No. 47

So let go, so let go and jump in…

[No. 47]

DO YOU THINK THE FINAL MOMENTS OF DEATH ARE A STATE OF EUPHORIA?

A guest post by poet & creator Gordon Ip

Not too long ago, I had the privilege of going on my second magic mushroom trip. I was in the safe haven of my wife’s childhood home dressed in a maroon and gold kimono. During the trip, I experienced the disillusionment & dissolution of time. As I was acting, I had already acted. As I had acted, I was going to act. And as I was going to act, the action was being done. As I walked over to pet my cat, I was already petting him. Calico, a bad boy, felt me dissolve into butter. We bonded past, present, and future. Each moment seemed to have its own breath, part of the respiration of the universe. There was no guessing. Instead, in its place, a known presence.

Illustration by Andrew Fairclough

Alien, let me take a second to define some keywords in your question.

[EUPHORIA] a state or feeling of joy, presence, righteousness
[DEATH] when a spirit leaves its body/host 

Death is saying goodbye to time.
Our time. 
Our reality. 
It is letting go, having no choice but to let go.
Pushed, gracefully by the steady hand of time.
When was the last time you floated? 
When was the last time you had a tiny self and then let yourself come alive?

When my dad’s mom died, I could feel his yearning to go back to Hong Kong, to become a child. When my mom’s mom died, she became a vegetarian. This is actually customary in Chinese culture. Despite rockiness in our relationship at the time, I joined her in solidarity. I remember the dinners, our shared secret. It was a silent blessing, an infinite club, a wish for closeness, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We made it to about the 15 month mark. Then, one evening, some sweet Chinese sausage (lap cheong) was in a bowl next to a pot of freshly steamed rice. And, just like that, and without much ceremony, we broke our pact and somehow found our young connection still intact. We had come to each other like tiny lightning bolts, crashed, and retracted back to heaven. 

“They say you fly when you die.”

Gaspar Noé

Tune in.
Tune in. 
Tune in.

Circles do not begin, nor end. They just are. I believe death might be as euphoric as anything. Death is rebirth. 

You are God. 
God is in you.
Death is euphoria.
And this is euphoria.
And you are this.
And everything belongs to itself, and we belong to each other.
Death will be good.
Life will be good.
If you let it.

WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO YOUR MORTALITY?