Thursday, December 29, 2005

afterlife and nowlife

friend barry informed me that one of our theatre cats, ginger, affectionately known as Big G, also passed away on december 26th. so while the english working class was celebrating boxing day, our pets were somewhere celebrating their own obscure anniversary.
i sometimes imagine the afterlife.
once, when i heard about one of my college teachers dying, i imagined him in an afterworld standing in a cool stream, feet anchored in the water and arms slowly, joyfully, soulfully dancing.
i have imagined roadkill coming back to life on a tropical island with clear glittering air and peaceful ocean waves lapping at the shore, surrounded by white sands and other unfortunate animals who have come there to rest.
it's been said that the dead who are not properly buried will not fully take leave of their mortal bodies until burial is rectified, and it's been said that some people don't realize they're dead or are too attached to life, so they become ghosts who live among us.
sometimes i imagine that all time is occurring now, so in this moment i can talk to myself when i was eight and i can also talk to myself who has already passed away, both at the same time if i want to.
on a completely unrelated note, i am having trouble wrenching the headphones off my head. this iPod is addictive. dangerously so. i think iPods are fantastic -- but when they begin to supplant valuable social interaction and/or important daily tasks (such as morning ablutions), the danger meter begins to wiggle.
are our current desires ever influenced by our past or our future selves? does my eight year-old self want to listen to broken social scene? and is it my afterlife self who craves the gentle trembling voice of iris dement?

1 comment:

lcduplatt said...

I enjoyed your blog...just surfed in having found it in Google. I believe in life after death as I have studied near death experiences and more...it has helped to make some sense of it all...
-LC