Druid Knowledge of Death- a #ConsciousDisruption
'With regard to their actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed. Subsidiary to the teachings of this main principle, they hold various lectures and discussions on astronomy, on the extent and geographical distribution of the globe, on the different branches of natural philosophy, and on many problems connected with religion.’
—Julius Caesar,De Bello Gallico, VI, 13 (on Druids)
After our Wizard Coming Out party last week, I have come to embrace and love my connection to my celtic druid roots. The Romans feared the druids, due to their deep reverence for death. Some circular druid homes had family members buried inside, as ancestors offered a level of protection to the living. Many of the stone ruins around England and Ireland are the druid burial sites. Stonehenge is theorized to be a druid homage to death and the afterlife.
Growing up in the suburbs of Boston to an Irish Catholic family, my four siblings and I blossomed with life and energy. Underneath this external showcase of life, hid the death that all Connors children know intimately. My mother gave birth to a baby, Katie, on September 13th 1978, and she lived until December 15th of that same year. She was born with a unique genetic disorder, genetic dislocation; her death wrapped our mother in grief, as she consistently feared the harm of the rest of us. The older children knew the graveyard well, almost as if our dead were buried in our home.
My uncle Toby, prior to retirement, was a grave digger. He spent decades burying other’s relatives, as well as his own. Whenever anyone special in his life passed, he (and later on, the rest of the men in the family) would fill said ancestor’s fresh grave with a shovel. We all knew this, accepted it, and understood how close our uncle stood to death daily.
Members of my family have suffered from depression, and the meditation on death is present in our genome, more than most. My biggest #ConsciousDisruption came in August of 2011, one month prior to Occupy Wall Street, when I stood atop the Manhattan Bridge and contemplated suicide. In 2012 I was one of the thousands of pedestrians hit by a car in NYC. It appears that I continued to get what I was meditating on.
My months out in the city were a further dive into my abyss, as I felt the dirt behind my head at night, and tasted what dust to dust really means. By knowing death intimately, I realized my fears and demons, and what stopped me from living as a Creator.
Life feels so invigorating, and death is what makes it so. Without death, life’s sweetness wouldn’t be. That said, we are Eternal, dying and regrowing like plants. What can we as Eternal Beings, who have conquered our fear of Death, Create? Is this the Epoch of abundance and health for all of humanity?
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