We’ve Forgotten How to Die(And It’s Ruining How We Live)

What If This Is Heaven and You’re Missing It?

I sat in a room with a man who’s been placed on hospice care. He’s mobile. He gets around with a walker. He feeds himself, crunches on ice for half an hour straight, and watches Fox News like it’s oxygen. He's not actively dying — at least not in any way I’ve come to recognize in my years of holding space for the sacred, painful, beautiful process of death.

But he’s “eligible.”

And so, he’s been folded into the system — the broken, sanitized, bureaucratic version of what we once did as a family, as a village, as a people who understood that death is not a diagnosis, it’s a passage.

His wife, stooped over in pain, walks with a broken body and never asks for help from her grown children who live nearby. She does everything. He keeps her up at night, calling out for her restlessly, and then sleeps through the day. She doesn’t sleep much at all. And I’m not judging — I know this isn’t about blame. This is about a system that’s designed to keep the appearance of support while missing the point entirely.

Hospice used to mean someone was in the active dying process. That the body was letting go. That the soul was preparing to cross. That the family was circling the wagons. Now it often means this: “We can’t fix you, so we’ll place you here. We’ll send someone for a short visit. We’ll document decline. We’ll meet the requirements. We’ll keep it neat.”

But dying is not neat.
Caregiving is not neat.
Aging is not neat.
Grief is not neat.

And yet here we are, expecting a 90-year-old man to lift, change, and care for his dying wife. And a woman in constant pain to stay quiet and never ask her children for help — not because they can’t, but because she’s internalized the toxic belief that her suffering should be quiet and self-contained.

And maybe that’s the real issue.
The outsourcing of responsibility. Of presence. Of soul.

I Didn’t Always Know Death Was a Portal

I didn’t come into this life fully aware that death was a portal.
I had to live it. Over and over again.

Through loss. Through witnessing. Through the unbearable tenderness of holding hands with the dying and the silent stillness that follows the last breath. I’ve sat with it long enough to know — this isn’t just the end of a body. This is passage. This is transformation.

I started volunteering after my boyfriend collapsed and died in bed with me. It was sudden. It was intimate. It was life-changing. And in that moment, I wasn’t afraid. I was awake. I was present. I knew death.

That moment became a calling — one I couldn’t ignore. And as I walked into hospice work, I quickly realized something painful and sobering:

We’ve forgotten how to die.

Now, I ask my clients a simple but loaded question:
What do you think happens when you die?

Because that belief — conscious or unconscious — shapes everything.
How we live. How we grieve. How we show up for death when it enters the room.

Do you think you go to heaven?
Do you imagine paradise waits for you “over there”?
Do you believe in a reunion with your loved ones somewhere beyond the stars?

Or…
Is it possible that this — right here, right now — is heaven?
And that you’ve been too distracted, too busy waiting for a next life or next world to see it?

Because I’ll say it:
The idea that you have to die to get to paradise is insane.

It’s a lie sold to people who’ve forgotten how to be present.
A story handed down to control behavior and postpone awakening.
A convenient excuse to ignore the sacredness of this moment.

Heaven or Hell? You’re Already There.

I hear it all the time — especially from the ones steeped in religion:
“If you’re not saved, you’ll go to hell.”
“If you don’t believe in Jesus, you won’t make it to heaven.”
“If you haven’t accepted salvation, it’s too late.”

But here’s what I’ve come to see:

Hell isn’t some fiery pit you drop into after you die.
It’s a state of being — one that many people are already living in.

Hell is disconnection.
Hell is fear disguised as righteousness.
Hell is judging others in the name of a God you barely know.
Hell is waiting for paradise while refusing to see the miracle of the present moment.

And heaven?
It’s not out there, waiting beyond the clouds.
It’s right here, in the breath you’re taking now.
It’s in presence. In love. In truth. In remembering.

You can’t experience heaven when you’re obsessed with proving your worth.
You can’t receive paradise if you’re too busy condemning others to hell.
And you can’t welcome death as sacred if you’ve been taught to fear it your whole life.

The Scorpio Knows

As a Scorpio, death doesn’t scare me. It calls to me.

It’s not morbid curiosity — it’s soul work. The kind that pulls you toward what others avoid. The kind that invites you to sit at the edge, feel everything, and still stay present.

I see what most people don’t want to see.
I say what most people won’t say.
I know that death is not the end — it’s the doorway.

Scorpio energy rules the underworld, the shadow, the transformation process.
And in this culture, we’ve forgotten all of it.
We’ve sanitized death. We’ve buried our dead in layers of denial. We’ve placed bodies in boxes inside boxes, underground and untouched — as if decay is failure and returning to the earth is something to be prevented.

But death isn’t a mess to be cleaned up.
It’s a sacred handoff.

Death Taught Me How to Live

Death has been one of my greatest teachers.
Not just because of who I’ve lost, but because of who I’ve become through each loss.

I don’t fear it. I don’t run from it.
I walk with it. I listen to it. I learn from it.

Death stripped away the fluff and the fake.
It burned down what didn’t matter.
It taught me that love is the only thing worth leaving behind.
And that presence — real, embodied, grounded presence — is heaven.

If you want to be saved, start by saving yourself from the lie that paradise is postponed.
If you want to live forever, start living fully now.
If you want to know what happens after you die — pay attention to how you’re living before you do.

Because denial won’t save you.
Control won’t save you.
Religion won’t save you.
Only truth will.
And truth starts with looking death in the eye and saying:
I see you. I honor you. Teach me how to live.

If this cracked something open in you — welcome. You’ve just found your way into The Maya Files, where I name the illusions, question the systems, and speak the sacred truth beneath it all.
Explore more here → www.the.mayafiles.com