Diagnosed Mortal #8
This essay explores using the word lost when referring to a person who had died and just what that turn of phrase implies.
It was bound to happen that I would come across an essay I wrote years ago that was a bit of a train wreck. I confess I did a bit of triage on this one. On the bright side, my writing has improved considerably since then. That is nice to know....
My thinking and understanding about the dead is seriously limited and seems to differ wildly from many who have experiences with the dead. I've but one experience with the dead and that was many years ago. That incident definitely influences what I think about being dead as it was profoundly impactful. So it is that I keep my ideas until they change. They are simply ideas and I've no big need to be right in this. I DO, however, have a big investment in our needing to rethink and examine some of our beliefs about death.
I do suspect that the issue of death phobia and the influence of all things dark being malefic is something that really needs to be exhumed and examined because there is so much attached to it that brings fear and sickness into our daily human lives. I do believe we can look at these things differently without tearing the world asunder. We can examine our ideas and consider, if everything is a cycle, why can't a human soul be so and therefore never ending, remaining in relationship to the living? It is complicated...of course it is, but I think we can grow into it.
Here is what I thought about losing the dead five years ago....
My changes over the years, since this essay that I'm recording was written, have been vast. My sensitivities around energetics is honed and my intuition is strong as I've cultivated these things. I don't know what happens when we die, of course, but I suspect it is quite possible that we are capable of getting things really wrong sometimes. Saying, simply, "because that is the way the subject has always been framed" is no reason not to open our minds to include other ways that other cultures have come to recognize as valuable. As well, we may want to keep ourselves open to hold space for a new story to arise that does not paint everything black and white, good and evil, and does not thrive on punitive punishments that feed on and propagate fear. I think it is time for this.
My Musical Choice: This video, A House A Home (featuring Portland Cello Project and the band, Alialujah Choir) is near and dear to my heart. The song itself is beautiful; the band's sound is lush. I must have looked at this video 50 times over the years as it resonates in me so deeply. It is not the story itself as much as it is the symbolism in it...the key, the deer, the portal/door, the lamp, the sense of adventure, the phonograph, the photos, the dancing, the risk, art and the suggestion of multidimensional vision in the paintings. I love it. It rocks me every time I watch it.
~For the curious: this Blogpost explains my motivation and intention for this series of 20 essays in the Diagnosed Mortal series~