What is Dead May Never Die

Death. A word I use to struggle to mention. A lump in the throat, a stale look in my eye, slightly choking on the breath that's cascading down my trachea. It's a complex word, to say the least. But it isn't the linguistics that trip me up, it's the emotions hidden behind each letter, each syllable and sound. It's the memories and the fears, the stabbing pain and the instant relief. The confusion and the chaos. I had so many preconceived ideas, influenced by my beliefs and the experiences of those around me. But my ideas just added to the complexity of the word, reflecting my inexperience and inability to relate entirely. Until the time came that I learned for myself.

Death is a word that cannot be defined. It cannot be understood or written out, explained or painted for anyone to receive. It is defined as the end of the life of a person or organism, but it goes way beyond that simple idea. The most difficult aspect of the idea of death is that it is non-transferable. Once you understand death within yourself, define it, draw it, write it out, that is as far as it goes. It stays planted in your brain, growing in your mind with each and every experience you have. There is no way to show someone your understanding of death. You can attempt to explain it, using words and images that may help them relate to what you are saying, but the truth is no one will ever understand death until they work through tremendous loss themselves.

Since learning my own meaning and definition of death, I have been able to observe others. I have noted their emotions, their thoughts, their reactions. We are all so very different, in how we perceive and more specifically, how we grieve. I will not try to explain to you my idea of death for it may not be understood the way my mind defines it. However I will present you with this idea:

When faced with death in general, it is almost impossible for us to decipher between our empathy for the loss of a life and our own fear of death. Sometimes we mistake our own fear of death for the fear of someone else losing their life. There is grief, there is the emptiness of physical loss and the end of our life with someone else in it, but there is a much grander emotion at work when we face death. Our fear. We fear so much at the end of the line. We may or may not understand what follows, we may or may not wish to think about what comes next. So we just hold a space of fear. Of the unknown, of change, of the release into something new. With all of this fully intact in our hearts and minds, we choose to focus on the physical loss. The empty place in our hearts. The terror we choose to play back in our heads day after day. The fear of what is no more.

We choose to sit in our grief, to soak up our loss and tell ourselves it will never be the same. Well it won't, that we have gotten right. But it's not about right or wrong, it's about our perspective. Life isn't the same, but it can be bigger. It can be more whole. The physical loss in our lives can teach us about life. It can teach us how tough the sting can get, or how soft the touch can feel. It can teach us how sweet the rose can smell, or how much the heart can truly bleed when pricked by a thorn. Death can keep us in a box, bringing us anxiety, fear, and deep depression. Or it can smash open the box and bring you everything you have missed while you've been sleeping.

I am not writing this to tell you what happens after death. I may have my own firm understanding and experience to back that up, but that is ultimately up to your mind to decipher. That is for you to build, and your soul to agree upon. But I can tell you this, death is never just about the loss and if you can find the strength that resides in your core, the life that seeps from your soul constantly, if you can find the will to move forward you will absolutely discover your full meaning of death. But also your meaning of life.

Life can change you, but death destroys you. It destroys you to a place where the soil that was your old self can recycle and grow into a new self. Death can teach you about more than just you and what you have lost. It can take up residence in your spirit and prove to be one of the most awakening experiences you will ever endure, if only you see that you CAN endure it. You CAN move through it, taking with you the materials and realizations you need to create a stronger, more open self.

It is now time to say goodbye to all that has died so that we may continue forward. It is time to reap the courage that has been sown into our celestial bodies, time and time again. Pick up your sword, pick up the swords of those who have finished their battle and gone home. It is time to grow from the ashes of all we have been through and all we have lost, all that has taught us and all that has gotten us to this point. The place that we need to be.

While I can't offer you my perspective on death, I can give you an example to see. I can give you the words from a heart that has endured soul crushing loss, and I can give you my word. Death is not the end, for anyone involved. Loss, my dears, is only but the beginning of the most extraordinary metamorphosis you will ever, EVER, encounter. You may shed your tears now, but you will shed yourself eventually and you will see the beauty, not the vain, of what has been lost. For what is lost is never truly lost, but only in your heart from this point forward. To guide you, to love you, to show you how far you have come and how far you will go. Everlasting, from the day it all ends to the day it all begins again.

The Three Things I Will Always Know

Life is filled with movement. There are the ups, the downs, the old and the new. People and things are constantly being replaced by new people and new things. Experiences move forward, and eventually come to an end or create a new beginning out of themselves.

Despite this constant kinetic energy that life generates, we have the tendency to feel stagnant at times. Like we can’t get our feet moving forward, no matter how hard we try. We just can’t quite seem to grasp the lesson and move on. Or pick up our feet and carry on. We get stuck on something, or rather in something. Unable to move, unable to make enough sense of our surroundings or the direction we are headed.

