Death does not demand that we acquiesce to 'kill or be killed.'
Those are stupid wars. There are other deaths, even other wars, which are affirmations of life. Few people succeed in realising that distinction, and even fewer of us manage to hold that, in our hearts. Political prisoners, and prisoners of unjust politics / of conscience / sometimes do. Gandhi tried, so did Martin Luther King, Steve Biko, and many others. We need to thank them, every year. Some of us are not even fortunate enough to do that.
Life and death are really one and the same thing, if we take a moment to think about it. Once we realise that, and affirm that, we have taken the first step to freedom, collective freedom (in community.) Not an alienating, dividing, stratifying, 'self-evident,' so- called 'individual' freedom (which, after 'immortality,' should be credited as one of the second biggest con-tricks ever imposed on H. Sapiens / or the second biggest self-imposed, self-harming meme, ever ...)
This is the only way I can understand 'self-cutting,' which seems to be one of our biggest 'taboos.' There are more ...
what a wonderful metaphor. milli/nannometers in it. and the way that surface-tension is inverted in the lungs, and keeps us (mammals) breathing. miracles all round.
Self-harm, including cutting are ancient. It seems to be used as a means, even a ritual to relieve pain rather than inflict on the self. I’ve never done this, but as a high school teacher, I’ve met people who did. Is it on the rise? IDK. It’s always been prevalent. I scanned this overview from NPR and it seems to give a pretty good history of the practice. I never saw this as taboo, though, nor did any of the psychiatric professionals I worked with. There’s often a background of violence and sexual abuse, at least in the kids I knew.
Thanks Susan. Timely corrective. The other 'behaviours' that come into the picture can be more powerful triggers. Point taken. I guess it's just my own aversion to self-harm, as the internalisation of local 'cultural' practices that gets under my skin.
The ancient (and more recent) data points to a fragile 'self' scattered across whole societies. Thanks. Looks like I need to rethink my ideas on 'agency' ... seems like it has not been doing too well for longer then I realised. I guess I never had the opportunity to study psychology/psychiatry under anyone I really respected and trusted - and I never got to the Tavistock Clinic in London, which was a dream of mine for a while. And my father had a pretty rough time getting (unregulated) Electro-convulsive shock treatment, which didn't endear me to the profession.
I understand that. My mother was institutionalized against her will, and was given electroshock therapy against her will when she was terrified. I think there is a lot to uncover about the ways seeming individuals act out cultural illness and trauma. Look at how siblings embody aspects of family dynamics- then multiply.
There are a pile of herstories and histories that (still) need to be written. A friend of ours, Barbara, has just published memoire of her 8-10 year old self, 'channeling' that child's 'voice.' (The Colour of Flying). Superb. It's a start.
As Foucault wrote, the full record of 'institutions' (in the West, for starters) has yet to be written. How we 'treat' our nearest and dearest is something we still have to face up to.
You have courageously (as always) started that process. Thank you.
Thanks, Roy. The record of institutions in the West is a Gothic horror of dominion taken over the earth, indigenous peoples, black and brown people, and the bodies of women. Institutionally, we created colonialism, imperialism, capitalism... and other isms like monotheism, puritanism... for power and profit. It's a long list. Collectively, we have a deep and dark shadow.
Odd thing, that. The more I try to come to terms with my/our (new pronoun needed? or is a slash even better?) shadow the deeper, darker and longer it becomes.
Shakespeare is littered with them, and with comedy. I really don't care anymore who the 'writer/s was/were, he/she/it/them's a genius - especially for giving the plays what newspeople call 'legs' that go on and on giving forever ...
I’m with you all the way into the part about self-cutting. Also I don’t understand it as one of our biggest taboos? All the rest is poetry. Perhaps you can help me?
Self-cutting seems to me to be 'conveniently' repackaged as a (minor) psychiatric disorder, rather than as something with deeply rooted links to 'individualism' and 'individual responsibility' - in other words, the blame is on 'deviant' individuals, rather than on a society which is in denial (hence taboos) about the absence of sociological, and structural explanations for self-cutting. To be blunt about it, self-cutting seems to me (and no, I haven't done the large scale surveys on this) to be linked to an overemphasis on 'individual agency' which absolves 'society' of all blame for self-cutting, and a systematic denial of any links to sociological causes for it.
