Beth McDonald on the Art of a Good Death: Astrology, Ritual & the Healing We Still Have Time For

At District216, we gather each week to explore the edges of human experience — the places where science, spirit, psychology, and community converge. But few conversations touch the core of our humanity the way last night’s event with Beth McDonald did.

Beth — a psychic, astrologer, business consultant, and lifelong student of ancient wisdom — guided our community into a topic most people avoid until it is too late: how to create a good death.

This wasn’t a conversation about endings.

It was a conversation about completion. Integration. Repair. Liberation.

And it landed deeply for a room full of people navigating aging parents, generational trauma, unresolved stories, and the quiet fear of what we don’t talk about.

Beth began by naming a truth that many feel but few articulate:

Our Baby Boomers are dying, and we are not prepared.

In America, most people do not die the way they want to die.

Families are rushed, disconnected, or in conflict.

Hospitals dominate the experience.

Spiritual closure is rare.

And generational wounds often remain unhealed even in the final hours.

Beth reframed death not as a medical moment, but as a sacred transition — one that every family can learn to support with intention.

A good death, she said, is not a luxury.

It is a birthright — and a responsibility.

Beth’s gift is her ability to weave together worlds:

• Astrology reveals the soul’s long arcs — cycles, closures, and karmic timing.

• Cutting-edge psychology addresses fixation, emotional looping, and family systems.

• Aboriginal wisdom brings back the forgotten art of communal care.

• Ritual reconnects us to meaning, ancestry, and presence.

• Psychedelics, when integrated responsibly, can soften fear and open pathways to peace.

Through these lenses, Beth showed how families can move from resistance to participation — transforming the end-of-life process into a space of healing rather than fear.

She shared stories of families who reconciled decades of conflict in the final weeks…

of individuals who met their transition with clarity instead of terror…

and of how ritual can help the living as much as the dying.

One of the most powerful teachings of the night was this:

There is still time to heal with the people you love.

Even at the end. Especially at the end.

Beth spoke about the “window of reconciliation” — the period when mortality awakens honesty, vulnerability, and a willingness to release old patterns. These moments, she reminded us, are profound opportunities for:

• Repairing family wounds

• Forgiving and being forgiven

• Naming legacy

• Creating meaning

• Making peace with what was lived — and what wasn’t

When supported with consciousness, these experiences don’t just help the dying.

They change the entire lineage that follows.

As a culture, we are losing our elders quickly — and without the frameworks, community, or consciousness that once guided these transitions.

Beth’s talk was a call to reclaim that responsibility.

• To sit with our parents and grandparents.

• To ask the real questions.

• To create ritual.

• To slow down.

• To participate in their transition rather than witnessing it from a distance.

A good death is not an accident.

It is something we prepare for, design, and hold together.

Beth left us with a simple but transformative truth:

Death is not the opposite of life — it’s the completion of it.

And when we approach it with intention, openness, and love, it becomes one of the most powerful healing opportunities a family will ever experience.

District216 is honored to host voices like Beth’s — voices willing to lead us into the deep places, the uncomfortable places, and the places where transformation is still possible.

Here’s to reclaiming the art of a good death.

Here’s to healing our families, honoring our elders, and meeting the end with consciousness rather than fear.

💜 District216

Change Your Lens. Expand Your Life.