Impetus for Life

Death. It is a great subject. A great mystery too. It's the exclamation mark, or the period on the sentence. Or maybe it's the ...

Death by misadventure, or by accident is a real head-scratcher. And just what kind of event is "unplanned or unintended?" Some events happen and you look for the hidden hand, you search for a reason, or maybe the secret intention. And you grasp for the "Grand Intender."

You are left with phrases like "bad luck," or "wrong place, wrong time." How is it possible that that particular tree fell at that precise time, and killed that young, vibrant, totally beautiful and talented person?

It makes no sense. And everything had to roll out exactly as it rolled out. And what if one element, one part of the sequence happened differently? Is that even possible? Is every step of the process just another roll of the dice? Or is there some kind of path of destiny?

No one knows. I think of Castaneda's Don Juan - he tells us that death always rides on our left shoulder. I have never forgotten. I'm not "death-haunted," just very "death-aware." It's good to know that death is always around us, waiting to put that mark on the end of the sentence.

It gives us a little impetus for a life, well-lived...