A moment ago one was filled with life but now is just an empty vessel – nothing other than a beautiful memory. Here one moment and gone the next – life is that delicate. I’m stuck in the pits of misery like a tree starving to rip its roots from the ground and to run off – to scream out in agony amongst the voided forest – a scream so agonizing that even the stars fall from the sky. The look of death is always the same look: the calmly teared eyes as they melt in to the mysterious sea of melancholy – a mirror to the soul. The feelings of attachment to the ones we love do not change over time and with each loss it doesn’t get any easier; the deeper you choose to love then the deeper the pain you shall feel in the name of great loss – this is only at the hands of the ego and its predisposition to the attachment and aversion of the fallen loved ones. There can be a calmness in grief but the line is fine and as thin as a cobweb; within the tangled web of memories there is a sheer force so faint that it’s always felt on the back of our necks, the lobes of our ears, the pulse within our veins, the depths of our breath, and the palpitation of our hearts – there is this forever-place within us that is invisible but always strongly felt. One may say that this place is the invisible light within the depths of darkness – or the luminous stars in the midnight sky – these feelings are the building blocks of our existence: Nos autem factus memorias.    

Despite there being peace within this look of death, the antagonizing resides as voices proclaim the lack of future to potential new memories with this soon-to-fall loved one – the past memories then become haunting voices and too venture to the future in the form of attachment to what will soon cease to exist to our perceptive reality; all of this unnecessary pain is compounded due to the internal chatter of the ego – it’s like pouring acid into an open wound; as if the gash doesn’t hurt enough in its own regard. We can embrace pain and grief without expectations or fears but much of our unnecessary pain comes from the change of what’s to come rather than the change of what’s to be. Our tears can be turned from attachment to immense gratitude of the memories had – our grief can become empowering and invigorate life in its totality: the radical acceptance of this mysterious existence. But in the presence of death there is only this deeply-rooted pain as you say so-long to the one you love while unknowingly too echoing it to all of the other fallen angels – not knowing as to whether you shall ever see them again, other than in your dreams and lucid memories. Even those who claim they know simply do not and deep down know that they do not – they’re hope is merely a frayed rope barely holding on as they attempt to float above a fiery reality. There is no such thing as knowing – endlessly questioning and never expecting answers is the only way to remain partially sane in an insane world: the attachment to nothing and the embracing of everything – Nature’s way.  

We’re given these bodies that grow old, wither and decay, like a tree that’s become rotted and soon to fall to the cool dirt, then dissolving into the ground and again becoming one with the tempered earth. What becomes of us? – a stiff and empty body that looks as if it was trying to hold onto its last ounce of life but lost while doing so – a body that was once filled with such animation and vigor, such personality and uniqueness – once an ‘individual’ and now truly one with all – once a unique snowflake but now they have gracefully fallen into the great white blanket of snow – once a mighty wave but now they have receded into the vast and choppy ocean: this is life and this death. Again: here one moment, gone the next.

