You are not getting out of this alive

I have been summoning the spirit of death recently.  She has appeared to me in many forms; the dark goddess of the crossroads Hecate shrieking from my voice box, roadkill lifeless on the side of the road and a primal urge to massacre parts of my psyche that are controlling and afraid. 

I want more bloodshed. 

I have always had a fascination with death and as a child I would often visualise my own death.  When I was 16 I created a ritual wake for the future death of my parents, I wanted to experience the inevitable loss of those closest to me.

I have also felt the hands of death inside of me.

I have envisioned murdering people; constructing detailed plans of slaughter.  I have dreamed of blowing up cities and burning all structures to the ground until all that remained was the black earth.  

The only thing we know for certain in this life is that we will die.   

Unfortunately death is not on the invite list to our life party. Our civilisation mostly avoids, denies and deflects death through a neurotic obsession with control and the need for ‘safety’.  We engage any means to harness predictability, stability and certainty and when this fails we consume like hungry caterpillars, eating, shopping, purchasing and acquiring away our anxieties. What sits underneath this collective scrambling for ‘life assurance’ is the deep fear of the unknown, of change and a naïve hope that someone on this spinning globe has a ‘grasp on things’.  We so easily hand over the power of decision to external figures; leaders, politicians, scientists, priests, spiritual gurus and academics who pacify our fears through fleeting assurances, theories, predictions, traditions and technologies.  Surely ‘somewhere’ in the world, ‘someone’ must know what the hell is going on’. 

And what say you death? 

‘FOOLS!’. 

There are times when I feel so trapped in a ‘life preserving’ civilisation that refuses death that I want to destroy the whole world.  My murderous blood rises.  I want death to sweep through this planet like a dark cloak and wake up the world from its sugary sleep. 

I want death to turn off all the life support machines in hospitals and un grip bodies from families clinging to their lifeless forms.

 I want death to swiftly sever relationships that are well passed their used by date of growth and transformation- burning away years of stagnation. 

 I want death to plunder outdated ideologies of gender and sexuality, of his and hers, of homosexuality, heterosexuality and every box encasing our human experience.  

 I want death to assassinate all forms of love trapped under the tyranny of attachment, control, ownership and obligation.  I want death to break the hypnotic illusion that love is something we acquire, mould and retain. 

I want death to tear up all laws that inhibit the free will of a soul. 

I want death to pry power away from global leaders who are slaves to capitalism, ownership and systems that reinstate the status quo.  I want death to slay ideologies that are killing the planet and leadership models based on control, self-interest and domination. 

I want death to pillage industries that profit off humanity’s fear; cosmetic companies, insurance and pharmaceutical enterprises.  I want death to shatter our obsession with staying alive, safe and beautiful.     

 I want death to sweep through shopping malls and market places and detonate our attachment to material acquisition to provide comfort, purpose or distraction from our existential terror.  I want death to look deep into our core and hiss ‘nothing you own will buffer you from my bloody hand’. 

I want death to exterminate the toxic sheaths of the collective ego and it’s self preserving agendas.

 I want death to enter our dreams and induce nightmares of a dying planet of mass extinctions, melting ice caps, poisoned waterways, polluted air and global suffering.  I want every single one of us to wake up sweating, shaking and with a will to live.   

 I want death to cast its dark light on the jurassic carcass of our current civilisation and howl over the congealed blood clogging the arteries of our human evolution. 

I want every one of us to know death so intimately that we have no choice but to live. 

I want death to force us into the acceptance of change, of endings and the unknown.  I want us trembling with exhilaration and aliveness inside the infinite.  I want humanity to comb through existence like a detective uncovering any clinging, attachment, holding, control and I want us to let go. 

I want us to wake up and face our destruction. 

I want death to take us to the very edge of our existence, on our knees and helpless before the great mystery.

and then I want us to live.