What are your views on death and the afterlife?
Just read this and lets discuss believe me this will be my longest post ever. sweatdrop
Death and the Afterlife.
by A.J. Drew in Wicca for Men.
There are ancient legends of people living for hundreds if not thousands of years, but there is very little documentation that validates such folklore. What we can document is that modern research has steadily provided longer lives. Researchers are making strides towards eliminating illness and better repairing injury. Politicans are forever attempting to stave off war and social threats. Loved ones pray for the recovery of the terminally ill. It seems that everyone wants to cheat death. But you can't. Death is a patient hostess. No matter how far we run, her hospitality awaits.
Historically, the moment of death has been defined as the last exhale. Many cultures believe the soul leaves the body with that final breath. Modern medicine defines death as the moment when brain activity stops( four to five minutes after last breath). Each of these definitions fall short of my satisfaction. I choose to be the master of my own soul. I believe that the life force can leave the body at any time, either on command, as in astral travel, or upon death. I also believe the life force can refuse to leave for many years, perhaps explaining the existance of ghosts.
Souls that remain in this realm long after they have left thier body are probably doing so for one of two reasons. In the case of sudden and unexpected death , it is likely that they don't feel they have reached a necessary level of completion to move on. Or they are afraid of what they will find if they do move on. With the many horrifying cultural images of death, it is easy to see why one might hesitate.
Today, death seems to take on two predominant personifications. Popular American culture most frequently views death as the Grim Reaper. Reaperlike characters have appeared as either skeletons or as repulsively emaciated. Contrary to the popular view that death is a masculine force, there are historical reaperlike images that were definately female. Modgug (Teutonic), who guarded the bridge to the German concept of the underworld and had to be paid a token of blood to pass comes to mind. The other personification of death is the vision of beauty. The Angel of Death has been seen as the perfect lover, greeting us with open arms. There is historical precedence for each.
Although these two images seem entrenched in our modern culture, other images litter history. Like the Angel of Death, these personifications often took flight with the souls of the recently dead, but unlike the Angel of Death. Many were other than human. Birds, paticularly crows and vultures, seem popular. An old Tibetan death rite involved the dismembering of the deceased. The parts were then scattered for winged scavengers.
I have a nontypical view. I personify death as Grandmother and objectify her as the sleep that come after an illness. She helps the ill through the sickness that is the end of life and tucks them into the bed that us death, In the morning, the next life, the sick wake healthy, refreshed from deep sleep and reincarnated in a new body.
Wiccan views on the afterlife are as diverse as those of any people. One of the most popular beliefs is in reincarnation. This is not an unusual belief. If you could tally up all the Non-Western believers and add that number to the growing number of Westeners who follow this way of thinking, you would likely find that the majority of people believe in some form of reincarnation. It is not a new belief. Historical records reveal that reincarnation was not only a tenet of Early Christianity and Buddhism, but also that it is likely to be as old as language itself. Nor is it outdated. Past-life therapy, which could not exist without the concept of reincarnation, is now actively practiced.
Many Wiccans believe it is impossible, due to natural time limitations, to learn as much as is necessary in just one lifetime. Many look to the natural cycle of life to explain Death---Birth, life, death, and rebirth. Our bodies are born, we live, and we die. But upon closer examination, consider that when our bodies die, the natural course is to be returned to the earth. As our bodies decompose, they become nourishment for plants. Once in plant form they find thier way into women. When a woman is pregnant, her body build a new life with the nourishment left behind by what is dead.
As wiccans look to nature to find patterns that others shrug off a supernatural, our concept of what happens to the soul after death is very similar to what takes place during the cycle of life. This belief can be called nonconcious reincarnation. It is theb elief that our soul exists like a snowflake, completley different from any of its kind, but in time it melts and loses its individuality, blending with the water from other melting snowflakes. Eventually it ecaporates and falls again as another totally unique individual. In its second incarnation, it has parts of the first incarnation and parts of other incarnations, but the original individual is gone forever. This concept can ve frightniong to people at first. Many shu away from it and favor the more accepted belief that each soul is reincarnated intact. However when one considers the true scope of infintite probability, it becomes less scary. You see, infinity is just a number that is larger than we can concieve of.
Because each snowflake comes from the very finite amount of water in out Biosphere, there is a finite number of snowflakes, but it is larger than we can comprehend. The water to make each snowflake is constantly mixing with other water in each cycle, buy it is mixing without the individual pattern of the snowflake intact. Although a new snowflake is made from a water mixture that has been many different snowflakes, only a finite number of snowflakes may occur. Becasue it is not pssible to distinguish one water molecule from the next, the new snowflake pattern may be identical to the one before it even if it contans none of the matter from the first. With the pattern repeated, our conciouness does not die. When considering reincarnation. I doubt that anyone feels that our new bodies are made from the same material as our former bodies. Why then do so many insist that the life force that is within the new body is the identical life force that was in our former body?
Those who subscribe to concious reincarnation believe that at death our conciousness is transferred intact. Some teachings say that it is transferred directly into the body of the recently conceived, while others instruct that the soul joins the body at birth or at the first breath.
With either view of reincarnation, Wiccans often believe there is a place for the life energy between incarnations. This is most often called the Summer Land. Its name expresses the idealitic resting place of a people who worked the mand for a living. Remember that when you live off the land sd the Pagans of old did, "summer" can be appropriately translated as "with food." The Summerland can be the place where cattle need not be slaughtered in the fall. It is a place where the harvest is plentiful and perpetual and where living is easy. I choose to believe Summer Land is here on earth. It is the earth as it may once have been, and it may be once again.
Most wiccans don't believe in hell. I am not most Wiccans, History teaches that many of the origina Pagans believed in a dark place, one where food and warmth was scarce. I choose to believe this place is also here on earth. It is the earth the way it might one day be. To escape this eventually, we need only recognize its possibility. Call it what you will. Winter Land, Nuclear Winter, I choose to call it cause and effect.
