Diagnosed Mortal #12
This post explores the different ways the light plays upon a human being when undeniable experiences strike without warning. It explores ritual and how psychological coping skills can, if we are not careful, interfere with a person's ability to live in wonder.
This essay written on January 11, 2017, was originally titled Learning to Fly, I am clearly sad. I begin with a tender memory that flat-lines and I begin to ruminate on ritual. This digresses to pondering what I imagine it might be like for my family to be attending my funeral. This essay kind of took me by surprise reading it now because it strikes me as a bit redundant as a focus but perhaps one would actually spend time thinking about this if one imagined they were actually going to die in a few days. It is from the sadness, I think, that I'm trying to imagine what my funeral will be like and it reflects the fear of being forgotten. I will pick up on the memory that ran aground into melancholy after this audio file. I obviously could not find the words then. Thanks for listening.
...The leaves blow
Across the long, black road
To the darkened skies
In it's rage
But the white bird
Just sits in her cage
Unknown
White bird must fly
Or she will die...
White Bird, It's a Beautiful Day
I ask that you bear with me here as I try and give a simple voice to an experience that many way beyond my linguistic abilities have already fallen shy of adequately expressing. In truth I dreaded this essay because it graced the frustration of trying to explain something that does not even exist as probable let alone possible for a lot people. I like to think everyone will remember and enjoy life in this way - even if for only a moment - but...right now, just a few can receive, less can summon, and even fewer, remain open to this kind of luminosity.
It seems for most, these colorful weathers are swallowed by a mind that is eager to suppress and is quite uncomfortable with the overwhelming experience of wonder that is required to receive such an experience. A willingness to be that vulnerable seems to be requisite. Not many would be interested, obviously, as many are quite satisfied to live within the comfortable parameters the mind and the collective rules society sets with the low cost of a constant cycle of blame and hearing themselves in the voices of the other.
While many, being hard wired as "seekers" will be willing to hazard the mind with chosing hallucinogenics like Ayahuasca or LSD, I'm not talking about that here. These are a dress rehearsal for what is within the human experience to access and radiate naturally. I'm talking about human evolution and our ability to expand not only our consciousness but our living experience in how we interrelate with the world and each other. I'm not talking here, either, about regressing to sacred aboriginal practices but an adaption of everything we have learned within both pre and post modern knowledge. We must bring all these things into the present moment to alter this world into a peaceful alignment that is yet unknown to us . This is why we need the diversity of stories because every suppressed vision, story or artwork released unlocks and releases a shame from its dungeon and creates an even larger dispensation of abundance and a multi dimensional experience of life on earth.
Everyone alive and dead holds a value in this great peace. Some will arrive as angels with an obvious bounty and be welcome but most will arrive as a disruptive force and not be met with sympathy. Their job is not so obviously stellar but it is none-the-less an important part of these lessons we must learn from. We must each consciously chose to establish a foundation of support. Imagine a world where a human was unable to kill another a human being. Unable. Now imagine what it would take to get there from here.
It will take a fuckton of stories, songs, poems, sounds and vision....
it is an inside job...
and it is dark in there.
My musical choice: In many ways this post is built around this song. White Bird hit my ear when I was a teenager and I thought, "How beautiful this is!" Meanwhile, years later I heard this song just as I was waking up from an exquisite dream of love. I watched, helplessly tethered to earth, as the song flew off with my heart just as I awoke. In this way the tune became a historic placeholder in my memory. It reminds me of how far I've come while at the same moment letting me know how far I've yet to go. It's a musical portal.
Video by Jude
Resources mentioned in the audio file:
A Sacred Passing. Their mission is to guide and assist people towards a more conscious dying experience, while. honoring individual autonomy.
White Eagle Memorial Preserve Cemetery Green/conservation burial ground located in Goldendale, WA
~For the curious: this Blogpost explains my motivation and intention for this series of 20 essays in the Diagnosed Mortal series~