Dying and Living Gracefully

I just finished the book, "Seize the Day: How the Dying Teach Us to Live", by Marie de Hennezel, a French nurse working in a palliative care unit in Paris. 

It is eerie knowing the people she writes about are already dead, long gone: yet she writes with such compassion and clarity, that these people seem still alive and here. If I was to visit this hospital now, I am sure I would see the memory of these people on the faces of doctors and nurses and other psychiatric staff who still work there. It really isn't about the money: it is about human dignity and doing work that is meaningful and compassionate.

Classical psychology/psychiatry always has this "emotional distance". It keeps one objective and able to withdraw and cope with the sometimes horrible things patients say. What Mrs. de Hennezel is able to achieve with her brand of psychology, based on Jungian principles, is a much more compassionate and physical form of healing and accompaniment. She is wonderfully alive, and her book is a testament to that. Teaching someone to live is no small feat, but in the Western world that is her construct, we can afford to be a little more touchy-feely, she claims. It heals the living, the last rites.

They say, the dead have no religion. But the dying do, and we are all dying, just as soon as we are born. The other books I am reading are also on this similar thread of the true nature of the human and breaking through all the lies and constructs we've been given since we were a child. It's a good theme.

Not sure where to go from here, but that's alright. Reading and writing such "fluffy" stuff is becoming a larger part of my life again, while the "hard" sciences are becoming much smaller and I hope to diminish them completely in the years to come. 

It suits me right. I am not daydreaming anymore! From the Facebook page of: Never Give Up on Yourself:

Fearless living

It’s been well said that cowards die many times before their deaths (originally from Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)). Julius Caesar did not fear death on the Ides of March.

I want to be valiant, I want to be fearless. I wish and pray for these things everyday. I do not fear my physical death, it is this other metaphorical death that I am worried about. Am I really alive here, writing?? I think the answer's yes.

I think it was a brave thing to do, to quit my job and change careers from a moderate stage in my previous career. But some days are worse than others. I do not have a death wish, so does that automatically make me a coward or not? What is the source of the cowardly death?

"everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back"
--Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City

So if we take these two quotes together, does that mean cowards have another chance to come back and fight again, to try to be valiant the next round?

Yes, but they have to metaphorically die first, for their initial cowardice. Love, dreams, ambitions can die only due to not enough courage/faith. Truth is, that is all it takes - courage (i.e. to do the hard work) and faith, not money or a big fancy car (unless that is your dream or ambition I guess), house or novel technology.

Maybe someday, it comes back. How pray tell? Motivation, inspiration, imagination, or sheer will? I like imagination, I have a vivid one... :-)

Rest in Peace

-- Posted elsewhere (www.greasylake.org): On hearing the news of Danny Federici's death at the tender age of 58 from melanoma cancer. He fought hard for 3 years, now rest dear Phantom, rest.

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Everything remains as it was. The old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no sorrow in your tone. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting, when we meet again. "

Hope Springs Eternal

Although winter is slowly being shaken off by the March lion, I will miss it. Winter has its own mood, full of solitude, quiet and reflection. Today has been such a mixed bag of a day, and I feel like inviting winter in my heart again. The cold rain calms me, instead of stinging me. The low bloated grey clouds blanket me and remind me to stay indoors where it is warm and I have all the things I need to stay comfortable and happy. The wind, whistling its way around my balcony, tipping my plants and singing a foul sound like a melancholy cat, is the only music. In my solitude, I can heal.

Spring will come again and I am confident in my new paths. I need these few last days of winter though, to gather my energies to plant and sew and dig deep into the earth. Once rested, the hope and promise of spring will be a welcome sight, I will have let go of all the bullies and naysayers of winters past. Let it go, let it all go away. I will thrive in generating contacts and networking, a relief from the solitude of today. Of course, winter will not go away entirely in April, as I live in a "tempest" zone, in a valley bordered by river on one side and mountains on another. I like the ever changing feeling of spring in this land, and would choose no other place other than a tempest in spring. It makes the hope I feel stronger, when things around me change so oddly and ambiguously. Is it spring or is it winter, or have we dumped straight into summer?

I have learned optimism in the past weeks, due to my illness. This is the well from which I will build my legacy. It will be out of love, as from winter to spring, there is so much love in the air, one becomes two, and two becomes three. The legacy will have a theme, but be fluid like the river, yet grounded like the mountains. I will write more on this legacy at another time.

I am so happy to have recovered so quickly from the illness of Bell's Palsy. Now I still have to recover from the years and years of emotional abuse at work and in my personal life. With my new strength and the love I have found, the healing process will take time, but I believe it will not be so painful, and I will thrive like a beautiful April daffodil, re-potted from the nursery.