When It Finds You

"When death finds you, may it find you alive."--African proverb

Death and The Other World

"I think it's more a matter of realizing that there is a porous permeability between the living and the dead. Between life and death. And the way we have set it up is that death and life are opposed and you must hold off death and it's the ultimate other, and you die alone, this sort of existential whatever. And it seems to me that this offers a completely different way of realizing that the day world is permeated with the other world--in all kinds of small ways, that they're always inner voices, that the dead are cautionary figures. That you are living with the dead. And what you think of as the way of life may be the way of more death. And the way of death may be the way of more livingness. That these are not necessarily alternatives or that first you do one and then you do the other."--James Hillman, pg.25, Lament of the Dead

Derrick Jensen made it clear to me with his work that our "way of life may be the way of more death."

Not Enough Death

"Our Culture is singular for its ignorance of death. The great art and celebrations of many other cultures--ancient Egyptian and Etruscan, the Greek of Eleusis, Tibetan---honor the underworld....The soul...desires to go beyond, to go ever inward and deeper."--James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld

The Hades Perspective

"The richness of Hades-Pluto psychologically refers to the wealth that is discovered through recognizing the interior deeps of the imgagination. For the underworld was mythologically conceived as a place where there are only psychic images. From the Hades perspective we are our images. The imaginal perspective assumes priority over the natural organic perspective." [Pg. 207, Revisioning Psychology]

Death

Lately I've been thinking about death. I think it is safe to say that I've feared death for most of my life. And I also think it is safe to say that the reason this culture has a death urge is because of its overall fear of death.

This morning I dug up a quote by Ed Abbey talking about the fear of death. I'm going to type it out here so that I have it for future reference and because its good.

From Pg. 41 out of Walking It Off, by Doug Peacock:

"If your life has been wasted, then naturally you're going to cling like a drowning man to whatever kind of semi-life medical technolgy can offer you, and you're going to end up in a hospital with a dozen tubes sticking in your body, machines keeping your organs going. Which is the worst possible way to die. One's death should mean something. Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least. Death is every man's final critic. To die well you must live bravely." Ed Abbey