A friend recently sent me a link to a podcast called Mortal. It is, in essence, looking at how our relationship with death and dying impacts the way we live. It is a subject I have always been fascinated by. I think growing up with a dad who lost both parents and a brother while he was still young, meant there were alway conversations in our home around the finite nature of life, a quiet insistence on honouring the everyday wonder of actually being alive.
I can now see that my dad really embodied a life better lived because of his connection to loss, awaking on a daily basis with a lot of gratitude, lightness and joy, despite his own physical ailments and no doubt a heart full of sadness. It was truly extraordinary when I look back.
I don't think he just found a way to bypass the grief, but that it gave him a more realistic healthier relationship with his mortality and that was what altered his approach to living. As I reflect back I often think (when I get caught up in negative thoughts and stress about silly things) BE MORE DAD. But how do I do that?
The first episode of the podcast is with the explorer and documentary filmmaker Bruce Parry (as readers of this newsletter will know, his film Tawai gets many mentions). He shares his experiences of living with indigenous groups around the world who have very different relationships to our impermanence. What really struck me was the strong connective relationship to what has been lost (in this case the dead, the ancestors) and keeping that connection alive as a conscious part of living. It seems to provide a safety of knowing to those still alive, that they will be included and remembered after death too, honoured as they are honouring, becoming part of a continuum.
It made me consider how this new knowledge might help us manage all transitions better. I meet with many people and am myself experiencing the transition from first to second half of life. Within that, the common thread seems to be the battle around acknowledging you are not the same person and don't have the same needs, so must allow a different set of behaviours and beliefs and rhythms to emerge. A sad sense that you have lost the old you.
The trouble with the first half of life is that it is when we have more energy, more dreams, more spirit, we think we are more fun, more brave, more exciting. There is alot to grieve if we are even close to welcoming in this transition.
Apparently the opposite of death is birth, not life, and all transitions call for a form of death and rebirth. What if we were to honour and preserve the memory of our old selves (as we would our ancestors) in a way that allows them to be part of the continuum, not a choice of this OR that. Would it make the process more nourishing? Then rather than leaving a sense of withering away to a shell of who we once were, we allow those younger parts some space and aliveness to connect us to who we become.
So as I sit each morning with my tea and the dawn silence, this is what I now ponder and love fiercely. The person I was needs acknowledging and honouring and integrating into the continuum, so I can feel the safety of knowing that the old me is happy and has been pivotal to who I have become.
Enjoy the October energy, harvest the growth and expansion of late summer and welcome the contraction inwards and the stillness as we enter the darker months.
Anne and Ric x