Keith Quayle | Writer / Advocate for Trans and Gender Diverse People in Prison

What is death? That's what people wonder. That is the question I am being asked today. Is it the end? Is it linear? Is it what we would like it to be? We know most European religions say if you are good, if you are worthy, then you ascend to the heavens and if you are bad, there's a place in the fiery pits of hell. That is too simple and it doesn't make sense to me.

Death is a part of life, it's the ongoing experience we all share, it is latent and it lives inside of me as it does you. I am comfortable with it. It reminds me of how little and so much we know about the wonders, the sea, the clouds, the rain, the sun and the moon. I do not fear it. 

Indigenous understanding of death is different around the world but the common thread is that life and death are connected and we look to the sky. Like an old lover, we grieve what they were and think we still are. Sometimes we don't want to let go because we feel we haven't achieved what we want. In all species around the world, we are the Indigenous caretakers. As a Barkindji man we are meant to care for the bony brim fish, the dingo and the eagle. At what moment did Europeans decide they are the superior animal?

In my culture we understand life is a longer journey, when a person passes, that spirit enters the spiritual realm. We (blackfullas) have a connection to land, earth, spirit and country. We appreciate the dead things we eat and we give thanks for their life that gives us sustenance. 

We tend to think of death as something that will naturally come when we are old but we know many murders, many incidents, many accidents that can happen before we expire.

I am going to take you on a laughing journey. Through horror films and shows like ‘Ghost Hunters’ we try to understand death: can we touch them? can we know them? I love the dramatic moments of these programs and I equally laugh at their hypocrisy. We are to imagine an old colonel, this white wanderer of the sea and land and they forget about the blackfullas that have been living there for 1000s of years. It is laughable that they try to find the dead.

When we die, we move onto another plane, one not known to liveable eyes. That's why we look to the sky. It is in this place of unknowing that marvellous things bring, some cultures believe in reincarnation, some believe you ascend or descend.

I believe when your time is up, you start breathing more shallow, your heart beats at a slower rhythm and you fall in and out of consciousness and then you finally take your last breath. You move on with the ancestors and creators. You have the opportunity to ask all those deep seeded questions you pondered on earth. Your energy becomes a floating mass and you are able to be with your loved ones, once again.

Positive and brilliant matter. Although we grieve each other, those on earth will dance in a harmonic flow and in case it is imaginative, I will paint it my way, which is also yours. 

So, when my mother spirit calls me from the physical world, I will greet her at my door like an old family member, like an old friend, like an old lover and I will take her hand and say, I am ready, take me with you.

—Keith Quayle (2024)

Editor’s note: Keith Quayle is a Malyangapa / Barkindji gay man who grew up on Dharug country. He has a passion for grassroots advocacy and lived experience of the carceral system which informs the work he carries out on behalf of LGBTQIA+ people in prison. He is also a passionate and gifted writer and poet.

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