““Defeat, my defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, and we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous”
~Kahlil Gibran”
These kinds of conversations take time.
All our lives we are conditioned to try to find joy, happiness, purpose, wonderment, to go out and live the best life imaginable. And when it happens, when death claims the life of someone we know or love, we are hit with the unmistakeable pain of loss and grief. In that instant, we feel the inescapable truth, the one we actively push beneath our thoughts and out of our minds. The knowledge of our impermanence and the brevity of our lives is undeniable, and even worse, unpredictable. You can stop reading here if you want. I know the discomfort rises. As I said, these kinds of conversations take time.
If you are still here reading, then maybe you have contemplated that truth. Facing the fact that we will die someday is not easy, nor welcomed. It takes a shift in consciousness, and a whole mess of courage. Some deny it till the end and that's okay, too. Fear and ego are fierce forms of self-protection. For the rest of us, we consider the choice in allowing death to permeate our thoughts and lives. We know we will not escape death, but perhaps by letting it become part of our vocabulary, we might know it better before it comes.
I would like to introduce you to Boulder's Courageous Conversations. A gathering circle created just for those of us who want to talk about death. It's not a Death Café, though those are a great place to start, too. Courageous Conversations was started in Cleveland, Ohio by a Adaire Petrichor, a Death Doula, a Chaplain, and founder of the Heart of Dying Project. She is a pioneer in raising the awareness and discussions around death and death doula work, and I am proud to call her a new friend and mentor. Her model of Courageous Conversations in Cleveland offers workshops, film discussions, and monthly gatherings for anyone with a story to tell, or something to learn.
If you are interested in joining us for Boulder's Courageous Conversations (formerly Full Circle Gathering), please join our Meetup group here. We already have a growing number of members. Our first meeting will be in the first week of June.
Welcome to the conversation....