside of the mental cages that have been constructed for us. But at least we have 128 types of toothpaste to prove we are 'free'!
Thanks again for your thought provoking comments.
WordUp, I hear you. That line about 128 kinds of toothpaste always makes me smile — choice isn’t the same thing as freedom, and a lot of what we’re offered is just surface-level variety.
The deeper freedom you’re pointing to — being able to think, question, and live with people who are open to possibilities — is real, and it doesn’t actually require disappearing from the world to begin. Small circles of like-minded folks, honest conversations, and a willingness to see things clearly already start to loosen those “mental cages.”
Huxley’s Doors of Perception is a good reminder that perception can open up, but we can also cultivate that clarity in grounded ways — through awareness, connection, and living more deliberately instead of on autopilot.
So even if we’re still in this society for now, we can carve out pockets of that freedom, find our people, and live a little more on our own terms each day.
Appreciate your kind words and the resonance.
Lone Wolf
Yes, my youngest probably would have died had I not been in the hospital. He had a true knot in his umbilical cord. I didn’t have to have a C-section though because his heart rate was ok when I stayed on my side.
Wordup,
That's the medical industry's intention, to violate a person "from the cradle to the grave". And EVEN BEFORE the "cradle". Procedures are performed en utero.
Yes, ultrasound, invasive procedures and drugs are all harmful to the child and mother. Next they'll probably make burial plots subscription services to reap profits from the grave in perpetuity.
Ultimately the food, ag, and chemical industries are all owned by the same few nefarious entities, thus making people sick and prone to winding up in the 'healthcare industry' for treatment. Air, water, and soil are all intentionally poisoned with metals and synthetic polymers that destroy the health of all organism on Earth. Nonstop wars, etc etc. Absolutely evil.
Yes, "WordUp", I couldn't agree more with this statement of yours:
"Ultimately the food, ag, and chemical industries are all owned by the same few nefarious entities, thus making people sick and prone to winding up in the 'healthcare industry' for treatment."
100%
It has been my experience with deaths. That writing down and sharing your wishes with with family, are only things that are hoped for. Not all those hopes, will actually happen. A person needs to live with that, knowing that your death just like your birth has nothing to do with you. And everything to do with the living.
Tea Tephi, there’s a hard truth in what you’re saying, and it’s one many people don’t want to face.
We can write our wishes, we can try to shape the conditions, but once that threshold is crossed, the field shifts to the living. They are the ones making the decisions, carrying the grief, dealing with the system, and interpreting what they think we wanted. That’s just the reality of being in a shared human world.
But I would add one layer to your point.
Our passing may be handled by the living, yes — but the quality of our leaving still belongs to us.
How we meet that moment… the state of our mind, the peace or resistance we carry, the coherence of our relationships before we go — that’s not taken from us. That’s something we cultivate while we’re still here. And it has a ripple effect on the people who remain.
So I see it as a bridge between two domains:
The inner domain — how we meet the transition, the meaning we’ve made of our life, the peace we’ve come to.
The outer domain — how the living handle the body, the logistics, the rituals, the system.
We can’t control the second completely. But we can influence it by being clear, communicating, and most of all by how we live and relate to the people around us now.
And you’re right about birth and death having that shared-field quality. None of us enters or exits in isolation. We’re always in relationship, always part of a larger human fabric.
That’s why these conversations matter. Even if our wishes aren’t followed perfectly, the act of speaking them plants a signal in the people around us. It gives them a compass, even if they can’t follow it exactly.
So I’d say: accept the limits, like you’re pointing to — but don’t underestimate the power of the signal we leave behind.
Appreciate you bringing that grounded perspective into the discussion.
—Lone Wolf
I appreciate what you have said here. I was responsible for the end of life care for two close family, in last decade. Their responsibilities, finances, health, well being and ultimately their deaths fell right into my hands. What I have learned is....if in the course of your life you surround yourself with kind loving people and are kind and loving back to them. Then things probably will work out the way you wanted. And there will be peace. If your life is filled with acrimony towards others, and they toward you with no peace achieved in life. Then there is no chance, that things work out. People have to take your wishes to heart. It is the people around you that do that. And it matters.
Tea Tephi, what you just shared is lived wisdom, not theory—and you earned it the hard way.
You carried that responsibility for two people at the end of their lives. That tells me you understand something many never do: end-of-life care isn’t just medical, it’s relational. It’s built on the quality of the bonds that were formed long before the final days.
What you said is simple and true:
If a person has spent a lifetime building goodwill, kindness, and real connection, then when the time comes, the people around them want to honor their wishes. There’s trust. There’s care. There’s a natural desire to give them a peaceful crossing.
If the life was filled with conflict, resentment, broken ties… then even written wishes can fall apart because the relational field is fractured. There’s no shared ground to stand on.
So in that sense, the “preparation” for a good death isn’t just paperwork or directives — it’s how we live with each other every day.
It’s the tone we set in our relationships.
It’s the bridges we build or burn.
And you also touched something else quietly: the burden carried by the one who steps up. The one who manages the finances, the health decisions, the final moments. That’s not easy work. It takes strength, patience, and a lot of heart. People don’t always see that from the outside, but it matters deeply.
