Thoughts on Death

[qos]

[x-posted]

Death is so often conceptualized as an external force or being, someone or something that "comes for us." Death is an angel. Death is a cloaked man or skeleton with a scythe. Death is a beautiful goddess. Death is a cute goth chick with an ankh t-shirt.

But today I'm thinking of death as a seed, a tiny dark nugget placed into the body with the soul, nestling in the depths of our incarnate being until the body breaks somehow, freeing it to blossom.

We enter this life bound to exquisite, vulnerable, limited bodies. We enter this life without conscious memory of being immortal beings, fragments of divinity. We live life with no assurance that it's not the only game in town, with the stakes unutterably high because there are no second chances.

Then something happens: accident, disease, aging. . . and we break. Our bodies and brains crack and shatter like the shells they are. And in the midst of pain -- or so quickly that we don't have time to register what's happening -- death emerges from our depths: our escape hatch back into the transcendent reality of our immortal lives.

We leave behind the Game, the Work, the grand Adventure.
We escape back where we belong: home.

Comments

[sharpchick.livejournal.com]

We leave behind the Game, the Work, the grand Adventure.
We escape back where we belong: home.

That reminds me very much of the words of Chief Seattle.

There is no death - only a change of worlds.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Yes. . . although given the feedback I've been receiving elsewhere, I seem to have been a bit out of balance when I wrote the original post. I would do well to focus more on the balance Seattle expresses in his words, rather than characterizing this world as a place from which we need to escape.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

This is lovely -- thank you.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Your icon made me *splorfl!

Thanks.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_storyteller_/]

I never would have pegged you when we started as a Euthanatos... but your story leads us down that path. You continue to gain deeper and deeper insight into the other worlds, a sojourner and guide indeed. I look forward to the next stories we will share, for while you've been learning more about death than you ever thought you would... I have been learning more about life than I ever thought I would. The questions of last year have all been resolved now, I have found answers in deeper and brighter places than I ever thought I would be.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I would very much like to hear those stories, and if you are still in town, I would make time to get together to hear them. I am deeply grateful you have reached these bright places.

Lohain is in a much brighter place now as well. I see him with his hands in the soil up to the wrist, and healing cracks in the foundations of the world. He a builder again, and it gives him joy to build and nurture and fix rather than destroy.

The three of us ultimately brought deep initiations to each other: initiations so deep and profound that they have been deaths. I wish there had been a way to undergo them without shattering who we managed to be together for a while, but that probably wasn't possible.

I was in no way a Euthanatos when we started. . . although the seed was there. I happened to find one of our old ICQ chats earlier this week. The night you told me about the departure of the Others, a month or so before you moved up here, I wrote "I wonder to what degree I will be the Death card for you."

The two of you made me a queen, a bright queen. Lohain's death has made me a dark queen. I partake of both Inanna and Ereshkigal now, although there is much more of Ereshkigal these days.

These days, I have to struggle to remain connected to the light. (Small "l". There is no question that I remain aligned to the Light.) My heart is in the underworld, and sometimes my entire life on this side of the veil feels like no more than a day job. I'm still searching for ways to experience joy and satisfaction. Teaching Lamp/Mirror is helping, but I need to do more to bring richness and pleasure and fun back into my daily life.

I reach for Freyja to try to help me remain centered in the joys of life. It's harder than I'd like.

[qos.livejournal.com]

as the foundational point, all else that you share becomes more relevant, more enriched, more clear.

If you can elaborate on that, I'd appreciate it, my friend.

I deeply appreciate your affirmation, as always, but since posting this I've been challenged to consider that I may have gone too far in conceptualizing death as an "escape hatch" from the world. Death is certainly not to be feared, and there is a whole new kind of existence beyond it to look forward to -- but that anticipation should not prevent us from richly living this life.

Unfortunately, between the fact of my heart living in the underworld and my work with Ereshkigal -- not to mention a lifelong sense of this world not being my home -- it's been all too easy for me to start to see this life as simply another "day job," lacking in joy or satisfaction.

The responsibility is on me to seek out life and light, continue to live, not just mark time until my own escape hatch opens. But I'm finding that my grief -- although not as outwardly acute as it was -- still runs deep in me, and makes me somewhat resistent to opening to the pleasures of life again.

[spring-heel-jim.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I loved this. I really really loved this. That's gonna get me thinking all day..