Several months ago I received word that a dear elder friend of mine was preparing for her death after a long but beautiful battle with breast cancer. Her journey to accept her defeat and pass with honor struck a chord with me that resonated for weeks. As strong as her faith and willpower was, for the first time I began to see her true light shine forth when she finally committed herself to her final rite of passage: Death.

Then, just last month while my husband and I were honeymooning in Central America, we received word from his family that our sister-in-law's brother had been killed by gunshot with little reason or warrant to his death. Just as Jesse and I were experiencing our own rite of passage – marriage – our brother-in-law was suddenly thrown into his unexpected passage of death. For several days we shifted our focus from the path we just started to the path that our sweet friend, Roland was now journeying on as well.

In the life cycle of one human, several rites of passage can be experienced which lead each of us through a journey of self-exploration, transformation and change. Birth, puberty, marriage, parenthood and death are the most common rites of passage. Among those, death is one that continues to mystify our curiosity and challenge our ability to face it with courage and fearlessness. What scares most of us about death is the seemingly innevitible consequence of the otherwise comfort of life that is so familiar to us. To some, death is the be-all, end-all, the grand finale, the final score in the game of life. But does it really have to be this way?

This week is Holy Week for many Christians and Jews with Passover, Good Friday and Easter Sunday being the feature ceremonial traditions. Ironically, all of these ceremonies and celebrations occur around the theme of death and its transformational process into rebirth. The great Exodus of the Israelites in Egypt and their swift escape from slaughter and slavery to the holy land of Jerusulem, Judas' betrayal of Jesus that led to their capture and humiliating crucifixion, the resurrection of Jesus... all folklore traditions in our culture that symbolize death, transformation, and the opportunity to ascend into a new paradigm, to awaken and be birthed once again.

Likewise, Holy Week marks the arrival of spring, Mother Nature's own folklore of the rebirth of her little green children after the death of a hard, cold winter. Each year we commemorate this rite of passage of death and rebirth by honoring the deaths of our past and present. We till the old soil and fertilize it with fresh compost, plant seeds, hide spring-colored eggs for children to find and admire the tenacity of tulips as they bring life even in the threat of death. Let this time of year also be an opportunity to acknowledge the little deaths that you experience: the death of a day, the death of an old habit, the death of an old you. We may not always realize it, but we have an abundance of opportunities to experience death everyday, and if we open ourselves up to the process through small practices in this important rite of passage, we might just learn how to have a little more courage and a lot less fear with the big ones.

As a yogi, each asana I step into and each breath I exhale is an opportunity for a little death to occur: the death of stressful day, the death of an old lingering injury, the death of a tight hamstring... the death of a friend that I am devoting my practice and the accompanying pranic energy to... the death of doing things the old way in order to birth into something new. And each inhale is an opportunity to be transformed and rebirthed into a new experience.

In your next yoga session, practice identifying an opportunity for a little death to occur. What does it feel like to let something die? What is dying, or what needs to die? Is there a rebirth of something arising in the process of death? Can you commit to supporting or accepting death in order to allow for something new to come forth? What lesson or wisdom is held in that pose, that breath, or that essence of where you are right now, cradled in an opportunity for transformation? When you reach Savasana (Corpse Pose) in your practice, give yourself the opportunity to rest in devotion to the death process, whether it is with your own small death, or the death of a loved one, be it a pose, a job, a plant, an animal, or person. Give yourself fully to honoring its/his/her life and ask the universe how you can embrace and embody the new life that desires to come forth through you. Just as a sprout innately reaches for the light of the sun when the tempurature is right, awaken from Savasana when you feel your heart is ready to reach fully to the light that shines in and around you, and your body and breath feel enlivened and refreshed by the opportunity to experience something new. 

Namaste.