Logic's Child is not Real

These are just some thoughts I had about becoming a death doula, which coincidentally fit really well here!

There is a whole cult of logic worshipers out there, destined to meet their end. I'll be there waiting for them.
~death doula

A Death Doula for the living, in the process of letting go, or dying to an outmoded model of reality that we have shared for a long long time. A new story emerges here. The story of the end of the purely rational, of logic alone in the world, as it meets its expansion and inclusion into oneness, again.

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The basis of all life is thought to be a triangle. This is the irrationality of nature. Logic is linear. Logic resides within life and defines life, but is not life itself. It is a part of life.

The basis of life, however, is a circle. There is no beginning and no end. But! in the triangle, there are three basic points to reference what life is for thought to process, or cycle through. Getting out of linearity helps to make sense.

I am reinventing the wheel here. The categories of life that we often play roles in, such as work and leadership, or vocation, love and relationships, spirituality, finances et, are of little concern in the new paradigm. Creativity requires a new pattern to emerge that may or may not include these roles. I'm sure that family and relationships will be a major part of the new and emerging patterns, but domestic bubbles, and nuclear families may not.

Finances, money and work will all change or morph into various types of self expression fulfilling needs on some new level which is still relational, but not isolated from those relationships.

Spirituality and science will stop chasing each other's tails, but will inform each other in ever new ways.

Value will no longer be defined by universal consensus, but be self determined as well as be a part of a sorting process that generates and regenerates cycles and groupings into and out of formation in a more fluid manner.

Life will be seen in a broader three dimensional space rather than in fixed and static points. There will cease to be a point. To anything. Instead there will be a perspective on a broader whole. At least three points of reference will define every view, micro and macro, self and other. People will reference two of those points from within themselves; the past and the present. The third will be in a direction that is neither of the others.

How we determine value will be based on quality rather than quantity, which will be a method of propulsion that does not require force. All the qualities in nature are necessary.

We've already been in a period of broadening diversity. Units of measurement are unnecessary for our survival and fulfillment and to sustain ecosystems. Ecosystems will sustain themselves, as they have always done. We will learn how to not interfere, face our fears and not only survive, but thrive, along with everything else. We won't need to monitor or manipulate this process. We dance with it.

Much more liberty and freedom will be available to all sovereign forms, including plant, mineral, animal.

What we don't know we ask. And then we listen.

Value judgements on qualities will cease to exist, or be of any importance in a central way, except to those units who choose them, or deem them necessary to their function. ie child development.

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It's a good day to die! (which means live as if every moment may be your last)

Peter Steele Memorial

Did you know an oak tree was planted in memory of Peter Steele? 

An OAK tree! How cool is that?

“On November 21, 2011, an oak tree was planted in Prospect Park to commemorate Steele by fans, who also have a Facebook group “Peter’s Tree.” Read about it here. There is also a bench close by dedicated to him that reads: “In Memory of the Green Man Peter ‘Steele’ Ratajczyk 1962-2010.”

From the article in Park Slope Patch March 7, 2013

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.”

From Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte by Herman Hesse

 Nobody sang like you. You are loved and remembered.

Memorial

Chalk memorial for deceased federal opposition leader Jack Layton, may he rest in peace.

This image shows the love and admiration for the dearly departed Mr. Layton, a man who preferred to be called just "Jack".

Death

Death comes marching in on card XIII of the Universal Tarot Professional Edition by Roberto De Angelis. This common image of Death riding a horse and suited in armour can be found on many traditional contemporary Tarot decks that follow the symbolism of Rider-Waite-Universal and are based on the illustrations of Pamela Coleman Smith.

Here a religious man begs for mercy, perhaps, as Death rides in bearing the flag of the Mystic Rose, a medieval Christian reference to regeneration. The armour may symbolize protection from the emotion surrounding death.

But here at Corpse Cafe there is little to gain from Christian symbolism so I will mostly avoid it.

Death as found in the tarot has long been considered a transformational force, rather than a morbid view of our end.

In The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed by Robert M. Place, Death is traditionally portrayed as a skeleton, but stands on a black sun, holding an arrow, and is accompanied by a Raven. To me this combination is quite indicative of the mystery surrounding death.

