Shamans, Death and Inconstancy

Lately life's got me thinking about death. I have read many articles, many books, many teachings and many stories on the subject. Good, bad, peaceful. Perspectives, I've seen them all. I read them all, and I applied not one. Not one. Until now.

Death feels so far away nowadays in this eternal, medical, healthy reality. It seems and we feel like we are invincible, indestructible. Immortal. And therefore we forget to live the life that's been given to us. We know we don't have time, but not for the right things. God damn it, I won't make it in time to watch TV. We know we might just have a stroke or a heart attack or get hit by a car or fall on our heads or get struck by a lightning, we just choose not to give a fuck. We are immortal.

Sorcerers live with much more intensity than normal people because they constantly know that they are going to die. Shamans were considered wise and magical for a reason, among others: they payed attention to things in life you and I learned to ignore so religiously that we can't even see anymore. The magick that we lost. The Transcendant in watching a flower blossom, a tree sparkle. What? You've never seen a tree sparkle?

I know that this might be my last word. This. Or this. My last breath. The last smell I'll ever breathe in. The last color I'll see, the last hand I will hold. The last time I will kiss these lips. That is why I breathe in deeper, I admire longer, I feel more keenly. That's why I look deep down into your eyes, to see if you see it too. Because you should. You should know that you have not said everything you want to say, that you have not done all that you want to do. You are not ready. But you might go nonetheless. Haven't you ever taken five minutes off your constant unimportant egoistic thoughts to think about why you are wasting your time like this? Why you are not doing the things you love, right here, right now, instead of deferring whatever it is that you have to do?

Why can't you see the absurd beauty that is scattered all over your face? Why don't you stop succumbing and put Death into your eyes, your ears, your nose, your mouth, your skin, your mind? Always do things for the last time, even if it doesn't come to be for the next thousand times. Live for the last time. Love for the last time. And you will Love intensely. And you will cry for watching a stone exist. And you will see perfection in the tiny little invisible air dust. And you will see yourself. And you will feel yourself.

And when that moment comes, the one that you will be prepared to, you will take it by the hand, smile, and say "yes, my Love, it is time."