A Favor

“Death is a favor to us.”

                                                        Hafiz 

                                                                      from Deepening The Wonder

It’s been almost 10 years since I first ran into the poem of Hafiz’s that held that line about death being a favor. Initially, I noticed it.  It had some kind of compelling quality that made it grab my attention, but I wasn’t ready to reflect very deeply upon it then. I am ready now. I guess I needed to age, and hopefully mature some, before I could start integrating what it holds for me. Life is strange that way. I came across “Deepening The Wonder” years ago, noticed this line, and here I am, visiting it years later. How, and why, did it stay with me all this time?

I think I have died many times. Certainly, my stroke has taken me into another world, where I could barely recognize myself.  Everything changed. Death, in that instance, carried me into a mind-warping reality, that brought me to the rampant confusion that is now my life. This was an example of reincarnation that took place all on this plane of existence. I’ve been through a few of these kind of soul migrations.  They take my breath away, and then land me in a new life. So, that has colored my thinking about how favorable death is. 

I have already been carried away, unexpectedly, a few times. As Rumi says, “When, by dying, have I ever been made smaller?” Somehow, I too, have been made larger, more aware, sensitized, and with a greater passion for what Life holds. Death seems to have taken me into realms of being, that made me more me, and then, given me some time, to more fully become this new being, before death moved me on. Each time, my life became something else.

I feel like I’m being refined. Each incarnation seems to extract some kind of new essence of me, some little noticed essential ingredient. I try to hold onto myself, but I inevitably slip away into something else. I like it — have found a confidence, a kind of equanimity, that makes shifting alright. Aging has helped with that. But, I still feel a kind of disequilibrium, a rush of adrenalin-like dizziness, that unseats me, and sends me spinning into a fresh encounter with emptiness. All in all, its bracing.

The greatest favor I have identified so far, is how clarifying death is. I start missing people, things, situations, and dreams before I pass, or before they do. My heart seems to break, in all the right places. I even find the wherewithal sometimes, to honor them, to really appreciate the miraculous nature of what I am exposed to, as passing takes place. Oddly, that has made living more vivid. Goodbye has become more poignant too.

There is a strange sweetness that attends death. Impermanence seems to have an embellishing effect. I am so touched by what I cannot hold. There is something striking about everything going, it’s as if some greater emptiness is calling to be filled, and attachment gives way, and the spirit, that lives by moving from one inside to another, goes in motion. Joy purifies joy.

Passing seems so fraught in our culture. Death is anything but joy unleashed. Why is that? I don’t know. But aging has given me perspective, allowing me to entertain newly discerned patterns, and changed my mind. Death is a favor to us. It is a passport, to any of the foreign realms where new forms lurk, and purification continues.