What I hear in your experience is this:
Peace at the end is seeded in the middle of life.
Kindness compounds.
Relationships are the real “advance directive.”
And when those pieces are in place, the transition can be handled with dignity, even inside a system that often makes it difficult.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. It brings the whole conversation back to what actually counts.
—Lone Wolf
You're right about hospice and palliative care.
Lone Wolf,
Your ending sentence was so profound regarding protecting our death from medicalization: "A human life deserves a human ending".
A human life deserves a human ending — not a managed procedure, not a billing code, but a conscious transition held in dignity, presence, and meaning.
—Lone Wolf
One should only fear death if they work for Pfizer et al. I grew up with the myth of the Hippocratic oath--because of the prevailing propaganda, I actually thought doctors believed in it. Do no harm. How naive! I was able, in all sincerity, to tell my mother, two days before she died, that she was the perfect mother. She laughed at me, but I explained that perfect and flawless are two different things, she did the absolute best with what she had. I have always been grateful for that opportunity.
It is far better to find Christianity (God) way before you have to face death. The peace that will come to you is unbelievable! But as they say better late than never. Thank you For a well written article.
As a culture, we’ve been deprived of honoring our physical passage into the spiritual realm, and forced into the medical complex where the last few dollars can be wrung from our corpse. Death is not a failure of life, it’s a natural process that’s been hijacked from us.
This story sums it up. A friend lived with his parents, both in their 90s. The mother was healthy and functioning, even made a midday meal daily for the friend when he came home for lunch. One day at lunch she asked him to do a number of things when she died, and he laughed her off and said just make me a list so I don’t forget anything. When he got home after work, there was a list on the kitchen table, had done the dishes, laid out the dress she wanted on her bed and was peacefully dead in her armchair. She KNEW. The father, who was sitting in the same room said she told him to get a haircut before her funeral. He passed 13 days later.
> we’ve been deprived of honoring our physical passage into the spiritual realm
Isn't that us ourselves depriving ourselves from connecting with our spiritual origins? Nothing or no-one is forcing us to fully embrace the materialistic soulless world and the especially dark medical system. It's our choice. It's called the planet of the free will for a reason.
When the time comes around to say goodbye to our terrestrial incarnation just make sure you are at home with the family to facilitate the passage. Golden rule. If at all possible.
There are going to be a lot of people dying with no family around. MANY women, myself included, didn't have children. I am preparing for the possibility that I might die alone. Yes, I have a strong spiritual life. Of necessity.
I hope that my mother can find that spiritual connection before she passes. She has been largely indifferent to religion.
When Scott admitted that he had been wrong about the covid injections, he still didn't totally get it. He claimed that those of us who chose not to vaccinate did so because of our distrust of the government and industry. But that was not the case for most of us. We knew that we were not in any more danger of death than we were from any other respiratory illness (unless we went to the hospital, but that's another story). We also knew all of the potential problems with these shots, problems that were just waved away by the "experts". In other words, we had serious concerns based on medical science, not just a lucky hunch.
Like you said, "I know of multiple other instances where individuals who were long considered 'experts in propaganda' made the decision to get the COVID vaccine—something which I view as a testament to just how effectively the vaccine was marketed."
It seems like the study of just how that happened would have been right up Scott's alley if he had been willing to admit he had been duped rather than just "unlucky".
I know what you mean. I had COVID in September of 2020. Some symptoms were weird but I wasn’t really that sick. I knew something was fishy from the beginning but after that I had zero fear about it. I never intended to get the experimental shots or give them to my children (I stopped vaxxing when my youngest was 1 1/2 years old) but the way many people freaked out and believed the propaganda made me feel like I was living in the twilight zone.
This is a very good article about an enduring and challenging topic
One of the codes I witnessed early in the hospital phase of my career particularly had me wondering why it was taking place. Fortunately an older attending physician came in and stopped it. He then proceeded to lecture the team on the condition of the patient and the inappropriateness of the disturbing the patient’s exit with a full code. He was right. But people need to be aware that hospital staff often does not know the patient well and come running to a code full of adrenaline and a head full of protocols and procedures. Getting your general desires into the heads of your family and friends, and perhaps the “chart” is a way to avoid the full code. Use the avenue that you trust the most. If you fear being taken too soon just tell your family about organ donation desires.
Worst thing ever for patients was stopping the visitation. It is needed.
Thanks for doing these shorter versions. They help to ease into the in depth discussions.
Thank you MWD for this post.
Sad to hear about Scott Adams' passing.
It is sad he paid with his life 😢 after getting the lethal covid vaccines 5 years earlier in 2021.
I am seeing a surge in unexpected deaths within 5 years of receiving the covid deaths. It is almost as if they contained a built-in death timer for "5 years". See Mark Crispin Miller's substack for ongoing reporting of the injuries and deaths: markcrispinmiller@substack.com
I am still scratching the area where I unfortunately received one covid shot 5 years ago and am still testing at over 5,000 for detection of spike protein antibodies, (roche SP blood test) !
Possibly this maybe from exposure to all the ongoing shedding from those injected with covid mRNA vaccines.
