Death & Mourning

[jajohnson7809]

I know views will be varied, but I'd like to know how members deal with death and loss. Not knowing what comes after this life frustrates me sometimes. I want to believe those who suffered a lot in this life--maybe they were really poor or born with a disease--will have a chance to be whole and happy on another plane, or in another life on earth. I want to believe I'll see the people I love again, and that I'll survive the expiration of my body in one way or another. I'd like to think that my deceased dear ones know when I'm thinking of them and can hear when I talk to them. But I don't know that with any certainty, and that hurts, because then I'm just talking to air and walls.

I understand that death is a part of the cycle of things, just as birth and falling in love. Yet a part of me fears it, kind of like how I was scared on my first day of kindergarten. It's facing the unknown. The poem by Dylan Thomas called "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" comes to mind. "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light." How does that view of death compare with the Druid view, if there is a Druidic view of death?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Muddy Fox]

I'm looking at Pure Land Buddhism just now and I have found something that may or may not help, take it or leave it.
"Pure Land Buddhism on death and dying:
The last part of the body to become cold is the top of the head(posterior Fontanelle). In Buddhist teaching, souls who enter The Pure Land leave the body through the fontanelle at the top of the skull. Hence this part of the body stays warmer longer than the rest of the body.
The verses on the structure of The Eight Consciousnesses reads, To birth in Saints, the last body temperature in top of head, to Deva in eyes, to human in heart, to Hungry Ghosts in belly, to Animals in knee cap, to Hells-Realm in sole of feet.
So it looks like,from the above, depending if you believe in reincarnation or rebirth there are specific points by which the soul exits the physical body at death. Depending on the karma you have accummulated in this existence determines where you are headed there after.

[Ade Sundog]

I have two views about things.

You die , and that is it. Which is a bit too bleak , but i do think that at times.

And sometimes i think , that there is a place , heaven , the summerlands , where souls/spirits do find peace
and healing before starting another journey of life 'here'. Or become guides , or have completed thier cycle
so just stay. And i think it applies to everything , not just humans. I don't think that there is some 'great cosmic
baliff' who judges all and sundry. I think it is probably your own heart that does it.

This probly sounds fluffy and new-agey , but there it is .

[katie bridgewater]

I'm not particularly bothered about whether we have souls or not (in all of our human history no-one has ever proved anything one way or the other anyway). Death isn't the end for me because every part of me will be recycled. All of me has been here as long as everything else in the universe. I have used, consumed and taken into myself lots of stuff over my lifetime and this process will continue whether I am conscious of it or not. My genes are all present somewhere else in living things, from trees to bacteria, bananas to my human friends. I think life and death are all too often thought of as like an on-off switch. At an individual level it feels this way when we lose loved ones, but when I stop and think about it, the bigger picture is one of endless shifting, reusing, recycling of stuff. You can see eternal life, reincarnation or just 'the end' in this view of life and death but I'm not really bothered about what we call it. It happens and looks like it will stay that way.

[Fiona The Bard]

I don't think we have souls; I think we are souls having a human experience. I know there's a quote about that somewhere, but I can't seem to remember by whom.

In meditation, I've met with family members who have recently passed on. In Nichiren Buddhism, it's taught that death is not an end, but merely a sleep, a break from our conscious experience that allows us to recuperate, literally allows our souls to rest, before our next assignment. The meditations I've had have sort of confirmed this for me. I met my cousin who recently passed away from cancer, and I asked her if she was as sad about leaving now as she was before she died. She replied that no, she wasn't sad, because there is no sadness where she is. She said, "there is only perfect love, perfect bliss." She also said that she was enjoying being one with everything again, and that "not to worry;" she'll be an individual again soon enough.

What she described of perfect love and perfect bliss, to me, sounds very close to what a Christian might consider heaven; what a Hindu might call the void; and what Buddhists might call universal consciousness. I guess having been agnostic to the afterlife question all my life I was surprised to find such a place (actually I think my words were, "holy crap, heaven is real?!") but I think there are some slight differences between that meditative experience and the Christian heaven, e.g. that it was only a temporary state, that rebirth awaits those within it, and that there seemed to be no real physical form to her or to anything there - everything just looked like star stuff.

I'm talking too much. But basically, I think that meditation sort of cemented for me my idea of what happens to us when we die, and it brought a lot of peace to her memory... knowing that she's okay with moving on, and we should be too. I also think there might be something to the idea that there are certain souls with whom we're continuously related lifetime after lifetime...

[Kima]

I'm not sure I still believe in an afterlife. But I do believe that matter and consciousness are inseparable, so that when your body goes back to the earth and feeds other life forms, consciousness is transformed as well. It is not reincarnation per se but something like it. A kind of animism.

