Sadness, Our Personal Death Initiation.
“You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven’t rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad” — Rainer Rilke
To dwell in the unknown abundance within ourselves is a task not many are familiar with. Rainer Rilke, is an example that one may gaze upon in contemplation for he knew something, a kind of unsayable transformation that begs for our attention and care. I have reflected for the past several days as to how we make such mistakes within the confines of our emotions. For thinking not only demands progress but also an intimate deconstruction of itself.
Solutions are damning when one cannot determine the part that is ill. The part that demands gentle hands and a cool rag over our brow. It is not enough to say that this “ I” is sad. We are often confident that we possess this “I” yet the self is the most obscure and intimate locus of our experiences. I have reason to believe we have conflated something pivotal in the methods that we choose to interpret them. The swelling lays between possession and responsibility.
Can it be the case, that I do not possess my emotions but rather the responsibility of care and guardianship that I allow their transformation to take place within me? Can it be the case that they flow through me like a fierce flood that sweeps over the forests of my being? Why must we choose to be masters or slaves? To possess or be possessed? The way we choose to interpret is everything, sometimes even the very brink between life and death.
We have prescribed our sadnesses to a bottle of liquor, some pills, and if we dare to feel a little more alive, even the knife itself. There is a great loss in what it means to dwell and to thrive. The error lies in believing that sadness must be eluded, that the burden that drudges in the heart should never meet our affection. Have we lost sight that man is not separate from nature? That the leaves that fall from a flower soon kiss the soil to transform anew?
The Greek word “Apoptosis” (dropping off), comes to mind as well as Alex Ebert's wonderful essay “ A VOID DANCE”. Where he compares society and it’s avoidance of apoptosis to how cancer cells refuse programmed cell death. Here he exposes the irony to which society has chosen to live by placing themselves outside of nature while driving away death. To avoid being “cancerous”, Ebert provokes a simple yet profound proposal, “ re-integrate death consciousness” and bring back death initiations.
However, there is something that life already provides to us in her abundant hand and if we allow her to be our personal death doula, we can be guided into our own intimate death initiation. This initiation that I speak of , is our very own sadness. To dwell in sadness is to experience apoptosis in the core of our being. For we are nothing but guardians of the sacred and the seeds that spill from our eyes beg our loving cultivation. The only burden is our responsibility of sheltering. Therefore, if we wish to choose life we must dwell in death(sadness) whenever life has deemed it should arise.
Notes:
- A VOID DANCE by Alex Ebert.
- The quote in the beginning of the essay is from “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Rilke.