What does it mean to us, where we're going, if we can’t even figure out where we are? What does the journey have to do with our current situation when we're stuck somewhere, unsure of how to continue? If there's no movement, is there also no progress? 

I can't answer those questions, but I can tell you this. The future holds a place in our lives. Obviously not a conscious one, but a space in which we are leaving life up to something bigger. We don’t have to have everything figured out to move onward, we don’t have to possess the map and the answers to what lies ahead. We don’t need to plot it, to plan it, to design it out. We don’t need to know where we are headed to move forward. All we need is the faith in the knowledge that we will get to where we need to be as long as we are conscious of where we are now, not where we are headed.

If you know where you stand, just where you are in this moment, you will survive. If you know where you stand with yourself, with your life, with the goals and aspirations you hold in your heart right this second, you will know how to get there. No directions needed. So then what is in that space, the space that the future holds? If it’s not answers or directions, what takes up that space? It’s the hope we have for something great. It’s the knowing that we will get there, not the knowing of when or how but the knowing that we will eventually know what everything means. It's a space we reserve for the time in which we do figure things out. A space for all options and all outcomes to take. A place to know there is an extraordinary future in front of us, no matter what the story turns out to be.

I am sure of only three things in this life. In every life. The sun will come out. The moon will come out. The truth will come out. You will always have a sense of direction, innately installed in your spirit. The only thing you have to acquire is the faith, the blind knowing, the FEELING that your truth will come out. So long as you know of the three things that will always come out, you will know how to always continue onward with your journey. Not a day passing you by taking a thing from you and not a moment being wasted on the stagnant debate of the ever chattering mind.

Have faith in the sun, have faith in the moon. But most importantly have faith in your own truth. No matter how hidden it may seem now, you will figure it out. You will find your way. And it will be magnificent. It will be beautiful. It will be your new present moment as the cycle completes and begins again. Everything you hoped and dreamed will gracefully turn into everything you know. 

Happy Eclipse season <3 

Run Away or Dance the Tango

Fear. It's a knot in your solar plexus, an uncomfortable tingle down your spine, a rush of adrenaline through your body. It can freeze you up or cause you to lose control. It can even control you. But fear isn't all bad. Fear itself is good. Giving in to fear, well that's what you SHOULD fear.

There's a side to fear that you won't learn of until you face it. Whether you swam into the jaws of the shark knowingly or it grabbed you from behind, it has the capacity to move something within you. Fear can change even the most stagnant of situations. It can budge the most heavy of thoughts and get the boulder rolling down the mountain. You can run, you can hide, but you can't get rid of it until you face it, upfront and ready. And trust me, you are going to want to.

You can try your hardest to put up with the fear, to gain comfort in it's presence, ignoring the urge to roll up in a ball. Or you can look it directly in the eyes, see what is there to be seen and do something about it. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself, that is correct. But you shouldn't have to fear fear? That sounds silly but it's true. You just shouldn't have to. And you don't.

Fear can be your friend. It can nudge you out of your comfort zone, it can awaken the beast within. It can move mountains and change the direction of the wind in an instant, if you allow it to. Fear can get you to places you have never seen, tell you things you have never heard.

I have learned to recognize the way fear feels as it approaches me. The uneasiness, the sudden and blank decision to run away, sometimes not even knowing why or what I am fleeing. I know the perpetuating feeling of discomfort and the confusion of the unknown. I know that it will bring me to beautiful horizons and breathtaking views if only I could push past the discomfort and the unknown, if only I could. I hold this wisdom in my heart, loud and clear. Yet my legs run away first, before I can realize any of this. And in an instant, the moment is gone and I am far away from where I desire, from where I planned.

I think I know what I want, I think I know what I need, but I don't know where that will take me. I don't know how this lesson will turn out or where it will bring me, but I do know that I don't want to fear it. I want it to change me. Perhaps I am just confusing myself and running my mind ragged. Or perhaps I am genuinely working through these thoughts, actually getting somewhere in this chaotic, disorderly mind. I may not possess the answers to anything, but I do have in my grips, the ability to look fear right in the eyes and decide to dance with him. And if I dance with my fear and I learn how to step to his rhythm without him stepping on my toes, perhaps we could create a beautiful scene. And maybe, just maybe that beautiful dance can teach me how fear can help me. It can show me, within myself, not to run away but to stay and dance with him. The music has been playing this whole time and I have been too busy running away to enjoy it.

The truth is, there is beauty in everything. There is beauty in pain, in fear, in apprehension. It's the music that's playing in the background, patiently waiting for us to hear it that holds the beauty. It's the decision to dance with our fears instead of giving them power over us, over our desires and the way we go after them. Fear can be a friend or a foe. A nightmare or a revolution. But the only thing that fear cannot be is your deciding factor.

Fear can't decide the path you take my dears, only you can.