The Worship of Death

I live with Death. The eventual death of my friends and family. The death of those I have personally lost over the years. The death of every person I hear about who has passed. My own death. We all live with Death. However, I am obsessed with Death. In a very unhealthy way, I think. And I have been for most of my life. There is a Cathedral of Death in my heart and mind. Perpetual adoration and perpetual terror. I fear it in the way a Christian fears God, as the ultimate mystery and judge of our lives. I worship it in the same way, as the ultimate goal of life. I love my friends and family, I love my pets, I love Freya and my conception of the Void. But I prostrate myself before and pray to Death.

For most of the years that I can remember, I've felt at least a hint of being suicidal. Since I was quite young. Even before thoughts of taking my own life appeared, there was a longing for and a fear of Death. I've believed in many religions; I was brought up Catholic and have explored other kinds of Christianity as well as Buddhism, various pagan and heathen faiths, Hinduism, Theistic and Non-Theistic Satanism, the list goes on and on. The one constant was my intense fascination with and terror of and desire for Death. My denial of Life. Even at my most heathen, a very life-affirming religion that teaches you should enjoy and make the most of this life while you've got it and not live for the hereafter, I have pined for Death and something other than this existence, this life. Life is the Enemy, the source of all suffering, the one thing that must be rejected over and over again until finally it is gone. Where some see God (or Gods or Goddesses) I see Death. It intrigues me, because a big part of me thinks I will be gone after this life and, like most of us, I have a hard time imagining this universe without me in it. We can be so egocentric. It tempts me, because I hate the alternative. The parts of me that do believe in some kind of afterlife yearn for it. It is always there in my mind.

I honestly do not know what other people's experiences of Death are. Knowing they will die. Knowing everyone they love is either dead or will die. It is not something one can easily bring up in casual conversation. If there is an animal on this planet other than humanity that knows beforehand of Death, I would be interested to know what that creature's thoughts about it were. Is it possible there is a creature out there that understands Death's nature better than we do? I've seen footage of elephants doing something that absolutely looked to be some kind of funeral service for one of their fallen brethren. Do they know something we do not? We may never know.

If my fears, hopes, worries, neuroses, psychoses, what have you, are correct that we all just blink out, I can't help but ponder what non-existence is like. It scares me but it is also so alluring. If I look back to my earliest memory and then push my mind farther back than that, there is a comforting nothingness, that lack of Being, lack of Life, that I so crave. I can almost feel what it must be like to not exist. It is dreadful and yet seductive. If I imagine a life after this, I can't help but think it must be better. When you've experienced really bad and know of much worse, it's hard to imagine some other life offering up greater torments than this one. Certainly no visions of Hell are enough to make me walk the path of the people of God,  affirming Life in words while denying it in secret, living not for Life but for Heaven. The possibility of a paradise after this existence, in the bosom of Freya perhaps, is enough to make me celebrate and leap for joy and run to throw myself off the nearest cliff. The pinnacle of despair would be reached if I found out absolutely that reincarnation was true. This life again and again. No! It must not be. I would live to keep killing myself over and over again, down the eons, until my spirit and consciousness had exhausted every possibility for life and just collapsed from exhaustion into extinction. Give me my awful but lovely Mistress, Death. I keep teaming up adjectives in this post because my thoughts on Death are so opposed but complimentary. I can't seem to have one thought about Death without a bunch of other thoughts popping up too.

I'm sure the people who know me and are reading this are, by now, concerned that I will do myself in, possibly before I reach the conclusion of this blog post. Well, I have doubts it'll happen that soon. Because there is just enough fear of Death in me and because I have promised those I love to fight at all costs, I will most likely survive to see another day.  But my prayers to Death, those will continue. Services in my Cathedral will go on.

I think of how no matter how divided humanity is, we are all joined in this one thing, this thing that we all must experience someday, even if there is no "we" left at that moment any longer. We share Death with each other and yet it is so often unspoken. While my mania for Death is probably quite sick, I do not think it is any sicker than those who would do everything they can in order to hide Death away and pretend it doesn't exist. It is our common bond, the final journey we all must take. In my faith, this is celebrated, for it is the only way we can achieve any kind of unity. Whether we go away for good or pass into some glorious other world, we all will find that we are on the same road. The road to Death, always thick with traffic, enshrouded in mystery, a promise and a threat at the end of it all. Live if you must but die you will. Death - the perfect ending, no matter what your life may have been.