Life as Metaphor
I'll admit there's a possibility I won't die at 52. Whether I do, or don't, is irrelevant to this exercise. Something unusual is going on with me. Just after launching this blog Risa D'angeles wrote a horoscope in the weekly newspaper the Good Times. It echoed everything I was feeling, and is referenced in the post "Coincidence's Kind Example". I emailed, and asked her to take a peek. To my surprise she responded:
"Thank you for sharing your writing. Keep writing. You are a writer, an observer, an artist, a philosopher, a server. You are defining who you are, your creative self in action. And turning to humanity & using your gifts to serve them. This is the heart of Aquarius. Jupiter overhead in the night sky is your "keeper." Keep writing. Keep in touch with me. The "death" is the death of the personality as you offer yourself (your personality) to the Soul."
Spirit of Metaphor
Her suggestion is viable when you consider how many metaphors for change are built into culture. We have baptisms, Baht/Bar Mitzvah's, puberty, menstruation, obtaining a drivers license, getting to vote, being able to drink, graduation, and marriage, just to name a few.Their integration into the fabric of society isn't accidental. Much of what we see, and participate in, is a secular model for spiritual transformation. In other words, the external, physical world is a creation of the spiritual world's needs.
Spirit imposes itself in what we identify as 'milestones' to encourage movement toward it. The way each culture shapes these things, and the ages of its participants may vary. But every culture now, and before, has them. Culture varies. Spirit is constant.
Design for Life
So, I may get a stay-of-execution. It doesn't really matter. Although the title of this blog is intentionally mellow dramatic, it's objective isn't. I've spent a portion of each day since starting this, bringing death closer. I sit with the fact that I'm going to die, really sit with it until it's real. Then I do this:- I name my regrets out loud no matter how hard they are to hear, or painful.
- I dig for my first memory, and begin to reflect. I identify anyone, or thing I hurt. I say my apology, and follow it with what motivated my behavior.
- I name everything I wouldn't waste time caring about, if I could live life again, that stole so much time this go around. And I name everything I would do, that I wanted to do, but didn't, because I was scared, because I cared too much what other people thought.
- I say 'I love you' to everyone I no longer can say it to, or won't. And I forgive everyone who let me down, or betrayed me.
- I say my longest apologies to my sons for not knowing how to be what they need, and make impassioned prayers that they find it somewhere.
- I note the gratitude I feel for anyone who offered me true friendship when I wasn't capable of its return.
- And finally, I forgive myself for all of it, and mourn everything basic that I should have had, but didn't.
Although each exercise is painful, and the accompanying emotions difficult, there is nothing depressing, or dark, about an open discourse with death. Just the opposite.
The things I've listed, and confronted, provide a design for real living. Thinking about death provides a focused blueprint for life. I can only imagine how different life would be if the discourse started earlier, and with guidance.
