Death has been a bit of a theme of curiosity for me in the past few months . . .
Now, I am not necessarily speaking of death in the sense of how most of us imagine and perceive death – that is the extinguishing of life. No, I am looking at death in the broader sense . . . a more broader and cyclical sense . . .
A recent post I posted a quote from Mahatma Gandhi:
Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.
~Mahatma Gandhi
caused me to look at my own perception of death in a new way . . .
Many of us fear this mysterious thing we don’t know – death. But what exactly is death? And how does our fear and discomfort effect our ability to let go of things, move on, and LIVE?
Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes:
We have been taught that death is always followed by more death. It is simply not so, death is always in the process of incubating new life, even when one’s existence has been cut down to the bones . . .
. . . If one believes that the Life/Death/Life force has no stanza beyond death, it is no wonder some humans are frightened of commitment. They are terrified to go through even one ending . . .
. . . Much of our knowledge of the Life/Death/Life nature is contaminated by our fear of death. Therefore our ability to move with the cycles of the Life/Death/Life nature is quite frail. These forces do not “do something” to us. They are not thieves who rob us of the things we cherish . . . No, no, the Life/Death/Life forces are part of our own nature, an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of Life and Death. It is composed of the parts of ourselves who know when something can, should, and must be born and when it must die.
Wow.
My curiosity has expanded to really examine my own perceptions and fears surrounding death.
I start to reflect on my habits: my habits of being, my habits of thinking . . . what are the habits that must die so others can be born? What are the elements of my self identity that serve me? What are the elements that have expired?
What elements of life do I cling to?
