Recently, I have been aware of four powerful strands moving through my life: bringing my book towards publication, emerging around the menopausal bend, preparing to return to the Amazon with Fundación Pachamama and the 'village' it takes to raise a child, see someone out, or (normally) to create something of meaning.
At first, they may seem like quite different things. Yet for me, they are connected by the question of what we receive, how we allow it to transform us, and what we choose to carry forward as we offer what is ours to offer.
I Will Live Until I Die
First, I want to bow in appreciation to Ya’Acov, who has been working so deeply, strongly and consistently while I have been bringing my book about accompanying my parents through their last seasons towards publication. I'm so grateful for his support.
And the book is getting very close now and I can finally share its title:
I Will Live Until I Die
Accompanying My Parents Through the Final Chapters of Their Lives
The title is my mother’s words when she learnt that she had advanced stage 4 cancer, and the art work is my father's.
I feel profoundly grateful to have had the time, over these past years, to continue digesting what happened and to bring the inner experience of it into words as authentically as I can.
As I have been writing, I have come to recognise that this book is also a bow to my parents, my ancestors and my lineages. They were not perfect, but they carried special qualities, including a deep sense of responsibility for the soil, the Earth and our human part in caring for this planet and each other.
Part of what moved me to write it was the response I received when I shared some of my journal entries and “letters from the hospice” while everything was unfolding. Again and again, people told me that they had never heard death spoken about like this within a family, and that I should share the story more widely.
Writing it has been an extraordinary experience. I have repeatedly had to pull myself back from the temptation to turn what happened into teaching. The words I kept repeating to myself were:
Tell the f*****g story. Just tell what actually happened, and trust the reader to discover their own meaning.
And it is quite a story, full of unexpected twists and turns. At its heart is the ordinary, extraordinary experience of accompanying two people I loved towards the end of their lives.
The way I was able to be with my parents was deeply informed by the practice of embodied listening: listening not only to the words being spoken, but to the arc of a conversation and the arc of a life.
I am proud of this book and of the journey it offers its readers. I hope it will be published before Christmas, I'm looking forward very much to sharing it with you.
The writing of the book also led me back to some deeply distressing experiences in hospital with my father. His life was saved by the NHS and the care he received in intensive care was exquisite. But after he was transferred to the general wards, some of what I witnessed was shocking.
Writing about this part of the journey helped me turn the distress I was still carrying into a formal complaint. The hospital received it with real care, and as a result I was invited to write an article for the BMJ (British Medical Journal) about why gentleness matters in healthcare. I'm aware of how much support I needed to create this and how essential responsible communication practice was to communicate in a way that could be received, did not demonise anyone, and yet was crystal clear about what the lack of empathy and gentleness costs everyone.
So much of this comes back to the emotional intelligence fostered by developing our 'interoception' - which is why we focused on this theme on the Study Hub this September. My big thanks to Kirran Ahmad for your help, support and encouragement with this.
Ultimately my respect and deep thanks to my father for his deep clarity about the life changing significance of gentleness and alongsideness.
You can read the article here;
[Gentleness matters in healthcare]
Around the Menopausal Bend
Having my father to live and die with us, and then writing this book has taken place alongside another profound passage in my life: travelling through menopause and emerging around the far side of what I think of as the menopausal bend.
It has been a life-changing journey for myself, Ya'Acov and the space between us, unsettling at times, but also extraordinarily beautiful, moving and surprising. I feel myself bringing a different energy back into the world now: energy I have discovered, uncovered and alchemised through this metamorphosis.
An important part of that journey was our connection with Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer of Red School. Ya’Acov and I had some extraordinary conversations with them, exploring the depth of menopause and the spiritual architecture of this passage.
You can listen to our conversations and share what they helped us make explicit here:
Red School's free series of talks and workshops on The Spiritual Power of Menopause starts on 12 Oct. If you, or someone you know, is approaching or moving through menopause, you may already know how profound and disorientating this transition can be. Red School offers skilled guidance, companionship and a way of understanding the larger potential of the journey.
[Explore Red School Menopause Month]
Allies with the Forest
The third strand is our continuing relationship with the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous peoples.
Our forthcoming journey with Fundación Pachamama is filling up, and there are now only a few places remaining. Together with Chumpi, Belén and Manari, whom many of you know through the Long Dance, Ya’Acov and I will accompany a group into the Amazon.
This is a rare opportunity to spend time with Indigenous elders and shamans, to experience the living presence of the rainforest and to take part in ceremony.
We need to be clear about the purpose of this journey. It is an invitation to become a more deeply committed ally to the Indigenous peoples of the forest and to the protection of the rainforest itself. It is not a tourist journey. It's about aligning vision, action and contribution.
At its heart is a relationship of mutual support and empowerment. Participants are supported to listen, learn and grow, and to bring what they receive into the heart of their lives and the contribution they want to make in the world. In turn, they are invited to deepen their commitment to the forest and to those who have protected it across generations.
The elders who hold this knowledge and these ceremonial traditions will not be with us forever. To meet and learn from them is both a privilege and a responsibility.
If you feel drawn to this journey and want to understand more about its purpose and what it asks of those who come, read on.
[Dancing with the Heart of the World; Amazon Journey June 2027]
Receiving and Offering
Perhaps this is what joins these three strands for me.
My parents gave me life, love and a lineage that I continue to digest and carry forward.
Menopause has asked me to surrender an old form and discover another source of energy, authority and offering.
The forest and its people invite us into relationship, reciprocity and responsibility for what we love.
In each of these passages, something is received. Something is transformed. And something is asked of us in return. The 4th strand is what all of these threads seem to share: relationship, mutuality, a sense of global village where individuality and community are understood as mutually enhancing.
That's part of what I love about Movement Medicine, as it is growing. I am so very proud of our teachers and the multiplicity of ways they are bringing this medicine into the world.
I wish you all the very best on your journey, and with the alchemy of your own life. I rejoice when we can meet in the room, or in the forest, and that we can also be together through the Movement Medicine Study Hub, and Tribal Heart online ceremonies.
with love,
Susannah
