Val Rogers
A Philosophical Look on “Today is the Day”
Today is the day. January 15. The day my mom, Joan, was born.
Today is the day. January 15. The day my dad, Joe, died.
I’ve been chastised for being a bit blunt on this topic, and that is just who I am. We all die.
Please do not mistake my directness for not feeling. For not having sympathy or empathy for those hurting or in pain. That is far from the truth. The fact is, I often feel too much. And because of this, I continually seek to learn and grow and to be more. To understand in order to give back in deeper ways that matter to others.
A few days before my dad died of a heart attack in his sleep, we joked, as we often did, about his “death-date”. Dates for us meant something. It connected us as a family. Mom was born on January 15 and died on August 23. Dad was born on April 23 and---- we would joke about NOT dying on January 15 that he had “other J” months to choose from, like June 15 or July 15. And as fate would have it, he did indeed, transition on January 15th. He would have been 80 that year. And today, my mom would be 80.
My dad particularly enjoyed the fact that my younger son was born on his birthday, April 23. I have wondered if his passing will someday be on a date of importance in our family circle, but that’s a pondering for another day. Right now, I am intrigued with the circle, the cycle, the evolution and re-evolution of life-death-rebirth. Or as some say: Life-Death-Repeat.
This cycle is no truer seen than in nature herself.
My friend, John Odlum said it perfectly: “Nature includes everyone and everything.” As in life, so too, as in death.
She does not discriminate. She does not pick-and-choose those that are “lucky” and those that are not. She does not select those she wishes to see succeed and exclude those she feels will not. She simply provides for all. She quietly gives, recycles and then produces more. She is Universal Law. She is life and she is death.
This is the cycle that human beings have been experiencing, complaining, contemplating, analyzing, explaining and ignoring since we began our journey.
While the remains of “Lucy” found in 1974 in Ethiopia are the most famous oldest human-like skeleton, it is believed that the first burial rites date back over 300,000 years. Think of that. For at least 300,000 years we homo sapiens have acknowledged something more than just our physical state. That pushes me to think about how much we have grown and created in these 300,000 years. And yet… we still do not understand much more about what happens to us when we die then we did then.
Why?
For me, that answer lies in the infinite uncharted territories of our mind as it relates to the current life we live. It’s quite simple, actually – and yet, oh so, complex. The moment you ask a question, the answer is already there. I engage you to really meditate on that question and see what your inner self may guide you to hear. What really happens to us when we die?
As I witness it in nature, for me, I begin to see the answer as two-fold. First, I feel we move. Move where? I’m not sure. Probably to where ever we choose. But I sense massive movement. We move. We flow -we create -we move. Since 300,000 years ago, we’ve uncovered and have learned to understand that the conservation of energy is an absolute law. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed – yet, it can change and transform into something seen or unseen to our human abilities in our limited physicality. This energy is vibrational and can be shifted.
Nature is in constant movement. I’ve come to understand that the only constant is change.
And secondly, I observe ultimate divine balance in nature. Light-Dark. Above-Below. Hot-Cold. Big-Small – it’s perspective. As big is only big if you think it is.
For me, birth and death reside on the same stick. They are part of each other. This is exemplified for me since my mom and dad share a date in human construction to expose this “sameness”. So. Does logic help us to say that without birth, there would be no death? Certainly, that must be accurate, for how can something “die” if it never was born into creation? But wait, IF we accept that, then isn’t it also true, that without death there would be no birth? For clearly with death, we create – “things” are born through the dying process. We transform energy. Are there not examples of births of new ideas from the depth of our darkest moments? Are there not new births in technologies from deaths of others?
True balance seems to me to follow the law of conservation of energy. This led me down the path of thinking about the following: As humans we have evolved in truly performing perfectly the life-death-rebirth cycle almost without realizing it. Over time, we have changed, advanced, grown, died and birthed ideas, products and systems in:
Communication; Transportation; Medication; Sanitation; Irrigation; Cultivation; Demonstration; Exploration; Domestication; Experimentation; Instrumentation
Regulation; Stimulation; Socialization; Innovation...
I’m sure there are countless other words – but geez, it’s already happening all the time.
Maybe the one new word to add to the list of creation is Meditation. This is now your time.
So, today I may visit (or I may not) the gravestone that marks the dates of the birth and death of my parents– but what about all the in between parts? All the laughs, the cries, the sleepy parts, the eating, the celebrating, the learning, the caring, the lazy, the yearning, the dreaming, the fear, the hoping, the joy and the loving? That too, is energy that transforms and moves – and there’s a crap-load of it!
~ The Big Take Away ~
Live today in the moment of gracious gratitude and calming breath. Slow down. Marvel and really see all there is before you in this simple tiny moment of external existence. Love with a full heart for that energy we have now, WILL carry on when we move on.
Since my dad was 100% Czech, I thought it fitting to end with a quote from former Czech President, dissident and intellectual writer, Vaclav Havel:
“Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.”
Welcome to Val's World
Where Nature, Music & the Health/Wealth Mindset Meet
Val Rogers is an intuitive artistic writer for Cloud9 online meditations; a singer and entertainer; entrepreneur and the co-host of the "Truth Serum with Maria & Val" a YouTube Channel dedicated to sharing the fun and wisdom of our age with the world because hell, #werenotdeadyetmv.
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