Between by Lucky

Deepening the Wonder

Death is a favor to us,

but our scales have lost their balance.

The impermanence of the body

Should give us great clarity,

Deepening the wonder in our senses and eyes

Of this mysterious existence we share

And are surely just traveling through.

If I were in the Tavern tonight,

Hafiz would call for drinks

And as the Master poured, I would be reminded

That all I know of life and of myself is that

We are just a midair flight of golden wine

Between His Pitcher and His Cup.

If I were in the Tavern tonight

I would buy freely for everyone in this world

Because our marriage with the cruel beauty

Of time and space cannot endure very long.

Death is a favor to us,

but our minds have lost their balance.

The miraculous existence and impermanence of

            Form

Always makes the illumined ones

            Laugh and sing.

                                    --Hafiz

Between Birth and Death lie the provinces of Life. But what if, between Death and Birth, there lay other provinces of Life? What if, Life incorporated it all? Then Death might in fact be a favor to us. As the poet Wendell Berry says Death might bring a “solving justice.”

Death, in our culture is not considered an ally. It just seems to rob us of a chance to go on doing what we are doing (sometimes, rather messily). But, Death actually puts people out of their misery. I don’t mean we are all miserable. But, rather, that there seems to be something about these provinces of Life, that are hard, stressful, full of tension and uncertainty. All of it makes being human hard and humbling. The lack of a Death that serves any useful, good purpose leaves too many of us dreading it. And, to too many, it is a sign of failure, or of something being wrong.

But, what if, instead, something is right? Death may be, like the mystic poem suggests, a favor to us. No one knows for sure, but it certainly is telling, that we have come around to convincing our selves how bad and scary this mystery is. Death seems to be a reflection of our rather skewed imagination. Perhaps, it is a phenomenon that does what we cannot — that is, stop. Life is so frenetic. Death is the final resting place.

I’m tired too. Getting older seems to take a lot of energy. But, Death doesn’t seem so frightening anymore, actually, I kind of look forward to it. I’m not exactly eager for it, but I am re-assured that it is inevitable. I like the idea of “solving justice,” and peace, and I don’t see any other path that seems to lead in that direction. As I grey and wither, I wonder about many things, and I find myself returning to the compassionate nature of Life, that in every case, it includes an inevitable death.

A friend of mine recently said, “Death enables evolution to happen.” We were conjecturing upon the possibility that existence, in the human sense, might be the only place where learning and evolution takes place. What if, we speculated, Death actually is pretty easy, and that the difficulty of Life is the only place where souls can advance, learn, and serve as evolutionary agents? Then living, especially a life that required some creativity, would be such a privilege, a challenging opportunity. Maybe the time in between is so easy and effortless that it doesn’t serve the growth of consciousness, the expansion of the Universe and Creation.

I think that Death in the words of George Bush, has been “misunderestimated.” To me, it seems very likely that Death is a gift to us. A spiritual passageway where the ego dies and the actual seed of our personal uniqueness passes on, into another, larger ecology. I suspect that the drama of Life there, in that existence, will be even more compelling, than the one which prepared us. Life goes on. And what lives in the cracks, between Death and Birth? That is the real question.

I believe, between Death and Birth lay other provinces of Life.

Unknowing II by Lucky

I’ve written elsewhere about what I call “unknown wisdom” (see The Age of Actualization pgs. 172 thru 176). But here, I want to concentrate upon the particular set of traits, that many old folks have (without even knowing it), that add-up to a generative relationship with the unknown. You see, for far too long, the nature of ageism, has obscured, even to old folks, the value of the advent of ‘not knowing’ in the elder population.

There is a stage of awareness that extends beyond conventional forms of consciousness. This is something rarely noted in our usual social discourse. Developmental scientists, and gerontologists, are just beginning to notice. I call this form of maturity,  non-conventional consciousness. What that means is that some old folks have a particular savvy and creative way of looking at things, but they have been misperceived and silenced by well-meaning others. Our society has lost, like all societies that don’t value their elders, a great deal, in terms of perspective, but particularly, in terms of a more positive attitude towards the unknown future.

Not knowing sets in, when the aged begin to realize that what they know is insufficient to address this miraculous world. Some old people actually go beyond the ideologies of the day, partly because of how alone and isolated they are, and partly because their experiences, particularly of hardship, have introduced them to the unreality of our socially-constructed reality. These few are literally in the world we all occupy, but not of it.  They see vividly what most of us are only dimly aware of.  The unknown, perhaps because they are facing death, is particularly on their radar screen. It turns out, that in latter life, at least for some people, Life is more like being in wonderland, than many of us suspect.

The ability to find comfort in not knowing is not dementia, or even Alzheimer’s, but a particularly humble way of being fully alive and present. By in large, to we confined in the conventional agreed upon world, this mode of perception looks too eccentric, and crazy. And, by seeing it that way, we tend not to see the real value it holds for our species evolution. The unknown comes knocking every day, and we want to treat it like yesterday’s visitor, because that offers us reassurance, and because we want to fit in. The old, by and large, are well beyond those concerns. So they see the stranger for what it is, and tend to welcome the unknown into their lives.

Freedom from the constraints of normality, sometimes results in the realization of those freed, that normality is only a preparatory stage. When this happens, there are those who are willing to take full responsibility for themselves, and are available to see the world in its naked, unknown, glory.  To them, the unknown is a curious phenomenon, full of possibility; a potential relative, the ultimate resort and the best resting place, because it offers a fresh new beginning. The unknown paradoxically looks full compared with dimming emptiness of the past.

There is a kind of creativity that is available to the experienced mind, the one that’s been around the block a few times, that is unique and incredibly informative. Not only is known wisdom more solidly rooted in such an experience, but unknown wisdom, the kind that is needed to face a future that is different than the past, is also more likely.

There is nothing like falling through the cracks to alert one to what is missing. Old folks, especially in cultures that are indifferent to the possibilities inherent in aging, have to find their own way, and in so doing, develop some of the very survival skills that are most needed. And, being aware of the fecundity of the unknown, and learning to pay attention to it, is one of those skills.

Unknowing is an asset of this species. Our adaptability has waxed and waned as we have related with the unknown. The old are our vanguard. They are the real veterans amongst us, they serve everyday they are alive, and they could make a vital difference in our efforts to survive. Life has programmed some of them to survive for just this kind of moment. The darkness around our kind is deep right now, the known paths have been explored and are exhausted, it is important that some of our veterans be involved, to see what we have done, and to serve best, by staring into the unknown.

The future is by its nature unknown.  So too, are many of the attributes of the age we are now achieving. Old people are discovering what’s possible in that unknown — it’s likely that what they are discovering, is some of our future.