“Dance is the hidden language of the soul.” - Martha Graham
“What would life be worth if there were no death? Who would enjoy the sun if it never rained? Who would yearn for the day if there were no night?”
- Glenn Ringtved https://www.brainpickings.org/
2016/03/08/cry-heart-but- never-break/
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” - Norman Cousins
Here is the Zoom link for our creative dialogue this Wednesday March 3, starting at 6:30 PM Calgary time:
Topic: Humainologie creative dialogue
Time: Mar 3, 2021 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Wed, until Apr 28, 2021, 9 occurrence(s)
Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.
Weekly:
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Our topic will be what Henry David Thoreau was thinking about when he wrote
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
So it’s about life and death, but we’ll develop the theme in our own way. I’ll use Dancing and Dying as our working title. Dance is the joy of movement, and movement is the essence of life. Dancing can be used as a metaphor for life.
By coming to terms with death, we also come to terms with life. Below this message, I have appended my synopsis of a very important book, The Needs of the Dying: A Guide for Bringing Hope, Comfort, and Love to Life’s Final Chapter by David Kessler. It’s a book that can help us come to terms with death (and therefore with life).
Here are some questions designed to tap into your creative genius:
1. If you were to borrow from Thoreau’s idea and pick one thing to focus on for one or two years, what would you choose? Would you go to the woods and live in a cabin? Or would you choose something very different, so that when you come to die, you can look back on that quest you embarked on as the time you really learned to live? The book by Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit, might help you come up with an irresistible idea, something that neither Thoreau nor Shakespeare nor Marcus Aurelius ever thought of.
2. Speaking of Marcus Aurelius, he kept a journal to help guide him along the path of the good life. What do you use? Please share your wisdom and experience on this. What is an excellent practice or guide or set of guidelines or reference you can recommend to us for how to get the most out of living each day? (This could be keeping a journal; or it could be a book you read recently, or something you learned from a mentor, or something that occurred to you “out of the blue” that helps to get you moving with enthusiasm every day.)
3. In the final chapter of your life, what do you think might give you the mindset you need for equanimity? Perhaps it has something to do with acceptance.
“Que sera, sera.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=xZbKHDPPrrc What do you think? And what might you do between now and then to build exactly that mindset that you need in those final days? Dance is the joy of movement, and movement is the essence of life. Dancing can be used as a metaphor for life, and as a warmup for our creative dialogue. So…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=cTfxennz3xU May I have this dance?
Arthur
Book: (David Kessler) The Needs of the Dying: A Guide for Bringing Hope, Comfort, and Love to Life’s Final Chapter (2007, Tenth Anniversary Edition)
As I began reading this book, I realized that the author describes “needs of the dying” that are identical to needs of the living. Each of us can think like a health care professional. We can find ways to enhance the well-being of everyone around us, and thereby enhance the quality of our own life. This book can help us be better at caring for the needs of the living.
The very first chapter, “A Living Human Being,” begins with a list of four needs: The need to be treated as a living human being; the need to maintain a sense of hopefulness, however changing its focus may be; the need to be cared for by those who can maintain a sense of hopefulness, however changing this may be; and the need to die in peace and dignity.
“Life ends at death, we must always remind ourselves, not a moment before.” As long as the other person is alive, they need hope, and it helps sustain their hope if we always treat them as being fully alive. “I’m not dead yet!” the patient says to his family as they leave his room to talk about him outside. “You can talk to me. You can talk about me. Just don’t talk without me!” None of us wants to be spoken to as if we are in the process of dying, even though we are all going there. We carry an image – perfectly valid - of ourselves as we used to be. A busy nurse took a few minutes to talk with a frail old woman and learned that forty years earlier she had won an Olympic gold medal for distance running. “’I never saw her the same way again,’ the nurse told me. ‘There was so much more to her than I ever imagined.’” Take time to listen and inspire hope.
People need to express what they feel. Chapter 2, “Expressing Emotions,” is about the need to express feelings and emotions about death in one’s own way. Most of our lives we keep that need in check, but when we are dying it’s our last chance. Invite the other person to express what they feel. The author often opens the door for the patient to talk, asking them, “What’s happening here?” Throughout life, we should learn to listen with empathy, knowing we are walking to the end of the journey with others who are going there too.
In Chapter 3, “Participating in Decisions,” he writes, “We’re not used to thinking much about life, which is perhaps why we give so little thought to dying.” (We could turn that around and say that we’re not used to thinking much about dying, which is perhaps why we give so little thought to life.) We should think about our options for end-of-life care. Be aware of the value of “dual” decisions, for example looking for a cure, but also giving instructions about what you want to be done if nothing works. Ask questions of your physicians and don’t let them try to avoid giving answers. It is all too common to avoid asking questions. “But if today we don’t face the fact that we will die someday, we may find ourselves powerless to change what is happening to us tomorrow.” Even when the patient faces terminal cancer, there can be many options such as allowing open visiting hours, allowing them to have their pet in the room, and providing aggressive comfort management. Use your imagination and make good choices.