This is simply where my thoughts have drifted over the last years. Truly I know nothing

[Frog]

I know views will be varied, but I'd like to know how members deal with death and loss. Not knowing what comes after this life frustrates me sometimes. I want to believe those who suffered a lot in this life--maybe they were really poor or born with a disease--will have a chance to be whole and happy on another plane, or in another life on earth. I want to believe I'll see the people I love again, and that I'll survive the expiration of my body in one way or another. I'd like to think that my deceased dear ones know when I'm thinking of them and can hear when I talk to them. But I don't know that with any certainty, and that hurts, because then I'm just talking to air and walls.

I understand that death is a part of the cycle of things, just as birth and falling in love. Yet a part of me fears it, kind of like how I was scared on my first day of kindergarten. It's facing the unknown. The poem by Dylan Thomas called "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" comes to mind. "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light." How does that view of death compare with the Druid view, if there is a Druidic view of death?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I started to think that there are two parts - the physical part and the "soul" - but the more I think about the end result (for me anyway) it all becomes one - a mass of energy dissipating into other energy masses. That is, the physical body will break down and provide energy / food for other living things (such as plants) and the "soul" dissipates to another energy element (chi / awen / nwyfre). I think this reflects taoist thinking... or to be more correct, my interpretation of taoist thinking!

I guess that may be the challenge with "my thoughts" against any "official" druid line, as from this OBOD forum it is clear that there is no defined description of an after life, more concepts that have been considered. However, I do think that there is another aspect to this, which is irrespective of what happens to us when we die, it is also how we are thought of by those that remain. For some, they may choose to think that the soul of the departed is in some "heaven construct", looking down on us (or perhaps in a burning pit of Hell in torment... ). To me, a lot of what people think is derived from this aspect of death and mourning.

But that's my view.

[Lily]

I think returning to the endless cycle of atoms is a beautiful idea and I can't force myself to believe that there is something beyond, so I won't try. All I am hoping is that at the moment of death when I may be proven wrong, that it will be fascinating

My fear is not of dying but of pain before that. I think fear of death may come from the fear that one did not live life fully. So one has to make sure that you have lived, loved, danced, laughed and cried with enough others that your life has been worth living.

And I admit that I have no solution to the problem of pain (people suffering in their lives and deserving a reward).

[Lily]

as a p.s. here's something I came across this morning...

The five top regrets of dying people

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.


http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regre ... Dying.html

[shirley mclaren]

I would like to believe in some kind of afterlife, but the older I get, I am not so sure. Last Monday I attended the funeral of my late sister in law who recently passed owing to ovarian cancer at age 49. It seemed like only yesterday that I was sitting in the exact same spot, facing her mother's coffin, 6 years ago, and now I was facing hers. The funeral was the same; a boring vicar, going over the same thing, drone, drone, drone. My husband noticed his cassock was dirty! One thing I will say, though, I sure am pleased to be a druid. It does give comfort. I had already said the soul leading prayer when she died. This so much more meaningful than the vacuous words from the vicar. And this Wednesday, I will be attending my first RC funeral of a friend.

BB

Shirley

[Whitemane]

Mourning goes through several transitions:

First day,
First week,
First month,
First year.

You see the awareness of this in some mourning rites, especially the Jewish ones.

The first day is the worst of it all, and that's when you need the most support, but may want it the least.

By the end of the first week, the funeral has almost always been held and the final seal has been put on the life, and you have had a chance to gather yourself and accept what has happened. At the end of the firs month, you have typically begun the transformation to life without someone. I think we can all agree that this a particularly joyless and painful period. By the end of the year, you have probably recovered as well as you are going to. The periods may vary, and some go into into decline or off the rails and never really make that final waypoint.

Support really matters. After my brother died unexpectedly, two people (one Jewish, one Muslim) came forward to offer support and prayers for someone they had never met. It was very important to me, and a greater help than I expected.

[Muddy Fox]

Sorry to disagree Whitemane but I think that is where we go wrong in trying to help people dealing with bereavement. This expected time scale of recovery from loss does not fit everyone and I think possibly the first months or year are just a blank for a lot of people. The first anniversaries are tough but that doesn't make subsequent ones any easier. I think grieving people may sometimes retreat into themselves , when after a certain time has passed, they are given the impression by others that "they should be over it by now". They then have the added pressure of feeling like a burden and an oddity because they are still suffering from the pain of the loss but feel they will be judged in a negative light if they still talk about those feelings after a certain time period. I've come across this quite a few times and people are relieved when I have said there is no time limit on grief. And sometimes you think that you are coping and life has regained a sense of normality and purpose. But even after twenty years, something can trigger a memory, a song, a picture or a smell, for instance, which actually takes you straight back into that feeling of grief, it passes, but I think is always present.

[Whitemane]

I think you're interpreting what I said a little too narrowly.

[Muddy Fox]

I found your definition a bit too narrow, I'm just going by personal life experience.