It’s October 31st — Hallowe’en, time of ghosts and goblins, skeletons and spirits, aka All Hallow’s Eve.
What’s hallowed is holy, and this festival, along with the Christian feasts of All Saints’ & All Souls’ Days, morphed out of Samhain, the ancient pagan festival marking the beginning of winter and the new year. Samhain is said to be the time when the veil between this world and the “other side” is thinnest, and when departed souls are said to be especially receptive to our prayers and entreaties.
Tonight is also the eve of my birthday. So that makes me a Scorpio. This sign is supposed to be all about sex and death. Well—blush—perhaps this is true. But since my Virgo ascendent precludes my getting too graphic about my practices in bed, I must talk about death instead! 🙂
If I remember back to when I was a pre-verbal tot, I can recall a sense of separation—from what I now recognize as the other side—the Beloved, Spirit, Source, God. There was something not quite right about life on Earth, especially after I saw how people behaved and treated each other. It’s not that I wanted to be dead. It’s just that I still had one foot still firmly planted on the other side, where I was completely surrounded by love. I had a lot to learn about being human, and it wasn’t always fun.
Death is a difficult concept for children to grasp, but I had no occasion even to entertain the idea until 1973. Before then, nobody was conspicuously missing from my sphere. And then suddenly, when I was seven, my grandmother, who lived in our basement, was gone. Dad told me she’d gone to the hospital and wouldn’t be coming home. She was now “in heaven”. I had heard about that concept in church once or twice, but now I had reason to lie awake at night contemplating death and eternity. It frightened me. The possibility that a body could dissappear, but life could still could go on in some invisible, infinite way, forever and ever and ever and ever… was simply inconceivable. I know that seems to contradict what I said about having one foot in Spirit. But as I grew older, and lost touch with the other side, my conceptions of the afterlife were styled by my experiences of life on Earth.
My next brush with death was tripping over a dead cat on my walk home from school a few months later. The cat was black. I reached down to touch it. Still soft. But lifeless. I was terrified. More sleepless nights.
And then, for a friend’s birthday, we were taken to see the film Jesus Christ Superstar. Imagine taking Grade 3 children to witness the graphic lashing of their beloved savior’s bleeding back. WTF?? I cowered behind the row of seats in front of me. Death loomed even larger now in my nighttime fears, and remained a niggling gap in my understanding for some time.
I am not alone in being a death-traumatized kid. But it’s somewhat beyond the statistical norm how death continued to touch me throughout my life.
My cousin was next. He was a young university student, living in that same basement my grandmother had. He was a talented musician. I used to love listening to him play “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on our piano. Such a sensitive touch. He himself was “troubled,” so my dad said. One day he moved out, into his own apartment, and the next week he was found asphyxiated in his car, in the building’s parking garage.
It had never occurred to me that someone would want to end their own life. I’d learned about war and murder, which seemed ridiculous, and caused me to weep, but in a general way. No one in my immediate circle had died as the result of either. Now I had to learn about suicide, and I was angry. What could have been done to prevent it? Why didn’t he love us enough to stay on the planet? So many questions.
Death continued to punctuate my life after my cousin died, with the loss of aunts and uncles, other cousins, parents, dear friends, and my husband Derek. He and I used to talk about death often. It was a huge part of our relationship. We had both lost significant people in our lives, and his wife’s death in 2007 actually brought us together when I cared for her during her terminal illness. Watching her physical decline was difficult but educational, but bearing witness to her emotional and spiritual transformation in the months before her death, was a pivotal experience for me, one I feel incredibly humble to have been a part of. Derek’s grieving was an important element in our relationship, and not a day went by without our voicing gratitude, and acknowledging how fragile and precious life is. When he died, I had a number of very powerful, very real experiences of visiting with him in Spirit, and now I remember, beyond all doubt, where I come from.
But even for those who do not believe in an afterlife, thinking about death is a useful practice. I learned recently about the term “Premeditatio Mallorum“. It comes from the Greek philosophers called Stoics, who lived a couple of centuries either side of year 0. You may have heard of the more famous ones like Marcus Aurelius Epictetus and Seneca. Premeditario Mallorum is the practice of contemplating “evil”. Essentially, it is negative visualization. I love this! I have done this for years and not known there was a name for it.
This isn’t to say I don’t believe in the power of positive visualization. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of good books on the subject. And I could certainly jump on that bandwagon more often. But, there can be something really empowering about pondering the worst. When we can allow ourselves explore the farthest reaches of our fears, and confront our mortality in a very practical way, we are in a sense rehearsing our own death. When we can witness our own regret, sadness, grief, fear, disappointment, panic, we are moved to the heart of what’s important: love, kindness, beauty, truth—in the here and now. And, we are also motivated to take care of business. Make a list, write your last will and testament, clear the clutter, share your wealth, spend time with your loved ones, write a bucket list.
I made a bucket list a few years ago and it’s short. This isn’t because I’ve crossed a lot off; there were not many things on it to begin with. There is so very much to do in this world, and I know I will never do it all. I have come to understand that it’s not what I do that is important, it’s how I am being. I have no regrets. I know I could have done some things differently at times in my life, but I can’t change the past. I can only choose to behave differently today, and entertain different thoughts today so that I may have the experiences I desire tomorrow. But there’s never a guarantee.
I could always die tomorrow. So, carpe diem! Even if I receive the news that I’m gonna be hit by that proverbial bus on my birthday, I know that whatever I choose to do today, I will take great pleasure in it, whether it’s phoning my best friend, walking in the forest, baking and eating (an entire) chocolate cake, listening to my favourite LP records, or even washing the dishes. “Seize the day” doesn’t necessarily mean go out there and make it happen. It can simply mean: make the most out of what is real, right here and in this moment.
Now that I don’t have enough fingers or toes to keep track of my loved ones in the great beyond, death doesn’t scare me. I don’t mean to say that I’m some kind of enlightened guru or fool, willing to stand in the eye of a hurricane. My body still reacts to threats. It very much wants to keep itself alive. Life is good! But I have revisited, ever so briefly in dreams and visions, the “other side”, and it’s beautiful. It is a thousand-hued rainbow, it’s a choir in perfect harmony, it’s an everlasting orgasm of sheer bliss. Sex and death —not so different. And that’s just the beginning, I’m sure. It makes me giddy just thinking about it!
Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to me, every day we are born, and every day we are free…
SEE with a WHY 