“[Don Juan] advised the young anthropologist to see death as your best friend, as your trusted advisor… Don Juan said that there is nothing else in life that is as reliable as death. Death is certain. Death is going to show up. Death is going to be there, and that’s the sort of friend that you want—the one that’s going to show up, the one that’s going to be there, without fail.”
— Jiro Taylor
Jiro Taylor is one of the living humans I’m paying the most attention to.
I consider him an artist, seer, visionary, and philosopher with his fingers pressed firmly to the pulse of the zeitgeist.
As such, it was an absolute honor and joy to ‘sit down’ digitally with Jiro and record one of the best conversations of my life.
Me: What do you mean when you say something like the Absolute, or Divinity, or God?
Jiro Taylor: Pure Awareness.
Recorded in late 2019, this far-reaching conversation touches on death, God, awakening, the planetary transition, and liberating ourselves on every level.
It is highly relevant to everything that’s happening now, post-COVID-19.
Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Jiro Taylor:
Jiro Taylor on death:
“It’s so valuable to have these conversations about death. As often as possible I try to have a conversation with death. For many reasons, but to de-stigmatize it and bring it into the light…
I was very influenced by the work of Carlos Castaneda when I was a teenager… Carlos Castaneda was a Western anthropologist who went and studied with a shaman living in what is now called Mexico and basically was initiated and went on multiple, multiple journeys with this very wise individual, Don Juan… It was my first introduction to a non-Western paradigm of death. [Don Juan] advised the young anthropologist to see death as your best friend, as your trusted advisor. And I remember reading this and it was just a completely new idea… and so I really dropped into it. Don Juan said that there is nothing else in life that is as reliable as death. Death is certain. Death is going to show up. Death is going to be there, and that’s the sort of friend that you want—the one that’s going to show up, the one that’s going to be there, without fail. That’s the sort of friend you want. So he’s saying keep death close to you, because he is the only certain thing in life…
My initiations with Ayahuasca taught me so much about death, about plunging into the chasm, the blackness, the darkness, and being re-birthed. My paradigm on how to live our best lives—what I teach, my philosophy on how to live our best lives—is completely based upon learning how to die. Completely based upon that. How to live well is in complete proportion, complete relationship, with learning how to die well… Learning how to die, in the sense of identities dying. Learning how to let old ways of being die… Nature is continuously teaching us that the fundamental pattern of the Universe is death and rebirth…
I kid you not, I love living, but I am not not looking forward to dying. I am not resistant to dying. There is a part of me that’s kind of like, just, quietly excited. Yeah, there’s a part of me that’s just excited about what comes next. And that’s genuine. It’s taken me years to get there.”
Highly Recommended: Find more of Jiro’s work at Flowstate Collective, his personal website, and his Facebook page.
About Jordan Bates
Jordan Bates is a Lover of God, healer, mentor of leaders, writer, and music maker. The best way to keep up with his work is to join nearly 7,000 people who read his Substack newsletter.