I don't see it like that at all. There seems to be a contradiction between the levels of self-harm (which was not a 'thing' in the 1960's that I grew up in) and the endemic presence of self-harm, currently, which has by now become an 'acceptable' form of self-harm, which I find deeply troubling, and I am searching for causes - maybe the cause is not 'individualism', but then what is it? It seems (?) far too prevalent to be just a passing phase. If there is a clearly identifiable 'cause' for self-cutting, how come it is not being addressed? Or is it? Self-harming makes me shudder. My sociological roots cry out for explanations. Please advise ...
(I wrote a long-ish comment on this, lets see if the software displays it.) If not, here's take 2:
I don't know. if this makes sense ...
It's the story of Mr Purple, as we called him. He (all of 8-ish years old, and somewhere on the autistic spectrum) was invited to enter a 3-sided 'room' which was multi-modal, responsive, and randomly changed from mode to mode (colour, sound, lighting, im-pression - on the floor, on one of the walls, etc).
He entered the room, went over to the 'tuning fork' (a collection of tactile surfaces), played with some sound, and then went back, repeatedly, to the colour purple. When he left the 'room' - all on his own - he was asked: what's with the 'purple?' He responded: I don't know, I just love it. And what would you like to do with it? He responded: I'd like everything in my room to be painted 'purple.' Which was done.
From that night he stropped wetting his bed, or sleep-walking in the streets around his house, in the middle of the night. He had turned his life around, no rhyme or reason, just an embodied, immersive, emergent, experience. Call it 'life' or 'death' or what you will - he had no need to name it.
Thanks Eileen. I spent hours on it. I think about death a lot. I think it’s something everyone should think about more. Perhaps if we understood our impermanence, we wouldn’t be so cruel to one another. Perhaps our politics, medicine and everything else we do could carry more compassion. IDK. sigh. Maybe it’s just me.
I presume you know the French for orgasm: "le petit mort" (a little death). If you see clearly enough, it's all the same thing. Some beauty, some connection ... (just saying)
Funny you just commented on my note as I was reading your post!
Death...
Death and I have had many conversations. And I'm sure there will be many more. I want to be truthfully honest here... death is my favorite subject. I love death! Death may seem like it only takes, but in that taking, in that dying, (not speaking of physical death at this point) I'm released from the burden of my own mind, from the programming, from fear. Because death is freedom.
Now, physical death… I have been at many death beds. Seen death of the body. It’s beautiful. We are born, we live and we die. This is the promise of the cycles of life. I used to be extremely fearful of death as persecution. It kept me compliant. Probably the witch wound, and all the millennia women have been tortured and killed. But, I don’t fear persecution anymore. If I can’t speak my truth, if I can’t be me… than in all honesty I don’t want to live.
I loved what you shared from Ram Dass. Goddess YES! Let’s give away the whole store! I love that. We truly don’t have fear in our hearts! There is natural fear in our being, that built in reptilian response to protect the body. But beyond that, fear is programmed. We are taught to fear death. See how hidden it is in our culture?
Anyways, my quick thoughts in the moment. Thanks, Susan for you post, I loved every letter of it!
"There is natural fear in our being, that built in reptilian response to protect the body. But beyond that, fear is programmed. We are taught to fear death. See how hidden it is in our culture?" (Agreed. And there is even the beauty of dying for a (selfless) cause - so no acts of egotistical bravado, please - which I never understood, till now. Thank you.)
YES! I agree Roy - there is beauty in the dying for a selfless cause. When I came to that within my being, not intellectually, but somatically and physically - that's when I knew my fear of persecution no longer had a hold on me.
Death is love? Perhaps when we die we surrender to love and our experience of that depends on the filter we bring to the moment. Or how much we fight or do not. Pain, yes. But beauty, too, is possible. I’ve seen it.
Beautiful response. I’ve seen that witch wound inside me. The further down I dig below my personal wounding, the more I dive into collective ones. I have been at bedside when death is very near. It can be an experience of love. Yup. I have no use for compliance either, though I do still see the alarm bells when I get close. A good time for a belly laugh.
