I am seeing the world through new eyes. Watching as people around me just naturally observe themselves, notice an old contract surfacing, and spontaneously decide to change it, let it go. I am grateful beyond measure to see this happening all around. I know if it is outside of me, the same reflection is within.
This time around, I am so comfortable with my own death. I have now envisioned it to the point that it feels transparent, and so much a choice.
When I was a small child, my grandparents had a farm in Illinois. I got to spend time with many different animals. And I also got to see death at a young age. I remember being very attracted to dead animals.
When an animal died, on this small farm, their bodies were often buried, or sometimes left to decompose if they were deep in the forest where a tractor could not go. A cow died one night while giving birth, and Grandpa found her several days later. I remember being afraid to hike down to the woods, fearful that I might find the body. But I was also drawn to it like a little fly. I had to go see the dead cow, even though I was terrified.
When I finally mustered up my courage (I had to be around 9 years old), I hiked through the woods into a little clearing. I could smell the cow's body, and knew that I was close. Then I saw the hair, the hide, the hooves, the body lying on a hillside in the hardwood forest. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat, as I did not understand death, and was certain that the cow would jump up any moment and attack me like a monster from the movies.
Gradually I became present in the moment. The fear dissolved and I looked at every part of the cow that I could reach. I took my time, I studied the changes that had happened to her body in just a few days.
Most of all, I noticed how different this uninhabited space suit felt from the cows that were alive. This cow, the real being that had lived in this body, was completely gone. It was such a mysterious thing to me-where did she go?
When I finally turned around to go back to the farmhouse, I looked up through the forest. I saw the same cow, looking back at me, chewing her cud contentedly. She was surrounded with a bright golden light. I jumped up to run and find her-I wanted to get closer. But when I looked again, she was gone. I looked all over, but could not find the cow that I had seen, in a new body. Finally I went home, watching just in case it reappeared.
It was a long time before I began to understand more about death, but those early experiences on the farm provided some key pieces to a great puzzle. And the beautiful vision of the cow, that everyone later told me was my "imagination" and it didn't really happen, stayed with me as a vision of comfort and truth until a time when I would return to death willingly, to learn. When one makes an agreement to allow death to become her teacher, she will learn more in this lifetime than one could ever imagine.
And the view at the end of the trail will be spectacular!
Kachina
