It's All About Death Today

[Lady of Longbourn]

I'm not actually starting this from the depression view point. I'm not depressed but a chain of events happened today and I thought maybe I should start a conversation about death and maybe spirituality behind it. My therapist says spirituality is love, beauty and truth. He has been asking me this for over a week now and I can't seem to wrap my head around it because I connect it to much with God and I don't want to get into that. Love, beauty and truth was easier.

I went to a American Civil War site today. I actually love these sites and reading about the civil war. I am a collector of Civil War relics. I always feel connected to these places, they feel powerful, beautiful and yet I think they are really peaceful. But then it can really hurt too...the death can really hurt. Some of the bigger sites can really overwhelm me. The cemeteries can overwhelm too. But then I have a secret...one of the most relaxing places I've ever been was a civil war cemetery (which was also haunted my therapist said so I joke the ghosts like me), all I did was sit there on a stone bench under a tree and breath.

I'm struggling to explain becasue I worry what people will think of me. Those people from the American Civil War have been gone a long time and I swear it's like when I'm at the sites I can feel all their pain. But this is truth, honestly. At the site today I went on a tour and the tour guide (who was also a minister) said "People often forget the humanity part, you know?" He was talking about the battle movements or the dates but not the men and what they were going through.

When I left the site my mother emailed me. She told me that a body had been found on our families farm. Not a recent body. At least 100 years old. Tall man, in a suit and cottonwood box. My family has no idea who this poor guy is or why he is buried on the farm when even our family isn't, but knowing my family they will find something and give him at least a headstone. We are thinking he may have been a farm hand. It was more death.

Reading over this it's like I have my own (weird?) way of looking at death and seeing spirituality.

So I thought maybe it was time to bring this up.

 

[seedling]

I swear it's like when I'm at the sites I can feel all their pain

I can understand this. I think passing from life to death is such a powerful moment that it lingers. Like the place still resonates with the vibration of what happened.

I visited the Dachau concentration camp in Germany with a friend quite a while ago. We were quiet for two days after that, it hung over us.

My trauma centered around seeing my son dying. He didn't die, but there were moments when I was aware of him first physically passing, and then his spirit's struggle to decide to stay and survive. I seem to have been there to ground him here in life. This part of my memories of that experience are beyond any feeling of horror. It was my privilege to be there with him then. It was a beautiful experience, beyond my emotional pain and the fear of losing him.

 

[scout86]

"People often forget the humanity part, you know?"

I think that's very true. And yet, I've always thought the most interesting thing about history is to realize that it's composed of the stories of individual human beings, not unlike all of us.

I've never been to a civil war site. (It's on my bucket list.) I have been to the site of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. What really struck me was how ordinary the land looks. It's cool. (I like that part of the country.) It's peaceful. It was pretty empty the day I was there. It's weird to look over the terrain and imagine that, on a different day, in a different year, there was so much drama there. So many lives lost.... And yet the land is untouched. Kind of makes me think, in the grand scheme of things, we and our struggles aren't all that important. And yet, history is made by all the "unimportant" individuals who do the bleeding and the dying and the living too.

@Ayesha , has the farm been in your family a long time, that they would reasonably expect to know if someone was buried there? It would be cool if they can find out who he was and what his story was, and give him back his name, at least for now.

 

[RussH]

I went to a American Civil War site today. I actually love these sites and reading about the civil war. I am a collector of Civil War relics. I always feel connected to these places, they feel powerful, beautiful and yet I think they are really peaceful. But then it can really hurt too...the death can really hurt. Some of the bigger sites can really overwhelm me. The cemeteries can overwhelm too. But then I have a secret...one of the most relaxing places I've ever been was a civil war cemetery (which was also haunted my therapist said so I joke the ghosts like me), all I did was sit there on a stone bench under a tree and breath.

I completely understand this love for the battle sites and the identification with the men who fought and died there. it is hard to explain identifying with them, but it is easy to understand.

One of my most moving life experience was visiting Gettysburg. It is a powerful place to visit. They say that people have seen ghost at gettysburg, but I don't know, but I do know that Lincoln's speech at gettysburg is powerfully moving about the men who struggled there, both the living and dead.

If you have never read it, the book "Killer Angels" is the best book you can read on the battle of Gettysburg.

 

[WillyKat]

Just means you prioritize and let yourself feel things that are really important. If we don't remember the past, and all the pain, then we're probably condemned to repeat it. So the world needs people like you.

I agree w/ @RussH that Killer Angels is a good read.

 

[Seagreen]

I went to a American Civil War site today. I actually love these sites and reading about the civil war. I am a collector of Civil War relics. I always feel connected to these places, they feel powerful, beautiful and yet I think they are really peaceful. But then it can really hurt too...the death can really hurt. Some of the bigger sites can really overwhelm me. The cemeteries can overwhelm too. But then I have a secret...one of the most relaxing places I've ever been was a civil war cemetery (which was also haunted my therapist said so I joke the ghosts like me), all I did was sit there on a stone bench under a tree and breath.

Reading over this it's like I have my own (weird?) way of looking at death and seeing spirituality.

I don't think it is weird at all. What you wrote in the above paragraph sounds like a metaphor (I know its not meant to be) but it pretty much sums up how I feel about death.

 

[arfie]

it's like I have my own (weird?) way of looking at death and seeing spirituality.

I am an amatuer language geek and any given day you are likely to find me translating from one human language to another. I am language geek enough that I have even been known to try inter-species translating. Dog to human. Bee (I am a beekeeper) to human. Etc. Whatever is being translated, translations can be tricky. Even a simple phrase can fool ya.

To my way of thinking, "spirituality" is an attempt to translate inorganic language to organic languages. Even bees and humans share an organic link. I also think looking at death is part of spirituality. Seems to me that anybody who has sought spirituality deeper than memorizing verbal dogma has their unique take on it. Death, even more so since our organic instincts make it so intimidating.

 

[tude]

That minister spoke another important truth, 'People often forget the humanity part..' After working in emergency medicine for 17 years, that is a truth I can relate to.