From: Vashti <vashti@theshop.net>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 09:05:24 +0000
Subject: Re: And now for something completely different!
To: Subscribers to the mailing-list TWC-L <twc-l@halmarax.demon.co.uk>
At 02:25 PM 12/2/96 +0000, you wrote:
>Well, now we've had a round of humour and fun and games (don't stop though!), I
>thought it might be time to return to the matter in hand!
humor is the "best medicine" ....just to stick a trite (but true) phrase in
here.
>A view of death entirely alien to most of western culture is given by Pamela
>Travers in 'The death of AE: Irish Hero and Mystic' (pp 471-482, 'The Celtic
>Consciousness'). In particular, when AE (George William Russell) was told
by >the
>doctor that he had terminal cancer, he replied 'I have had a very interesting
>life, I have done nearly all the things I wanted to. I have rejoiced in the
love
>of friends. What man could want more?'
>
>Her account is highly instructive - he spent his last month saying goodbye to
>friends. He wound up with a housefull of guests, including Pamela Travers, the
>guests being the ones he most wanted to be there at the end. He then, by all
>accounts, made a point of dying well; rather than let death take him, he
>voluntarily walked into it.
Funny...when I finally came to accept my eventual death by cancer, this was
my thought. "I have the priviledge of saying goodbye to everyone." Much
much better than being gone suddenly and not having that opportunity, IMHO.
AND...my fav poem by AE (for good measure):
AE
PAIN
Men have made them gods of love,
Sun-gods, givers of the rain,
Deities of hill and grove:
I have made a god of Pain.
Of my god I know this much,
And in singing I repeat,
Though there's anguish in his touch,
Yet his soul within is sweet.
peace
karm