“if for one more time might I hear the songbirds song outright up upon summer’s dawn and feel the warmth of that good sun one last time before I am utterly gone from this place back to the ground to be remade yet might I hear that sound one more time one dear final time to hear that bird and her song”
notes… a little more subtle this week, same theme though, lost.love.letters is now archived on my collections page (if it is something you dig).
what if…you could meet god (in whatever fashion, design, form or belief you believe in), and could make a deal where every time your physical body dies you would be reincarnated as another sentient humanoid (or close thereof) being – therefore never truly dying forever, the catch? you will have no memory of the previous being but you will persist, in some form, forever, on various planets (in the sheer vastness of this universe – or perhaps another) or wherever this god creation cares to place you on. So, in a sense you guaranty your survival, but you lose this, this you, your individuality and awareness. Do you make the deal ? or maybe you have made it already… Is losing your individual nature, this collection of things (experience mixed with your time), is this just death dressed up in just another coat ?
I must admit I find myself pondering my mortality probably more than I should, I mean, after all it is life’s most vexing question is it not? I have not found a sufficient solution in the house of religion, and frankly religion is certainly created by man, most surely fallible but not guaranteed wrong (if religion works for you, awesome, I have absolutely no problem with that, and perhaps I might be jealous of your relief/belief at the end of the day), I am certainly not an atheist but the possibility that we are just a random creation from a pool of physical laws, unfortunately, I can not dismiss that entirely, I just don’t know, I do not have the answers, and I doubt I might ever find one satisfactory (although I must admit I hope I am wrong on that count). E=mc^2 I must say this always felt like a glimmer of hope for me, a scientific raft in the sea of the unknown as it were, The Law of the Conservation of Mass, so therefore I will never disappear fully in that sense, if that makes sense, there will always be a part of the universe that is me, but will it be ‘me’? it is a bit daunting to ponder but if one of the basic laws of physics is a start on this path maybe I can approach god and broker a deal for some reincarnation… just what type is where the bargaining might have to begin… but if there truly is a god (and I hope there is), god will already know my price forthwith, and outwit me in such negotiations.
I did not even notice a light go out, sometimes whole lives are lived in the smallest of details, you expect things to happen, you know they will happen, but just the same they do not feel right when they do, beyond your control, maybe not even anything residing in your little orbit of daily life, but right there on the perimeter all the time, this is one of those nights, oddly, the temperature is much cooler tonight than it has been, coincidence? I don’t believe in them, a long time neighbor of mine, has passed away, he was not young, it was not sudden, perhaps expected, but neighbors can be a strange relationship at times, someone you see almost every day and almost always at certain times, I remember the ritual so well, rolling the garbage can to the street every sunday night, there are other assigned garbage nights, but sunday is more singular as most of us are not working, and certainly not my neighbor who was retired for years now, but seemingly we had the same routine, on sundays at least, roughly the same time to deploy the garbage to the route, as the years went by I noticed he was hunched over more, perhaps a bit more labored up and down his driveway, there was always the knowing nod, like “howdy neighbor”, how odd to be two houses away and yet know so little, but be totally comfortable with someone, such is the nature of familiarity and ritual, and a neighborhood such as this, I would see his kids visit with their kids, almost every sunday, I would rarely see his wife, on occasion he would get the mail for other neighbors directly across, well, at least before they moved, that is years ago now, the cars of his children are staying later this evening, later than most, at some point they will go home, and then all that will be left, a silent house, haunted by the one remnant left, a widowed spouse.
