I have my own personal ritual. Call it an instinctive custom, an honoring rite, an archaic tradition, call it what you like – but I never miss two occasions to remember and commemorate. Someone’s birth and someone’s death.
I find it rather fascinating, in a sort of simple way, that births are generally accompanied with tears of joy and deaths accompanied with tears of sadness.
Arrivals and departures produce the same physiological response.
Tears...water streaming down one’s face...
The water that washes, that bathes, that cleanses. The water that purifies. The water that quenches...
Without water we die. Without water, we are like an arid, barren land...
Without water, no spring and no renewal are possible.
Water – the rivers, the lakes, the seas, the rain...all is contained in a teardrop.
Day of Birth, Day of Death, the same drops...Different feelings but the same drop.
And our life’s path is made of nothing but drops. Drop by drop. Drops in an ocean.
We come and we go, leaving drops behind us...
My father has been gone for some years now. I always remember the day he died and the day he was born. On both occasions, I make sure to offer a prayer and light a candle.
It’s always a touching emotional moment. And in that moment, a whole life time, a whole relationship is encapsulated, frozen in a teardrop.
I make it a point to follow that same rite for all those who have departed and touched my life, one way or another. I remember their day of birth and their day of death.
And in such a ritual, the teardrop is one and the same. There is no more duality in that instant. Birth and death become one.
It is a weird, strange sort of sensation.
The Cartesian, rational mind says “ what is the point of celebrating someone’s birthday if this person is dead ?“
The "rational" mind only comprehends reason, points, references, proofs, logic, rationality, linear thinking...
It is hard for the rational mind to understand birth and death being one tear, one cry, one breath.
But the Heart understands. It knows, as it has always known...
The Heart knows everything there is to know about a teardrop...A tear drop shining like a bright candle in the Dark.
Painting: Iraqi female artist, Dalia Mohammed - "Birth", 2005.
I find it rather fascinating, in a sort of simple way, that births are generally accompanied with tears of joy and deaths accompanied with tears of sadness.
Arrivals and departures produce the same physiological response.
Tears...water streaming down one’s face...
The water that washes, that bathes, that cleanses. The water that purifies. The water that quenches...
Without water we die. Without water, we are like an arid, barren land...
Without water, no spring and no renewal are possible.
Water – the rivers, the lakes, the seas, the rain...all is contained in a teardrop.
Day of Birth, Day of Death, the same drops...Different feelings but the same drop.
And our life’s path is made of nothing but drops. Drop by drop. Drops in an ocean.
We come and we go, leaving drops behind us...
My father has been gone for some years now. I always remember the day he died and the day he was born. On both occasions, I make sure to offer a prayer and light a candle.
It’s always a touching emotional moment. And in that moment, a whole life time, a whole relationship is encapsulated, frozen in a teardrop.
I make it a point to follow that same rite for all those who have departed and touched my life, one way or another. I remember their day of birth and their day of death.
And in such a ritual, the teardrop is one and the same. There is no more duality in that instant. Birth and death become one.
It is a weird, strange sort of sensation.
The Cartesian, rational mind says “ what is the point of celebrating someone’s birthday if this person is dead ?“
The "rational" mind only comprehends reason, points, references, proofs, logic, rationality, linear thinking...
It is hard for the rational mind to understand birth and death being one tear, one cry, one breath.
But the Heart understands. It knows, as it has always known...
The Heart knows everything there is to know about a teardrop...A tear drop shining like a bright candle in the Dark.
Painting: Iraqi female artist, Dalia Mohammed - "Birth", 2005.
Fragilidad /Sting.