I've heard the black sun image in this card referred to as a vessel or nigredo, which is latin for blackness, and may be a form of alchemical symbolism, whose origins trace back to ancient Egypt. The goal of alchemy is transmutation, a process active in the transformational quality of the Death card.

Death as depicted in The Vampire Tarot, another by Robert M. Place.

Death is still portrayed by a skeletal figure but more humourously; a poetic stylized vampire wearing a tie and cape with hair slicked back. Though, poor undead creature, a wooden stake through the heart.

The vampire is an interesting subject to explore in regards to death because the vampire is 'supposedly' already dead. So what does death mean to something that is immortal?

The torment of living forever is often portrayed in vampire stories. There are very few vampires that actually enjoy living forever in their fictional lives. Death by stake, or any other means, brings freedom from eternity.

Another vampire themed deck The Vampire Tarot by Nathalie Hertz.

Here Death is depicted as The Grim Reaper, poster boy for the personification of Death. His scythe is the focal point of the card and the tool which he uses to cut down and destroy life.

From his origin as Kronos in ancient Greece, who castrated his father with a sickle, and later in medieval Germany where visions of men with scythes brought the plague, Death viewed as the Grim Reaper has been a horrifying image across the globe and in many cultures.

The gruesome connotations associated with his scythe, or sickle, invoke fear, even for those with little imagination.

The image of Death in The Vampire's Tarot of the Eternal Night by Barbara Moore & Davide Corsi brings another look to the card altogether, along with a unique meaning created by the authors.

Resolve is the intended meaning here, as this solemn looking vampire sits on a throne beneath a stained glass image of the same 'mystic rose' found earlier in the Universal Tarot.

Does he contemplate death? What is he 'resolved' to doing?

I find this image one of the most terrifying of all the Death cards I've seen. The eyes on this man speak death and he's looking right at me.

Comfortable, somewhat more humanized and somewhat less grim than The Reaper The Bohemian Gothic Tarot by Magic Realist Press depicts Death in a softer and more romantic way.

Although still skeletal, Death dons a flowing red robe draped over his shoulder as he looks compassionately down at the recently deceased. Ceremonially dressed with arms placed on their bodies death is gentle peaceful and grand as they rest amidst a pile of bones and blankets in the great Gothic hall. 

The dignity of death when viewed this way marks the transition with a ritual of importance, beauty and grace. In creating pomp and ceremony over death it says life mattered and presents a ritual marker in time for the living.

The Book of Thoth Etteilla Tarot was originally created in 1789 by Jean Francois Alliette or Etteilla. It pre-dates the contemporary symbolism of Rider-Waite-Universal type decks.

Although the Death card image follows the traditional 'skeletal' depiction found in contemporary symbolism and its meaning is the same, it's number is 17, instead of the usual 13. Here Death falls between Judgement and The Hermit.

Etteilla believed the tarot's wisdom had become distorted over the years and he wanted to restore its meaning to what he believed corresponded to a magical text created in 2170 BC by Egyptian magicians of the time.

This tarot deck was an inspiration to many esoterists and may have been the inspiration for the red robe in the Bohemian Gothic Tarot. He also intended to focus on use of the tarot for divinatory purposes. His may have been the first tarot deck to do so.

As for the visual symbolism, he appears to be dancing or waving and maybe even smiling. Perhaps death was much more highly anticipated in Etteilla's time than it is now. I can only imagine that this skeleton seems excited.

In The Tarot of Pagan Cats by Lola Airaghi & Magdelina Messina Death is portrayed by a black cat sitting on a grave under a medieval Celtic cross, the mystic rose affixed to its collar like a trinket.

Death's scythe appears, nonthreatening, lying at the base of the grave before a vase of roses. Death has already happened but the roses and the cat suggest that the deceased is not forgotten.

Some of the terror associated with death could be due to the fact that we can't know for sure that anything exists beyond this life.

The one thing we can be sure of is that we will be remembered by those that loved us.

Cats are indifferent creatures and not surprisingly this one handles death with ease, a matter of fact observer, witness and wisdom in its cold green eyes.

Death is a maiden in the Favole Tarot by Victoria Frances. A symbol of lost beauty delicately floating in a lily pond. She wears a white dress and has a white flower in her hair, symbols of purity.