Oh! I LOVE THIS PIECE SO MUCH! Where did we learn that we can put Death off? Talk about a false narrative. It's so arrogant to try and fight what is truly guaranteed, and fear of Death just infiltrates everything we touch, everything we do, so that eventually we become afraid of everything. I have come to a point in my life where I truly believe there's so much grace in embracing my own mortality. It injects urgency into my life, not in a desperate way, but in a way imbued with passion. It makes life so much more precious. It means I'm awake. My father wasted the last 5 years of his life because he was terrified of dying. Had he not been, he could have spent the last 5 years of his life, actually living, and loving, and allowing love in. Instead, the fear made him powerless, and small, and so very sad. I hated watching it. Yesterday, I read an article in the NYTimes about a doctor who gave birth to a child with Trisomy 18, a mostly fatal genetic anomaly that renders children terribly sick and disabled. I had so much trouble reading it. It felt arrogant to me to keep a child alive who won't live long, and whose life will be riddled with suffering. There's so much room for conversation about this, from approaching life from a completely different, and incredibly empowered position. Acceptance, surrender, humility, and gratitude. Thank you, Susan for sparking this conversation in your wonderful, contemplative, intelligent writing. You're a gift. xo
fear is the first resort of the desperate / ignorant / arrogant (add to taste.) mmmm ... my dog lies dying, now, keeping close to me, but he'll take his time (and his litter-sister has just found something more to eat ... she's still busy ... ) thanks Susan for opening up this transitional space. love it. As Nan says, you're a gift. Some people are just a gift for a few days / years ... who are we to gainsay that? it's enough.
Death does not demand that we acquiesce to 'kill or be killed.'
Those are stupid wars. There are other deaths, even other wars, which are affirmations of life. Few people succeed in realising that distinction, and even fewer of us manage to hold that, in our hearts. Political prisoners, and prisoners of unjust politics / of conscience / sometimes do. Gandhi tried, so did Martin Luther King, Steve Biko, and many others. We need to thank them, every year. Some of us are not even fortunate enough to do that.
Life and death are really one and the same thing, if we take a moment to think about it. Once we realise that, and affirm that, we have taken the first step to freedom, collective freedom (in community.) Not an alienating, dividing, stratifying, 'self-evident,' so- called 'individual' freedom (which, after 'immortality,' should be credited as one of the second biggest con-tricks ever imposed on H. Sapiens / or the second biggest self-imposed, self-harming meme, ever ...)
This is the only way I can understand 'self-cutting,' which seems to be one of our biggest 'taboos.' There are more ...
I couldn’t agree more. Those kinds of discussions keep people on the surface of genius like water bugs using the tension to keep from falling in.
what a wonderful metaphor. milli/nannometers in it. and the way that surface-tension is inverted in the lungs, and keeps us (mammals) breathing. miracles all round.
Self-harm, including cutting are ancient. It seems to be used as a means, even a ritual to relieve pain rather than inflict on the self. I’ve never done this, but as a high school teacher, I’ve met people who did. Is it on the rise? IDK. It’s always been prevalent. I scanned this overview from NPR and it seems to give a pretty good history of the practice. I never saw this as taboo, though, nor did any of the psychiatric professionals I worked with. There’s often a background of violence and sexual abuse, at least in the kids I knew.
https://www.npr.org/2005/06/10/4697319/the-history-and-mentality-of-self-mutilation
Thanks Susan. Timely corrective. The other 'behaviours' that come into the picture can be more powerful triggers. Point taken. I guess it's just my own aversion to self-harm, as the internalisation of local 'cultural' practices that gets under my skin.
The ancient (and more recent) data points to a fragile 'self' scattered across whole societies. Thanks. Looks like I need to rethink my ideas on 'agency' ... seems like it has not been doing too well for longer then I realised. I guess I never had the opportunity to study psychology/psychiatry under anyone I really respected and trusted - and I never got to the Tavistock Clinic in London, which was a dream of mine for a while. And my father had a pretty rough time getting (unregulated) Electro-convulsive shock treatment, which didn't endear me to the profession.
I understand that. My mother was institutionalized against her will, and was given electroshock therapy against her will when she was terrified. I think there is a lot to uncover about the ways seeming individuals act out cultural illness and trauma. Look at how siblings embody aspects of family dynamics- then multiply.
