No. 2 & No. 3

Onwards we go

“‘But it’ll be like an old abandoned shell. There’s nothing sad about an old shell…it’ll be nice, you know…all the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out water for me to drink…and it’ll be fun! You’ll have five-hundred million little bells.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

[The second and third questions already.
We’re flying!]

[No. 2]

IS THERE SOMETHING YOU’RE DOING TO PREPARE FOR LEAVING THE PHYSICAL BODY AT THE END OF THIS LIFETIME? 

Is death not at the core of everything? What is death but the other side of the coin of life, the yang to its yin? One cannot exist without the other; together, they beg us to question who we are and why we are here. Right? Death makes life richer; life makes death real. They are siblings; they are very old friends. So, what imprints do we desire to make before we become star stuff once again? These curiosities course through our veins as we walk our bodies through the days and weeks. We are somehow born with a knowing that we are here on a layover. Yet, we so easily forget the transient nature of humanity. 

My relationship to death has transmuted over the years. When I was younger and experiencing many shapes and colors of pain, I dreaded death. I sought to control everything I could imagine under the pretense of keeping myself safe, alive, well. Well, the twisted impact of forever seeking to duck away from death was that I stopped living. 

What if instead we could look at death as a sure thing, even as a billboard for living? Today, for me, the concept of death serves as a talisman that our time here on earth is so special. Fleeting. Ours for the making, as tender as we’d like it to be.

As such, my candid answer to the question at hand is: The best way I know to prepare for death is to bow to each and every second I have to today, to spend time thoughtfully and with my feet on the ground. This means living in accordance to my calling, addressing trouble when it calls and seeking to expand my consciousness, with a sly smile knowing that there is so much I will die not knowing. It is a barefoot, eyes wide open approach to life, like a child, which requires participation. (I was jolted into this innocence when I had cancer at 21, had a recommended mastectomy in my 30’s and had a best friend die within a span of just a few weeks.)

Image by Vladmir Konoplev

The living of which I speak asks of us to keep the house inside each of our souls contemporary and tidy; an ongoing, everlasting process of taking inventory and letting go. Each letting go is itself a reenactment of a death of sorts (or maybe, a rehearsal)! Relinquishing our attachment to something old allows space for something new. On earth, we are offered sundry chances to practice trust, stepping stones that lead us home at the end of our lives, to whatever comes next, to meet the artist. Some of these “practices” are simpler than others. Some take time and a great amount of bravery, and many will play at our heart strings. Regardless, resisting them holds us hostage. 

Thus, to me, living life expressed means keeping energy flowing, and honoring death as a part of this choreography. I embody the ethos to wholly “leave it on the [dance] floor” whenever possible. 

Therefore, say the thing.
Take the leap!
Write the letter.
Say I love you more, even if you already feel like you say it a lot. 
Move on. 
Pick up the pen or paintbrush. Go to the place. Bake the cake. Put your hands in the dirt. Don’t wait. Don’t settle. Go in the water. Bask in the sunlight. Own your sexuality. Use your voice! Explore your body! Embody your purpose! Participate.

When we commit to taking up that space, we honor what we have come here to do in our human home. We live without regret. Then, when it is our time to move on from this corporeal phase to whatever is next, we can hold onto a greater calm and peace however great the storm.

“Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody’s holy! Everywhere is holy! Everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!”
Allen Ginsberg

[No. 3]

ARE WE LITERALLY STARDUST?

Of course we are.

“Empirically speaking, we are made of star stuff. Why aren’t we talking more about that?”
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

As I have surrendered more and more to the magic that simply exists beyond my comprehension, I have experienced how our bodies are simply suitcases for the particles of feeling and being that make up who we are. This dust moves around inside us, and our vessels interact with other beings as we go about our days here on earth. At our essence, we are constant transmissions of light that extend out from our containers. We have the power to commune with one another in infinite ways – a treasured awareness of a much broader and deeper constellation that exists. Maybe our dogged attachment to staying here on earth as long as humanly possible takes away from the truth of who and what we really are. In Harry Dodge‘s book My Meteorite, he offers that you might feel a kinship toward someone not only because you might have known them in a past life, but because you might have been the same person.

WE ARE THE UNIVERSE.

Years ago, in meditation, I saw a very intricate, almost rollercoaster-like system of flowing energy in my third eye, beyond any concept of time and space. This glittery network of flickering beings brought tranquility, as it illustrated the infinite tether that we have to each other and with everything else. Butterflies. Bees. This web of cosmic capillaries is everflowing, and we are vibrating on a more honest level when we remain in touch with this mysterious, ecstatic fact. I wonder if upon death I will ride that rollercoaster. I wonder if actual rollercoasters and pleasure– or thrill-seeking acts– in this realm– are simply altars or homages to what we will see and feel beyond. If we can occasionally envision our anxieties as tiny balls of light crashing into each other, looking for dance parties, perhaps our stellar vastness laughs at our resistance to the natural flow of things.

For each heart is actually a star.

Of course, anxiety, pain and suffering are real experiences we humans confront, and, likewise, we want to be remembered, to be important, to leave a mark. And yet our souls move on, most likely, and the marks are left like wine or coffee stains on a table in the sky.

So, the moments are the rooms in which we breathe.

Inhale. Life. Exhale. Death. Each sequence is an opportunity to travel into the promiseland. When we practice detaching from past or future, there is very little between the air in our lungs and moonlight of something greater than ourselves. 

“And still, after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth,
‘You owe Me’.

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.”

Hafiz

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PREPARE TO LEAVE YOUR PHYSICAL BODY AT THE END OF THIS LIFETIME?