Editor's Blog March 01 2012
“Cower now brief mortals, for I am Death from whom no lock may hold nor fastened portal bar” Terry Pratchett
The quote above has sat with me since I first read it years ago. It quite simply means to me, that death when it comes knocking is as natural as life and must be accepted as the inevitable truth.
What happens to you when you die? A question that sits at the back of your mind from the moment you realise your own mortality. For some this realisation comes very early in life, paralysing you with fear in the dark thinking that at anytime you will not be anymore.
Many cultures have developed an afterlife; it’s the crutch that is required to be able to exist as a sentient being. Believing in an afterlife is OK if it works for you, but do you really believe it?
Some of the beliefs for an afterlife I find quiet attractive. Take the Vikings they believed that if one was to die in battle they would take a seat of honour in Valhalla (from Old Norse Valholl “hall of the Slain”) It is in this great hall ruled by Odin that the warriors would Drink, eat and make merry.
As a selling point for someone that would frequently go into battle with the likelihood of a gruesome death that quiet possibly entailed the removal of limbs and heads with a sharp pointy thing, it was a good belief to have to be able to steady the hand when confronted with the ultimate reality.
With the advent of science it has become harder at least for me to find support for an afterlife although some of us continue to hang on to the idea of being able to continue to exist in ethereal form.
I, in my quest to be able to live without a fear of death, have come up with something that I find comfort in. At a molecular level all things are made up of atoms including humans. Atoms are very longed lived some would say that atoms are forever.
When I die and my body is consigned to the earth (I may just have one of them Viking funerals, you know the one, “Dragon long boat set on fire at sunset”, just for a laugh) as my body decomposes all the atoms that make up me will be released becoming part of the earth to live on as something else who knows I may just come back as a tree.
“So Death you can take me, but we will meet again and again and again”.
