217.2

I swear yesterday morning I was in the 215's.  I hate this. I hate that scale. That's it, I'm starting "Fasting For My Fat Ass Tuesdays." Kind of the opposite of Mardi Gras, and I won't give myself any beads for shaking my man-boobs.

On Death

My aunt passed away on Friday. Last night was the family gathering, and a simple memorial service. Of course, this got me thinking.

First note, the memorial service was pretty much what you would expect. Solemn, heartfelt, some sobbing, and a religious man offering prayers, and readings from an outdated book of fables. A pair of "music therapists" sang Amazing Grace, rather poorly. Apparently Amazing Grace has a guitar accompaniment that only requires three chords, and on the beat strumming. I think I can handle that, and I don't even play guitar. Relatives, and friends stood to share their thoughts, and memories of my aunt. Her son kept it humorous, because I believe his mom would have wanted it to be more light, and celebratory, than mourning, and speaking through tears. But as often happens, people could not hold back their sadness. It is understandable. I kept my sadness at bay, but eventually the energies got to my empathetic side, and the sadness crept in.

As we left the service, I gathered my kids in a bit of a group hug. I said to them, "Please, when I die, don't do that. Don't let religion anywhere near any services, and make sure they're fun, and enjoyable. Play Tool's Lateralus, and make people listen to the lyrics, and tell them, THIS! This is what he was about!"

Evan said, "Don't worry, dad. It will be on a boat, and we'll have a party, just as you said you want."

So I appreciate that he listens. I just hope the silliness of our culture doesn't leave him feeling intimated, and powerless to refuse some worthless dogmatic drivel about what death means to someone else's imaginary friends that will undoubtedly be forced at him.

We Americans sure seem to have some weird love/hate relationship with death. While this bible thing, and those who subscribe to the fairy tales within it keep preaching about how Jesus opened the door to heaven, and the afterlife is so wonderful, everyone still fears death, fears the passing of their loved ones, and wallows in sadness when death comes-a-knockin'. I get it. We lose the physical manifestation of being, and we lose the consciousness of the person who we love, and care about. We fear losing those parts of ourselves, hence our fascination with preservation of the body, putting ourselves in expensive metal boxes, and even in death, greedily trying to horde the atoms of our being, not allowing them to freely recycle into new life, back into the Earth, and the Universe. 

What exactly are we saving? We have fields upon fields of stone markers, above wooden, and metal caskets to mark where physical remains exist. Why? Because we think we'll someday have them back? Because we want someone to walk by a marker in a hundred years, and note who we were, which for 99% of humanity is just one more unremarkable person among billions of unremarkable people.

Wouldn't it make more sense to live a life that marks who you are in the memories of people, so that generations after you will tell stories of how remarkable you are? Even in that, unless you impact the world, those pieces of who you were will fade away in time. And I guess there's two sides of that. The goal for me would be to be that remarkable, but it's so much easier to infamous, despicable, and downright evil, and be remembered. 

The fear of losing the consciousness is the biggest piece. At least it is for me. It is the part of me that is the most difficult to reconcile death with. My body? Eh - see the weigh struggles noted above. My body is flawed, and unattractive. Utilitarian at best. But my brain is amazing. My ability to match my consciousness with my subconscious, and explore within, and outside of myself is sometimes so amazing to me, it frightens me. It also makes me really weird to those people who can't understand that, or perhaps more specifically, people who look to preachers with a two-thousand year old book of fairy tales to tell them how to live life.

How do I explain that I've felt my own mortality, and my own death, in a very real way? How do I explain that I have reached out beyond myself, and beyond the realities that exist around me, without using drugs to help facilitate it? Most people just won't get it. Some would probably wish to lock me away, convinced I must be off my rocker.

But then again, most of those people believe there is an invisible man who watches them do everything, and is judging them, as they eagerly wait for him to return to Earth, yet also want to lock up any person who claims to be that invisible man's return....  I guess faith only goes as far as what you've been taught to believe. Anything new requires incontrovertible proof. Or more. Hell, you can't even get some of these people to understand the Earth is a sphere. They'd rather have faith that the Bible says it's flat, and there's some widespread NASA conspiracy.

The other side of that is, and this really goes for humanity on the whole - death seems to be our ultimate solution to all of life's problems. 

Don't like another people's religion? Kill them. Need resources that you don't have? Kill the people who have them. That animal in the forest is scary? Kill it. Found something you don't understand? Kill it. It is an endless cycle. So while we mourn the death that surrounds us, we create death for others with little to no consideration for their own mourning.

We're amazingly short sighted for a species that has evolved to possess reason, and logic.

Anyway, I've repeated to my kids that my memorial, or funeral shouldn't be a time of mourning. If I've done my job on this Earth as a person, and father, and a partner, my life should be celebrated when that time comes. Celebrate who I was, and what I did, and what I gave, rather than anything that was lost. In the end, nothing is lost. Memories remain, and if you meditate, and reach out with your energy to the energies that surround you, your mind will recall the good emotions, the memories, the love, and everything I was in this life, good or bad. The physicality of what I am doesn't change that, and there's no point in keeping those parts around, so give them back to the Earth and let my mortality fuel the next pieces of the evolution of life.

If I'm dead, I'm obviously done using them for myself.

Ain't No Sunshine

A lot of people have liked that old photo that I just put up as my page's Facebook cover photo. I wonder if any of them truly understand what it means.

Lateralus

Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
lets me see.
As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn beyond the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.

Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
lets me see there is so much more
and beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities.
As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn outside the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition leaving all these opportunities behind.

Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human.

With my feet upon the ground I lose myself
between the sounds and open wide to suck it in,
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out,
I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.

Spiral out. Keep going, going...

Parabola

We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment,
We are choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside
This holy reality, this holy experience.
Choosing to be here in

This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion.

Alive, I

In this holy reality, in this holy experience. Choosing to be here in

This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion.

Twirling round with this familiar parable.
Spinning, weaving round each new experience.
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember. We are eternal.
All this pain is an illusion.

 

Understand this. These two songs, and the words of them. My views on life. I'm not sure how I'll handle death. Hopefully with the grace, and courage that I so often fail to display in life, and with my own understanding of what is to come.

You might look at the above, and question my views. I understand that. I often see that whole question of, "If there is nothing to strive toward at the end of life, how can you, as an atheist, appreciate life?"

Easily. As above. I embrace the feelings. I embrace the random. I embrace that which can bewilder me. I embrace the people who come into my life, and I love them with everything I've got, knowing life is fragile, temporary, and fleeting. My physical passion is only topped by emotional passion, and the connections I desire to have with the people whom I care the most about. 

I know that before me, I was nothing. Because I exist, I can be a part of everything. That is the grand scheme. That makes me relevant to the universe, even if it only means I'm relevant in the eyes of a few others.

Don't get me wrong. I would be overwhelmed with sadness at the lost of people who I hold closest, but I will also do my best to temper that sadness, and mourning with a celebration of who they are. After all, there Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone. I can't even imagine how dark my days would be if her physical being was gone forever, and all I had were memories.