For some people there is great beauty in death. Perhaps they imagine it is a better place than the harsh reality of this one.

Why is death beautiful? Is it because its power is absolute, eternal and complete? Is it because we imagine to know what to expect from death? An escape from the rather riddled anxiety of existence?

Certainly its the contrast created by the immanence of death tainting and polarizing life against it. Beauty and despair, dark and light, life and death.

To be alive yet not 'living' is an existence full of grey tones, while death in its purity is fully black and white. It's the one thing we can count on in this world, like 'death and taxes'. I think this is its allure.

In the Vikings Tarot by Manfredi Toraldo & Sergio Tisselli Death is also a maiden. A Valkyrie on horseback descends from the sky to bring death to some brave soldier on the battlefield and take his slain body to Odin's hall in Valhalla.

Death is an honour to those who have lived a courageous life and the rewards after death are welcomed; good company, continuous battle practice, good ale.  There is nothing more rewarding for a Heathen warrior than to die in battle.

Life and death are simple. Nothing to fear. Regardless, there's nothing that can be done about it, even though we may imagine ways to avoid it.

Death as portrayed in Legend: The Arthurian Tarot by Anna-Marie Ferguson shows death as an event; The Wild Hunt headed by Gwyn ab Nudd, the Welsh God of the Dead.

Death as Gwyn ab Nudd is charged with gathering the slain and protecting the dead in the otherworldly realm of Annwn. Although The Wild Hunt it thought to be Welsh in origin, references to it can be found throughout Celtic and Anglo-Saxon literature.

Like the Norse Valkyries, Gwyn ab Nudd takes the slain to a popularly imagined place in the afterlife, here, the underworld of Annwn where food and drink are plenty and a cauldron of youth awaits.

Death is a surety but richly imagined lore stimulates anticipation and excitement surrounding what is to come.

Who doesn't want to know what comes next?

The Dark Grimoire Tarot by Michele Penco depicts Death as a key, one of many, that can open forgotten doors in the darkest corners of the psyche, to gain knowledge, recognize our dark side and learn how to balance our lives.

In the Nameless City, a horror story written by H. P. Lovecraft in 1921, a mad poet dreams of the ancient ruins of an alien civilization, older than man and writes these words:

"What can live eternally cannot be dead,

And with strange aeons even death may die."

In so saying, he suggests that these aliens cannot be dead and forgotten even though the place is a shambles, but that our memory of it could possibly die.

The Secrets of the Necronomicon by Donald Tyson & Anne Stokes present Death as the fictional character Tsathoggua, an Old One of the Cthulhu Mythos, proposed to be solely created by Clark Ashton Smith but published, almost simultaneously, by both Smith and H.P. Lovecraft circa 1930.

In The Secrets of the Necronomicon, Donald Tyson has contributed to the shared Cthulhu Mythos by using stories he has created in his book The Wanderings of Alhazred. Here he uses Lovecraft's imagery of Tsathoggua, an alien God with a frog-like body and the head of a human along with a story of a pseudopod who craves to live off the blood of the chained human.

The Necronomicon Tarot is fashioned after the Golden Dawn system, which is based on occult associations of the Hebrew alphabet with each of the major arcana of the tarot. The association with Death is Scorpio. Scorpio has long been known to be the bringer of death due to the venom found in its tail.



It's fitting to end my exploration of death with the fable of the scorpion and the frog:

In the story, a scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog thinks this makes sense so he agrees and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink. Knowing they both will drown he gasps to the Scorpion "Why? Why did you do it?" The scorpion replies "I'm sorry, its my nature..."

What Do You Want?

Someone once asked me "What do you want?"

At the time I thought it was a strange question with too broad a context.

I searched for an answer regardless, intending to say something humourous about a knight in shining armour or vast sum of money but I remained silent for some time as my brain repeated the statement over and over in my mind coming up with next to nothing until it finally reached through the mire of useless gibberish in my consciousness to the cobwebs and dusty thoughts of my childhood. The only thing I saw there was a dead squirrel laying in the dirt beside the tall chain link fence separating the grade school I attended with the neighbouring homes. I was eleven years old. I knelt down beside it. I mourned for it. I wished I could give it life again. Eventually I covered it with dried leaves and walked on.

