"That is what, in the Toltec way, the Angel of Death teaches us. The Angel of Death comes to us and says, 'You see everything that exists here is mine. It is not yours. Your house, your spouse, your children, your car, your career, your money - everything is mine and I can take it away when I want to, but for now you can use it."
I was so afraid of being uncomfortable before I staggered into The Rooms. I was terrified of pain. I tried to avoid it or make it go away and when I couldn't manage the world in a way that stopped the pain I simply buried it under drugs and alcohol. And Death? Hoo Wee that was a whole big can of whoop-ass. I couldn't think about that at all. Why so much fear? That is the million dollar question, isn't it? I had no perspective. I had no ability to look outside my own little prison of self-regard and see that pain and death are facts of life, part of the Nature of Existence. Now that I don't run screaming into the night whenever I'm in pain - or, worse yet, anticipating being in pain even though that doesn't happen often and when it does I have the tools and support to deal with it - it has nowhere near the hold on me that it used to. I understand, in my limited, very human way, that pain and death is coming and there ain't too much I can do about it. In the olden days, before we stuffed old age and death into sterile nursing homes and mortuaries and hospitals, the family was responsible for cleaning up and dressing the body and preparing it for viewing by friends and family. It couldn't have been easy, doing that, but it made death more intimate and immediate and real, less terrifying, to see the reality right there in your face and not tucked away somewhere, covered up with a white sheet, lying on a stainless steel table under buzzing fluorescent lights.
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