Musical midwifery for the dying
Therese Schroeder-Sheker
Adapted extract from 'The Luminous Wound', an article printed in an interesting anthology of spiritual preparations for death published as a special issue of Caduceus magazine, Summer 1991, L2-50 (or L11-75 sub) from Caduceus, 38 Russell Terrace, Leamington Spa, Warks CV31 1HE, tel 0926 451897.
I call this work musical-sacramental-midwifery. I first began singing and playing for people who were near their transition when I was a mere girl, full of naivety and intuition, and had very little life experience. Now as a grown woman who has experienced so many kinds of death and tended the deaths of countless men and women, people urge me to write about some of the personal experiences about which I've remained silent.
'I began leaning down to his left ear and singing gregorian chant'
The first time that I was ever actually present and alone with someone who was in fact dying is the first time that I ever really experienced silence, and an indescribably delicate kind of light. The man was struggling, frightened, unable to breathe. No more respirators, dilators, tracheotomies or medicines could resolve his disintegrated lungs. He could take no more in, could swallow no more, and in his complete weariness, there was almost nothing he could return to the world. I climbed into his hospital bed and propped myself behind him in midwifery position, my head and heart lined up behind his, my legs folded near his waist, and I held his frail body by the elbows and suspended his weight. At first I held us both in interior prayer, but soon began leaning down to his left ear and singing gregorian chant almost pianissimo: the Kyrie from the Mass of the Angels, and Adoro te devote, the Ubicaritas, the Salve Regina.
'He immediately nestled in my arms and began to breathe regularly'
He immediately nestled in my arms and began to breathe regularly, and we, as a team, breathed together. It was as if the way in which sound anointed him now made up for the ways in which he had never been touched or returned touch while living the life of a man. The chants seemed to bring him balance, dissolving fears, and compensating for those issues still full of sting. How could they do anything less? These chants are the language of love. They carry the flaming power of hun-dreds of years and thousands of chanters who have sung these prayers before. It seemed that the two of us were not alone in that room. When his heart ceased to beat, I stayed still for long moments. Almost twenty years later, the silence that replaced his struggle and that was present in his room has continued to penetrate the core of my life, birthing stages of hearing that even now flower at unexpected times and places.
When you are really peacefully present with someone whose time has come, all that matters is that they shine through the matrix. People ask if a midwife knows fear or sorrow: none of that exists if you are with the dying person. It's their time, not yours. Any burden or sorrow or wounds of your own disappear. You hold the person and keep vigil while they quietly, almost invisibly, shimmer an indescribable membrane of light. If there is no tenderness in the room, this film dissolves unnoticed. If a midwife is practising inner emptiness, and is capable of profound stillness, she can guard this gossamer film for a moment or an hour. When a dying person's stillness fills the entire room, you can gently let go and lay them to rest. Then you thank them, again and gain, for affirming what is so bright.
Chalice midwives employ harp and voice in assisting the process of death and dying in home, hospital and hospice settings. Readers interested in recordings, publications or the Chalice of Repose training programme and internship may contact them at 4121 Grove Street, Denver, Colorado 80211 USA (tel 303 494 2643; fax 303 433 9053).
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