There are a pile of herstories and histories that (still) need to be written. A friend of ours, Barbara, has just published memoire of her 8-10 year old self, 'channeling' that child's 'voice.' (The Colour of Flying). Superb. It's a start.
As Foucault wrote, the full record of 'institutions' (in the West, for starters) has yet to be written. How we 'treat' our nearest and dearest is something we still have to face up to.
You have courageously (as always) started that process. Thank you.
Thanks, Roy. The record of institutions in the West is a Gothic horror of dominion taken over the earth, indigenous peoples, black and brown people, and the bodies of women. Institutionally, we created colonialism, imperialism, capitalism... and other isms like monotheism, puritanism... for power and profit. It's a long list. Collectively, we have a deep and dark shadow.
Odd thing, that. The more I try to come to terms with my/our (new pronoun needed? or is a slash even better?) shadow the deeper, darker and longer it becomes.
Shakespeare is littered with them, and with comedy. I really don't care anymore who the 'writer/s was/were, he/she/it/them's a genius - especially for giving the plays what newspeople call 'legs' that go on and on giving forever ...
I’m with you all the way into the part about self-cutting. Also I don’t understand it as one of our biggest taboos? All the rest is poetry. Perhaps you can help me?
Self-cutting seems to me to be 'conveniently' repackaged as a (minor) psychiatric disorder, rather than as something with deeply rooted links to 'individualism' and 'individual responsibility' - in other words, the blame is on 'deviant' individuals, rather than on a society which is in denial (hence taboos) about the absence of sociological, and structural explanations for self-cutting. To be blunt about it, self-cutting seems to me (and no, I haven't done the large scale surveys on this) to be linked to an overemphasis on 'individual agency' which absolves 'society' of all blame for self-cutting, and a systematic denial of any links to sociological causes for it.
I don't see it like that at all. There seems to be a contradiction between the levels of self-harm (which was not a 'thing' in the 1960's that I grew up in) and the endemic presence of self-harm, currently, which has by now become an 'acceptable' form of self-harm, which I find deeply troubling, and I am searching for causes - maybe the cause is not 'individualism', but then what is it? It seems (?) far too prevalent to be just a passing phase. If there is a clearly identifiable 'cause' for self-cutting, how come it is not being addressed? Or is it? Self-harming makes me shudder. My sociological roots cry out for explanations. Please advise ...
(I wrote a long-ish comment on this, lets see if the software displays it.) If not, here's take 2:
I don't know. if this makes sense ...
It's the story of Mr Purple, as we called him. He (all of 8-ish years old, and somewhere on the autistic spectrum) was invited to enter a 3-sided 'room' which was multi-modal, responsive, and randomly changed from mode to mode (colour, sound, lighting, im-pression - on the floor, on one of the walls, etc).
He entered the room, went over to the 'tuning fork' (a collection of tactile surfaces), played with some sound, and then went back, repeatedly, to the colour purple. When he left the 'room' - all on his own - he was asked: what's with the 'purple?' He responded: I don't know, I just love it. And what would you like to do with it? He responded: I'd like everything in my room to be painted 'purple.' Which was done.
From that night he stropped wetting his bed, or sleep-walking in the streets around his house, in the middle of the night. He had turned his life around, no rhyme or reason, just an embodied, immersive, emergent, experience. Call it 'life' or 'death' or what you will - he had no need to name it.
a 'resonance' perhaps? (Roy)
A resonance in purple, which I have no need to name. Sounds like a poem to me. And Mr. Purple is just the guy to write it.
It did display and I commented on the restack. Thank you for being so intuitive and lovely. I love this story.
“Ram Dass also said, “The minute you don’t want power, you’ll have more than you ever dreamed possible.” I think Death would agree with that.”
I also agree.
Thought provoking piece, Susan.
Thanks Eileen. I spent hours on it. I think about death a lot. I think it’s something everyone should think about more. Perhaps if we understood our impermanence, we wouldn’t be so cruel to one another. Perhaps our politics, medicine and everything else we do could carry more compassion. IDK. sigh. Maybe it’s just me.
I wish everyone thought more like you. Or valued thinking in general.
