DEATH IS A LENSE TO VIEW LIFE
Jun 01, 2022
Early last month my step father, my mother’s husband, my brother’s father, was suddenly taken. Gone. A tragic accident. Reminding me again of the physical finality of death.
It had been years since death last visited so close to home. 20 years since the passing of my sister, 17 years since the passing of my grandfather. Members of my inner circle of family.
And as death always does, brings me to the place of deep grief, many full expressions from the emotional wave and reflections of my own life and my own living.
It has been a month of weaving through it all. Holding hearts and hands through grief and loss.
Always bringing me back to a place of assessing life. Assessing places where I limit myself, and the parts I want to celebrate. The parts of my life that need a spring clean, and the parts that need a good reno. Most importantly death asks me what I want to experience through living.
It asks me to honestly reflect if my desires for the vision I hold for life are in alignment to my current trajectory.
I desire to live in my moments.
To regulate back to balance amongst the ebbs and flows of living.
To be present within the chaos and the calm.
To be the human in the experience.
To love freer, to understand with more compassion.
To taste the rich textured tapestry of my life more presently, with more depth.
To know that one day, I too will be go. And what legacy will I leave.
Who and how will those I leave grieve? What memories of me will they cling to?
Death always asks me to question what matters. It asks me to find clarity.
And does it really matter?
Do any of my fuck ups really matter?
Do my plans matter?
What ‘matters’ and doesn’t anyway?
Finding the clarity in my heart for what truly matters to me.
I am also aware of the wheel of gratitude and complacency I tend to circle with life. How much of my life and living, choices and power, safety and ways of entitlement I take for granted.
Times like these I question, where do I want to place my energy? Place my presence?
Like really? What the fuck lights me up?
And why the fuck am I not doing more of it?
So much more of it that it is filling my days. That I am not overflowing in joy and pleasure filled experience as much as I can.
I am blessed to have access to pleasure, awareness and embodiment practices that ignite pleasure in a breath and simple intention.
And what are my excuses? All the reasons ultimately boil down to Me. The hinderances I place upon myself in limiting ways that ultimately are absolute fucking bullshit. Like really, absolute fucking bullshit.
My mother expressed that my step father did so well, just like Freddy Mercury, because he was truly himself. Her idea was those that do great, do great because they are so uniquely and unapologetically themselves.
Death draws my attention to the earthly experiences. The earthly experience only a human vessel can explore through the senses and physicality of our bodies. To feel what there is for me to feel and alchemise. To take good care of what I'm growing, weed my own garden and tend to it gracefully.
Death has me take stock of my life.
Grief has my heart full, so full of gratitude I got to love someone or something so much that it feels like this to say goodbye.
And these are some of my ponderings on life and death today.
What does death teach you?
Author
Allonie Morris
Somatic Sexologist
Allonie Morris is a passionate Somatic Sexologist, Tantric Practitioner, creatress of Temple Venus and host of The Sexy, Sacred & Juicy Woman Podcast. Allonie is also a riveting speaker of eroticism and sexuality, workshop facilitator and a specialist in Erotic Embodiment.
