"Prepare for Death" - a meandering...

"Prepare for death" were the words I heard
whispered recently, unexpectedly.
I tried to ignore them,
not wanting to acknowledge them,
but wanting to keep them at bay - like
they hadn't been heard -
but they had...

This meandering is not meant to be morbid, just realistic,
even sobering - it is for me anyway...

Maybe the "reason" our bodies decline,
I thought, is because it is, in a sense, preparing
us for death... so that we recognize what's coming,
because we feel the body's fading, so we can start
detaching from the attachments we made in this world...

Most people I've encountered recently
don't like the mention of the word "death",
they react, as if it was a dangerous word;
like it's not supposed to happen, at least not now,
because our lives, for the most part, are still
oriented toward achievement and accomplishment,
materializing what we want, acquiring - and legacy.

Most are not ready to "let go" yet.

Evidently the word "death" - makes some people
very uncomfortable - let alone its actuality.

In pondering death,
the reality of impermanence,
I never thought I would back away,
but would welcome the
release...  I still do really...
But I wasn't expecting the words to waft
through me either...

And do they mean - literally?
Or metaphorically - like - *some*thing is
going to die in me?  Or a message that some*one*
will pass?  Or symbolically - like some aspect of
myself is going to fall away?

It is not clear...

As I continued to ponder its meaning
memories of those who have passed and their lives
floated through.  But those memories seemed like
another world - like looking through a window
into another time - which it is actually
- it *was* another time
that now seems unreal.

I want to be able to look through the window
into the past-death portal and what that's going to 
be like.  It seems we really can't know until we get
there, unless we are given glimpses, through meditation,
or mystical moments, or belief...
And I "believe" that *some*thing departs -
but what?

Spirit, Soul, Consciousness?
Returning to the "energy"
from which "we" arose?

a Mystery...

I have no clue really - just meandering here...

But I do think we feel death coming
in the waning of our body and energy; and the mind
unable to maintain its acuity, its cognition, its
memory of words...

We *are* given signs, but we try to fool ourselves
into thinking that if we just "live right",
pray/meditate enough,
exercise and eat "right";
believe the "right" religion,
we can put off the inevitable.

When it's time for me to "let go" of this world -
I hope I can relax and willingly walk over the bridge,
 through the portal into the Unknown...

Namaste

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
July 13, 2024

12:30am

~

Photo - Mystic Meanderng

 

You can stop worrying now - Czeslaw Milosz

In advanced age, my health worsening,
I woke up in the middle of the night,
and experienced a feeling of happiness
so intense and perfect that in all my life
I had only felt its premonition.
It didn't obliterate consciousness:
the past which I carried was there,
together with my grief.
And it was suddenly included,
was a necessary part of the whole.

As if a voice were repeating:

"You can stop worrying now;
everything happened just as it had to.

You did what was assigned to you,
and you are not required anymore
to think of what happened long ago."

The peace I felt was a closing of accounts
and was connected with the thought of death.
The happiness on this side was
like an announcement of the other side.
I realized that this was an undeserved gift
and I could not grasp by what grace
it was bestowed on me.

Czeslaw Milosz

original title "Awakened"

with thanks to Being Silently Drawn

~

Photo from the internet

 

Learning From Trees - Grace Butcher

If we could,
like the trees,
practice dying,
do it every year
just as something we do -
like going on vacation
or celebrating birthdays,
it would become
as easy a part of us
as our hair or clothing.

Someone would show us how
to lie down and fade away
as if in deepest meditation,
and we would learn
about the fine dark emptiness,
both knowing it and not knowing it,
and coming back would be irrelevant.

Whatever it is the trees know
when they stand undone,
surprisingly intricate,
we need to know also
so we can allow
that last thing
to happen to us
as if it were only
any ordinary thing.

Grace Butcher

with thanks to Being Silently Drawn

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The River of Silence - Kahlil Gibran

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind
and to melt into the sun?  And what is it to cease
breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you
indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall
you begin to climb.  And when the earth shall claim your
limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

If we can hear life, we can hear Silence
because the intensity of this pure energy
manifests itself through the sound of existence.

Yolande Duran

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Everything is this Primal Energy - the Primal Source of life;
not a persona, or god, or goddess or even Pure Consciousness;
just the fluid Energy of Life running through all living beings.
We are that Energy...

MM

~

Photo - my late blog friend Dorothea...
Walked into the Light - Jan 17, 2021

 

Heart Sutra Discourse #2 by Osho

Photo by David Peters

At the very core of life, death exists.
Hidden in it is the greatest freedom.

Death is not an ax that cuts down the tree of life.
Death is making love to God, or God making love to you.
Death is cosmic.

You don't remain like you.
You don't remain as an entity.
You don't remain defined,
identified with anything.

You disappear into the Whole.

Learn to die consciously...

excerpt from The Heart Sutra, Discourse #2 by Osho