Alexandersmap

    Tag: Memento Mori

    • Into My Arms

      And I don’t believe in the existence of angels
      But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
      But if I did I would summon them together
      And ask them to watch over you
      To each burn a candle for you
      To make bright and clear your path
      And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
      And guide you into my arms
      – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Into My Arms

      Some songs you hear take time to enter your rotation as “favorites”, but others grab you the first time you hear them. Nick Cave’s Into My Arms is the latter kind of song for me. And it’s one of those songs you don’t exactly play at parties, so I have no idea how other people feel about it, but for me it’s on that playlist I play for myself. I know I’m not the only one, you just need to look at the number of views on YouTube for this song in the many performances he’s put out there over the years to see it hits a cord for a lot of people.

      I heard an interview with Bono recently where he mentioned that Nick Cave played this song at the memorial service for Michael Hutchence in a darkened room. Bono was so deeply moved by this that the song stays close to his heart to this day. Listen to the song and imagine that moment, and you might never think of it the same way again either. It’s changed how I think of it now, hearing Bono’s story. Elevating it to a new place than before. Maybe my sharing it will change how you think of it too.

      This is a love song, first and foremost, but you know it’s more than that. This is a song about questioning it all, these stories that we all tell ourselves. And maybe acknowledging that there’s something special in the universe to have put a kindred spirit in this world and pointed us towards each other at just the right moment. Serendipity? Or something more? To say you know the answer to that only means you’ve embraced one story over another. The only story I trust in the story of today, just you and me and this crazy world we live in for now.

      Just another song on my Memento Mori playlist, as I march through this one brief life. You might think that’s a morbid thing, remembering that we all must die. I think of it as a reminder to live with grace and love in these days of light. And to celebrate our time together while it’s here. To remember, really, that we all must love.

    • Today, as Forever

      “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” – Carl Sagan

      I met an old friend at the airport, both of us heading for the same plane, and we caught up on each other’s lives until we boarded the plane and went our separate ways on the other end of the flight. We spoke of family members fighting cancer who faced different expectations for the duration of their time on this planet. And saw in that brief conversation the folly of waiting for another day that might not be ours for the taking.

      Each of us reminded that life is but a brief flutter that all too soon must end. Memento mori.

      Each of us reminded to seize the day. Carpe diem.

      What will we make of this day? This, our brief dance with the world? We ought to have one eye on the moment while we aim at tomorrow. To build for that tomorrow but to not ever rely on it being there for you. Celebrate today, as forever.

      “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      Enough of talk and grand plans. There’s no time for that! Get to it already. Today.

    • Breaking Garden (and Life) Rules

      I regularly break the accepted rules of gardening. Rules like putting the tall plants in the back of the garden. But when something like a balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) or bee balm (Monarda) are shoved way to the back you lose something intimate that you gain when they’re right in your face. So my apologies to the garden rule enforcers. Surely you see my dilemma?

      I was offering advice to a former coworker who wants to quite her job and travel the world with her husband, but she feels stuck in the job, stuck in the life she’s wrapped herself in, and is only looking at the reasons why she can’t just do it instead of finding the reasons to just go for it. I dropped my favorite pair of Latin phrases on her to reflect on: Memento Mori and Carpe Diem (Remember we all must die, and seize the day!).

      Some rules are there for logical reasons; if the tall plants are up front you can’t see the shorter ones behind them. Makes sense. Some rules are there because we’ve all grown up believing stories: you have to get a job and work 50 weeks a year, then skip one of the two weeks of vacation and work on weekends to stay ahead. Who made that rule? Someone who wants to profit on your short productive years before they turn you to dust and plan you out for someone else.

      Make your own rules. Rules like walking out in the middle of a work day and seeing how the flowers are doing, just because you feel like it. Putting yourself out there in the world, to meet it on your terms. And maybe find something of yourself that was hidden when it was shoved to the back by someone else’s rules.

      Balloon Flower

    • That Fire Was

      “Ashes denote that fire was;
      Respect the grayest pile
      For the departed creature’s sake
      That hovered there awhile.
      Fire exists the first in light,
      And then consolidates, —
      Only the chemist can disclose
      Into what carbonates.” – Emily Dickinson, Fire

      I once climbed into a cave deep in the Grand Canyon and observed the soot accumulated on the ceiling from fires generations years ago. I’ve had similar observations in fireplaces in the castles of Scotland and the old forts of North America. And I’ve come across old fire pits deep in the woods. And I’ve often wondered, who gathered around this fire? What was their story?

      With Autumn we start gathering around fires more often, warmed by the glowing embers and infused with smoky thoughts. Inevitably I think back on other fires I’ve gathered around, sometimes with the same cast of characters, sometimes with their echoes, and wonder where the time goes. The burning coals I stir become the ashes I scatter when they cool, like memories cooled with time. And I wonder, who will come across my own fire’s ashes?

      And now, what coals are you stirring?

    • A Change of Plans

      “Death is one prophecy that never fails. Every person is born with a death sentence. Each second that passes by is one you’ll never get back.“ – Edmund Wilson

      We all have other plans. Each day is expected to be roughly what we thought it might be when we went to bed the night before. But God, the gods or the universe (depending on your belief) tends to laugh at such silly things as plans. And so it was that today my own plans were set aside for the immediacy of a life well-lived ending sooner than any of us would want.