I know when I procrastinate from my work that my feelings are overbearing, and that my emotions have consumed me for an extended duration of inexhaustible time; so much so that even my ego becomes drained and then manifests a compassionate apathy to protect itself from a collapsing death. I’d like to say that I’m lost for words but that’s never the case – even when I feel this way there is immense chatter and it’s to be purged upon and exploited for what it is and even what it is not. This familiar pain sits in the depths of my gut, it tightens my throat, my jaw, and gently strangles me to asphyxiation – even in the deepest of sleep I’m haunted by my subconscious mind and when I awake all is the same despite deeply sleeping as if it will all be different – as if in my peaceful yet tortured slumber I’ll too visit the mysterious unknown and it will then appear to me as the known that resides within my home. My conflict exists in the bitterness of loss to the hands of Nature – the frustration with what is perfectly natural yet all too mysterious. You cannot tell me that the pain of an ailing body isn’t perplexing? You cannot tell me that this suffering to death (where one is to die without peace but rather in sickness or despair) holds even an ounce of comfort to the mind – death in itself may be comforting but not this anguished venture towards it – not the ailed body and sickness that it takes to get to “peace” and emptiness – this seems to be hell on earth. A dog that can no longer run – a man that can no longer walk – a woman that can no longer sing – what is this cruel joke that life plays upon us? What is this process towards death? Why not have death just come abruptly and without sickness or an old and aged body to cautiously carry along? Why not have a fully-active vessel up until old age and then let death come when she is ready? – without the aches and pains and without the suffering and illness and without the reminder that she’s constantly lingering over us like a shadow that appears even when no light is to exist… What does this cruel joke within our earthly existence have to teach us? – that we are more than our bodies? – that our minds are greater than the vessels in which we carry them within? – if so then what does this have to fucking do with sickness and suffering? – there is no godly spirit that can condone this masochistic purgatory to disappearance, and if one truly has the power to erase all of the unnecessary pain and suffering within the world, not speaking upon the war, disease and poverty perpetuated by humankind (or rather kindless-humans) but more so in the name of the innocent lives that get ill and decay without any reason whatsoever other than their own newly cultivated will to survive to the circumstances they’ve been dealt– therefore there is no “one god” or “creator” other than the universal energy that naturally sustains us, birthed us, and has no malice intention other than to also survive itself. If there is this one “powerful” and “almighty” god that has control over our existence and condones all of this, and does nothing within their blatantly diluted power to healing, then what a truly sick fuck – a devilish angel that incites both beauty and anguish – a heaven and hell gently nestled within one and other in the palm of a skeletal hand – if there is this one “almighty creator” and they truly mean well but they cannot meet their intentions, then their power isn’t all too powerful and they are most definitely not all too mighty – they should most definitely pursue a new job and retire as “creator” – this leads me to believe that we are the only compassionate gods that can heal one and other while being innately compliant to Nature’s laws and affects to life. The powerful and the almighty are those who persevere with relentless intent to accepting life and making something of it while creating themselves in the process, sculpting their own godly image to their own ideal.  

This consciousness that we have, it can’t be seen or located within the brain, this mind is a mystery and may very well be just a part of this energy field of the Great Universe – but why cultivate these unique personas and individuality if all is infinitely one? Why have this melting pot of originality? – this conglomeration of art and culture? – if all is not truly a unique piece of art in itself? – a piece of art that is only to then wither and decay back into the earth to sustain new life, new chance, new memories, all while the old remnants are to live on in this infinite blanket of embedded consciousness. There are answers that I’ll never have but it doesn’t mean these questions I won’t ask.

Death is a part of life, but why? Why must one expire? More so, if life contained not a feather of aged pain, and death came with a friendly visit, and a rigid, empty body left behind was instead supple and loose, relaxed and without tension, and the glossy eyes of a soon-to-fall loved one held excitement rather than venturing love that can no longer speak, would it then be less frightening to my own perception? – I’m sure I would just find something else to be perplexed over. This is my nature, I question and then I answer – over and over and over again. Within this process I find my Self; within this process I rediscover what’s always there. Within this work I build, I destroy, I play, I create and I destroy again and again – it’s an endless and ever-changing process like the seasons of Nature. The mysteriousness will forever be until I cease to be and may continue to be when I cease to be. Nature is self-healing and self-cleansing and it is the alpha predator of the food chain: it must recycle all lives in order to prevent its overpopulation and the annihilation of itself by smiting and stifling the beasts, the kindless-humans, that work against it rather than with it – and though it doesn’t have the power to determine who are positive or negative forces, or kind or unkind towards its own livelihood, it is within our individual purpose to work with it while encompassing the understanding that it is just as confused and alone as we are. Nature is the ultimate predator and all we can do is surrender to it – but in doing so, I will still, on occasion, healthfully question its intentions with an agitated perplexity to not understanding what I most likely will never understand – but it seems within those prior words that I have attained some great understanding of misunderstanding.  

© 2020 Michael Angel Loayza Jr.

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