Death Belongs to Life
This is the paradox. A human is out of nature and hopelessly in it. We are dual. Up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill marks to prove it. A human is literally split in two. We have an awareness of our own splendid uniqueness in that we stick out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet we go back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with.
Ernest Becker- The Denial of Death
The yin/yang (tai ji) symbol is one we often see but rarely grasp its meaning. It represents the philosophical understanding that opposing but complementary and interconnected forces (energy, qi) are always at work in creating all of life. At its most basic, yang energy, the white parts of the symbol, represent the sun (action, expansion, growth, heat, movement, light) and the yin energy, the black fields, represent the earth (contemplation, contraction, decline, cold, stillness, dark). It illustrates the dynamic movement that gives rise to the everchanging nature of life.
The yin/yang symbol reminds us that life is not static. From one minute to the next, the quantities of yang and yin qi change. If you look at the symbol as a clock face, with 6:00 a.m. being at the 6:00 position and 12:00 noon being at the 12:00 position, as you move clockwise around the circle, the yang (sun, white area) increases up to its maximum at noon and then the yin (black area) starts to increase. As sunlight increases, darkness decreases; then, when we reach the peak of the light at noon, light starts decreasing and darkness increases.
You can look at any cycle through the lens of increasing and decreasing yang. A 12-hour clock, a 24-hour clock, a life cycle, a moon cycle, a business cycle, a seasonal cycle. All things have cycles, they have a beginning, middle and end… whether we think about an entire life span, a childhood, a school year, a garden, or a dinner party. We are happy when the cycle of something unpleasant completes and sad when the cycle of something we enjoy is over. We have a natural inclination to seek more happiness and pleasure in our lives, and we have trouble letting go when it is time. We are wired that way.
Since the seasonal peak of yang at the Summer Solstice, with the longest days, we have been slowly moving day by day toward maximum yin at the Winter Solstice, with the longest of nights.
Having reached the Autumnal Equinox, we are at about 3:00 on our life cycle of the seasons. We have roughly equal parts black and white, light and dark, day and night.
This movement from the peak of active life in the summer to the dark stillness of winter, is one of decreasing yang and increasing yin. As the yang (daylight) recedes, we see the decline in the vitality of the plant life all around us. The leaves are finishing their life cycle, dying, drying up and falling to the ground to become compost to nourish next year’s plants. This energetic movement of declining yang giving way to death is the energetic movement of Autumn. We know that the sun will return in the Spring, and the landscape will come alive again.
A human life span is a reflection of the same movement of rising and then falling yang. When we are young and healthy, we have plenty of energy (yang) to dance about like the bees and butterflies in the peak yang summer garden, we are at the top of the symbol. If we say a human life span is 80 years, then after 40 the yang (energy, activity, warmth) starts to wane. As we get older, and pass 3:00 in our 60s, we really start to feel ourselves aging. This is the process of decreasing yang and increasing yin in humans. We have less energy to do things, and the body also has less energy to perform its physiological functions. We start to have more health issues and find we just don’t bounce back like we used to. What we are experiencing here is the decline of yang (warm, energetic, movement) giving way to an abundance of yin (cold, quiet, stillness) that increases until the moment of death, when all yang has left the body. This is the normal process of aging; it is the best-case scenario, and we struggle with it. It is the awareness of this process and where it leads that is the “terrifying dilemma.”
If a person lives into their 80s, they will live with the reckoning of their decline in health and mortality for twenty-plus years. Because of our natural discomfort with the Autumn stage of life, we are mostly in denial of where we are on the circle of life. This denial creates a great deal of angst and burns up a lot of our available life force energy to keep it under wraps. This life force energy, if we could free it up, could be used to enjoy life, to spend time with those we cherish or doing work we love.
One has to say “yes” to Death to fully say “yes” to Life.
But one has to say “yes” to death to fully say “yes” to life [i]. They are inseparable.
We can begin to move toward the full “yes” by bringing awareness to the little endings that happen every day in our lives. The day itself follows the Yin/Yang symbol around the course of increasing daylight and activity to increasing darkness and rest. We can notice the pattern in time we spend with loved ones that starts with planning the visit, passes through their arrival and progresses through to their departure. See if you can notice the pattern and pay special attention to the decline. Spend a moment to notice and be present with the feeling of loss as your loved ones leave, for example.
In the Autumn, we get to experience the seasonal declining yang as the days get shorter, plants die back, birds fly south, and life descends underground. Autumn offers us the opportunity to practice and observe the part of the lifecycle that we find most uncomfortable, 3:00 – 6:00, the decline toward death (winter). The declining energetic nature of Autumn is one of letting go and loss, and it will resonate with things in our own lives that we need to let go of or have lost. A feeling of grief or melancholy can arise spontaneously at this time of year. The sense of loss is all around us in Nature at this time and we may find ourselves remembering loved ones that have passed, or reminiscing about past summer adventures, or it may be a sadness we can’t quite identify. Just as when you walk into a room where someone is feeling happy or sad, you sense it, you feel happy or sad too. The descending energy of Autumn resonates with the emotion of grief in us, and we are marinating in it at this time of year. Autumn energy invites us into an opportunity to be present with loss and death as a part of life.
