Decolonizing our relationship with death

When I was in high school, I was one of the fastest runners in my class, able to run 15km without training and very fit. But I took my body for granted and the trauma that I experienced resulted in me being very abusive to my body. There is no doubt that my current physical challenges are associated with a vessel that is broken and struggling to heal. My addictions with pharmaceutical drugs when I was younger ravaged my body as I was on some of the worst drugs imaginable. I was in hospital six times, a month each time, to detox off one drug and be introduced to another. Why? Because the doctors and I thought my depression was a clinical issue, something wrong with the chemistry in my brain.

Oh how wrong I was. The reality is that my problems were cognitive, not clinical. I was able to heal through cognitive therapy, changing how I think, learning how to express my feelings, communicate with others, resolve conflicts and a whole host of other skills that I did not learn when I was growing up.

Despite those efforts to heal, the damage was done. When I trained in Taekwondo after my recovery, I struggled with cardio-vascular issues despite training nine brutal hours a week to build strength and endurance. I was never able to return to the peak performance of my youth.

As my body continues to struggle, I'm confronted with the possibility that it will expire sooner rather than much later. How much time I have, nobody knows. In reality though, we are all confronted with the same realization. Nobody knows how long they are going to be here and death is always an intimate companion to life.

Our modern society has taught us to fear death. There are whole segments of the population that absolutely refuses to acknowledge that the simple act of eating food is us sustaining our lives through the death of others. It does not matter if it is plant or animal. It does not matter if it is air, water or earth. Everything here on Mother Earth is formed of spirit, is alive and participates in this life and death relationship. Ignoring these facts does not mean they don't exist.

As a result, whole industries have manifested to try and stop death or prevent it for as long as possible. The harm to spirit in this endeavour is beyond what I can comprehend. Then we have whole industries that focus on death, spraying and killing indiscriminately. Where is the balance?

I'm finding that confronting my bodies mortality in a healthy way is helping my relationship with life and death in intimate ways. I cannot live without consuming the vessel of another spiritual being. My life depends on the death of others. Life and death, tied in a symbiotic relationship with each other.

I am actually looking forward to experiencing the death of my vessel. I'm not going to engage in activities to force it to live as long as it can. If I do that, then I disrespect it out of ego and desperation. I will engage in activities to nourish, respect and honour it.

I acknowledge that it has served me very well. I refuse to engage in violence against it and petitioning the medical mafia to heal it would indeed be beyond violent and disrespectful. Their poisons will no longer be allowed in the beautiful vessel I share this life with.

I find that close friends interpreted this approach as my desire not to live. I'm not sure how anybody can accuse me of not exploring life to the fullest as I've surrendered completely to the process nearly 20 years ago. I've lived, healed and experienced more in that time than most people. I took risks that scare the shit out of the majority of my friends and family.

To look forward to the sacred experience of death is not turning my back on life. If anything, it is the culmination of a life time of experiences and the ultimate climax of life. To fear the most sacred ceremony we will all experience is to ignore the whole point of why we are here.

I rebuke people who confront me that I've given up on life. Building a healthy relationship with death does not mean I've rejected life. Life and death are partners and this paradox is something that I feel is important to learn while I'm here. I continue to do my best to live. I write, spend time with friends and still do my best to help others on their journey. I work to listen to my body, provide it with the medicines and nutrients it needs to heal, but I also must acknowledge that no matter what I do, some day it will perish.

So I celebrate the life that I've lived and look forward to life up to death. My vessel has provided me with the ultimate gift and walked the path, even sacrificing itself so that I may learn, grow, experience and remember. What an amazing being that is able and willing to do that for my spirit. I love my body more now than ever before. I appreciate all that it has done for me, sometimes unwillingly, but lately very much an equal partner in life.

I cherish my body as it was a gift from Creator and Mother Earth so that I can be here, to fulfill a life purpose. I am humbled at the sacrifices it has made for me. It is sacred as it is the seat upon which my spirit sits. I look forward to the day when I release it back to Mother Earth so that it can rest and return the energy back to feed the living. The cycle never ends and I am humbled to see and acknowledge how intimately connected my body is do Mother Earths cycles of life and death.

When we work on that relationship, we decolonize our selves from the dogmatic fraud of their colonial system. As a result, we don't need their 'services'. They corrupt our relationship with life and death. As a result, we don't end up living. When we embrace both, that is when the magic starts to happen.

I am excited to experience death. As a result, I do my best to experience life! It is all backwards from the colonial system. I rebuke all those who suggest that I've given up on life.

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