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Facing Death: A Blog by Griffin Ced

the death tarot card doesn't always mean facing death

facing death with the death Tarot cardThe Fear of Death immobilizes many folks. The whole idea of mortality becomes more and more scary as we evolve deeper and deeper into denial that all things have a beginning and an end. We survive our lives with the belief that we are ultimately in control of our lives in all areas, or that at least we should be! And if we accept that we have not become master of our lives, then somehow we have failed as a human being.

In the past, Death was a familiar figure in our lives, reminding us of the mortality and life cycle of all things in our world. But in our modern world, the media machine has found that mortality just isn’t sexy. In fact, selling the idea that we have the ability to defeat change and mortality and hold things in a permanent state of perfection is what people’s fear has left them wanting. And where there is a want, there is a market and the media machine knows how to turn a profit on a hungry market–even if that market is built on denial and delusion. Dreams, Hope, Faith have been bedfellows for as long as we have been aware of Mortality and one of the two oldest businesses in the world have come from them! Sex and Mortality seem to always go hand in hand. Such a strange partnership, and throughout history you always see them paired. Religion that builds its foundation on our fear of Mortality has always had a strange tether to Sex in one way or another. I know from personal experience, having lived through the Aids epidemic and faced Death up close and personal many times, that I often turned to sex when in grief. Perhaps the desire to create life when facing death is hard-wired into our consciousness. At the death of a relationship, it would explain break up sex.

Death comes in many forms: death of a relationship, death of a period in our lives, death of a career, death of trust, death of a life in each and all of its forms. It’s always painful. Transitions are always painful. We even come to fear change because as a transition it can often be painful. And yet we seek to become architects and masters of change, when we seek to take charge of our lives. Or is it that wish to be architects of change so that we can stop change from happening? To hold our perfect moments in life stationary like some sanctuary for our fragile hearts.

The only thing we must never let death near is Hope. With the death of Hope we lose any chance of surviving the transitory experience of life. Hope promises a new life, a new rebirth into a different state, a new identity of who we are. But to become something or someone new, we must always break the safety of that world egg we have secured ourselves within. Break the egg and set the new us free, with wings we fly free from the old towards what we may become. Does that mean we lose what we held of value? Some things are lost for sure and some things not. We lose a part of who we were to become who we are. And that makes the spirit of what we hold always a little different. Because we are different what we hold is changed a little. But not gone.

Following in the footsteps of those who have trodden this path before, from a spiritual perspective, we try to deal with the fears we hold towards all expressions of death and mortality. Religion, Philosophy, Mysticism and Spiritual Paths exoteric and esoteric of all sorts, are all tools we have at hand to use to navigate those things that lay beyond the literal and mundane universe our perception is bound by. In our literal world, what we know about death is that it’s the end of our physical existence. The chemical state of experiencing life that we call living, comes to an end. What is not known for sure, is that even at the end of that form or identity of life, it’s not the end of the story. The energetic presence or effect of life continues. If only on a energetic level, death is partner to new life in some form. But the real question we want to know the answer to is, what of the identity of who we are and if that identity and awareness of who we are energetically survives the death of our physicality? And if so, then what state of existence is that? Are we still aware? Is there any kind of order to that energetic dimension we would cross over into?

Many people have had experiences of that other spirit dimension and other dimensional realities in nature and the cosmos at large. And with those experiences has emerged the foundation of many myths, paths and understandings of what comes after death. From these roots we get religion, which basically is founded upon a case of Faith. If you accept the concept presented and find an experience, a sense of Truth, in what is being presented and it lends you comfort with your mortality and thereby shifts the quality of your living your life, thereby Faith has become a key element in saving the quality of your life from here until you cross that Death barrier.

Spiritual presentations of what happens in the big cosmos beyond are often of a more esoteric nature, requiring the seeker to make a shift in their perspective and awareness, so as to become able to embrace the truth in what is being presented and thereby have it accessible to them as a life saving tool. Each construct of spirituality is mediated in some specific form, presenting its own rendition of Truth: many languages expressing the same core feelings, ideas and understandings to the most basic questions we hold. What is the meaning of our life? Will we survive Mortality? These two questions are truly bound at the hip, though they appear to be separate.

The reality is, no one knows or owns any definitive answer of what lies beyond death or this physical chemically experienced reality we call life. Each Religion, Spiritual Path or Philosophy is itself simply a language tool we each can choose from to use to navigate the ethereal realm or quality of spirit in the many expressions we encounter it in this world.