The other side of the coin of grief is connection. It is the people and relationships that we have loved and valued most deeply that cause the most searing grief when they are gone. If we follow the thread of grief, it will lead us to that which we hold most dear, that which we have loved, that which we value. Ultimately, it is relationships that we value most because it is connection that brings deep joy. This is not limited to relationships with people. For many, pets are very important. It could be through sailing, gardening, hiking, skiing, singing, or making art through which you feel your heart sing and connect to the greater whole. The grief that arises in us with the Autumn winds can help us refocus on how we want to spend our time and with whom because it points us towards the pathways of deep connection. Being reminded of our own mortality helps us to live daily life in more alignment with our values. When we learn to view death as part of life, we are reminded that life is precious, and time is short. This awareness lets us ask the question, is this activity, relationship, or social commitment how I want to spend my precious and limited time?
Many cultures are much better at supporting and acknowledging death as a normal part of life with holidays, rituals and customs that create space for these Autumn energies to work at the deeper levels of our psyches. Holidays and festivals dedicated to remembering loved ones who have passed, honoring loss, and making space for grief in the circle of life by celebrating a Day of the Dead at this time of year. For example, the Día de los Muertos in Mexico, Día dos Finados in Brazil, Halloween in the U.S., Samhain in Ireland, Obon in Japan, Pchum Ben in Cambodia, Barriletes Gigantes in Guatemala, all honor the dead. When there is a common thread across diverse cultures from a time when there was little communication, we can know that these expressions arise out of our common humanity. They connect us to the Great Mystery that is the source of all of life. We see this kind of tradition and ritual at the tricky inflection points in life, and they are meant to support us to step across a threshold to a new reality.
Sadly, here in the U.S., Halloween has been grossly commercialized, and we have lost much of its true meaning. Halloween evolved out of the Celtic festival, Samhain (sau-ihn), marking the end of the Harvest cycle and a New Year. Samhain is celebrated with sacred bonfires to light and warm the coming year, food offerings to the departed, costumes to confuse roaming spirits, and altars to the ancestors. It is recognized as a time that the veils between this world and the next are especially thin, a time to connect to our departed ancestors and loved ones.
What if we took a moment to bring back some of the richness and connection to the wheel of life that Halloween offers? In addition to carving pumpkins and distributing candy, we could make an altar to our loved ones and to cherished memories that have passed. It could include candles, photos, mementos, a favorite food…. Creating the alter reaches past our rational minds into the world of symbols, which is where emotions and dreams live. In this way we can offer our souls a little healing balm to ease our discomfort with decline and death and help us connect to this essential aspect of life.
Nature reflects the constant and ever-changing cycle of yin/yang that is life. Life and death are inexorably connected. By paying attention, we can begin to experience the mystery of death giving way to the miracle of life every day. We can come to understand how change, impermanence and death are part of the generative cycle of life. Every meal you eat can be a very personal study in this miracle as our bodies transform once living foods into a new life, your life. As we become active participants in this sacred dance, we become more alive to the Great Mystery that we are part of.
Autumn/Death Practices:
· Look for opportunities to be present with death. Notice the dead plants and animals you come across and pause. Reflect on how their deaths give rise to new life.
· If you knew you had one year to live, how would you spend your time? In fact, you are dying. You may have longer than a year, but this practice helps bring what you value most deeply into sharper focus
· We are living in a time when a great many plant and animal species are dying as a result of human disconnection from the Laws of Yin/Yang in the form of accelerating Climate Destruction. Let yourself be present with the news that the Monarch butterflies, for example, are now an endangered species. Really let yourself feel the grief of that loss.
· Ask yourself, “What can I let go of that can be part of something being born for someone else?” This can be embodied by engaging in “Swedish Death Cleaning” or by the Marie Kondo Method which encourages us to keep and organize only those things that spark joy and move along items that can be used by someone else.
· What ideas of how things “should be” are causing you or another person suffering? Can you let go of them to allow a new perspective to arise.
· This is an interview with Nikki Mirghafori, a Buddhist meditation master specializing in practices to bring mindfulness of death. She offers Five Daily Reflections to help us prepare for decline and death from Buddhist teaching.
· Spiritual Ecology “10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life” is a little book by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart that offers suggestions to connect more deeply with the Great Mystery through the activities of daily living like cleaning, gardening and cooking.
[1] (Vaughan-Lee Spiritual ecology: 10 practices to reawaken the sacred in everyday life)
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