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aedifico42| On Death…

Posted at: 9:18 am

   Masons have always viewed death as a next step…a continuation of their journey.  We see the skull and cross-bones as a humbling and hopeful symbol of our physical demise, perhaps with a promise of something to come.

   The Greeks (the ancients, leading into the classical period we know from most writings) saw death differently.  They saw a shadow of thier selves (their ’soul’) leaving their body with their last breath, and crossing that great river into Hades.  But to them, Hades was not hell.  It was a place where you went to kind-of hang-out for all eternity.  To be sure, Heroes were cast to the plains of Alesium and lived in a veritable paradise…but even paradise is not a Western concept.

   Paradise is a Persian word…it means garden.  So our own attempt to be good and die well really is only an attempt to re-enter that garden from whence we came.  (am I mixing-up too many stories here?)

   Anyway, the point here is to deliver a quote from Carlos Castaneda…it is a message from his mentor, the Yaqui Shaman don Juan Matus.  “Death is our eternal companion.  It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us.  Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has.  Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so.  His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch.  His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’

   This lesson is really like most lessons regarding Death.  They are not lessons on how or why to die…but about how and why to live.

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