I presume you know the French for orgasm: "le petit mort" (a little death). If you see clearly enough, it's all the same thing. Some beauty, some connection ... (just saying)
Yes. Even the English used to say: I die! I die! Great perspective. Thanks for these insights big smile. 😊
Funny you just commented on my note as I was reading your post!
Death...
Death and I have had many conversations. And I'm sure there will be many more. I want to be truthfully honest here... death is my favorite subject. I love death! Death may seem like it only takes, but in that taking, in that dying, (not speaking of physical death at this point) I'm released from the burden of my own mind, from the programming, from fear. Because death is freedom.
Now, physical death… I have been at many death beds. Seen death of the body. It’s beautiful. We are born, we live and we die. This is the promise of the cycles of life. I used to be extremely fearful of death as persecution. It kept me compliant. Probably the witch wound, and all the millennia women have been tortured and killed. But, I don’t fear persecution anymore. If I can’t speak my truth, if I can’t be me… than in all honesty I don’t want to live.
I loved what you shared from Ram Dass. Goddess YES! Let’s give away the whole store! I love that. We truly don’t have fear in our hearts! There is natural fear in our being, that built in reptilian response to protect the body. But beyond that, fear is programmed. We are taught to fear death. See how hidden it is in our culture?
Anyways, my quick thoughts in the moment. Thanks, Susan for you post, I loved every letter of it!
"There is natural fear in our being, that built in reptilian response to protect the body. But beyond that, fear is programmed. We are taught to fear death. See how hidden it is in our culture?" (Agreed. And there is even the beauty of dying for a (selfless) cause - so no acts of egotistical bravado, please - which I never understood, till now. Thank you.)
YES! I agree Roy - there is beauty in the dying for a selfless cause. When I came to that within my being, not intellectually, but somatically and physically - that's when I knew my fear of persecution no longer had a hold on me.
phew! This conversation is flying. Thank you all. And yes, embodied at it's best.
Death is love? Perhaps when we die we surrender to love and our experience of that depends on the filter we bring to the moment. Or how much we fight or do not. Pain, yes. But beauty, too, is possible. I’ve seen it.
Beautiful response. I’ve seen that witch wound inside me. The further down I dig below my personal wounding, the more I dive into collective ones. I have been at bedside when death is very near. It can be an experience of love. Yup. I have no use for compliance either, though I do still see the alarm bells when I get close. A good time for a belly laugh.
death is like going home - finding that connection, complete. Sure, it always hurts a little, but then ...
Oh! I LOVE THIS PIECE SO MUCH! Where did we learn that we can put Death off? Talk about a false narrative. It's so arrogant to try and fight what is truly guaranteed, and fear of Death just infiltrates everything we touch, everything we do, so that eventually we become afraid of everything. I have come to a point in my life where I truly believe there's so much grace in embracing my own mortality. It injects urgency into my life, not in a desperate way, but in a way imbued with passion. It makes life so much more precious. It means I'm awake. My father wasted the last 5 years of his life because he was terrified of dying. Had he not been, he could have spent the last 5 years of his life, actually living, and loving, and allowing love in. Instead, the fear made him powerless, and small, and so very sad. I hated watching it. Yesterday, I read an article in the NYTimes about a doctor who gave birth to a child with Trisomy 18, a mostly fatal genetic anomaly that renders children terribly sick and disabled. I had so much trouble reading it. It felt arrogant to me to keep a child alive who won't live long, and whose life will be riddled with suffering. There's so much room for conversation about this, from approaching life from a completely different, and incredibly empowered position. Acceptance, surrender, humility, and gratitude. Thank you, Susan for sparking this conversation in your wonderful, contemplative, intelligent writing. You're a gift. xo
A new helllo-and-goodbye greeting comes into focus: not 'may you have long life', but rather, 'may you have a good death'. just saying.
Or the Yoruba (I think), when death finds you, may it find you alive.
love it. :)
fear is the first resort of the desperate / ignorant / arrogant (add to taste.) mmmm ... my dog lies dying, now, keeping close to me, but he'll take his time (and his litter-sister has just found something more to eat ... she's still busy ... ) thanks Susan for opening up this transitional space. love it. As Nan says, you're a gift. Some people are just a gift for a few days / years ... who are we to gainsay that? it's enough.
Thank you Roy for these insights. I appreciate you so much.