Death Comes To Us All

 In a world of chaos, I’m embracing death and change. Life and death, the cosmic balance of life that is something we used to know as a species, we’ve lost our way with it. Something about the knowledge that we will taste death does something to a person. 

I’ve walked with people (both personal losses and professional ones) who are on the path to death, seen the stages they pass through and the peace grows the closer they get. I’ve also seen in some cases, the fear and dread of leaving others behind, or not knowing what will come...this keeps us here for longer when we could pass in peace if we just accepted the stages of life as those stages. We will pass from this life into the next, and for that it’s inevitable. It’s something we CANNOT skip, or barter away. 

Many have tried to make deals with the devil for longer life, others seek the fountain of youth believing that it will keep the clutches of Death away from them for longer. But in the end, they met with Them, the One who walks with them intimately through a process of letting go, of holding onto freedom, and letting the change happen. It’s a gift, to be honest, to walk with people in those days and hours leading to death. I cannot believe that I was blessed to do so, but it’s given me a reflective nature on death that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think I’m more in tune with it than I realize...But It’s okay. 

I’ve become so closely acquainted with death, in the physical and spiritual forms, that I can say I am not nearly afraid of it like I had been. In fact, I can see the beauty of it, the unfolding of the steps like a forgotten rose left behind on the bush to waste away. But I’m here, to watch, to witness the glory and the passing. The way life is given, even in death, by the passing of all things. From the ashes of what’s passed on before, we rise up nurtured and strong.

Without the passing of the previous…we wouldn’t be here. There is something just beautiful in that to me. Knowing that I come from the ashes of life before, from all of life. Plants, animals, and humans alike, have nurtured me, and donated to my DNA…ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From the earth I come, and to the earth I’ll return. 

Mines & Ripples

Image from Unsplash

 I miss digging into the mists of my mind, to scavenge and mine like an explorer not afraid of what they’ll find. 

I drop words to the page, no matter my age, and when the secrets are revealed and healed, my words linger on.

I’m not a joke, nor a fad, nor one to hold back, I see what is there and my scribe is born.

I carry wisdom from pain, loss, and life’s circumstances, knowledge that only death and mistakes can bring. 

I lost my way, lost my understanding of life’s cycles and how healing is a personal thing done on the darkness and solitude of one’s own making.

I found my way back, the path hidden and dark ahead, one step in front of the other I gained my way to the truth

That without my darkness I am not whole, without my understanding I cannot heal forward. 

I train now on the water that was meant to drown me, my steps leaving ripples for others to follow my wake.

I see the ripples of those who went before, those who didn’t let cultures distance from life change them.