Anyone who knows me, recognizes my black humor so I make no claim of ignorance about what I’m going to say. What’s all this bit about death and dying. Every thing dies, everybody dies, end of discussion.
Not exactly. What if you and your two remaining siblings have had to say goodbye to the other six, counting the brother who died at 18 days old – although some psychics claim they grow up on the other side. I look forward to meeting this dude if indeed he does exist in some nether land. That brings up another question. Is there really such a thing as life after death or have we been deluded?
Long ago my eldest brother said “Folks will really be surprised when they die. All of a sudden they have the answer. They know.” I keep wondering where that brother is now and what he found out. I was with the next oldest brother when he was in Hospice care. He saw the three brothers who had already passed over standing behind me, which evidently didn’t include the baby who supposedly grew up but then he wouldn’t have been familiar, would he?
I’m reminded of the man who said “What if you die and there is no hereafter! I’m gonna me madder’n hell!” Ha ha, him and the bogeyman. My own belief is we just roll over into a different dimension of reality. Don’t ask me to explain that, please. We each have a right to our own belief and that one is mine. So I’ll wait, while hanging onto the proverbial cliff by my fingernails, enjoying communion with my two remaining siblings. Prepared to be surprised – or not.
Filed under: Family, Love, old age, Spirituality | Leave a comment »
THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAINS
If you wonder how the modern world evolved to the point where we’re allowing the beautiful mountans of Appalachia to be blown off and discarded like trash in order to more profitably and easily extract the coal—-perhaps this long quote from Richard Tarnas’s book COSMOS will provide you with the answer.
RICHARD TARNAS:
“…the course of history brought about a deep schism between humankind and nature, and desacralization of the world. This development coincided with an increasingly destructive exploitation of nature, the devastation of traditional indigenous cultures, a loss of faith in spiritual realities and an increasingly unhappy state of the human soul, which experienced itself as ever more isolated, shallow and unfulfilled.
In this perspective, both humanity and nature are seen as having suffered grievously under a long, exploitative, dualistic vision of the world, with the worst consequences being produced by the oppressive hegemony of modern industrial societies empowered by Western science and technology.
The nadir of this fall is the present time of planetary turmoil, ecological crisis and spiritual distress, which are seen as the direct consequences of human hubris, embodied above all in the spirit and structure of the modern Western mind and ego.
This second historical perspective reveals a progressive impoverishment of human life and the human spirit, a fragmentation of original unities and ruinous destruction of the sacred community of being.
Something like these two interpretation of history here described in starkly contrasting terms for the sake of easy recognition, can be seen to inform many of the more specific issues of our age. They represent two basic antithetical myths of historical self-understanding: the myth of Progress and what in its earlier incarnation was called the myth of the Fall. These two historical paradigms appear today in many variations, combinations and compromise formations.
They underlie and influence discussions of the environmental crisis, globalization, multiculturalism, fundamentalism, feminism and patriarchy, evolution and history.
One might say these opposing myths constitute the underlying argument of our time: whither humanity? Upward or downward? How are we to view Western civilization, the Western intellectual tradition, its canon of great works? How are we to view modern science, modern rationality, modernity itself?”
Filed under: Appalachia, current affairs, history, Integrity, Kentucky, Religion, social commentary, Spirituality, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »