Monday, April 08, 2019

A Personal Revelation




I arose this morning to grey skies on an early April day in the year 2019. In the midst of this adjustment to the introduction to a new day, I experienced what I consider to be a revelation of considerable importance.

This concept revolves around the theoretically somber reality of the end of life. The present is literally flying into the expectant arms of the past and my days of being a sentient creature cavorting on this wondrous blue pearl suspended as it is in the seemingly endless cosmos are diminishing as they must. I was struck by the idea (certainly not a new one) that death is the final and magnificent letting go. That moment when the breath ceases, the heart stops and the brain ceases to function; when the self dissolves into that space of absolute quiet where reality has no name, is the time when all connections dissolve and all earthly cares and concerns are immediately extinguished. This may sound somber and unforgiving, but, in my judgment, it is a fundamental reality that lies within the bedrock of existence. For that reason, it makes perfect sense – as the beginning of a personal saga is initiated with the first breath, it must end with expiration of one’s last breath. All stories have a finite existence – even our own.

Within the formidable crucible of existence, I have learned that in attempting to control as best I could the environment that I moved through, I, in fact, control absolutely nothing. Time and the galaxy of choices I have made, have moved me forward, and the ineluctable flow of events and the blossoming of circumstances within that simmering and ever-changing caldron of reality have a rhythm and momentum that cannot be impeded. Life has taught me that any attempt to control this process is essentially useless – a monumental waste of precious energy.

As a consequence, I have resolved to keep this reality deeply imbedded within my conscious life and use this perception as a filter through which pass the constant flow of experience within the purview of the present. I choose to approach my final days, whenever that time becomes evident, with that kind of clarity.

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