The Last Adventure of Life:
Sacred Resources for Transition,
by Maria Dancing Heart
Bridge to Dreams Publishing, Clinton, Washington, 2005 

Maria (Dancing Heart) Hoaglund is a life-long spiritual seeker interested in helping others identify and trust the spiritual within themselves. The daughter of Lutheran missionaries to Japan, she grew up there and developed a unique, cross-cultural perspective on life. She graduated from Yale College, attended seminary at Pacific School of Religion, and obtained her Master of Divinity Degree from Chicago Theological Seminary. Dancing Heart served as a parish minister with the United Church of Christ before becoming a hospice chaplain more than 10 years ago. Her book is a reflection of her own spiritual journey and work with hospice and may be ordered directly from the author's website, www.bridgetodreams.org.

A review of The Last Adventure of Life
By Barbara Kammerlohr

Denial of death and dying is one of the most profound issues we face as we undertake life’s Second Journey. At the same time that our own mortality begins to assert its existence, many of us confront final goodbyes to our parents. Having lived 60+ years in a culture that encourages ignoring (and even denying) death, we have few tools to deal with it effectively — either for ourselves or others. Maria Dancing Heart has found a way to transcend this cultural liability, develop an understanding of the dying process, and share her insights with the rest of us. She does so in her self-published book, The Last Adventure of Life, (Clinton,Washington: Bridge to Dreams, 2005).

In spite of its apparent brevity (318 pages), The Last Adventure of Life can be viewed as two books: a practical resource for those caring for a dying loved one, and a realistic introduction to the spiritual aspects of the dying process for those just wanting to explore the issue.

The book is a combination of Dancing Heart’s own words and carefully selected writings from others. The Zen-like quality of what she herself writes is a reflection of her practical, no-nonsense approach to looking death in the eye and not blinking. In fact, the reader gets the idea that Dancing Heart’s life-long spiritual search has brought her to such a comfortable relationship with death that sharing these insights with others is easy for her. The evocative, emotional tones in the book come from her generous selection of the prose and poetry of others. There are carefully chosen passages from well-known authors such as Joan Borysenko, Gerald Jampolsky, and Lao Tsu as well as the not so well known wisdom of her own hospice patients and their loved ones. The reflections by hospice clients, written during that magical moment just before Death, are often poetic and guide the reader to an intimate understanding of one of the most private moments we must all face.

The poetic passages seem to have been chosen with a very practical purpose: to convince the reader to drop his carefully defended denial of death and see enough beauty in the completion of a journey to have an open heart. Many have experienced and described the magical moments leading up to and at the time of death. It is not possible to read these sacred accounts and, at the same time, pretend that death does not exist. For a brief moment, the reader is brought face to face with a fearful, yet mystical, beautiful truth.

For those seeking practical advice and wisdom, Dancing Heart includes a chapter of resources and a detailed explanation of hospice care. She also answers many questions: How can we ‘start the conversation’ with our loved one who is sick and perhaps dying? What are some of the signs that death is approaching? How can I be with someone through this time as death nears? How do I say goodbye? What do I do immediately after my loved one dies at home? What are some alternatives, besides more medication, to cope with the pain? What is hospice, and how does it work? What is a near death experience?

Her answer to the question about saying goodbye is typical of her brevity and pointed directness:

These are probably the most basic thoughts that you’ll want to convey to your beloved ones before you leave them, or before your beloved leaves you. Don’t wait until the last minute to share your deepest feelings, like why and how you appreciate and love them. (1) Thank you. (2) I love you. (3) Please forgive me. (4) I forgive you. (5) Goodbye. God be with you.

When Dancing Heart tries to convey the sacredness and mystery of the moment of death, she makes one short statement herself: “It is a time… filled with awe and unexplainable mystery”. Then, she completes the chapter with a generous collection of journal entries and poetry eliciting an emotional tone reflective of the special experiences that happen at the time of a loved one’s passing. This short quotation from Kahlil Gibran is an example of the beauty and mystery that fills the rest of the chapter:

Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return….
Forget not that I shall come back to you… A little while, a moment
Of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.

The reviewer Barbara Kammerlohr, a teacher for most of her adult life, is an assistant professor in a small liberal arts college in the San Francisco Bay Area, a career she embraced after her first retirement. Barbara also developed and teaches a class about aging for those in the early stages of “retirement.” As her review above indicates, Barbara participated in the Second Journey Visioning Council which was held on Whidbey Island in July of 2006; there she met Maria Dancing Heart.