The mortality rate is still 100%

And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

He said I was finally the husband, that most the time I wasn't
And I became a friend, a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden goin' fishin, wasn't such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I finally read the good book, and I took a good long hard look
At what I'd do if I could do it all again



Why is it that I need to be reminded the fact that I won´t live forever?
Why is it that I do take my every day so for granted?
Why is it that despite throwing around the quotes like "Life is uncertain. Eat the dessert first" I am still waiting something "real" and "special" to happen some day in the future but until that day I will just hang around and do something to spend my time here on Planet Earth?
Why is it that there are still so many unsaid words which I think I will say little bit later when the time and circumstances are right?
Why is it that I need someone to die to start living myself?
*
Not wanting to sound heartless or completely out of place but it was just this week when my little brother was basically walking around with the urn which consisted the ashes of our grandmother?!
So, it really is true that we come from nothing and end up exactly the same way - being NOTHING, just fading away ... into the endless something?!
How surreal is it? I really think I much rather live in my wishy-washy dreamland where people (nor animals:) are not dying but live happily ever after.
However, I´ve never been afraid to die nor have I been afraid of the cemeteries. I remember one summer sport camp where many of us walked (aprx 2,5 km) to the beach to celebrate the last evening of the camp. In order to get there, we all went over an old cemetery and further on the road continued through the forest.
I was only 13 or 14 but obviously old enough to know what I did or didn´t like and I didn´t like what was going on over there during that night.
So, I did let some people know that I will leave and go back to the camp. Some of them laughed out loud because they never believed I would go back all alone through the forest and over the cemetery in the middle of the night.
But I did ... because of the full moon it was easy enough to see the road and I don´t remember myself being afraid at all. In fact, I think cemeteries are not scary at all - they are one of the most peaceful places I know.
It was a nice walk and at the same time it was one of the first times (out of many more to come) when I turned around and walked away from the "mainstream" :)
*
One thing is to talk about Death but another thing is to feel the meaning of it. Since I was little, I'd occasionally use my imagination and suddenly would have this FEELING of huge emptiness and the "This is it! That journey is over now" kind of thing filling my heart and my head? and it leads to realization - everything really is temporary and meant to fade away when the time comes ?!
*
The more I look at Life, the more I try my very best to understand it and to learn about it´s ways, the more I need to agree with Joni Mitchell and to admit that I REALLY DON`T KNOW LIFE AT ALL.
Still, I won´t take the honor of "finding" this song all by myself as actually it was recommended by someone who has played a great part of my this year's "adventures" :)

BOTH SIDES NOW
/---/
I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions i recall.
I really don't know love at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud to say "i love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, i've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say
I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions i recall.
I really don't know life at all.



Dean Ornish, M.D. Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute; Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
has written the foreword to the Marianne Willamson´s book (yes, yes, Marianne again:) and among other things he is saying:

"Because the mechanisms that affect our health are so dynamic, when we work on a deeper level, we´re likely to feel so much better, so quickly, that it reframes the reasons for change from fear of dying to joy of living.
Fear is not a sustainable motivator. Why? It´s too scary. We all know we´re going to die one day - the mortality rate is still 100 percent, one per person - but who wants to think about it? Even people who have had heart attacks usually change for only a few weeks before they go back to their old patterns of living and eating.
With Marianne as our guide, we can go back to the root cause of our suffering: we´ve forgotten who we really are. Health comes from the root "to make whole." The word yoga derives from the Sanskrit word meaning "to yoke", to bring together. Science is helping to document the wisdom of ancient traditions.
Intimacy is healing. Trust is everything, because we can only be intimate to the degree we can make ourselves emotionally vulnerable. A fully committed relationship allows both people to feel complete trust in each other. Trust allows us to feel safe, we can open our heart to the person and be completely naked and vulnerable to him or her - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When our heart is fully open and vulnerable, we can expect profound levels of intimacy that are healing, joyful, powerful, creative, and intensely ecstatic. We can surrender to each other out of strenght and wisdom - not out of fear, weakness, and submission.
/---/
Prayers and meditation allow us to access our inner wisdom more intentionally. Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night and figured out the answer to a problem that had been troubling you? All spiritual traditions describe a "still, small voice within" a voice that speaks very clearly but very quietly. It´s easily drowned out by the chatter and business of everyday life. For many people, the only time the mind is quiet enough to hear one´s inner voice is when waking up in the middle of the night.
As Oprah Winfrey once said, "Listen to the whisper before it becomes a scream."
/---/
On another level, spiritual practices, taken deeply enough, allow us to experience that we are part of something much larger that connects us, whatever name we give to that (even to give it a name is to limit what is a limitless experience). We are part of, not just apart from, everyone and everyhing. We are That. In this context, love is not something we get; it´s who we are.
When we can maintain that "double vision" - both the duality and the underlying unity - then we can enjoy life more fully and accomplish even more without so much suffering and stress, from a place of wholeness rather than lacking, from a feeling of interconnectedness rather than seprarateness and islolation. Our lives become manifestations of love, acts of love - the most powerful force in the universe".