november: work
monthly theme: [death]
The work of living is to die. So too, the work of dying must be to live. And of course, some of this is metaphoric. We are not born simply to die, our decisions and actions in between give us our meaning and importance. I must reiterate this because my own existentialism and depression have often combined to make an early death seem more alluring than it should be.
That’s definitely part of my work with death--setting healthy boundaries with its seductive unknown. Maintaining my grasp and importance on the work of the living. It’s not that life and death are opposites, but that they are one within each other.
One of the meditations in the mortality workshop I attended last year was to meditate on what death was to us. What death looked like, its proximity and its welcomeness (or lack thereof). I was surprised to find that death, for me, was a soft and comforting glowing orb of red light within me. It was vitality--an ancient fire. Death felt like God if you can take that archetype with a grain of salt, cleansing it of its vindictive father-figured nature.
Death is a powerful force within me and all living things--a truth which might make it easier to respect death, rather than neglect it. Because that’s what our culture knows how to do; deny, outsource, and forget. We think the distance between us and our fears makes us stronger or keeps us safe, but that has been undeniably false throughout the pandemic.
Numbers of the sick, dying, and disabled continue to rise as many of us walk around as if we are immortal, ignorant of the truth those numbers could ever be us. From my un-expert psychoanalysis, this behavior comes from being unable to continuously hold the weight of tragedy we’re facing. It’s much easier to go to a restaurant than it is to wait 8 months for a life-saving surgery that would typically be scheduled within a few weeks if our hospitals weren’t over-capacity.
To be incubated from death is to be only half-alive. Because a fully alive person could recognize their unique role in collective action and understand how important it is to do the work that keeps others safe.
Accepting our mortality makes living more vibrant, the work of humanity sacredly liberated. What could our priorities be if we lived every day knowing that we can’t take our possessions with us when we go? How would we treat people knowing the true nature of life’s temporality?
We will do this dance with death, working through our fears and desires, until our final breath. This negotiation is the only true source of power. Any systemic authority/supremacy is man-made and cannot withstand the passage from this realm into whatever’s next--if there is anything beyond this. To me, the unknown of an afterlife actually clarifies the necessity to devote our time together on the planet to acts of kindness, compassion, and patience. Anger, fear, and violence seem so trivial and unnecessary under the light of death.
The work, for many imperialist (Western) cultures, is to face death, to accept it as part of us rather than something we control and utilize over others to maintain our power. The world does not have to exist on a kill or be killed axis (die or be death). And I believe the only way into acceptance of each other and global harmony is to invite death into our daily conscious thoughts (to a safe degree). By doing so, we can fully embody our humanity as it exists temporarily on this earth.
We are nothing without death. We must learn to coexist with its beautifully chaotic nature or we will continue to lose sight of purpose and hope. Get comfortable in your own skin to the point of no longer needing it.
One of my favorite meditations (I believe it’s from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) is to envision your own demise and decay. It’s not a very easy visualization to get through and often makes me sick to my stomach, but it has helped me to continue working with death. The idea is to become nothing:
Disassemble your body, removing nails, hair, skin, muscles, tendons, and fat. Pile them up in a visual of the mind. Then, bone by bone, add your skeleton to the pile. Don’t forget all of your internal organs as well until all biological matter is in one pile.
Now light that pile on fire. Watch your body parts burn until they become ash. When there is no more body, I envision a rain coming to stamp out the embers, flooding my ashes until I am mud again. From here, you mold yourself back into yourself.
You don’t have to believe in an afterlife or reincarnation for this meditation to work for you. It works in a mysterious way that deepens our understanding of what it could/possibly will be like to no longer exist. A thought that each brain is seemingly programmed to avoid. However, our true animal instincts involve that of letting go, of dying. Simply tap into that instinct more often and it’ll do something on par to stopping and smelling the roses.
The work of death is unique to all of us as we each have a personal relationship to it. I can only hope I’ve given you a starting point on this relationship and have normalized some of the fears around working closely with death. No part of our existence is meant to be denied, forgotten, and feared. Death, like breathing, is a vital part of our existence. To embrace your mortality is to embrace the true beauty and weight of living.