“I want to vanish,
This is my fondest wish” (Elvis Costello, “I want to vanish”)
There’s a funeral wake next door. My childhood friend’s mother, all of 81, performs yet another biological imperative. Frequenting the hospital in the last 2 months, her organs shut down one by one, signing off cell after cell.
There is nothing certain in this life except death, probably the only lesson in Biology that endures. Everything that breathes, hops, and gallops runs into fatigue and ultimately stops, terminates, ends. This is the tyranny of nature without the tiniest, slimmest window of escape for its stewards.
I feast on gangster movies where the sanctity of life is an outrage. To paraphrase the infamous Oliver North of the equally infamous Contra-scandal, I would stand on my head or get a lobotomy just to be part of Tony Soprano’s crew, my favorite fictional Mafioso. I can’t keep tabs on the casualties in Scorsese’s or Tarantino’s violence-fest.
Death has somehow become a gargantuan fiction that when it does happen, specially to someone close or someone you know, this most ancient and natural biological destiny still manages to astound, affect, numb.
I lost my own mother 7 months ago so the faint scent of death still teases. Of course, you try to be philosophical and courageous about it but as my friend Ali perceptively says, “no one is too old to lose a parent.”
Sad but true.
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Writing about nothing in particular while the world is in turmoil.
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I write differently from the way I speak. I speak differently from the way I think. I think differently from the way I should think and so it goes on into the darkest depths of infinity. (Kafka, Letter to Ottla, 10 July 1914)
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2 comments:
hello dyn dyn,
talking about death...I have recently read an article from a perennial traveller who went to Tibet months ago. In his journal, he wrote that there is a particular tibetan tribe there, (he forgot to mention the name of the tribe though ) who celebrate death in an extremely happy way.
This tribal community would create bon fire when a loved one succumbs to death, and the corpse will be held several feet above the fire until it is burned down to ashes..while doing the same they would dance, jump and sing joyfully around the fire in a merry making celebration full of life ironically over death.
One of the elders in that tribe explained to the author, that death should be welcomed with great happiness and joy.. as it is of their belief that the dead are happier than the living.
The elder further explained that, death is an inevitable process for the living in order to receive the perfect state of happiness.
According to their ancestors, it is believed that when one man perishes, his soul ascends to a higher state where happiness and eternal joy is experienced, the faster he ascends the happier the soul gets.
However, when there are people who mourns or grieving for the perished soul...the soul is burdened. Every drop of tears and amount of grief is a burden to the soul which eventually slows down his ascend to the higher plane or worse might prevent the soul to ascend to thatt happy state. The more mourners there are,then there is a greater possibility that his soul is trapped hovering around the earth over the years instead of moving on to the higher state of
happiness and eternal bliss.
Hence, according to the same elderly, it is a tragedy for the soul besetted with a lot of grief from the loved ones left behind as the soul is prevented to moved on to his happy journey.
That is why...it is a practice in their community to dispel people who mourns for their demised loved ones lest they will never enter the state of peace and happiness.
This tribe view death as an important stage of life cycle which must necessarily occur in order for humans to enter the second life which is a happier and is known to be a complete joyful state. Hence, everyone is called upon to celebrate and welcome it will all hearty thanksgiving.
Living here on earth for this tribe is a fleeting material journey used in order to experience the greater state of happiness which is only achieved through death.
The elderly addressed the author with sadness when he declared that there are plenty of souls hovering over the death because they are burdened by the mournings of their loved ones who cannot let go of them. These souls are stucked for a long time and are begging to ascend to the higher state but cannot do so because people on earth will not let them. To this he said, its a lonely journey for those souls trapped for hundreds of years because people cannot let go and worse, they continue to mourn for their memory.
Hmmmmm.which makes me think..... Somehow theirs is a belief which is universal in thought.Christianity and Islam possess concepts of the after life..only they differ in the outcome...or do they?
But how do we often celebrate death the way this tibetan tribe does?
And why do i silently wish now i belong to that tibetan tribe. People will call you lunatic here if you dance and sing around during the wake. Worse ,you might even be stab to death by the relatives if you do so.
I wonder what happened to the author after that trip to Tibet .(Perhaps he joined the tribe after writing the article)
I believe his article aimed to console the people who lost their loved ones..and i do sincerely hope though that the purpose was served..
Hi, Sweet!!! salamat han pagbisita.
yeah, death should not be considered as some kind of a catastrophe. It is a liberation from human suffering and as Catholics/Christians, we are indoctrinated that it's a way of reuniting with our Creator.
Pasyada permanente. Much better, you should blog too. Hulat ako.
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