Facing Mortality- Why We Must Die in Order to Live;

Death has a very crucial role to play in our human existence- it is the presence that we so often try to avoid, pushing to the back of our minds our inevitable departure from this realm & of life on Earth. It brings the grief of losing the people & things we hold precious to our hearts, baring the reminder that we are just a fleeting moment in the endless stretch of eternity. It haunts us with the things we cannot change, the things that we wish we could have done or said, of all the moments we tend to overlook & take for granted. Especially in the western world, death has been stigmatized & painted in our minds as the villain we can never escape from: we dread its visit, foreshadowing of pain to follow, but yet, it is always there, waiting to welcome the aching yet necessary lesson of loss & our limited time here.

But, what if we began viewing death in a different light?

Facing our own mortality could be our catalyst to really begin living- to have appreciation for who, what, where we are now. To live without bounds & to understand fully the gift it is to be alive here & now. To savor all parts of this human experience, pausing to see the flower in bloom before it has already wilted. How often do we really express gratitude for everyday, mundane moments? In my perspective, to fully know death is to fully know life, as I'd like to think that both life & death have been in a harmonious dance together since all of creation first began. In this duality of extremes, there you find the ebb & flow that must be created in order to meet the other. But so often, we realize this in hindsight when it is too late.

When I reflect on my own brief meetings with death, I have always left its company with the realization that death is not the reaper it has appeared to be, but rather, it takes many forms that can be beautiful when understanding how important its role is in our evolution throughout not only this lifetime, but the greater spirit of consciousness as a whole. It can be seen too as an angel of liberation, breaker of cycles, destroyer of chains, the meeting point between what has gone & what is coming. Death can also be viewed as the bringer of transitions, changing from one form into the next, an aid in all metamorphosis. After all, we cannot behold the seed of new creation without the passing of what has gone.

In life, we will die many times before the great departure. In fact, in order to embrace growth, we will have to shed many versions of ourselves along the way. When we move towns to begin a new adventure, leave relationships to explore other connections or tune in with ourselves, take a risk on a new career path, death is always present, showing up in ways that we often do not recognize as such. & even still, while we have for so long understood death as a tragedy to resist, I believe that what awaits us on the other side of this departure from life as we know it from our limited lenses is a peace beyond comprehension, as we return to God & remember the truth of our existence. & so the cycle continues on, as consciousness cannot unfold without an inevitable shift between forms.

& maybe one of the prices of being awakened is facing your own mortality over & over- for I constantly feel as though I am in a race with time, its ticking serving as a looming reminder of the impermanent nature of all things; yet I greet it knowingly with a smile, embracing what it will bring next in its farewell.