"The River Styx isn't far ahead. When it's time for the final
crossing, doc, I want you there at the helm." Hearing these words from
Steven Foster, hospice physician Scott Eberle unhesitatingly responded, "I
give you my word, Steven. If it's within my powers, I'll be there." In a
matter of weeks, Steven would be dead, having succumbed to a genetic lung
disease at the young age of 64. The Final Crossing is the story of the
journey these two people made together across the river that separates the
living from the dead.
Steven and his wife, Meredith Little had spent
nearly thirty years exploring, creating, and enacting wilderness rites of
passage - a form of symbolic death. Scott had spent nearly twenty years
learning to help others through the rite of passage that is physical death,
and more recently he had also begun working as a wilderness guide. As
Scott writes in the book, "while symbolic dying and literal dying are
obviously not the same, they are deeply connected." During Steven's final
days, the lessons they taught each other about symbolic and physical death
-- were profound. As an old medieval prayer says, "To be blessed in death,
one must learn to live. To be blessed in life, one must learn to
die.
Dr. Scott Eberle is a physician specializing in end-of-life
care, an experienced teacher and author, and medical director of Hospice of
Petaluma in Petaluma, California. Having first learned
the science of
medicine at the University of California at San Francisco medical
school, he then learned
the art of medicine from countless people
living and dying with AIDS in the 1980's and 1990's. He survived this
difficult time by regularly seeking sanctuary, either in monasteries or in
the natural world, completing more than 150 retreats during a fifteen-year
period.
In 1998 he founded the Center for Wellness in Medicine, which
offered experiential workshops for physicians, nurses, and others in health
care. After training as a wilderness guide at Wilderness Rites and the
School of Lost Borders, he expanded the Center's work to include vision
quests and day walks, again focusing on outreach to people in healthcare.
Soon after joining the faculty at the School of Lost Borders in 2003, he
disbanded the Center for Wellness in Medicine to focus on wilderness work
through this school - work he does as a complement to his hospice
practice.
In 2003, during the first of the home visits described in
The Final Crossing, Scott said to Steven Foster and Meredith Little
"The cutting edge of my inner world right now is exploring how to merge
that outdoor work and my hospice work." Some time after Steven's death,
Meredith asked him to join her as a teaching partner to explore this very
edge. Together they are co-creators and co-directors of "The Practice of
Living and Dying," a nature-based experiential curriculum that supports
people to explore their own stories about living and dying.
Recently
Scott ended his 16 year career as an AIDS specialist so he could focus his
medical practice on end-of-life care. As he writes in The Final
Crossing: "So now I am a physician who specializes in supporting life
transitions and a hospice doctor who sits with the dying in their homes,
and I am a rite-of-passage guide who sits with 'the dying' out in the
desert."
