Valentine’s Day \u00a0(Imbolc) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Valentine Moon<\/p>\n
…The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
\nNo Traveler returns…\u00a0Hamlet, Act III<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
\nCreeps in this petty pace from day to day
\nTo the last syllable of recorded time,
\nAnd all our yesterdays have lighted fools
\nThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
\nLife\u2019s but a walking shadow, a poor player
\nThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage
\nAnd then is heard no more. It is a tale
\nTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
\nSignifying nothing. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5<\/p>\n
(Shakespeare’s funerary monument, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford Upon Avon, England)<\/p>\n
On the days when we celebrate our birth it seems apt to consider death. \u00a0Just as we mark the point of emergence into the light, so will we be marked later by the date of our departure from it.<\/p>\n
I quote Shakespeare twice here to underscore the changed meaning of the classics as we age. \u00a0In some long ago speech competition I performed the Macbeth soliloquy in the oral interpretation. \u00a0I have no idea how I did, but I can still hear the timbre of my seventeen year old voice giving shape and force to these words. \u00a0I remember the repetition of the tomorrows, a pleasing force on the tongue. \u00a0Petty sticks up high in my memory, something about the petty pace.<\/p>\n
Life as a poor player struck me as an interesting, even arresting image, and I loved the closing line, delivering it with vigor and passion. \u00a0A tale told by an idiot. \u00a0Signifying nothing.<\/p>\n
Two years later I would be reading Camus and Sartre, my mother would be dead and suddenly Shakespeare had a bite. \u00a046 years old. \u00a0That was my mother’s age at her death. Brief candle.<\/p>\n
Death holds its secrets. \u00a0What happens then is, ironically or perhaps inevitably, one of life’s great mysteries. \u00a0As an undiscovered country, death has its share, probably more than its share, of speculative visits. \u00a0Religionists go there in their imagination, often becoming quite specific in what they find. But they are no different from Macbeth. Death is still a bourn (destination) from which no traveler has returned.<\/p>\n
(Kierkegaard,\u00a0Dostoyevsky,Nietzsche,\u00a0Sartre) my heroes<\/p>\n
Macbeth was such a traveler, too: \u00a0“To die, to sleep,
\nTo sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there’s the rub,
\nFor in that sleep of death, what dreams may come…”<\/p>\n
No matter how many miles around the sun, whether we go on our knees or at a run or a deliberate careful walk, our journey ends. \u00a0As for me, I choose this life and all its joy and pain for as long as I can have it. \u00a0Yet, I do not fear the other, much longer ancientrail. \u00a0Who knows where it may lead, what dreams may come.<\/p>\n
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Valentine’s Day \u00a0(Imbolc) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Valentine Moon …The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn No Traveler returns…\u00a0Hamlet, Act III Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To … Continue reading The Undiscovered Country<\/span>