There are chapters on the physiology of pain and the emotions of pain (Chapters 4 and 5). Chapter 8, “What Death Looks Like,” is usefully supplemented with a CBC radio podcast I heard recently, in which Dr. Kathryn Mannix describes in detail the normal process of dying. Dr. Mannix is a retired palliative care physician who has witnessed the deaths of thousands of people. Here is her description of “what death looks like” https://www.cbc.ca/radio/
whitecoat/it-s-not-what-you- see-in-the-movies-doctor- demystifies-dying-1.5496491 In Chapter 6, “Spirituality,” in a section on the “five stages of spiritual reconciliation,” David Kessler provides very practical points. His mentor had been Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who in 1969 had presented “the stages of dying”: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Kessler presents the five stages of spiritual reconciliation as expression, responsibility, forgiveness, acceptance, and gratitude. Expression is about expressing our feelings when we learn that our demise is imminent. Our feelings are often anger, rage, hatred, and “we all blame others, we all become furious, and we all behave in petty ways.” You may be angry at your father or sister, or at God, or at your disease. “We fear that we will be punished if we express our ‘ugly’ feelings, but in fact the opposite is true. We are rewarded for releasing our anger by making ourselves ready for peace.” You don’t have to tell your father or sister themselves that you are angry at them, you can tell a friend or even just scream it into the air. As for God, who allowed such a terrible thing to happen to you, Kessler writes “God understands that you need to express and release your feelings in order to love.” Citing Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love as the source for the idea, Kessler suggests you can write your disease a letter (“Dear Cancer,” “Dear leukemia,” “Dear AIDS,” etc.) and express your feelings in writing.
Responsibility is taking responsibility for your own part in whatever happens, and Kessler writes “People have often said that facing a life-challenging illness has improved the quality of their lives. Specifically, it helped them take responsibility for their actions, thoughts, and lives. They know that they’re not to blame for their diseases and that dying does not mean that somehow they have failed.” Forgiveness does not mean saying that it is okay for the other person to be hurtful (as they may have been to you years ago) but instead to say to that person that you know they made a mistake and that we all make mistakes, and that you forgive them. Kessler adds: “Forgiving ourselves is just as much a part of spiritual growth as forgiving others. Most people are very hard on themselves at the end, remembering all the things they’ve done wrong…and wondering if they can ever be forgiven.” Many people die in this state of unforgiveness but “many choose to make way for inner peace by forgiving.” Acceptance that your life is complete, leaving all its shortcomings and mistakes exactly as they are, “is perhaps the most difficult of the steps toward spirituality.” “Every life is complete. The only two requirements for a life to be complete are birth and death.” Gratitude is presented as the fifth stage of spiritual reconciliation. “Having expressed one’s feelings, taken responsibility for all that has occurred, forgiven oneself and others, and accepted what is now occurring, the person on a spiritual journey becomes profoundly grateful for his or her life, for both the good times and the bad.”
Chapter 10, “Not Dying Alone,” emphasizes the need not to die alone and the need to die in peace and dignity. Losing connection with others as we are dying makes the end more wretched than it needs to be. We isolate the dying by waiting in the waiting room while they are dying. We isolate the dying by avoiding talking about what they want to talk about, including the fact that they are dying. “We isolate the dying when we refuse to look at the world as they do.” A flow of words isn’t necessary. “It’s okay just to be with them without saying anything. The point is to be there for them. Our love and understanding will make themselves known.”
No set of instructions can substitute for an ability to be aware of what’s going on, and how the needs of those around us are changing. For example, there may be no better place to die than in the arms of your beloved; and yet there may be people who prefer to die alone. “What’s going on?” is a good question to ask yourself repeatedly. “Sometimes we’re supposed to be there, and sometimes we’re not. If you and your loved one feel that you would like to spend this most precious moment together, you can certainly try, but remember that fate has a way of stepping in to make its own decisions.” In spite of all life’s difficulties and all our own mistakes, acceptance of life and gratitude for life are outcomes we can hope for. We can also work toward them.
In Chapter 11, “The Body,” the author presents ways of honoring the person, now departed, including the body and the ritual. Cremation is more often the option these days, and the ashes might be placed in very unusual places (outer space in the case of Timothy Leary, for example). The ritual is often a traditional memorial service, but some prefer a celebration of the life of the departed person. Celebration in the wake of the loss doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s exactly right for many. Perhaps we can be proactive on this and celebrate the life of each and every person as often as possible, taking off on the idea of the Birthday, but increasing the variety and the frequency of those celebrations. It’s just a thought.
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