Dying the Thousandth Death

Death - letting go. Participating in an end, sometimes The End.

What does it mean to die your thousandth death?

Perhaps even one thousand in a single lifetime. I feel as though I have just left my own four digit death scene, leaving behind a someone whom I no longer could be - becoming as I am, continuing to Be by letting go of what no longer Could Be.

Dying, in my experience, comes in many forms. I have found that death is a process of letting go and embracing what is. Most particularly poignantly felt when the future is a complete unknown and the present feels both painful and impossible to resolve.

Deaths occur with the distance of friends, the alienation of family, the transitions from old homes to new, old jobs to new ones, school to school, school to career - many thousands of endings occur without even touching on its most perfect sublime expression - biological Death: the irrevocable loss of family, loved ones and friends that we all must confront prior to our own expiration.

I have found in my experience that it is not so much Death that is painful, it is the holding on - the resistance - that hurts most. Struggling against a tidal wave of inevitability, we fight tooth and nail to retain every single last possibility that preceded Death, regardless of cost or consequence.

Grieving is something that we should be more adept at than any other human experience, and yet I have always felt it as an agony almost beyond imagining prior to the great final act of Acceptance. The mercy of Letting Go that releases neuro-chemicals, emotional blockages, psychological damage and petty little self-delusions that perpetuated a falseness of Being for what feels like (in the thick of it) an eternity. All boiling over to attain Release - release and transition/transformation into a new state, born again, clean and fresh and ready to rise to a new slate of challenges.

Sometimes almost playfully.

I have grieved many things in life - many losses. The death of both of my parents, of relationships that seemed as though they were destined to last forever, friendships, connections, careers, destinies, beliefs, homes - everything imaginable, really.

And yet ever act of grieving seems as hard as the first, and the much needed release when the end of the process comes an almost unexpected (and confusingly deserved) mercy.

And this is why I take note of my thousandth death, and honor it - even when I would never be able to truly know it from my ten thousandth, or millionth. Because it is a mercy, and a blessing, and a gift. And for it I am grateful.

- Three Feather