The Path of Love II

Life, Death and Love 
Lisa Campion

Media Vita In Morte Sumus (In the midst of life, we are in death.)

Just the other day, I was at a funeral.  It’s funny how brushes with death can radically change your perspective about life.  “The Man” lost a dear friend who died way too young and quite suddenly.

We showed up to the church far too early, in our somber mourning suits, both of us feeling rather grim and fragile.  In a totally cosmic ironic incongruous way, it was a gorgeous morning.   The sky was a radiant blue, as bright and shiny as New England gets in July, and I was reminded about why people come from all over to summer in New England.

Rather then sit in the parking lot for an hour, we went out to breakfast.  We looked a little out of place, dressed to the nines in an early morning diner filled with regular folk eating breakfast.  The diner was small and packed to the gills with happy people.

It was an easy place in which to feel good about life.  The wait staff was a gaggle of pretty, smiling girls all dressed in tee shirts and pajama bottoms.  They had happy, funky food on the menu, like bacon and Nutella stuffed French toast.  Clearly these people were of the bacon goes with anything school of cuisine:

Bacon cheeseburgers with peanut butter.
Grilled cheese, bacon and olive sandwiches.
Pancakes with strawberries, bananas and bacon cooked inside.

It was delightful.  There was something joyful and out of the box about the diner.  It was the epitome of all the wonderful things that I love about being alive.  A cozy place filled with happy people on a sunny summer morning.  Plus free coffee refills and bacon added to anything on the menu, and I mean ANYTHING, for an extra buck.  What’s not to love?

I couldn’t help it, funeral or not- my heart swelled open to maximum overflow.

I LOVE life.   I mean, I really love it.  I love being alive and the crazy, chaotic wonderful pattern of humanity.   I love every out of control turn on the wild roller coaster ride of life.   And I am sure when I am up there in Soul World, I am the first to run back to the head of the line to get on the crazy ride called Life.  Hell, it’s worth the price of admission just for a great cup of coffee, chocolate and sex.  (And not necessarily in that order, I might add…)

There was a baby at the next table over from us, playing with his toes and smiling his big, goofy baby grin.  I love babies, not just because I am down to my DNA momma-type, but because they love life like I do.  They love and live with abandon, holding nothing back.  They feel joy in every moment, the sheer joy of being alive with no expectations.  Or not.  And if not, they let you know!

Babies are the Zen masters of living in the moment, feeling and experiencing everything full throttle, hiding nothing, holding nothing back.  And I could see that little dude totally BEING in the moment and loving every minute of it.

“Me too, Little Man.  Me too,” I said to him in my head.  And because he is a baby, living in the Zen Zone, he got my message.   All around the diner I could see and feel the presence of angels and the spirits of the beloved dead.   They were zooming around the ceiling, probably wishing they could have a cuppa Joe.

“Media Vita In Morte Sumus,” I thought to myself.  “In the midst of life, we are in death.”

And that is when I slipped into a moment of Pure Consciousness.

It’s hard for me to describe these moments, but they happen to me on and off throughout the day.  I slide fully into the present moment and feel completely wide awake on all the channels.  Time slows down to the point where I can’t feel it passing.  Colors look brighter, all my senses are heightened and usually my Energy Vision switches on.  Things glow.  I see the energy fields of people and things all around me.  And I feel tremendous joy and love.  Everything is joyful, significant, poignant and terribly amusing.  I usually laugh, just like the goofy baby.

And yet there is a bittersweet quality to it all.   I used to think that when my heart opened all the way, I would feel happy all the time, but that is not my experience.  Instead, I feel this aching bitter sweetness.  My open heart is so very tender that I never know if I am going to laugh or cry and feel poised between the two, balanced precariously and ready to tip in either direction on a hair’s breadth.

Welcome to my world.  And yes, I really do speak Latin to myself in my own head.  I really do.

The funeral was beautiful, simple and sweet.  The Catholic mass was familiar and comforting.  People cried openly since the man who died was clearly loved by all.  The church was stuffed to the rafters with spirits.  Angels, the beloved dead, the saints, all present looking for all the world exactly the same as the ones in the diner, minus the quest for java.

“Media Morte In Sumus Vita,” since clearly in the midst of death, we are also in life.

And that is the point of this blog, really.  One must throw one’s heart open and love without guarantee, and with total risk.   The people we love are all going to die if we don’t pass through the pearly gates first.  And truthfully, the more deeply one loves, the more will grief we feel when love is lost.  And it is always lost.  You can take that to the bank.

Love, loss and grief are a cycle without end.  That is how it is to love down here on Planet Earth.  In soul world, love is eternal and I find amazing comfort in that, as perhaps everyone else in the funeral did too.  But down here, it’s just the nature of the human heart to be broken open with every breath that we take.

Love sneaks up on us, our hearts blown wide open beyond our ability to defend ourselves.  Love, sneaks through the closed, walled off spaces in our hearts, just like the tender and strong roots of a plant slip through the smallest cracks in the pavement.  We cannot defend ourselves against love, it truly is the strongest force in the universe and it’s sneaky.

It stalks us and pounces when we are least aware.   Love takes root in our hearts, we are captured and opened through our connections with animals, our beloved children and wild love affairs with our soul mates, despite our best efforts to remain closed and safe.  Love rules and it will have its way with us.

And it is my choice to lean into it.  To love more, to feel that bittersweet truth that the more I love, the more I will be hurt, eventually.  And yet I am committed to surrendering to love in every moment that I can.  I welcome being turned inside out by love.  I surrender gladly.

Just as I will lean into loss and grief when it looms.  It is just a hair’s breath away at any given moment, as The Man and I were so reminded at the funeral of his beloved friend.  I held his hand tightly, and felt like we were two little kids standing in heavy surf at the edge of a wild ocean.   Life, death, sorrow, joy and love, love, love were the waves crashing around us, his warm solidity an anchor and a comfort to me.  And I, I hope, to him.  I was thinking about my aging parents, my son who is going into the Marines, my golden retriever who is also getting on in years and I know, I know…

In the midst of life we are in death and visa versa and so it has ever been and ever shall be throughout all the ages, time without end.  Amen.

The cycle of love moves with our breath.  We receive love on the inhale, taking it in, absorbing it.  We pause to feel the stillness of the moment, with our lungs full of life, full of love.  And then we exhale, letting go, giving love out to the world and feeling grief.  It’s a mini cycle with each breath of how our human hearts handle love.  That is the perennial flow of love and loss, just like waves crashing on the beach and breath moving in our bodies.

So when I feel my heart is blocked and stuck shut with fear and grief, I breathe and remember to go with that rhythm, that flow.  And I invite you to do so as well.   And remember-

“Vivere disce, cogita mori.”  We learn to live by remembering the dead (with love.)