Tuesday, May 26
Across the Universe...
Long time no write :)
Do you remember that BEATLES song...Across the Universe...how I LOVE the Beatles...
Anyway...I was inspired yet again by another blog post (hello Kai - wink, wink) today - How to Eat a Mango - intriguing title!
The post was about different approaches to eating a mango and to describing the divine - intriguing combination!
That brings me to the following question...what is the divine anyway and how do you eat a mango without ending up looking like a complete mess :)
After my grand-father's death - who I loved desperately - I decided that there was no God. God was something that we had invented in order to have some type of structure, some type of logic in this endless chaos called life.
Something to give us a perspective, a sense, a direction in life. A remedy against our loneliness and our over-whelming sense of despair.
A mirage of our mind - no more and no less...
I can't say that I've since come to believe in a deity, in a creator, in 'something greater than ourselves' - but I'm no longer so sure about the inexistance of God...
My doubts regarding the inexistance of God started with my grand-mother's death...with her leaving this life...
I was present and the process itself was like a roller-coaster ride, being completely torn between the wish to let the person go - for good - and the need to hold on to the person that you love so much.
Assisting her dying was nothing but draining, yet, it has proved to be the most amazing and life-changing experience of my life so far.
My grand-mother died on a Sunday afternoon, on a bright and incredibly sunny day in February. The sky was blue and there was a hint of spring in the air.
In the evening I was just worn out - I think I've never been that tired and exhausted in my whole life.
I had a lot of strange dreams that night and needless to say, I slept really badly.
The following day, everything seemed kind of surreal, as if I had entered an altered reality and the realization that she wasn't there anymore - nowhere on this blue planet - swept over me in shock-waves.
I cried all morning - until I had the feeling that there wasn't one single tear left in my body...I was sick of crying and I came to the conclusion that her death wasn't gonna be the last word.
I wouldn't let her death eclipse her life...
So I celebrated her beautiful life and everything that she was to me...I put on a CD and played "Why does it always rain on me" by Travis...
I 'screamed' along at the top of my voice...I screamed and I danced like a madman...I must have looked like I had completely "lost it", but never in my whole life have I felt as alive as in that moment...and like a primal scream, my voice drowned out the music. I think I danced for hours...in memoriam of her beautiful life, of all lives that have ever existed and of all lives that will ever exist...
In the aftermath of my grand-mother's death, I came to fully understand the immensity of this universe, the miracle that this life is - any life...
As if I had been "communicated" the full picture, I could finally grasp the immensity of this creation, and everything made sense, everything belonged...
I cannot express any of this in words, but it made me realize what a miracle this life REALLY is...
You think you know, but you don't, you think you're aware, but you aren't.
A veil was lifted that day - if only for a short moment - and I could grasp the full picture...the true nature of things...all things.
I was left with a feeling of hope and a deep-rooted faith that things work out in our favor...as if the universe or something "out there" was taking care of us.
I say as if, because I'm not really sure what to make of it...
This experience has changed my life and most importantly my outlook on life. I don't know if God exists - but this universe, this life does.
We're all part of this wonderful miracle called life, we're made up of the same matter as the stars and that matter is as old as time itself...isn't that divine?
Maybe God is Life itself, the fact that life exists...the micro-cosmos and the macro-cosmos and all the wonders around you and inside you...
To life...
PS: Regarding mangos...I don't mind getting my hands dirty :)
I peel them and then I sink my teeth into this yummy yellow-mellow fibrous flesh...
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10 comments:
Oh my goodness this is a fat feeling post.
I believe in life after death.
In 1995 I lived in residence in Trinity College, Dublin. One night while lying in my bed crying after a horrible ordeal. A smell entered my empty bedroom. It was a familar smell, a cheap cologne called 4,7,11. My grandmother used to wear it. This scent filled the room intoxicating me and allowing sleep to come. This has happened to me a few times. When I'm in need of help it always shows up.
[Had to fix comment, it was all jumbled up together.]
"You think you know, but you don't, you think you're aware, but you aren't.""This experience has changed my life and most importantly my outlook on life. I don't know if God exists - but this universe, this life does.
We're all part of this wonderful miracle called life, we're made up of the same matter as the stars and that matter is as old as time itself...isn't that divine?"---
Stone, ... always sending my brain into a tailspin. Beautiful words from a beautiful person. Some people need something to have faith in, to keep them going when times are tough ... some people don't. (I don't even know what I need.) This post was gorgeous! And yes, that is divine.
P.S.
Cleo,
Something like that is very touching for you, but it would probably rattle my nerves. Hmmm ... I guess if I actually had the experience myself, I would welcome it and it wouldn't be so scary afterall.
The visual of you singing and screaming to celebrate your grandmother's life is very touching to me. I've had two deaths recently. One someone I didn't know well at all but he left a deep impression in me with a simple act of compassion. The other a very dear friend who died suddenly. Someone I look for and miss every day. Maybe I'm still numb and my truth about the meaning of all this is coming. I don't know. But I think I do believe in what you've said here and it is divine.
All that ... and the Beatles, too!
Beautiful. xo
Stone, such an intense, beautiful, full-breathing and feeling post. Thank you for writing it!
Cleo - I believe the same thing. I can't explain it, and I don't attempt to, because I think that to presume that we as humans understand everything (including thoroughly understanding the miracle of life and absoluteness of death) would be strange. But there is something, something that "keeps the dead here".
Stone, I certainly don't want to prescribe you anything, but your way of thinking is pretty close to paganism. We worship life and the universe rather than a creator of life and the universe. We acknowledge the huge, immense, incomprehensable power of life and death, and that, to us, is sacred enough.
Cleo,
My grand-mother once made a similar experience.
I haven't had that cologne thingy yet, but lights that acted funny, curtains that were moving without a hint of air, favorite songs that were playing on the radio just when I thought of my loved one...
I don't know what to make of my experience, but it has clearly shown me that there is so much more behind the mere apprearance....and that the universe has so much more in store than our eyes can see...
PS: The cologne you're referring to is Eau de Cologne 4711, from Cologne (Köln)/ Germany.
4711 is the street number of the house where the perfume was invented in Cologne - hence the funny name...
Thanks Akilah :)
**Had to fix comment, it was all jumbled up together**
LMAO...you know - being able to make people laugh, or even smile, is a genuine talent...
Hey Kai,
Thanks again for your inspirational blog post...it has led to mine...
Yeah, maybe you need some more time to heal...I lost faith in God after my grand-father's death, and my father's death was another low-point...
Again, I don't know what to make of it, but I believe in some positive energy...and I believe in us...
**We acknowledge the huge, immense, incomprehensable power of life and death, and that, to us, is sacred enough.**
That's very interesting, Nell...maybe I'm a pagan after all...
I really don't know enough about paganism, but if I believe in anything then it is in some "divine sparkle" that animates this creation...whatever that is...quantums from the depth of space, a superior intelligence or just our atoms interacting...
I could imagine that there is some inherent energy in all things around us, even in the unanimated world...matter is energy, energy is matter...
And you're perfectly right, we know so incredibly little...little to nothing...
PS: ***a fat feeling post***
Cleo - LOL :-)
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