What is Death?

Death. It is an act of life. Death is a part of the circle of life. We do not fear winter, even though we do not celebrate its coming the same way we celebrate the spring. Winter is a time of death. The world seems to lose its vitality. The days are short, the trees have no leaves. The buzz of the insects and the song of birds are seldom heard.

Yet, is winter the end? Have the lives that appear to have vanished really disappeared? If all the insects die, and the grass dies, and the flowers die, how can they ever return?

Perhaps it is our notion of death that is wrong. Ancient peoples feared the winter. Would life ever return? How long would this blight of cold and death last? For them, winter was a threat, and they prayed for its end and the return of Sun and Life.

Today, we understand winter for what it is, only one quarter of the circle of seasons that repeat over and over and over. We no longer cower at the first snowflakes, nor fear for our mortal lives from the harshness of its cold. Winter has become for man a “matter of fact.” While not all revel in its beauty, nor contemplate is many mysteries, we do not treat it as a matter of life and death. We know it is just life, another phase in its continuum.

Death, too, is just another part of the continuum of life. Yet, we have terror in our hearts over death, over its apparent finality and the perceived separation from those we love. But right now, if we close our eyes and open our hearts, we can feel the presence of all who have died, who have left their physical bodies and moved on. We can talk to them, feel their love, and know in our hearts that they are whole, and free, and very much a part of life.

Just as the Ancients overcame their fear of winter, so too shall man one day soon overcome his fear of death. Consider this: the birth of a child into our world could be considered the death of a life in the spiritual realm. This most sacred of all events in our world marks the transition from one form of life to another.

We do not mourn the death of a seed. We celebrate the birth of a flower. The seed is no more. Yet, its life, its essence, lives on in the flower.

Let us know that this is God’s truth. Our spirit, that part of our being that was with us at birth, that animates us, that fills us with love, and that seeks out all of life’s experiences—that spirit is eternal. It never vanishes. Its expression of God’s love in physical form will change with the seasons of life. But the magic and mystery of its spirit goes on forever.