Ocean Phillips: Spiritual Advocate for the Dying
by INELDA Educator Garrett Drew Ellis
Ocean Phillips (they/them) is an INELDA-trained doula who has led a long life of contemplation and spiritual enlightenment. Dedicated to service and companionship, they believe that “joy comes from serving people by providing the best possible conditions for a peaceful and serene death” and that “as a previous (spiritual) seeker, I now consider myself a ‘finder’ with a mission to serve others, walking this journey back to our original home—our essence of oneness with all that is.”
I was fortunate enough to have a beautiful conversation with Ocean about spirituality, end-of-life support, and advocacy. They have lived such a rich life and now bring a depth of experience to their work as a doula.
This may seem broad, but who is Ocean Phillips?
“That is quite a loaded question,” Ocean says. “I am a spiritual seeker and now a finder. My identity is not really with all the particulars that have made up this life. I am now a septuagenarian. Also keep in mind that for someone influenced by Buddhist concepts, however, it is not ultimately important. It has relative importance that requires acceptance before dissolving any attachment to individual identity. The perception of individual identity is important, it is not ultimately important, as our separateness is considered an illusion. As a spiritual seeker I have experienced most of the world’s religions in some way and format. By education, I became a sociologist with a focus on the sociology of deviance.”
As Ocean explained more, they shared their studying of deviance and how many highly influential people were deemed “hero deviants,” or people who deviated from what was expected of them in pursuit of a righteous call. This led Ocean to explore contemplative and spiritual practices as a way to change how humans in the world can companion each other.
At a certain point in Ocean’s life, they completed a master of divinity degree and began to travel around the globe, accepting a personal calling to provide support for marginalized people. They had a long career in international development, working and living in 45 countries across the world. They worked and supported marginalized groups through recognizing the power people had and equipping people to determine development directives.
Ocean’s experience during their time abroad led them to believe that the aid services they witnessed mainly consisted of people coming into a region with an outside perspective from other cultures and telling people what they lacked. Ocean, however, began to integrate a model of community-driven development. This consisted of working with a diverse collection of people within the community who told Ocean and their team what their needs actually were. Ocean worked not to deliver those services, but to empower the community and to acquire the necessary needs.
Ocean was also present in Thailand during the great tsunami, and this led directly to some early experiences in death work.
Because of the many experiences and influences that Ocean has had, they state that they do not have a strong personal identity culturally. This is in part due to their “seeker” status, borrowing what is most valued from each culture for their own personal well-being. This helps them to connect with clients and people of all backgrounds.
Ocean, how do you define the terms “seeker” and “finder”? What is the difference between the two?
“A seeker is a person who is constantly looking for answers,” Ocean says. “The search is often looking for ways to become a good member of a spiritual community, including learning the practices and insights. Eventually, I came to a point in my walk that all the resources that I need are within me. I don’t need a mediator. It is kind of like one of the tenets of the Hindu religion that says that ‘I am the Universe.’ For me, this is what it means to be a finder. I am affiliated with faith groups, but generally from the point of coming together in community. A finder is someone who comes to realize that they have everything they need. I am not incomplete. I am not broken. I am not a problem to be fixed. And it means looking at other people in that same way as well.”
With Ocean’s deep understanding of spiritual experiences and teachings, they were led to death work because death in and of itself is a spiritual experience. In China, they were introduced to Taoism, one of the world’s first nondual spiritual beliefs. There, Ocean learned about the concept of immortality, or being in contact with the source of life and that which is within us. Life, in Ocean’s opinion, does not disappear once our bodies are disconnected from it. It is not changed.
That idea of immortality was one of Ocean’s first big awakenings. They also regularly practice death meditations that are found in esoteric mahamudra Buddhist practices. It is the idea that contemplating death four or five times a day brings greater happiness. They want to be conscious and present through death.
In 2019, Ocean enrolled in the New York Open Center’s thanatology program, where they met INELDA’s founder, Henry Fersko-Weiss. They were moved by Henry’s message of being able to serve dying people in a nonmedical way. It is now what they call their “encore” career and culmination of their life’s work thus far. Because of this specialized interest in religion, spirituality and death contemplation, they offer their clients as a death doula the opportunity to explore what spirituality means for them, if anything.