…perhaps the problem is in the name itself, the name is a supposition, meaning that we are calling this life, and then ‘something‘ after, maybe the real answer is that this is just a phase of overall life not the end all be all .
for most of this phase of life, I must admit I have been focused on the possibility that there is nothingness after conventional death, that my life has zero significance and it will be as if I never existed forever after this – gone… – forever…, at times this has given me what feels like a panic attack, my breathing shortens, my chest seizes, a get a bit dizzy, it feels real and paralyzing, to combat this over the years I have tried to rationalize the options, I’ve looked at a myriad of religions, none fit (for me, if they work for you, I have no problem with that and am happy for you, genuinely), there was a time I settled on just knowing a few things:
-I do/have actually existed -all humans great or garbage have gone down the same path -matter is not created or destroyed so regardless some part of me goes on, in some form -we know very little of the universe as smart as we think we are, so there is volumes of knowledge out there to explore
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Sometimes this has been enough, sometimes not, because even if I, my atoms, my molecules, my materials become something else (or more perhaps… or less more likely), even if I become something else my consciousness, the ‘me’ is gone, and that is what rattles me to the core, it always has, and I don’t understand how most people are not the same, afraid of this dire outcome, this inevitable end, for all time, perhaps it is better that way.
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So that brings me to tonight, and the term ‘afterlife’, and it made me realize that yes, vast nothingness is a possible outcome, but so is a phase of life we just do not understand, call it a vision if you like, I call it a picture in a dream I had, I imagined that upon my death, my body opened up like an egg, and a form of myself burst forth like a blue phoenix (I can not explain the particulars, I am just reporting them), a blue phoenix with a long tail like cosmic dust, as if you grabbed a nebula and pulled the cosmic cloud around back and forth, and the phoenix raced forth to explore the universe, no longer what we consider human, a higher form, I felt that is what we are meant to do, to discover the universe, in all the corners, in a different dimension, soaring among the stars, it felt calming and reassuring as if it came from some other source than my brain, is that likely? my logical self says no, but my logical self also can say that I do not have the knowledge to really make the call, there are many things we don’t understand in this life, we don’t remember being in the womb, but certainly were there for almost a year residency, then we had this phase of life which we are living in now, perhaps the next phase is the same way, this may be just another gestation period, different than the previous but no less real, and then the next birth happens, or evolution of our being, into something else, would we look back to the previous phase and look to talk to it ? perhaps, perhaps not, based on looking at this experience of life.
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Is this an answer? no. Just something that occurred to me tonight, something floating through my mind (as it is always working on the puzzle of this life). My fate will be the same either way, but sometimes there is an outcome we may not have considered… and I surely will still ponder on the subject, well, until the answer is quite apparent, and I am quite gone, either moving on or moving never lost to forever. I prefer to hope for the next phase of life, not afterlife, the next-life, the next phase…
As usual, all feedback is appreciated…. this one is a little out there, but, so are we, floating on this little blue marble at the edge of a galaxy among countless, beyond countless others…
“now that you are gone I have nowhere to go not a tombstone nor a site or a place to be by your side in this life I dwell alone in a funeral in late fall sliding into the cold I call (I call)”
not from the stars do I think judgement comes
as the sky changes by forces rung
but as I examine the sky tonight
I notice one missing, a closing light
as in stars we might not know
the light we see or how old
but eventually with distance lens
even the brightest must meet an end
and all folds back to cosmic dust
to return to life on the cusp
and once again form another
from the same constructive endeavor
but only once ever a star is born
never the same as it was before
materials remain but have no soul
for that we turn our inner eyes
to find love, the eternal sign
notes… strange to think we are stars, but surely we are, more important than the hollywood ilk, we are surely cosmic beings in construction, and all this we have built around us,the distractions from all that, these little things that are chains of amino acids walking led to candy crush? who knew… do I overthink things? probably… but I am fascinated by how we got here, the process is almost overwhelming to ponder (almost… 🙂
the first line is a call out to some guy named Shakespeare (specifically sonnet 14), I like the old classic stodgy poets as such, just my thing, I enjoy the ring of their cadence (Milton, Shelley, Byron, Dylan to name a few). just my thing.
Life is a battle, one we all lose, but we MUST fight!
