Posted by Dinah on July 17, 2009, at 12:29:03
In reply to Seriously Does Anyone Think Of Their Own Death?, posted by Phillipa on July 16, 2009, at 13:15:15
You might enjoy Irvin Yalom. He really has a lot to say on the topic. His latest book is all about it. "Staring at the Sun" I haven't read it yet, because it's not a big issue for me.
I had so many dogs over the years die that I got used to seeing death. I'd know when they were about to die, because they'd only be partially here. It seemed like one eye was fixed on something that I couldn't see. They didn't seem scared.
I spent a while, many years ago, being obsessed with death. Thinking about the black plague, and the way pillaging armies used to attack and kill the villagers. My ancestors were serfs, and I imagined their short lives. So short by today's standards. I'd think about how few children grew to adulthood in those days and how many women died in childbirth. The phrase "bodies stacked like cord wood" stuck in my mind, and comes to mind even now. I don't recall where I saw it, and I don't even now know what cord wood is. But I thought on these things over and over. And I realized how short a period of time it has been that a long life and death of old age became expected.
And somehow, that made me feel better about all of it. I'm not sure why. I don't know that I have any specific beliefs about it. I rather suspect that this is all the time we have, at least as a separate consciousness. But I don't know for sure. I do know that whatever comes after, I trust that it will be just what should come after. Just like being born must seem enormously scary to a baby, but afterward having been born seems just right.
poster:Dinah
thread:907077
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090706/msgs/907220.html