The other day someone asked me what I would do if I had only a few months to live. I hadn't answered this question for a few years, and my response has changed from a few years back.
She asked me if I would travel, and I said no, not for the sake of sight seeing. I might travel to see friends and a few uncles, but no, if I had only a few months to live, then there's no sense in finally getting to England or New York City. Travel informs the rest of your life, it's really hard on a person, and its rewards are hard to know at the moment.
My first thought, if I had only a few months to live, would be that I would sleep outside as much as I could. And during the day, I would stay outdoors. There's no question I would immediately quit my job.
Recently, I skipped around a website called "killingthebuddha.com." It's a magazine for people who are brave about religion and spirituality, and the name of the magazine comes from a buddhist saying, that if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him, because thinking that you have seen the Buddha could only harm you on your path to enlightenment.
While I understand the truth of this story from a Buddist perspective, I am not a buddhist. I see my god everywhere, in everything. If I look too hard, I ache for the beauty that is all around me. If I were about to leave this part of life, and pass into the other side of it, then I would simply want to do everything I could, each moment, to live close to Isis, Astarte, Innana, Hecate: This world, this life force, this cycling of birth and death, is and not is.
My question now is, why don't I do that every day, thinking that I have another 40 or 50 years here?
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