Generally speaking I am an optimist, but I am also a realist, and a skeptic (boy I sound like a pain in the ass). Death is usually not gently slipping into the ever-after in your sleep, rarely. How many of us have this belief? or is it a distraction for what we really know deep down as truth? I have been lucky (some may say blessed, that’s fine with me) that I have had very little death in my family, at least those close to me. But as all things are, things end and I sense a wave of coming (unfortunately a whole generation). We may not want to see what that looks like, restraints, screams, bodily functions, the knowing the end is there but the days must be the days in hospital watch, the pulling out of tubes, the curses, the fever, the thrashing of anger as life escapes bodily form – and reason flies out the door, surely – not the dream of dying in our sleep. But this is what makes us most human. What we do with these things, these situations. We are given a choice. We can delve down and be drowned in the specter of death (and succumb ourselves)… or live, holding up the full sword of life, because we may not know what death brings (a true end?) but we do know one thing… life. we are alive now, there is nothing more certain than that, and in that I put my faith… to fight some more, for those I love, and for myself.
overlooked by the mainstream and even the rehash metal movement that embraces Metallica etc these days, this is a beautiful piece from years ago, it tempered the thrash fury of an album but also informed some souls… like mine.
notes… a good amount to unpack here, if you don’t want my explanations and thought levels stop reading… ok, now just you and me left talking, this is based on the danse macabre, a movement, well, a thought that became a movement back in the 1400s that spanned well over a couple of hundred years, the catharsis or the pinnacle thought being that we are all going to die, true enough, but it embodied modesty with theme, from a child to a king there is no escape from the ultimate end so why not party on dudes ! well.. maybe more elegant than that… the whole “pope” line is based on art of the day which typically showed the five figures I describe, note I use “a” and “the” in spots, “the child” is both a reference to literally children and also jesus christ (“the” child), the fifth member of the party is the laborer hence my plowman’s line (another biblical reference as well), I also am using double meaning in “plot” and “lot” in the following lines, ‘memento mori’ in latin is “remember you must die”, pretty much the rallying cry of the danse macabre movement, and the last line is my play on “the night is young” and also “the good die young” (revelers), the night has been there all along, and with that I bid you a good night, or a good day, this poem came to me and made me full with muse, that nimble minx, thank you my dear… for this.
music… going deep doom metal here… no death vocals, just the grinding forward sound of life, the constant sound, this song sums it up with sweeping piano and languished guitars…
Notes… am I past the swoon of a beautiful woman? sure, I could try and be cool smooth internet guy and lie that I have not been led by my eyes (or something else residing lower). But as you get older (hopefully) wiser… you realize (hopefully) that there is beauty in so many places other than obvious pleasing visions. Beauty is nice, it is a lovely component but it certainly does not mean a person is better… and it is all relative. Which would you rather have .. beauty or happiness ?
Music.. I can’t even put into words, how much I love this… Tori, she is just brilliant… and live a revelation…
notes… I sort of was thinking of the Matrix scene where Neo is “reborn” and also the “fields”… a great metaphor for life, so I imagined that we are all just on this endless plain digging our own graves… because, in a sense, we are, we are all traveling in that way, I am not saying I like it, but it is the truth, which makes me understand suicide more from a rational sense but it is something I could never do… even though honestly, logically the equation is the same… can you really argue that ? the only thing I can champion is maybe just maybe instead of suicide there is creation- of art, of life, of cures of disease, of inspiration of invention, of children… because the human experience tells me.. things are possible, the impossible is possible, death will never be cheated or defeated (everything has an end), but the fight… remember the fight and try to win even when you know you will not. that is the hope of humanity, at least that is what keeps me going, and my hope to inspire. I am just a man but I want to be more. the question is… do you ?
Musical choice ? I will not pull punches.. I think Anna Murphy is the goddamn balls…
She is of course originally from the band eluveitie, and if you have to ask she is playing a Hurdy Gurdy… yeah, totally obscure mechanical violin instrument from the middle ages
Shades of My Garden 