Even science, in the realm of physics, knows that energetically the story of life does not end with the physical death of the person. The life continues on a micro level and moves into a new cycle. Even the death of a Star is not the end of a Star’s life cycle. What does end is the cohesive form and identity of the present state of existence. And with us, that means our present state of awareness. So the question then becomes, does our identity and awareness survive death? We know our physical form does not…but does our awareness and core identity? We will not know this answer until we face actual death at the end of our lives. Or alternatively, if we engage this mystery head on and come to a place where we each personally come to some sense of Truth in whatever it is we have found speaks to us regarding the cosmos of spirit beyond the mundane. It is then through this sense of Truth that we get to experience for ourselves, by extending our senses and reason to incorporate things beyond the literal mundane world. Often crisis and shock accompany the paradigm shift needed to let go of the safety of the world we are familiar with and reach for that unknown reality where we find more than just ourselves locked into a Mortal Coil with all we love and hold dear!

All teachers, leaders, avatars, priests and philosophers wrestle with their own understanding and take on this fundamental subject. The good ones are inspired through personal gnosis, and then like artists try to lend form, understanding and make accessible what their own experience has been, and perhaps even find some kind of practice or path that may support others to discover for themselves this invisible cosmos beyond the reach of mortality. No one owns the Truth. Each expression of this Truth, of a spiritual reality beyond the bounds of reason and corporeality, is but an expression of what has been perceived using what language tools they can find or create. Like any Art, Music, Fine Arts, Sculpture or Poetry, it’s just a language trying to make accessible the inaccessible. And how it speaks to each person is personal to each person’s own living spirit and sense of Truth. The key is: what speaks to you and what can you incorporate into your reality as something trustworthy?

If we engage in this battle to face our fears and look mortality in the eye, then we receive a gift that liberates our life. It allows us to find true meaning in our existence and lives, within the context of our own mortality. The same can be said of anything with a living spirit, a relationship, a career, a period of time that identifies you or a loved one. For whatever thing or state of being we find is facing that sharp mortal line in the sand, the liberation of its life to another state lies in our ability to reach beyond the bounds of the unknown, the dark and scary abyss of a future we feel no control over. All that said, if we engage in this battle and lose to fear, then we may suffer great harm to ourselves and those close to us. So gently does it and be honest to yourself!

The battle is well worth it, but we must make sure we are in a place where we can win this. If not, it is best to choose a path that will strengthen us in preparation for that day when we are ready to stand and face the shadows of Mortality in our world. Because sooner or later it’s something you will have to take on if you want your life liberated from the constant shadows of Death in all her guises.

But how can we see beyond the shadows of our fear and have it mean anything? How do we make that leap of Faith or that shift in understanding that makes the world of Spirit real and thereby remove our fear of the finality of Death? That’s the bottom line that has been asked over and over again. Whether we have any respect or relationship with some form of Faith or not, we have to step away from any concepts presented by Religion or any Spiritual leader and simply have our own personal relationship with Faith. We have to grasp Hope as the Beacon of Faith that allows us to venture beyond our comfort zone–that comfort zone of simplistic reality, which serves as our cell on a death row!

We must muster our courage to venture into the darkness and find in the moment, with each step forward, a path of Faith that can lead us to a new perspective, in a new world. We have it within our grasp to inherit new cosmos where the world is not defined by a simplistic sense of a mundane reality, where we, with our own senses and sense of Truth, can perceive the cosmos beyond where Physics has thus far ventured. And what we find is that we not only energetically survive Death, but our awareness, our identity and life experiences continue to exist. We find how with each generation this Legacy of Spirit is handed down to those who follow, if only we would make the quest to claim that Legacy and bring it back into the living light of our own Spirit and Lives!

You can’t perceive a different reality with old blinded eyes. You have to shift how you see if you want to see something different. Sometimes if you want to grasp something new, you’ve got to let go of what you’re holding. We are engaged in life, not observing it from outside of life. This is how Death and Sex and the quality and meaning of Life all relate: as kindred elements in the adventure that is the life liberated from the shadow of the fear to live because of the stalking Death! We can’t ignore the boogey man and expect him/her to go away. One thing in life is truly inevitable and that one thing is Death. She stalks us all our lives. She stalks all the spirits we hold in all our lives and when she comes to collect, it is always better to have her come as a friend than as an enemy.

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