By Charlotte Schmid
Life flashes by in a single moment at the time of death. So they say. But life stands still as it opens one door at a time, on the long way out.
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Door after door opens for another glimpse of past events. The door of the wedding day, church bells, veil, happy smiles, organ music that is so powerful it also opens the door on the other side of the long walkway.
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There, chained people forced to labor, carry loads too heavy for anyone, carrying their karma deep in their wounds.
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The door to the nursery opens. New, still wrinkled face sleeping itself into life, parents full of loving miracles.
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Screeching sounds, (new door), screams, a thud, a bang. Quiet.
Oh God, have mercy!
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Women trapped behind veils, black endless eyes looking deeply, losing eyesight bent over looms, losing eyesight on the computer screen.
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Men, children, lower class, different color, strange accents, odd customs.
Oh God!
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Birdsongs behind another door. And meadows full of flowers, happy faces, snow capped mountains and pure fresh air.
Thanks God!
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The sounds of a happy procession carrying a load to the pyre, joyful singing. Someone died. Someone will be reborn.
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Door after door–forests devastated, floods unheld, highways paved over earthlife.
Unleashed energy, mushroom clouds, out of control.
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Traffic jams, harsh words, angry looks, road rage.
Time to meditate.
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Door after door, reviewing. Too late to amend. Reviewing.
TIME STOPPED. Stopped. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death the Great Adventure*.................................................................................................I am here.
Soft music behind the last door, light flooding through as it is opened. A pale, luminous face faintly smiling, candles and friends and family, all luminous. Songful prayers, sweet fragrance, amazing grace. SPIRIT gently flowing away.
OM, OM, OM.
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* See book of the same title, published by Lucis Trust, NY.
Not As We've Been Told
By Nancy M. Davison
When I was sixteen years old, a young man whom I'd been dating was killed in an automobile crash in Northern California, one of those typical, spring vacation, drinking too much, oops! kind of accidents. In those days many people still kept the body at home until the interment, and I dutifully went to view the "remains" of this young man. I hadn't thought much about death up to that point in my life, and really wasn't grieving any "loss", so I can't say I was emotionally set-up for the revelation which followed. As I walked through the viewers to the table where "Bob" was laid out, I looked at the body, and the thought rang in my head, loud and clear, "He's not in there at all, he's gone!" I turned around and walked out, and from that day forward, death has never seemed a tragedy nor a loss but a simple process of finishing a job and getting on with the next step.
I had no opportunity to test this theory for many years, having left California, returning home only for brief visits. During that time the only relatives who died were a few cousins and my two grandmothers, none of whom I was particularly close to. Then, in 1993, just before her 87th birthday, my mother had a brainstem stroke. My brother and I and several of our respective children flew to California to be with our father and await the outcome.
She had the stroke on a Friday, and by the following Wednesday the doctor knew she would never reawaken, so we had a decision to make. She was on I.V. fluids and so on, and we asked the doctor what would happen if we left her on that minimal support. He told us she had a very strong heart and could go on in the coma for months. When asked what would happen if we took her off support he could only say she would die much more quickly. We told him to go ahead and could tell he'd been waiting for us to make the decision, because he immediately wrote the order and in seconds the nurse on duty removed the I.V. We decided, at that point, to go home to eat and choose the schedule for the round-the-clock vigil.
I was the first to leave the room, and as I turned to say something to my sister-in-law I saw her my mother plain as day, in her little white blouse, blue skirt and clunky shoes. She had dark hair and looked to be about forty or forty-five years of age, and as full of life as I'd ever seen her. She gazed directly at me and said, "Wait for me!" No one else was aware of her.
Looking back I realize that this seemed so natural to me that at the time I didn't tell anyone about it, just went on home, to return in a couple of hours and begin the vigil. My brother and I came back with the first contingent, and later on that evening we stood around her bed singing the songs she had played for us on the piano, rejoicing in the gifts she had given us. One of my daughters, thinking her grandmother might be cold, wrapped her favorite blue robe around her and brushed her hair, knowing how Mom had always kept it clean and curled, and how mortified she'd be to be seen as less than well-groomed. On my shifts alone, I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead aloud, careful to go no further than the first bardo, to focus her attention on the glories of the Life ahead. We chose her favorite essays and poetry to read to her, except Dad, who sat and held her hand as he talked to her about their life together. At first he wasn't sure, perhaps he felt a little strange, talking to someone he thought couldn't hear him, but we told him about the studies which indicate those in coma know something about what's going on around them, and he soon overcame his shyness, and began his journey to the other side of grief.
During that evening, I asked the nurse in attendance about her experiences with the dying and their families. She smiled and said, "Well, there was one family I'll never forget; they came and sang over their mother, read to her and cared for her so beautifully it made me cry!"
