mortality

Body as Water

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Mrjn

I ran across this poem and it spoke to my heart:

 

Nearly

Idra Novey

When we slid out of the lane.

When my sleeve caught fire.

While we fought in the snow.

While the oncologist spoke.

Before the oil spilled.

Before your retina bled.

Beyond the kids at the curb.

Beyond the turn to the forest.

After the forest turned to ashes.

After you escorted my mother out.

As I led your father in.

As the dolphin swam the derelict canal.

While the cameras filmed it dying.

While the blackout continued.

When the plane dipped.

When the bank closed.

While the water.

While the water.

And we drank it.

Melt Into the Sun

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Goerend

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”

 

From Kahlil Gibran’s “On Death”

Faithful

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Would you still love me if I was sick and dying?

Would you hold my hand all day in the hospital room while the world outside went on and on…buzzing with activity?

Would you comb my dirty hair and bring me clean underwear and ask the doctor when I am allowed to shower?

Would you give me words of love and comfort as my spirits start to wither?

Would you stay with me?

 

Crumbling Image

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Jeffs

“When you look closely at the nature of human suffering you will find that an essential ingredient in most kinds of suffering is a diminishment of one’s sense of self. 

 In reality, of course, what feels like a diminishment or loss of your sense of self is the crumbling of an image of who you are held in the mind. What dissolves is identification with thought forms that had given you your sense of self. But that sense of self is ultimately false, is ultimately a mental fiction. “

Tolle

Dissolve

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Bucceri

“As people around you pass away, you become increasingly aware of your own mortality. The body will dissolve. Many people still, in our civilization, they deny death. They don’t want to think about it, don’t want to give it any attention.

There is enormous potential there for spiritual flowering. Even in people who, up to the point of the beginning of the fading of the form, were completely identified with the form. It’s your last chance in this incarnation, as your body begins to fade – or you are becoming aware of this limited lifespan. It’s your last chance to go beyond identification with form. This is true whether it’s to do with your body or somebody else’s body.”

Eckhart Tolle

Interval

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Dulcey Lima

Spring – the jumping off time

of green buds and birds’ trill

of thriving and spreading

when souls vault with thrill

 

Summer – enlivened bustle

of limitless affection

of prime corporeality

when spirits rouge the complexion

 

Autumn – abated season

of settling gratitude

of tranquil sanctuary

when ego battles disquietude

 

Winter – gradual repose

of profound cogitation

of  placid acceptance

when the form meets salvation

 

 

 

 

Death Meditation

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“With the contemplation of the impermanence of the human form, something very deep and peaceful opens up inside you. That is why I enjoy going to cemeteries. When you accept the impermanence, out of that comes an opening within, which is beyond form. That which is not touched by death, the formless, comes forward as you completely accept the impermanence of all forms. That’s why it is so deeply peaceful to contemplate death.

If someone close to you dies, then there is an added dimension. You may find there is deep sadness. The form also was precious, although what you loved in the form was the formless. And yet, you weep because of the fading form. There too, you come to an acceptance – especially if you are already familiar with death, you already know that everything dies – then you can accept it more easily when it happens to somebody close to you. There is still deep sadness, but then you can have the two dimensions simultaneously – the outer you weeps, the inner and most essential is deeply at peace. It comes forward almost as if it were saying “there is no death”. It’s peace.”

Eckhart Tolle