This week I’ve been called to the topic of death and the cycle of death and rebirth.
Tomorrow I leave to see a dying uncle, the last of that generation. It’s not a sad occasion. He’s led a long, full, rewarding life, built an amazing family, and lost his wife of 70+ years recently. His family is well and he wants to make sure I and my family are well and on the right course in life. I want to ask him what he sees, how he sees his life now, how he sees the end, what he sees beyond the end. I want to see if we can find common ground between the spirituality I feel and his lifelong single-minded devotion to the Southern Baptist Church.
Another death comes to someone very close to me, the end of a romantic relationship that was so important for this person. This relationship seemed like the sole source of happiness so much of the time for them. What do they do now? How do they process this ending? What can come after the end?
We’ll approach this topic of death and the end with a shifting of perspective. We need to broaden our perspective past this narrow view of ourselves as individuals, past our limited view of being separate beings with a beginning and an end.
Let’s widen our point of view, widen our perceptions and our sense of being. We’ll use this guided meditation by Ram Dass as a tool for this.
Remember, you are not this body, you are not even this mind.
You are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club