A PAEAN TO DEATH AND OLD AGE

Whose idea was it that Death is a something to be afraid of? I want to point a finger firstly at the Christian Church, which claimed knowledge of that great Unknowable as a means of controlling people, of getting them to behave in the way that it wanted them to. And then I want to point a finger at its banal offspring, materialist science, which replaced the prospect of hell with the prospect of extinction. (Science is the offspring of the church in that the church removed the sacred from everyday life into an abstract absolute called God, and from there it is only one step to getting rid of the sacred altogether.)

In a sense, Science is right - Death IS an extinction, but only of the self we know. What is left is that infinite ocean of Spirit which created this dream in the first place. And if we live close to that, then to that extent the prospect of death has a feeling of joy and fulfillment. The ego, of course, remains a bit wobbly at the prospect, and that is precisely what organised religion (in which I include Science as a belief system) is able to manipulate.

And then there is old age. As we age, the body and mind start to slow down, but not as fast as we might think, particularly if we take steps to remain healthy. That process of slowing down is maybe better seen as a slow movement from matter to spirit, which is of benefit to the whole community. This is a traditional viewpoint. But our society has done away with Spirit, so that old age merely becomes a reminder of death, that extinction event of which we are terrified, and therefore do not talk about.

So in this piece I want to reclaim old age as well as death. I am 61, and in another 15 years I may be an elder, I may have some serious wisdom to offer. I am currently experiencing a deep renewal, which I had been previously told about in dreams. I feel that I am at the start of the most fruitful period of my life. And I am physically fitter than I was 20 years ago. A friend who is 88 has a replacement hip and still beats most young people up the side of a mountain.  Don't underestimate what Spirit can do to keep us buzzing right into old age!

I think as we get older we can become more open to change, less rigid in our ideas and emotional patterns, and Spirit is able to take great advantage of that, and transform us in ways that would never have been possible when we were younger. In this sense, life grows rather than diminishes as we age. There is MORE life in us.

The leaves on an old tree are as green as those on a younger tree, and there are more of them.