Appreciating Death

A relook at the passed images.

We tend to see more of an image, not in the instance we depressed that shutter, but persistent meditation on the meaning of life, of existence and being. Inherent in the image is the message of birth, being and death. When meditating on the image, the meaning of an image reveals itself, in slow certainty, not in a flash, but it could come in a flash, a leap from normalcy, across the gap of invisible terrain.

Nights are always quiet, silence; days are a whole loaf of materialistic demands and bodily desires, that is the lure of the urban live. The night clears away those disturbances; we gain focus when darkness obliterated sight, reducing all existence to its essential. Only commanding a calm sense of ignorance, through sheer responsibility to the quest, silence could be found in daylight, with selfishness and irresponsibility required to overcome that momentous monster, social culture, a ‘they’ invisibly cajoling conformity, a slew of slogans of accepted goodness. Morality is borne from them, a form of coercion, to conform, to become, for the good of predictability and governance. Would we need morality when living in solitude and remoteness? Do we need morality when you are you. Or I am me. Would you think there is a need for morality in the social being of the ants and bees? Would you think that morality exists, or it is a mortal invention? And why all mortals think there is one, morality, and is it truth? What is creativity? Create, implies, new, leaping from the here and now to another landscape, non-conforming, difference, other than. And when creativity and morality collided, an immense nebular came into being, and when the nebular subsided, you rejoiced, like the nebular it too would subside.

With such monstrosity, with colorized lenses we could derive meaning and insight from behind each image we had taken. Exert values such as ‘to kill is to sin’ and we well up emotion of pity and a sense of injustice, from our righteous souls. ‘Wasp nibbling in mid-flight’ stirred the ocean of morality, jolted you. Imagine you were the spider. In that silence, death gripped you, you are as helpless as the spider, when face with the superior wasp, face with nature, face with fate, torn and tattered to the core, utterly helpless, if you are as omnipotent as god, you could right the wrong, but you, human, powerless, painful, is trapped, trapped within a body and an illusive heart. You need liberation. You need a way out of this unfairness. Why? Why some are borne to die a tragic death? All are borne to die. Why the privilege of one over the other? You see the pain and the painless. What if your death gives life and meaning to other souls? Indeed, a good deed in death, over a painless unworthy death, is preferred. Yet, it is still death. Death has to be worthy. Death has to be worthy. Death has to be worthy. It screamed in silence and determination. Death has to be worthy; life has to be worth living too. We latched on to its last defence, some are willing to die a worthy death, unwilling to believe otherwise, some see the futility of life, others see the futility of death, facing it squarely as the moment of returning to the source. All those thought are indeed a form of burden, death cannot be proven of its worthiness, all livings however they think and thought have to cease living at one moment or another when it come. Yes, nature’s fairness, the being of beings.

Calm down, take deep breath, long and slow.

Remove the veil of morality, remove questions, and return to the surface of the image. Draw towards the wasp, trace the wasp, from the eyes, amazing red, glittering, energy, radiant, vitality, the mouth, the thorax, the flapping wings, in unison, the legs, the constricted waist, the abdomen, the curve, the pointedness, the texture, the pattern, colour, the minuscule hairs. Complete beauty!!! Such wondrous miniature contains life, being and death. It is so small and yet so complete. Complete! Life in this being is.

The flapping of the wings in unison with the pull of the beaks, tearing the Cyclosa’s remaining cephalothorax away from its head, the Cyclosa in its death had offered itself up as nutrients to the wasp and its offspring. The cyclosa becomes the giver of live and sustenance so the wasp could live.

Facing death. a mangled piece, a head, an eye pops, the placid legs, red, torn, see it, go through every nuance of it. Fear and the urge to escape gripped us. Fix on it and see it as you would see the beauty of the wasp. In death we find liberation. Unite both within a single instance. Life, being and death. The being of the wasp is to feast on the spider. A completion, closure, calm and peaceful. Nature is. Is wonderful. Here we see a completion of nature’s work, again, in repetition -¬ birth, being and death.

Why is death liberating? Imagine you are the spider. Imagine that dying moment, as death grips you, it erases all that you had done, it erases your worthiness, it erases you. Fear, extreme fear, penetrates you deep, deep into your soul, and erases your soul, erases your being, to the point of total erasure. You scream. Scream out your soul. See it vanished. Your denial is futile. You feel that cold sweat and coldness shrivel up the spine.

In death, nothing else matter, desires, debt, hatred, anger, anxiety, joy, love and all emotions; all vanished. One is forgiven and one forgives. So imagine you are the spider, in that instance, liberated, one gave its life to another being, there is no foe, enemy, nor love, pure being, freeze in that moment, a singular moment. All is a pristine whiteness. Lost grips you, shaken, and arrive at a sense of immense liberation.

From that barren whiteness, a wasteland, life start a new, death nourishes beings and gives birth to another, more live flourish, another time, another day, another month, another year, in recurrence, in eternity. One sees its persistence and our futility of denial. It is an impossibility to phantom death, but we could phantom that death liberates. Life is a form of energy, transforming from one form into another.

The Cyclosa’s death, had also liberated those that could had been captured by the web that was spun by the Cyclosa. Now those smaller animals were given a chance to survive and mature; they have the wasp to thank. As one lay down their power, whether destructive or creative, it allows others to flourish and mature. Those that had risen would have to fall some days, the sage cautions, in high places, serve with humility and in low places, serve with pride.