      Last week my step-father told me privately that he would die soon. It turned out to be prescient as he passed away this morning. We talked then about this blog, and he challenged me on why I wrote so much about death. I told him I don’t write of death because I’m in any hurry to arrive there, but because it’s a stoic reminder that we all face it someday. And so it reminds me that we should truly live today. Embrace life, embrace your loved ones, and fully relish this brief time we have together. He accepted that answer, and I believe he did because he did fully embrace life and those who were lucky enough to be part of his life.

      Today the world is hollower than it was yesterday. Its up to those of us who have survived him to fill that hollowness as he did over and over in his own life. I believe we do so by rising to the occasion. Our lives, fully realized, serve not just ourselves but those we touch along the way. By rising closer towards our potential we have more to offer the world. And the world could use the help. I suppose that’s all we can do in the end.

    • Memorial Day

      “And if any gaze on our rushing band,
      We come between him and the deed of his hand,
      We come between him and the hope of his heart.”
      – W.B. Yeats, The Hosting of the Sidhe

      Today is Memorial Day in the United States.  A day to remember those who sacrificed everything that we might live in freedom.  I believe that Yeats was on a completely different track with this poem, but I’m drawn to these lines when I think about this particular Memorial Day.  Death came between the hopes and dreams of countless soldiers on battlefields far from home.  And for their sacrifice we should be eternally grateful.  The older I get, the more I recognize this, the more I appreciate their sacrifice, and the more I hope for a day when there are no more sacrifices made to be memorialized.

      In The Hosting of the Sidhe Yeats writes of the supernatural and enchantment by faeries.  I’ve felt this too, in the form of the whisper of a place of significance, in the form of the muse that I channel, and through listening to the land on deep walks in quiet places far from asphalt and concrete and copper wiring.  The beauty of poetry is in the interpretation of the individual.  It means something different for me than to you, and perhaps something else entirely to the author.  Memorial Day itself is subject to interpretation.  I think of weathered gravestones with fresh flags planted beside them that I’ve visited, memorializing heroes of battles long forgotten or never known by most everyone who’s come after their sacrifice.  And those lost in more recent battles we’ve collectively conceded to for reasons we don’t fully understand.  We owe them more than politicians going through the motions at a ceremony and 20% off (this weekend only!) sales.  But that’s the way of the world; it moves ahead anyway, despite that which came between him and the hope of his heart.

      This post is heavier than I wanted it to be.  I suppose the day warrants that.  As the world reflects on the collective sacrifice of all in our effort to keep a virus in check, perhaps take a moment to think of those who sacrificed something more, and act on the hope in our own hearts while there’s still time.  We owe it to them, don’t we?

       

       

    • Rejoice In This Moment

      “Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.” – Michel de Montaigne

      “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it . . . but love it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (borrowed from Ryan Holiday)

      “Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” – Homer, The Odyssey

      One thing that’s impressed me over the last three months is the resilience and grace of so many people facing adversity.  Is the world unfair?  Yes, of course it is, but that doesn’t mean we have to be bitter about where we are in this moment.  Embrace the suck, love the moment and learn from it.  And really, it doesn’t all suck, does it?  There’s so much good happening in every moment – change the focus of your internal lens and you’ll see it more clearly.

      The Homer quote above has stuck in my head since I read The Odyssey at the age of 19.  It’s sitting on a shelf waiting patiently for me to come back to read again like Penelope waiting for Odysseus to stop pissing off the gods and get home already.  Anyway, it’s come in handy over the years, right up there with “this too shall pass” on my list of phrases I say to myself when things get challenging.  And let’s face it, things are challenging at the moment.  But how we react to it is more important than what we’re reacting to.  Amor fati: love of fate, seems to have worked for the stoics, for George Washington, Friedrich Nietzsche and countless others over the centuries, and it will work for us too.

      I’ve been guilty of complaining about things a bit too much, and I’m working to change that little character flaw.  If I’ve learned anything, it’s that complaining just fuels the suck.  It all ends badly for all of us, or it all ends as it should for all of us; it’s all a state of mind either way.  Rejoice in what you can control, forget what is beyond you, and love the moment you’re in.  For this moment, even if it’s not what we might want, is the only moment we have.  This, and we, too shall pass.  Rejoice in this moment.

    • On Seizing the Day

      “Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” Seneca, Moral Letters

      If nothing else comes of this time, I’ve had significantly more time with 2/3 of the family. Sure, I’ve knocked off many of the nagging renovation projects this house I live in needed, but more importantly the family time has been a net positive. Tim Ferriss throws out a statistic that says 90% of the time you spend with your parents is used by the time you finish high school. My experience is that he’s half right in that one. One parent has been an active participant, one has accumulated other priorities and drifted away. Such is life. And now as a parent yourself you fully understand the reality of parenthood. So how much of that math do you apply to your own children? They don’t fly if you hold them tight, but they may flounder if you don’t give them the time they need. Balance is the key, Grasshopper.

