Our dear friend Tamarra Lynn passed peacefully on her terms and in her own way. I’ll never forget the first time I did a past life regression meditation with her laying on the couch at the UCC church several years ago. Both of us at the very same time seeing the same beautiful things as if connected by a thread making us both a believer of things considered Woo woo even more. Later she would travel to our cabin like house in Greene where we would sit amongst the flowers the pond, the birds and the fauna preparing for a shamanic journey each of us reveling in our natural instincts to remember our very pagan and earth wisdom roots. I’d like to think that perhaps those trips early on to our house in the woods is what inspired her to leave her life as a lawyer, move to Maine and live off grid. When we moved to our 1869 gothic revival church in Wellsburg she was the first to come out and see me for a session, she ate lunch with us and I showed her the property. Still filled with weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk she proudly pointed out the plants and we both chuckled and agreed there was no such thing as weeds and that every plant had a purpose and a plan. We stayed in touch through the years with our fae stories and her adventures of living off the grid still communing up to her very last breath. Tamarra died the very way she lived-Her own way. And I will always remember that about her. A Joan of Arc for this new world. I look forward to hearing her podcast that she did in her final days and hope you will join me in listening to it too (link is on the bottom of this post) But first do yourself a favor and read her final words and extremely courageous act of death that she took into her own hands thanks to the her resigning in the state of Maine. 
By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I will have transitioned from this world to the next. On Saturday, April 16, 2022, I chose to end my suffering by taking the pharmaceutical cocktail offered as medical aid in dying through Maine’s Death with Dignity Act. I had pancreatic adenocarcinoma that had spread aggressively. My organs were failing. I was not long for this world anyway. I have also chosen my new forever name: Tamarra Lynn Strawn Grenfell Smith. The reality is that the suffering was constant and not getting any better. The pain. The discomfort. I fought as long and hard as I could but, truth be told, ‘twas likely the chemo that killed me, rather than the cancer itself. It’s poison, that, and it was convincingly sold to me, and I bought it. I feel betrayed, misled. If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t do chemo. I actually felt pretty good before starting chemo, once we got the pain under control. But the chemo came with side effects that became cumulative and ultimately never resolved, edema and ascites (free fluid in the abdominal cavity) becoming the bane of my existence, leaving me with a very much willing spirit, but a body too weak and sick to contain it. It sucks, but I needed to go while my life force was still strong, while I was still me, while I still had the capacity to appreciate the little things: the blooming coltsfoot, the returning blackbirds, the ever-present chickadees, the “greening up” of the world around me. I do desperately wish there were more time, but there wasn’t. Every life is a life interrupted by death, whether it’s that of a 3-day old infant or of a 97-year-old man. Most of us don’t get to know the time and manner of our death. I’m lucky; I did. I got to finish at least some business, and I got to do the important things, even though it was the end. I burned the good candles. I used the fuzzy blanket I was saving. I wore my comfy baby doll dresses. I used the good stationery. We got a rug. We got a bed frame with under bed storage. All the things we wish we had done sooner. You have those things too. DO THEM NOW. I couldn’t see the ocean again, so dear friends brought the ocean to me – in a gallon jug and in the form of hand processed sea salt that could be reconstituted into sea waters as well as just straight up used in dishes and licked off my fingers. One of my last delicious acts was a bath in sea water. What a special treat!I said the goodbyes that I could, that I had the energy for, and then when it was time, I and my community went into ritual, with storytelling, song-singing, and celebration of a life that was so beautiful and yet so tragically cut short. Rest assured that I died on my own terms: with my loving community surrounding me, feeling sad and mad and all the feelings that accompany this beautiful unfairness, and in the arms of my beloved. I can only speculate, but I believe I will have drifted off to sleep after ingesting my special made cocktail, likely within 3-4 minutes, and I just stayed blissfully asleep until my breathing and my heart slowed until they stopped. Judge if you want. Disagree if you want. Call it suicide if you want. You’d be wrong. I call it mercy and taking control of an untenable situation. Why would I want to suffer while cancer eats my body and steals my life force when I can hasten Death, which has already started His magical transformative work in my life? I’ve got things to do in the Realm Beyond. Someone needs my guidance as I step into the role of ancestor and guide. I feel the pull of the soil, and I can no longer ignore her siren song. My body has been cared for ritually and laid to rest in a private place where I can return to earth the way nature intended. My body will become soil. It’s the circle of life. My work is done here. We sanitize and medicalize important life transitions like birth and death. This is wrong. This is not how we used to do things or are meant to do them. I have a death doula. I have a top notch spiritual team to see me to the other side. I need your tears to help in this. Grieve me as fiercely as you have loved me. This helps send me into the arms of the ancestors where I belong. My time on earth, it’s been explained to me, was more like summer camp. I’m home now. So no more medicalizing of natural life events! Why would you want to slink off to a hospital to die among strangers who can only care so much thanks to a heartless data-driven system that sees patients not people, diseases not souls? The constant beeping of IV monitors, the useless interruptions to take vital signs that don’t really matter, the perpetual needle sticks and blood draws, the absolute lack of love and comfort offered by a sterile, heartless, money-driven machine? Why not choose to die at home, even if you can’t choose with such precision the Full Pink Moon as I was able, surrounded by comforts and the people and pets who love you? Having chosen what I chose, I know what I recommend. We need to shift the paradigm. Death is part of life. Grief is part of love. Take responsibility for your roles in all of these. Participate fully in life. You owe it to yourself and to everyone you love and who loves you. Shift the paradigm. Shift your vision. I suggest you participate in a grief ritual as soon as you are able. I’m home now. You’ll eventually come home too. Know that, if you’re terminally ill, you may have some say in what that looks like. Exercise it. Embrace it. You’ll be glad you did. I wish I knew what I’m up to now, but I know I’m around. In the wind. In a flock of chickadees, hummingbirds or butterflies, in the ocean. I’m everywhere, because I, like you, am the universe. We are all made of the same star stuff, and to it we shall each return. You’ll always be given a choice. Choose love. Every single time, choose love. You’ll never, ever regret it. I love you all. Live fully. Live well. But most importantly, live. You only get one shot. I’ll be watching. As will all your guides and ancestors. They’ll help you when it’s time. And learn to grieve, dammit. Cry. Scream. Wail. Punch pillows. Rail against the universe. Honor us dead by grieving. And if you don’t know how to grieve, learn. I recommend Martin Prechtel’s “The Smell of Rain on Dust”, Francis Weller’s “Wild Edge of Sorrow”, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” and Sobonfu Some’s “The Spirit of Intimacy”. I leave you one final gift: thanks to Heather Fiore I was interviewed for a podcast just before I died. It’s called No Politics, Just people with Matt Brooks https://podcasts.apple.com/…/no-politics…/id1595453620
