Learn to Breathe

It is presumptuous for me to speak about death’s after-life. I breathe; and as a result, know only the first veil. It is not, however, presumptuous to seek understanding. Too often we stand help-less against the specter of death – as if it lurks in the shadows and any mention of its name will send its cruel henchmen after you. This is not the case. Death, if it were to stand naked before you, would be no more than a frail body. Much of its mythology is of our own making –our own egos standing before us drenched in words and half-banal truths. But what do we know? Death is the haunting grounds of the living –A place for grief and tears and familiar embraces; a well worn name; and; life that still could have been lived. That is the true crux of death’s iron-vise grip upon our consciousness and imaginations. The sense that more could have somehow been coaxed out of life; that we can cheat death out of a few last glorious gasps of air. But what do we gain out of the last breathe? Nothing more but that which we now posses, breathe. We can cower and do all we can to thwart the inevitable. We can beat our cheats and commit feats to convince ourselves of our bravery and fortitude. But the inevitable will occur. You will stop breathing. That is all. You –Nothing more than that and nothing less. It is a large word; a world in and of itself. Certainly, to the individual it holds certain worth and platitudes. With a bit of discerning taste one could argue that you might even be good, or, full of moral vigor. So what? You can keep composure better than him or her, you know a certain rule of living and the governing principles, You lived for lack of a better term a “good” life. And I ask again; So what? Centuries from now your body will be the compost for others to ohh and ahh over while patting themselves on the back for how far they have come. You know the true worth of civilization when it can hold itself in the mirror and arrogantly pronounce I can do it better. Only the real question is: When am I; when are you; when are they; going to live? And what does that mean? Consult experts and texts and sages and fools; none of them can argue with one simple rule. Breathing. That is the simple fact of living. No matter the manner in which you go gallivanting about the town with your breath, you must have it. The perfect drug, so to speak. Well, what of it? It is a wonder isn’t it –how little we realize and how fragile this whole universe seems; always teetering on the edges of disaster, when the only disaster is not realizing the wonder of what we have. No one is immortal. No civilization, no person, no artist, no Man or Woman can fight that. We can try –The Mayans, The Romans, The Egyptians, all proud bearers of that attempt; and all failures. We are just part of the latest failure. Don’t delude yourself into thinking anything else. But we can live: learn, laugh, cry, hate, achieve, passionately pursue and disastrously desire. We can look to shoulder the world and carry burdens and make burdens of ourselves. We can share foods and warmth and conversation and intimacy. And we should. Always with the full strength of standing and saying “I am living.” When it is all done it will be done. No matter how you “left” or, if you were brave or a coward. In the end the only real coward is the person who did not stop and fully appreciate the capacity it is we have to wonder, and be wondered about. And when you realize this, then you can stand before death and undress it. It is nothing to fear and/or revere. It is merely an old friend, a lone whistler, a weary worker, embittered lovers, an empty bottle of wine. Yes, an empty bottle of wine. And the wine? Drunk. Drunk and Drunk. I drank. I will drink. I have drunk. I once drank. And we are drunk on the nectar of life –A grape to be plucked and enjoyed in harvest. Drape it in definitive definitions, give yourself the illusion of thinking you have penetrated the mysteries; And all I see then is a fool. It is the mysteries that make it worth while –not the answer, but seeking an answer and the lives that will be lived in pursuant of whatever it is that lays on the horizon. Then you are not stagnant, not waiting for death to come, but embracing it because you realize that death; death in all its forms is what makes living. Death, in its own right, is light.