For your consideration (and reflection, perhaps): an image in honor and remembrance of Linda, the sister of my close friend Ben. She passed away last week, prematurely young, after losing a lengthy and courageous battle with cancer. She leaves behind her husband Robert, her nephew Skyeler who she raised as a son, and many other loving family members.
Death is the One Topic most humans go to any length to avoid contemplating, for it presents an eternal, impenetrable mystery of what follows even as it demarcates the inescapable, irrevocable end of all that is familiar. Naturally the immediate and overriding reaction to the reality of mortality is fear, and as a species we've developed elaborate and multi-layered rituals, ceremonies and all manner of distractions to erect as many walls as possible between the secret hope of dodging the final verdict and the unsettling, if not terrifying eventuality of its arrival.
Still, there are perspectives which can bring some measure of peace. Years ago a friend pointed out to me that all things are on loan -- nothing is permanent. My suffering arises when I forget this simple truth and become too attached to keeping things just as they are. Even my life is on loan, an amazing, often bewildering, frequently joyous journey as a spiritual being having a human experience. As I've passed fifty years of age my own temporary status on this blue marble has become rather more visceral; of late I've been walking a reflective path which is helping to shift my own attitude towards death (ever so slightly, so far) from anxiety to a sense that, well, if nothing else, it's going to be an interesting experience.
As followers of this blog know my own mother died last year; one of the attendant aspects of living long enough is needing to deal with an increasing number of losses as friends, family members and beloved celebrities exit the stage ahead of us. Grief is never easy, yet it can serve to heal past wounds, enhance our own relationship to humility, and prepare us to walk into our own sunset with perhaps a shred of grace and dignity.
I pray for peace and lovingkindness to surround Ben and his family, affected friends and loved ones; may their hearts be soothed by kind and sweet memories and the pleasures of having shared in Linda's journey through life. There is much beauty and joy to be found in such reminiscing.
Finally, some passages on death, excerpted from the writings of Kahlil Gibran:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like the seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity . . .
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.
† † † Death is the One Topic most humans go to any length to avoid contemplating, for it presents an eternal, impenetrable mystery of what follows even as it demarcates the inescapable, irrevocable end of all that is familiar. Naturally the immediate and overriding reaction to the reality of mortality is fear, and as a species we've developed elaborate and multi-layered rituals, ceremonies and all manner of distractions to erect as many walls as possible between the secret hope of dodging the final verdict and the unsettling, if not terrifying eventuality of its arrival.
Still, there are perspectives which can bring some measure of peace. Years ago a friend pointed out to me that all things are on loan -- nothing is permanent. My suffering arises when I forget this simple truth and become too attached to keeping things just as they are. Even my life is on loan, an amazing, often bewildering, frequently joyous journey as a spiritual being having a human experience. As I've passed fifty years of age my own temporary status on this blue marble has become rather more visceral; of late I've been walking a reflective path which is helping to shift my own attitude towards death (ever so slightly, so far) from anxiety to a sense that, well, if nothing else, it's going to be an interesting experience.
As followers of this blog know my own mother died last year; one of the attendant aspects of living long enough is needing to deal with an increasing number of losses as friends, family members and beloved celebrities exit the stage ahead of us. Grief is never easy, yet it can serve to heal past wounds, enhance our own relationship to humility, and prepare us to walk into our own sunset with perhaps a shred of grace and dignity.
I pray for peace and lovingkindness to surround Ben and his family, affected friends and loved ones; may their hearts be soothed by kind and sweet memories and the pleasures of having shared in Linda's journey through life. There is much beauty and joy to be found in such reminiscing.
Finally, some passages on death, excerpted from the writings of Kahlil Gibran:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like the seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity . . .
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.
† † †
Requiescat In Pace
Linda DiRubio-Moore
April 13, 1961 - May 20, 2010
Untitled, #7732
© 2010 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.
(click image for larger version)
Details: May 8, 2010; Canon 20D; f/11 @ 1/200 sec; -1/3 EV; ISO 400; 100mm.
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