DEATH AMONG US

On returning from the northeast, I found my beloved yard so dead, so lacking the beautiful colors of a Montana autumn,that even the aspen leaves are inky black. This, along with the revelation of advanced cancer in my sister, has exacerbated my thoughts of death and dying. Then, Only a day or so after our landing,an NPR/Alternative Radio broadcast reported between 1-3 million deaths have occurred in Iraq that were directly related to U.S. and allied bombings;500,000 of them were women and children. The speaker was chastising the alternative press for ignoring these figures, larger than the Rwanda massacre which received so much media coverage.

Whether on a micro or macro level, death does present the ultimate conundrum to human beings, and has throughout time. In the Bhagava Gita, Krishna and Arjuna ride a chariot into the battlefield, the ground littered with bodies, and Krishna bemoans that he would be killing cousins--family members--should he participate. He's reassured that death releases souls, the bodies are extraneous. Suffering being paramount in human life, death is liberation, and in the Hindu cosmology, deliverance into another lifetime.

I sought out Alice Bailey on the topic of war (Esoteric Healing). She was writing during the first world war, and Dwal Khul, her channelled Tibetan informant, states: "The cycle in which we now live has seen the greatest destruction of human forms in the entire history of our planet. [He includes Atlantis and Lemuria here.--ed.] There has been no destruction of human beings. I would have you note this statement. Because of this wholesale destruction, humanity has made a very rapid advance towards a more serene attitude in connection with death. This is not yet apparent but--in a few years' time--the new attitude will begin to be marked and the fear of death will begin to die out in the world."

All we see around us is death and resurrection every year of our lives, regardless where we live on the planet. Every religious philosophy posits a return to the totality after the death of the body, call it what they will. But while my mind small embraces the notion, my emotions have dropped into a profound grieving as I wander around kicking crusty leaves and pulling up dead vines. This week it is all too much, whether mankind is making strides in consciousness or not. Next week I'll probably belong to the human race, to feeling unity once again. And my Saggitarian spirit arises: maybe next millennium, when I return after several other lifetimes, I'll see people celebrating their impending deaths, joyous to enter into mortal combat...or maybe death will have evolved to a wholly new form...now there's a thought to ponder.