From the moment we took Mom off the support, a sense of such joy and release had been building in me that my oldest daughter accused me of being "manic". I suppose to those who were grieving the "loss" of their grandmother, it might have seemed that way, but I personally think the glory of the moment of liberation was so intense that it found the nearest vehicle through which it could express itself. That happened to be me, the child with whom she had always argued and seemed most annoyed, the child who had challenged her beliefs but who now was exquisitely sensitive to the unquenchable Life in process of leaving the old, discarded form behind.
Her last breath came early Friday morning, a week after the stroke, and we had her body sent to be cremated. My father decided to spread the ashes in the nasturtium patch around the young peach tree to the east of the house, so he could see the spot as he sat at the kitchen table. We planned the spreading service on Saturday afternoon, since most of the family had to go back to their daily lives, but it was one of those California Februaries when it rained as if Noah had just been reincarnated, and we kept putting off the moment when we'd have to go out-side. Finally I said, "Let's just do it!", and at that moment the rain stop- ped and held off until we raked the last cup of ashes into the soil. On the following Tuesday, friends and extended family came for the memorial service, and again, it was raining. Same scenario, as soon as we decided to go out, the rain stopped just long enough to gather around the nasturtium patch and say goodbye, to begin again the moment the last person set foot in the house. I began to think something bigger than the vagaries of the California spring was at work here.
I went home two weeks later, and as I drove over the last range of hills toward my New Mexico mountain home I could see the snow clouds massing and doubted I'd make it into the hills before the road became impassable. But as I watched the clouds thicken I suddenly sensed my mother's presence, as grand as the storm front, as eternal as the skies, and I KNEW that everything I had always thought about death was true; death doesn't exist, not as we've been told, and my mother, who had always denied the possibility of reincarnation, was doing everything she could to tell me she still Lived, and in a vastly improved version!
I made the decision to try and make it home that evening, and as I drove higher into the mountains, the clouds moved ahead of me, not letting loose their burden until I had unpacked the car and climbed the stairs into the house for the last time. It snowed nearly a foot that night, and I could hear my mother's voice in every flake, singing her song of Joy and Liberation.
Millennial Dance of Death
By Lisa M. Payne
It was a millennial moon and the invocations rang out from the hills
The beauty of their voices evoked Rama Krishna's tears; tears of pity, tears of joy, tears of love and intervention. The West asked for Eastern forgiveness. The cataclysm upon the global field of death was averted.
It was a millennial moon and the invocations rang out from the hills
The beauty of their voices evoked Shiva's sparks of mirth, sparks of understanding, sparks of hot/cold light and intervention. The East asked for Western forgiveness. The atomic holocaust upon the global field of death was averted.
It was a millennial moon and the invocations rang out from the hills
The beauty of their voices evoked Christ's love; love of nature, love of beauty, love of mankind and intervention. The earth asked for cosmic forgiveness. The obliteration upon the universal field of death was detained.
It was a millennial moon and the invocations rang out from the hills
The beauty of the voices evoked Buddha's compassion; compassion for fear, compassion for ignorance, compassion for souls and intervention. The cos-mos asked for earthly forgiveness. The devastation upon the universal field of death was retained.
It was a millennial moon and invocations rang out from everywhere
The beauty of which evoked a response from everywhere. Shiva danced in the moonlight because Shiva was understood. Rama Krishna basked in the moonlight because Krishna was felt. Christ and Buddha approached the world and were transmuted. The culture of death was now changed forever and did not die by its own hand. Prophecy fell away that night, shed for all humanity to hear.
The spirit of East and West prevailed. Legends and fables came together. The intricately woven symbolisms of earth distinguished it in the cosmos. The energy of the Earth and Cosmos prevailed.
The millennial Dance of Death transformed into life.
Death or Life
Ford Boyer
According to some belief systems, there is that "something" from which all forms are created. That "something" is called LIFE. Life simply IS and cannot be destroyed. Forms are created, play out their roles in LIFE and then cease to exist.
A seed is planted, the flower grows, it de-ceases, its seeds grow again and the cycle continues. Its form comes and goes. Can we say the human form is any different in LIFE's cyclic process? Our form is seeded, it grows, plays its part upon the seven stages of LIFE and then DE-ceases. Granted we need the form to fulfill our part in the Great LIFE; thus it should be cared for and respected. But is it the be-all/end- all of our existence, our LIFE?
Attachment to form creates the suffering due to "cessation" of the form. Can we change our suffering by attaching to the LIFE of, rather than, the form? If we understand that we are more than just the physical body and its parts; that LIFE is constant yet changing, then fear of the body ending its stay on Earth may be lessened. However, this fear has been with humanity for aeons and it is not an easy one to release, individually or as a whole.
With the growth of the hospice movement, along with the penetration of Eastern beliefs into the Western world, attitudes concerning death and dying are changing rapidly. However, it takes the individual to change the world.
Whatever the prevailing attitude, it is the fear of the unknown that lurks behind the death and dying process. Even though I have served with hospice for some years, the tug of the unknown still lurks in my mind at times.
I leave it to the reader to decide does LIFE de-cease?