Wonder! Mystery! We Die...

Many believe they know what death is and why we die. Again, some try to rob of its mystery by reducing it a door to the "next life" in the "next world." Some avoid the mystery by calling it a "transition." Still others, shield themselves from the mystery by confining death to the language of biology. 

No one knows why we die. No one knows death's beginning. No one knows its end, the death of death. 

No one knows if some invisible part of us lives on after we die. No one knows. 

Wonder of wonders. Mystery of mysteries. Death is a great mystery.

No death, no life. No life, no death.

Death feeds life. Life feeds death.

They depend on each other.

The living feed on the dead. Why? We do not know. We just know that is the way it is.

Human death is what we humans make it. The less healthy fear it even as they long for and promote it. It is, after all, the ultimate escape from this life in this world to the next life in the next world.

The healthy live in spite of it. Fearless of death, they live in it's face fully until they die. As they welcome each pleasurable and painful "little death" that punctuates their lives, so they welcome death as the ultimate period on the finished story of their lives. 

If they live on, they'll take it as it comes.  

Knowledge and Belief or Wonder and Curiosity?

The previous posts raise a few of the questions we can ask about the great mysteries of life, death and sex. More important than answering the questions is allowing the questions to have their way with us. 

Let's not pretend to know the answers. Rather than knowledge we have beliefs. Wonder and curiosity are better. 

Wonder and curiosity trump knowledge and belief every time.

The Great Mystery of Sex, Part 1

What death takes sex gives: life.

Sex and spirit go together. Sex is spirited and sustains spirit. Sex sustains life. Sex affirms life. It celebrates life.

As you read this sex goes on all around.

Right now billions of the living are touching, stroking, sucking, mounting, penetrating, thrusting, clawing, biting, smacking, humping, riding, banging, panting, moaning, groaning, screaming, spewing, gushing, collapsing, gasping for air, relaxing and calming back down.

Members of the opposite sex writhe together. So do members of the same sex. Members of the same species join. So do members of different species. Some squirm alone, others in pairs, still others in groups.

By light of day and darkness of night, the living dance a wet and wild orgy.  No law or moral code constrains it.

Why all the slippery, messy sex? Why is it that sex sustains life rather than something else?

Why is it that sex and spirit, that which makes alive, intermingle?

Why are so many conflicted that they do?

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 4

Afterlife?

Do we continue to live after we die? I ask on behalf of all the living.

That I ask confirms our not knowing.

I hear two replies: beliefs and silence.

Why do we even ask this question? Is it born from an innate drive the living have to keep on living? 

If we do live on after we die, who among us lives on- only humans, other animals, plants, the stones? 

If, as some believe, only humans live on, do all or only some live on after they die?

If we live on, how? Where? 

Do we ever live again on this earth?

If what is living inherently desires to keep on living, isn't it natural for us to create stories about how we continue to live after we die? Isn't it natural to create beliefs about living on and reinforce them with divine authority?

Rather than beliefs, I accept the silence.

We do not know what happens after we die. We do not know. 

The answer to this question is hidden from us. It's a secret. It always has been. It is one of the great mysteries.

What happens after we die? We do know one thing.

We decompose.

But then there are also those intuitions, dreams of the dead, ghosts, NDEs and other allusive experiences that leave us wondering. 

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 2

Death: The Crust of Earth

Former rocks, plants, and animals, including humans, make the crust of this global grave yard on which we live. It's a crust of death.

Death supports life. All of the dead feed all of the living.

Life supports death. All of the living feed the crust of death.

What does it mean to die? Is dying the act of giving life?

The living kill. We share in the violence of death. We force deposits into the crust of this global grave yard.

Why? Why do we kill each other? Why all the death? Is it to feed life?

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 1

We expire, spirit-out. We die. We all die.   

Death is omni-present. It's all around. It's within. Cells of our body are dying right now. We're all in the process of dying.

Dying is happening right now. Do you know how many died as you read this?

From the moment we're conceived we begin our journey toward death. Any moment could be our arrival time.

Why? Why do we die rather than keep on living? 

Why does our arrival time remain hidden while we live?

The Great Mystery of Life

Why are we alive rather than not? Is this not the biggest question of all?

Does life have a purpose? If so, what is it? Is it the same for all living beings?

What does it mean to be alive? If something changes, is it alive? Is there anything that doesn't change? Is everything alive?

Did life have a beginning? If so, when? Where? How? 

Are some lives more valuable than others? If so, which ones? How do we decide?

Why is sex such a huge part of life?

Why does life feed on death? 

What determines how long we live?

These are just a few of the questions we can ask about the great mystery of life in which we participate.

Some borrow answers from others- parents, religious authorities, spirituality celebrities, philosophers. 

Others presume they're wise enough to make up their own answers. 

Either way their discomfort with not having an answer is numbed. 

I prefer the discomfort of not having an answer. I call it wonder. 

For me the point of the questions is not to answer them but to let them inspire in me a profound sense of wonder. 

Life, Death, Sex: The Three Great Mysteries

The word "mystery" comes from an ancient Greek word that meant "secret, hidden". It's related to the word "mute" which means silent.

We humans  are limited in our ability to know and understand what we experience as we live. As a result, we feel that much about life is secret. Much about life is hidden from us. 

Things hidden attract us. They feed our curiosity and compel us to ask questions. We ask about life. The answer is silence. Nature is mute about so many things. The gift nature offers us wrapped in muteness is wonder.

So, we live with our questions unanswered. We live with secrets in the presence of a nature that is mute about most of our questions, especially our big ones: 

Why are we alive? 

Why does anything exist rather than nothing? 

Why do the living die rather than keep living? Why do we stop existing? 

Why is sex so intimate with both life and death? 

Why are the living driven to unite in sex for pleasure, pain and reproduction? 

Why sex?

These are the three great mysteries: life, death and sex.

My next three blog posts ask the unanswered questions about these great mysteries that give us the gift of wonder, if we accept it. 

What I Believe: The Thumotics Manifesto, Part 2

I Believe in Spirit

By spirit, I mean something as natural as our body and mind and everything else in the world.  By the word “spirit”, I mean “that which animates.”  Every living being is spirited; alive.  And spirit is that which makes living beings alive.  

I do not use the word "spirit" to refer to a goddess, god, or any other kind of non-physical being.  I do not mean anything religious, spiritual or metaphysical.  

My understanding of spirit is rooted in the perspective of the Ancient Greeks. The Ancient Greek word for spirit was thumos. To the Ancient Greeks, thumos was a quasi-physical aspect of living beings. In humans, it was located physically in the chest, and lends its name to the thymus gland and the herb thyme.

Thumos was also closely associated with the heart, lungs and breath. Fainting was understood as a temporary loss of thumos. When thumos returned, the one who fainted returned to life. Death was understood as the permanent loss of thumos. Death occurred when the thumos left and did not return to the body.

Part 3 will say more about thumos.