Disclaimer: The
purpose of this post is not to pontificate on an absolute truth but to spark
the questions and personal reflection on how you relate to death. Furthermore I’m
not sick or ill, just in love with the aspects of life, living and dying.
When I was 19 years old I had my first vivid run-in with the
other side that time could explain away. I was with my then girlfriend and we
were having a very, VERY intense argument that ended with me getting into the
car speeding away. The experience occurred in the park in my neighborhood and
should be noted that there are trees EVERYWHERE! Speeding off on an unstable
terrain with bad tires would surely spell death for anyone and it just so
happened that that perfect storm of chaos is exactly what I had. I sped off in
my dad’s Crown Victoria and fish tailed; I lost control. My next stop should
have been at, what looked like, the biggest oak tree in the park. I was so
close to that tree I still remember being able to see the striations in the
bark. Suddenly I saw two HUGE figures in front of me at least 8 or 9 feet tall
and glowing in what I can only describe as this golden white light. One jumped
on top of the hood of the car and the other stood in front of the tree, like
how one would imagine a tree-hugger trying to protect a tree from a bulldozer.
I was amazed and I remember looking in the rear view at my girlfriend’s face
and the look of absolute horror crossed her face, it was followed by confusion
then relief. See had it not been for the beings of light I would not be telling
this story right now…
That was the first time I could remember seeing them, and
it’s very difficult to talk about. I couldn’t just barrel through and talk
about this with humor and sarcasm like I usually do because it would cheapen
the experience. I actually had to give myself some time to ponder and prepare
to sit down and stare my mortality in the face. I almost died that day. I felt
time slow, then stop. I literally saw
the divine intervention. It’s real. These types of experiences have been
happening to me my entire life, and up until that day, I could hide or stuff my
experiences. In an instant all of that changed. I saw with clear sight, my
reality. So I decided to philosophically explore this experience and others
like them.
Death, in western society, is shrouded in so much fear when,
next to the constants of love and change, it’s just as inevitable as breath. We
spend our lives running away from the idea of death and thoughts of death only
to try to rationalize our entire lives in a single moment on our death beds.
Why is so much of our lives unexamined in this fashion? Why is it that for most
people, death is unexamined? We all have to cross that door way. Hell, even in
popular lure, vampires must face death in order to reach immortality. We’ll
except that in movies but won’t ponder that in real life? I call bullshit on
the whole thing; what are we so afraid of?
We’re more apt to believe in a zombie apocalypse and blindly
prepare for D-day 5.0, but if I mention that I’m talking to your cousin Agnes
through the veil, I’m crazy and should be approached with caution and sedatives.
Death in and of itself can be very traumatic, but is it so bad for me to boisterously
question why we’d support blindly charging into wars, than support allowing our
intuition to “blindly” guide us into a higher level of awareness about the
reality of our impermanence?
In all of my cogitation, I realize that I will never know anything until I’ve permanently
gone on the other side. However, what the aforementioned experience showed me,
is that there isn’t just ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ there is so much more than
that; a whole non-corporeal aspect of death. This I know for a fact thanks to
good old fashioned empiricism.
I’ve often fantasized about my death, when I’ll go, how others
would feel, the things I’d experience, seeing my grandmother again… All of
these things I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about. It’s been the
greatest gift to my life, next to fully loving myself.
Living fully aware of my inevitable death just
gives me an incredible sense of adventure (not to be confused with stupidity,
there are balances to be respected). It reminds me that no matter what I want
to do or try, whether I fail or succeed, it’s going to be okay. The end of the
world is not the end of my existence. My death is not the end of me. It’s
interesting though because once I wrap my head around this, I’m then confronted
with more questions, like why are we always resisting what is, instead of
flowing with what will be? And that is definitely the topic of further thought.
So in closing, I would like to state that I’m dying, yes dying! The present
moment is the youngest I will ever be again in my life (and you too, for that
matter). I am creeping towards death and this is okay with me. The more I think
of death the more appreciation I have for life and all that it teaches. I
choose to continue to live my life consciously aware until it’s my turn to walk
through that door. What will you choose?
