It’s not that I’m afraid to die.
I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
Woody Allen
When I was growing up, Halloween was All Souls Day. Parties, costumes and candy had absolutely nothing to do with it. The closest it came to partying was how we had to hang out with relatives at the cemetery, saying hello to the families in the grave next door as we cleaned up family plots in honor of our dear departed. I have no doubt I would have much preferred trick or treat.
From Pema Chodron’s “When Things Fall Apart”:
We are raised in a culture that fears death and hides it from us. Nevertheless, we experience it all the time. We experience it in the form of disappointment, in the form of things not working out. We experience it in the form of things always being in the process of change. When the day ends, when the second ends, when we breathe out, that’s death in everyday life.
Death in everyday life can also be defined as experiencing all the things we don’t want. Our marriage isn’t working; our job isn’t coming together. Having a relationship with death in everyday life means that we begin to be able to wait, to relax with insecurity, with panic, with embarrassment, with things, not working out. Time passing is as natural as the seasons changing and day turning into night. But getting old, getting sick losing what we love–we don’t see these events as natural occurrences. We want to ward off that sense of death, no matter what.
Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself no matter what’s going on. Fear of death is the background of the whole thing. It’s why we feel restless, why we panic, why there’s anxiety. But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death.
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From an awakened point of view, that’s life. Death is wanting to hold on to what you have to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share your thoughts. Trick or treat!
xoxox
© Sharon Birke
201 697 1947
Sharon@PowerfulGoddess.com
Glamour Portraits of the Goddess in Every Wife & Mother
Powerful Goddess Portraits 
Oct 31, 2014 @ 08:17:52
I like it when I’m tricked and always treated here! I was really tricked for moment because I didn’t put two and two together until I was scrolling up and down deciding how to describe my thoughts on the photos. Suddenly I went all the way to the title and it struck me…Face to Face, love the mask! Hard to choose a favorite this week but have to say number two. The way the shadows outline her shape as her body flows in beautiful lines. A gorgeous Goddess in all the photos!
I don’t agree with all the points in that excerpt. I think that disappointments and things gone wrong are not a form of death but a form of life. What are the good things in our lives then? Do they really extend our lives? I guess we like to think so. The only thing that brings us closer to death is time, time running out. So in the meantime live by taking the good with the bad and live to smile another day.
I am not afraid of death. Maybe I was when I was younger and thought about it but as you grow older that fear fades. I came close to death three years ago on July 1st. I thought it was interesting because you hear the stories about your life passing before you. For me it was my future passing before me. I saw three people in my mind in that split second and told myself, I’m not going yet. I have to tell these people that I love goodbye first and this is not the time.
Halloween, Sharky—only in America I would think we would find a way to capitalize on a day! I have not done the research but willing to bet the concept was a marketing ploy by Mr. Mars!
Just fyi…when I was kid it was so much better because the candy was full size bars, sweet!
Mountain
Nov 07, 2014 @ 12:26:05
Trick or treat, Mountain!
xoxox
Nov 20, 2014 @ 17:08:49
Indeed, we live in the land of great opportunity and bigger candy, Mountain!