the grim.

Last week I found that I had a pure white eyebrow hair. Furthermore, this week was my first back to work after two months off. I’m listening to the Wailin’ Jennys. There’s nothing like a high, reedy voice with a mandolin, white eyebrow hair, and the last quiet whispers of summer to get a girl [...]

Read Full Post »

suffering and bones.

A few weeks ago I became intrigued with Vincent van Gogh. I remembered a story that a teacher told me, about how van Gogh shot himself in the stomach (which is an excruciating place to be injured) and that it took two days for him to die. His last words were, “Who knew that life [...]

Read Full Post »

the natural burial.

Yesterday I went and spoke with an engaging woman who is finishing up her schooling in embalming. The woman, despite the fact that she is learning how to embalm/preserve bodies in the “traditional” method, is a proponent of a newly re-emerging burial method called the natural burial. Human beings have been burying their dead for [...]

Read Full Post »

gossip barbed with anger, a polite form of murder…

Character assassination. The police won’t come for me, but I’ll feel like crap. I might not even know why I feel like crap. (This is where I think Steiner’s demon [the one you create when you try to control a person] comes into play. I think of it more as an energetic demon that eats [...]

Read Full Post »

aghori: holy men of the dead.

I watched this video (in its entirety) in college. Not in the lederhosen class. In a different class, with a different professor. This class was taught by a really lovely professor who told us a story about getting a severe injury when paint spattered into his eye. He told us how he made up a [...]

Read Full Post »

overcoming the fear of death, without an invisibility cloak.

As a part of my religious studies major in college, I took a class called death and dying. I didn’t want to take it, I had to to complete the coursework. The best thing I remember about that class was when I ran into the class professor at a PRIDE parade and he was wearing [...]

Read Full Post »

fear of dying.

A good friend survived an operation during which a large tumor was removed from her brain. She commented on a blog post that, despite the fact that we all know we are going to die, it’s still very scary to be given a life threatening diagnosis. I am afraid of dying. I know that I’m afraid of [...]

Read Full Post »

so cometh the grim: a microseries on death.

Did you know that you take approximately 25,000 breaths in one day? Slow breathers take less and fast breathers take more, but, here’s an interesting thing: the average human will live approximately 28,000 days. That ratio reduces down to about one breath for every day that you will live. Microcosm: n 1. a miniature representation of [...]

Read Full Post »

ok then, the ghosts: on death and dying.

Surely you’ve got to go somewhere when you die. Most of the ancient cultures had a place where they stuck the souls of folks who weren’t of the most savory classes (i.e. weren’t gods or directly related to gods) after they die. The Sumerians called the underworld Irkalla and it was ruled by Nergal, the [...]

Read Full Post »