Not 100% sold on Hospice. They push you to do drugs before it's time. I let them talk me into morphine and was in charge of it when it should have been my dad's decision. And they pointed at him and said, "look at him" when I knew he could still hear. My mom had a stroke here at home, but died in a hospital. I wish I'd moved her here. My dad died here at home and is likely where I will die. But Hospice can be improved, too, trust me. They are not infallible.
We've got a local outfit: Karuna, a Buddhist bunch. They are VERY good in-home hospice. Buddhists respect clarity of death, and probably have more cultural connection to it than the materialistic west. I've donated, and plan to subscribe to them when needed. They may be a global outfit, but I don't know. They are here in Australia.
Yes, I am sure some people have good experiences. We didn't. We were pushed into it, and once my dad heard her say that he quit. He had Parkinson's, not cancer. I was not impressed. They should leave those decisions to the patient and I should have thrown her out instead of believing that morphine wouldn't kill him.
Thanks. Great article. And for me quite timely as I hit my 80th birthday a couple of weeks ago. And the reality of death feels closer than ever. This provides me with a way to discuss what's important with the people who need to know my desires. A problem I've read about is the medical profession often pays no attention to desires like no venting. How do I assure this doesn't happen? I feel no one will be with me to prevent this when it's deemed necessary by some ER doc. Thanks again
You might look into an Advance Directive if you haven't already. Whether they are actually honored by this corrupt profession is another matter though.
Thanks. I have advanced directives but have that fear the medical profession will not honor. Can't figure out a way around this problem
That is the issue isn't it?
When my father had terminal metastatic prostate cancer at age 67, he ordered a dog tag that said DNR, and wore it constantly. He was able to die peacefully at home but the dog tag might have helped if medical personnel were involved.
Thanks. Sounds like a great idea
Yes, Bruce, that's the problem in a nutshell with the advanced directives and the like....you don't know if the corrupt profession will ignore it.
Make sure you have a POLST form and have it posted in your home. POLST stands for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment and it's something you usually set up with your Dr.
I've heard of this but never did it. Thanks for reminder
As an ICU nurse of 24 years, I have dealt a lot with this issue. I have had patients that have had living wills, advanced directives, with explicit instructions of what they want and don’t want for end of life care. There often was that family member who could not let go and would not honor their loved ones wishes. So, it’s not always the medical profession not following the patients wishes but the family. As nurses, we would often say what’s the point of having advanced directives, living wills etc...when they were so easily ignored.
Thanks. Great point about the family not willing to let go
I recall a conversation I had once with a family member that went something like this, “How fortunate you are that you know your loved ones wishes and end of life requests because most people don’t, but how sad that they are not being honored.”
A friend who is Chilean and Christian once told me that North American rejection and repulsion of death seemed bizarre to her. Even the notion of allowing a funeral home to prepare bodies instead of having cherished family members do so was alien to her culture.
The Mexican, Central & South American view of going to the cemeteries to celebrate the lives of loved ones is special. The Ofrenda in the home, to keep the memories alive. LOL I really enjoyed the viewpoint of the Disney film, "Coco." Ancestor - not worship - but - grounding in the Ancestors, makes Death a part of life.
My friend attributed most of it to being Catholic but since Catholics in the US & Canada don't follow these traditions (as far as I know), I would say it's more about Hispanic culture.
Another profound article that is so timely to me. My dad died back in July 2025. He lived 10 hours north of me so it wasn’t easy to be with him during his final months. And he had burnt many bridges with friends who were essentially picking up his slack for so long. He was a weird recluse boomer. Born in ‘48. Died at 77. He was a decent dad, all things considered. But one thing he always despised was the medical establishment. And always insisted, year after year, especially nearing the end, that he would refuse to be placed in assisted living, or resuscitated if it were an option.
Well, how his mind changed when he was admitted to the hospital for the final time, literally lying on his deathbed, with me by his side, when the nurse asked if he wanted CPR. He said “yes, I would like to be resuscitated”. I immediately intervened and said “dad, are you sure? I’ve heard you say for most of my adult life (now 53) that you adamantly oppose that”. He replied by stating, “son, I don’t want to die”. He was not the least bit religious and was actually quite cynical against religion (cynical of everything, really). And I know he was terrified of death his whole life. Was always vegan, ate organic whole foods, walked regularly, etc. All to keep the reaper away. Well, it got him anyway. Prostate cancer. Never went to the doctor to get exams even having a paternal history of it. RIP, Dad.
'No atheists in foxholes' comes to mind. Scott found a connection with the divine at the end and the father of a friend who had been a life-long atheist did too. Our brains live on story, it's how we understand the world. But the atheist story doesn't have a satisfactory ending. We need a better one if we are going to let go. Especially if a person hasn't felt that connection already.
A very profound and thoughtfully written article. Thank you.
Like a baby forced to leave the comfort of the womb and discovers the love of a mother (and father hopefully), so it will be when we are forced from this life. If we profess Christ as our Saviour, he waits to receive us with open loving arms (reading the Bible gives much comfort in this regard).
Thanks for a great article Doc!!