It was an answer, although lucid, distant, and not terribly useful but it was all I could come up with.

For the next 18 months I squirmed my way through the rest of my brain looking for a more meaningful answer. I only let go of the need to find it when I realized the only thing I truly wanted was amusement. I guess that is my way of feeling happiness.

Yes, I spent 18 months trying to find an answer to the stupid question.

Roll forward another several years of living for the sole purpose of amusement and we come to....

Now I think this stupid question is paramount and must be answered. If the question cannot be answered, then the point to life, and death, is lost.

God I'm full of shit.  I have no idea what I am talking about and people should really not listen to me.... but do what you want.

Whatever. Point made.

O Death

By Maison De Sante (The Dark Sublime)... O Death... a video rendering the traditional folk song (recorded by Jen Titus) and images from the film Gingersnaps .

... so awesome it warrants my dying devotion.



I wish someone would perform a cover of this song using a heavier sound.

The Problem With Life

There is really little I dislike more than organized religion. It's a matter of distrust I suppose, which goes to say that I obviously trusted at one time and then later was let down, betrayed, disappointed. The proverbial fall from grace.

When we are children, we all think of our parents as Gods; Goddess Mom, Goddess Dad. Parents usually have no idea what they are doing and even if they do, they are doomed to fail because their children will fall from grace at some point regardless of how much care and effort went into their 'parenting' and the children will blame the ensuing horror on the parents... the former Gods and Goddesses of their lives.

Aside from the psychology of it all I figure this is why I dislike organized religion so much. It's just a reiteration of the parent / child relationship that failed to live up to my grandiose expectation of it.

I have some experience with this. I have been a child and a parent. I've seen both sides. It can go wrong. Very wrong. I can't say that I've seen a situation where it has not gone wrong. Even if the parent / child relationship seems to have survived the inevitable fall from grace (I'm talking about age 14... think back people) and been repaired there is residual resentment that causes us to go our own way and not follow in the footsteps of our parents. It is natural.

So how can I believe that following in another's footsteps would be beneficial in any way? This is what organized religion asks of us. It beckons us to follow its doctrines, learn it's wisdom and let it guide our lives.

Hah... like I would ever let that happen.

My mistrust is obvious.

Yet I yearn, as I suspect many do, for a connection with a group of like-minded people. Wanting to connect is something so powerful it can drive us to do things that go against our better judgement. Such as falling in love. Who in their right mind would fall off a cliff in the hopes that someone would catch them before they smashed to bits on the rocks at the bottom? But that is what is happening when people fall in love. They do it all the time. The desire to connect overpowers the rational judgement that following another is not a logical thing to do.

This is also the case in organized religion. Giving one's self, one's sense of moral judgement, even one's center of gravity over to a set of principles belonging to a bunch of people interpreting a fictional character's experiences of the world. Even if this experience seems like good advice, what drives people to abandon themselves in this way?

Well, I'll tell you. Like wolves, humans are pack animals. We depend on each other to survive. We must get along or none of us survive. So people tend to do what everyone else is doing... and this is because of organized religion. The bible, the koran, the saints, the goddesses, they tell us what to do and none of the fallout or the consequences of our actions are our responsibility because they told us to do it.

Our world is built on the insanity of organized religion... and it started with our parents. It's their fault. Lol.

Again its obvious I struggle with this, not in a superficial way, but in an endless war with myself over my actions that has caused my life to be shaped into a perverse amalgamation of addiction, passion, action and the lack of action that leaves my center of gravity wobbling to and fro in in a static nightmare of indecision, like jogging on the spot, looking left to right to left to right and I can no longer move because everywhere I look there is reason to believe I will fall off that cliff if I move.

Hahahaha... why am I not insane? The definition of insane is doing the same thing over and over with the same results. I would say jogging on the spot looking left to right to left to right qualifies.

Well maybe I am insane.

I have no answers.

For sure I am at least a little bit crazy. Maybe when I run out of steam I'll end up somewhere else, by default.

This is my fascination with death and the reason for it. I see no answers in all the places I've looked in life. Death is the only religion I know nothing about and have no mistrust of. No one else knows anything about it either. Therefore there can be no authority to bastardize its existence.

Seems like a safe haven for me.