      I’ve visited the Seneca quote a few times before in this blog. It’s a recurring theme, if you will. Carpe Diem! Memento Mori! I should read the Seneca quote every day until it’s burned into my brain, for even though I try to live it, sometimes life stirs the pot enough that you forget that this moment is all we’ve got. How cliché… and how absolutely on point. If COVID-19 isn’t a reminder of that, what is? How many healthcare workers, seeing so much death in such a compressed amount of time, have reminded us to tell our loved ones how much they mean to us now, not tomorrow – as if that’s guaranteed to us? How many listen, I wonder?

      This week marked 50 years since the Apollo 13 mission went from routine to a stunning rescue mission. I watched the Tom Hanks film again to honor the moment. What struck me was how routine the miraculous had become. You’re flying to the moon in a ship made of foil? Who cares? We’ve seen that show already. Until it became a struggle for life and death anyway. Then it became must see TV. How quickly the extraordinary becomes routine. Waking up today was extraordinary. What a gift! Billions before us would give anything for another day above ground. And what do we do with it? Binge watch Netflix? The virus is horrific, the collective pause it offers is a gift. Just as this day is. Take it for granted or embrace the possibilities it offers? There’s our choice.

      Seizing the day means more than trying to create a highlight reel of moments, it’s being present in the moment. Moments as mundane as washing dishes, and feeling the tactile experience and wonder of hot water and soap flowing over your hands and disappearing down a drain. Walking outside barefoot and feeling the coolness or warmth of the earth radiating through your feet. Watching larger birds flap about on the bluebird feeder seeing the worms inside and trying to find a way inside. Noting the incremental progress of the sunrise (or sunset if you will) as the earth tilts. Listening to a loved one as they move about in a quiet house and the gratitude of their presence in your life this day. All miraculous parts of this incredible life we’re given. Don’t let the routine lull you to sleep again. Be awake and alive while you’re here! We must seize what flees. Carpe Diem.

    • TGI… F?

      Friday’s feel a bit different when your entire week is spent working from home… And the weekend before that… And this coming weekend too. Indeed, Saturday and Sunday feel different, and so does Monday. There’s a cadence to a normal week that’s been disrupted for most everyone, but it’s all kind of lumped together now like jambalaya. Here we are in the new world.

      You could say TGI… Not On A Ventilator or TGI… Still Employed or TGI… Still Like My Family or TGI.. Still Have Toilet Paper right about now and mean it more than TGIF. So sure, the world is still upside down on this next Friday in March, but it could be worse. And someday we’ll all have a collective memory of this time that we’ll shake our head in wonder at. The world against the virus; our collective enemy.

      The work week, like perceived scarcity, can bring out the worst in some people. It’s not always easy living in a dog-eat-dog world, so it’s understandable when people celebrate the end of that crazy week and the chance to let loose a bit. But the bars are closed, the restaurants are doing take-out, every sport is shuttered and theaters sit dark and empty. So where do you let loose anyway, if you’re so inclined?

      Such is the state of the pandemic world. Society pauses to flatten the curve, the economy needs its own ventilator and Friday seems like Tuesday. But what of it? TGIF is a state of mind anyway, just like the Monday Blues is. Celebrate waking up to another day and don’t worry about the calendar. TGI… Alive And Healthy. Memento Mori and Carpe Diem.

    • Living Heartily

      “I’m not the river
      that powerful presence.
      And I’m not the black oak tree
      which is patience personified.
      And I’m not redbird
      who is a brief life heartily enjoyed.
      Nor am I mud nor rock nor sand
      which is holding everything together.
      No, I am none of these meaningful things, not yet.      ”
      – Mary Oliver, I’m Not The River

      I walked outside barefoot to a chorus of woodland song early this morning. Robins and cardinals and even those clever rascals the crows were all singing to each other at the edge of the woods where humans begin. Birds don’t give a thought to human worries about COVID-19 or mortgage payments or how many steps show up on your watch. No, they go on living heartily, not thinking about the briefness of the duration but working hard to ensure this particular moment isn’t their last.

      It’s Spring in New England. The world wakes up similarly to the way it woke up yesterday, but there’s a slight shift in attitude. The mild winter and a pandemic cancelling everything normal in life and Mookie Betts dumped for money and Tom Brady moving on all make this Spring feel different from any other in my memory, but walking out into the morning chorus you see it’s all the stories we tell ourselves. We’re all just living this brief moment and trying to live another day. Stoicism offers a guide to living more powerfully.  To accept fate (Amor Fati) and our ultimate fate (Memento Mori), and to apply this knowledge, this understanding of the world, to embrace every moment.

      “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      I’m working on things just as we all are. Holding things and people together, working to be patient with this world around me, working on small, daily improvement. Living heartily might seem a challenge right now, but it’s more important than ever. I’d think it was a lot more challenging a hundred or a thousand years ago. No, we live in relative comfort compared to those before us. They’d surely laugh at the things we call hardship. We can hold it all together and get beyond this too. Walking barefoot out to greet this first day of Spring and embrace the chorus seems a good first step. But there’s so much more to do with this day, isn’t there?