Usually when we hear that expression we think it must be urgent, it’s an emergency. But really everything we do is a matter of life and death one way or another. I’ve been thinking of the impermanence of our existence (or the seeming permanence of death) and it overwhelms me. I’ve never really thought too much about death before. It just seemed like it was supposed to occur occassionally and so it did. And the people and pets I’d lost to it before my dad had felt like they were going on a long vacation or moving away. They were acquaintances or even with my grandpa, I never knew him that well. I wasn’t as deeply connected as I was with my dad. And so the loss seems so huge.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

With my dad, everything seems to have changed. I just want to know what happened to him. Where he is now. What is going on. How can someone be here with us in this plane of existence and then suddening is not?! And if that is it -we exist and then we don’t-, then what’s the purpose? What’s the purpose of all of this in the first place? There is so much life all across the planet -lifetransplanet if you will 😉 but no one truly understands it.

It’s like we (kind of) understand the biological processes and the chemicals and minerals and all sorts of things, but we don’t understand what that spark is in the beginning or that flame that we carry with us until we die. That same spark that must be in seeds to germinate into trees and plants, frogs, mosquitos, Schnoodle. It’s why we eat food- that spark that sustains our flame. And it’s that same spark that makes us create something out of the “thought realm” like building or remodeling a house, writing a book (or blog!), or creating a data file.

Because what are thoughts? Are they simply the chemical results of our brains’ activity? And if so, why would this thinking create so much of what we see as reality in this world? Every building we see, every car on the road, every THING we have started at some point as a thought-a spark of creativity.

And then, what are memories? Mind travel machines? Why do we yearn to learn so much? Why is so much of our lives spent trying to figure stuff out? To remember so we don’t have to repeat mistakes? To have some connection to those who no longer exist?

And so, if only to confuse us more, then what are dreams? Could our sleeping world be parralelled with the death world as many suppose? Are dreams just there to help us sort out our days and process the things we didn’t have time to process while awake (or alive)? What is our subconscious? We understand so little about our conscious life, but our subconscious? We know even less.

I’ve been having dreams almost every night where my dad either hasn’t died yet or has come back and everyone says “you gave us a big scare” and he just chuckles as he would. I had another dream where we were waiting in the hospital but it was more like an airport -a soul port- and he was a departure (if you think about a hospital, it is kind of like that -people dying are departing and people being born are arriving at the same centralized place).

I didn’t want him to go wherever he was going. I wanted him to stay with me. So we could just hang out and plan the future. So we could talk about things like this -the philosophy of what life and death are without actually having to experience it deep within my being. In my dream when he saw me start to cry, he also began to cry to see me so sad. And I awoke from the dream shaking and crying in “actuality”.

So what is going on here? Why is it that we just walk around our lives completely oblivious to the most important thing: that we only have so long in this form. We do so many things in our lives that are meaningless, or worse: mean! And I suppose we are lucky that we don’t have to think about death all the time or our lives would be weighed down and so heavy we wouldn’t even want to get out there and make something of it. But we have the perfect balance (usually): we understand the impermanence of our situation, and yet we have enough time to create the world we want to see -even if it is just in our home and backyard. And in the process we can change society as a whole for the better. And granted, that is subjective, but I think most people could agree that we want peace, love, joy and cooperation. We want to be treated as good people with something to contribute.

I think it starts with that realization, and it ends when you have fufilled some sort of purpose (or get taken out of the game too early). And it should not just be a realization of ourselves, but of others. Of treating others with respect as the beings that they are on this planet whether animal, plant or human. It is about being kind and also about forgiving.

But in the end, I really don’t know. This matter of life and death is just as mysterious as ever. It’s a puzzle that we’ve been asking throughout the ages over and over again: why am I here? …And where do we go after? Where are you, Dad?

I keep hearing this song lately and feel compelled to listen carefully to it