I float as light as air, feeling a bit like a ghost because it feels so unreal. Am I still here? It feels so light. I can still sense myself in my body, but now, nothing weighs me down. My vision is crystal clear. My body rests in sturdiness without heaviness. I have the energy and will to fulfill my dreams, and then I will slumber in deep, peaceful rest. I am happy. I am living without constraints. I see myself finally doing and being all that I have always wanted for my entire life.

My heavy body lies dead beside me. I fear that is the real me, and I am just floating in a non-existent realm of fantasy and death. I was dead for all my life. Almost fifty years were spent there with so much heaviness that I could not breathe. I could not move. In the end, I felt like I was losing everything as some brain tumour was taking me down, blindness and all.

Now, everything is crystal clear – from what I can see in my surroundings to what I can see in my future. My imagined family, made from the universe, holds my lifeless body. My great-grand-ancestral mother cradles my head as the rest of the women and one man circle my body. Great Mama tells me that they have me, and I can let go and rest now. I am scared. I have always been scared of death. I fear I will wither away into nothingness while forced to watch it all. I feel sick in this body – frozen, trapped, and pressured. I can’t move. I can’t see. I can’t eat. My stomach is far too nauseous. I am dizzy, tired, and mournful for my decay. Like the flu that won’t show up and let go, I am trapped in a never-ending cycle of fight or flight until I succumb to decay.

I want to let go and rest so my old self can die at the hands of my family. I want the new me to live without bindings, finally. But I hold back out of fear that this new me might not really exist at all.

My body sways between illness and freedom, screaming in the struggle for liberation and glory. Perhaps I should sit here for a while and see what is intended for me.

Transitions are hard, scary, and frustratingly slow. I’ve learned to be patient from having done this hundreds of times in the past. This one feels monumental, though. Life changing. But so did the others at the time.

I am going to sit through another round of death and rebirth courageously. I have learned that even with all my fears, I am one fearless, witchy woman who continues to strive forward instead of remaining in a murky past. Courage is the gold of fear when we dare to face it. And with that comes confidence, power, a sense of worth, and a sense of identity. I have forged my bones and boldness from the alchemical process of fear into courage. All my previous deaths felt like endings. This one does, too. I catch myself saying, “This time is different.” It isn’t. I don’t have proof of my future yet, but I do have past experiences to support my trust now.