Impermanence

I am sorry to be the one to tell you, but we are all dying.
From the moment of birth, we are one step closer to death.

On some unconscious level, we KNOW this. But I want to learn how to live this undeniable truth.

How can I become so comfortable with death that I no longer fear it?

At the beginning of every yoga class, my teacher openly acknowledges his desire for all of his students to die. Usually he receives a warm, somewhat awkward chuckle. His reputation is one for teaching sequences that challenge not only physically, but also test the emotional and mental boundaries as well. He explains his madness, wanting a small piece of us to die so that something new can be reborn, namely, a better self. One with heightened awareness, a grounding to earth, surrendering in spirit.

His intention is to dissolve and deconstruct patterns and tightness in the body. This allows for increased space. Expanding space leads to freedom. Authentic freedom begets precision. The more precise we become, the closer we align with the divine, to that little kid that lives in our hearts. That inner child has been covered and masked under the burdens of adult life, responsibilities and stresses, disconnecting us from this innermost part. We need to reach that little kid, for it is key in unlocking our divinity.

During my intense practice, my muscles scream and lengthen. Inherently, I am changing and it hurts. I try to find ease and grace in the discomfort. Can I be with this pain of death, of letting go of what no longer serves me? Can I have a dialogue with my body parts to remove the neurosis instilled in me from society, parents and life experiences? Can I be present enough not to fight it but rather breathe into it and accept what is?

Still a work in progress....

I am fascinated by this idea. If I learn to die now, then I will not fear death when it comes. I view it as not an end to life, not the final chapter. Instead, it is a transformation, a change of energy, a shift.

At the end of class, I lay in savasana (corpse pose) and feel death. I feel death to remind me how important it is to fully live. Knowing days are numbered, it stirs within me such passion, intensity and excitement for life. It keeps my inner fire burning, prompting me to move, explore and do. I learn to appreciate the fragility and fleetingness of time, taking advantage of each moment as I am not guaranteed another.

One of my favorite poems describes this perfectly.

When Death Comes
Mary Oliver

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measles-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth tending as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.