“For all, but especially for queer folks, there is a lot of toxic theology that people are carrying with them,” Ocean says. “I’ve experienced firsthand the pain people experience based solely on who they are. I became a humanist chaplain because it puts the full agency and power on the person, not in an outside belief or power. No matter what a person’s religious background, if any, this is spirituality.”
As a Humanist chaplain in addition to being a doula, Ocean believes that it would do society well to return to the sentiments of Lady Cicely Saunders, the founder of the first model of hospice in England (St. Christopher’s Hospice). Saunders was a medical doctor as well as an Anglican theologian. In her mind, the medical doctor and the chaplain were two wheels that operated at the same time, in comparison to today where the chaplain is a sort of auxiliary wheel. In hospice today, an individual must call upon the chaplain, versus an automatic recognition that spirituality is a part of everyone’s experience, in whatever form it takes for them. Ocean likes to think of the doula role as that of a spiritual care provider, again, in whatever form that presents itself for a person.
You mentioned a transformative near-death experience in your life. Are you willing to share this with us?
“Around 20 years ago, I experienced a shared death experience with my mother,” Ocean says. “I was hit in Siberia by a drunk driver and left on the side of the road. He later returned and took me to the hospital. As I lay in that liminal space, I heard the doctors saying, ‘He has no vital signs—put in a catheter!’ And the only thing I was focusing on was breathing techniques and knowing everything was going to be fine.
Days later I received a message to call my family in my hometown. The wife of a stepbrother answered the phone with, “We missed you at your mother’s funeral.” I learned in those moments that my mother had stood up from her bed around the same time I was hit and fell to the floor dead from a massive heart attack. I felt she had died allowing me and my calling to continue this work. When I am walking people through the end of their lives in various ways. I have a feeling I have been here before. I learned to surrender. As Stephen Jenkinson has stated, “Death is completely safe.”
Ocean, seeing as you served INELDA in helping to lead the Pride Advisory Council, what are your hopes and dreams for the organization?
“I applaud INELDA’s proactive stance to be antiracist and conscious of inclusivity,” Ocean says. “In my own personal experience, I have heard many people express concern that they thought you could only be a doula if you were Buddhist, partly because Henry, INELDA’s founder, came from a Zen background. I would love to see INELDA grow its diversity in terms of people of different faiths being represented in leadership, offerings, and more. Whether through chaplaincy or something else, this representation is important. Not all people have a proclivity toward spiritual searching, but many do and find that it is important to them at the end of life. This could be a great opening for a lot of transformation.”
Any closing thoughts?
“I am recognizing how all my experiences throughout my past have led me here. All different aspects of experiences I have had—all finding a place to do this work,” Ocean says. “My near-death experiences and particularly my shared death experience with my mother have led the way with a felt sense of remembering that death is a passageway to another realm of consciousness. My experience as a community organizer and builder with the concept of community-driven development has allowed me to recognize people’s innate power to determine their own destiny based on their inherent values. My experience as a postdoctoral graduate in the sociology of deviance [has helped me] to recognize the indomitable force of the ‘hero deviant’ like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who awakened the consciousness of the people of the United States of America and established a pathway for a new ethic on inclusion, justice, and equity. The experience of over two decades of teaching in higher education [has led] to currently facilitating discussions with seniors on practical guidelines to age wisely and prepare for a good death based on one’s own terms.”
Bio: Ocean Phillips, PhD, MDiv, is the Owner of Homecoming Journeys, where they offer “Contemplative Care for Those Seeking Peace on Their Homecoming Journey.” They were a postgraduate student at Maryknoll Theological Seminary and received a master of divinity degree (MDiv) from Unification Theological Seminary. They are an INELDA-trained end-of-life doula and a founding member of the INELDA LGBTQIA2S+ Advisory Council, and they received a certificate in Integrative Thanatology and the Art of Dying Institute from the New York Open Center. They are also a proud member of the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), a volunteer education ambassador for SAGE LGBTQ Advocacy and Services, cochair of the Unitarian Society of New Haven’s LGBTQ Task Force, and a cochair of the New Haven Pride Center Rainbow Elders Affinity Group.