Skull of Death / JH / #3

SKULL OF DEATH (#3)

JH

      Corner of 72nd and Broadway
I have had an apartment on this block for over twenty years. 

Seeing skulls was a first.

SWIMMING

(or THANK YOU, DR. ATHAN)

Something in me needs to die

Is dead.

It is happening to me alone

And you saw me.

The death in me

And it didn’t scare you. 

My death is raw

It scares me.

No perfume or roses

No made-up face for eternity.

A hot Calcutta street

Flies on parched flesh.

But still you didn’t look away

Instead into my eyes.

You saw me.

You saw the moment.

You must not be afraid of death

Or the salt of your own tears. 

I felt no shame. Nor alone.

Only a wave.

From you

It washed over the dried shell of me

And carried me to the Dead Sea.

Oh, how it buoys me!

Dense with salty tears

of all before me.

Your fluid support

As I explore the death in me.

 _____________________

My baby's head symbol has evolved into a skull of death and it (death) is being born into the world - my world - my relationship with death - death of parts of me. My experience and feelings of loss are coming out of the darker recesses of my mind and into the light.

This skull of death is not the scary halloween kind - but the natural kind. The chrysallis and the coffin are more same than different to me now. Born is the inhale /death to the exhale, born the ebb / dead the flow, born is rising / death to setting, born is setting, death to rising...and ...on and on... All born into being what they are in their moment. And all must have the other to be what they are. They are whole together.

My time at ARAS helped me research death as an observer. This type of engagement shifted my encounter with my dying parts to a feeling of spaciousness and flow. It was as if pouring over books of death images, myths, rituals, burail sites - there was more room to swim around in my psyche. Find its way into integration.

I was particularly fascianted by a book called No Sanctuary.  It is a photographic documentation of lynchings. As I looked at the images I was thinking how much they looked like crucifictions - the way the dead were elevated from the ground, toes pointing downward. It wasn't until writing in my journal later that I realized that that day that we were at ARAS was Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. 

And, then as I was researching his crucifiction I experienced another synchronicity to my symbol...

Luke 23:33

When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on his right and the other on His left.

Two days later was Easter - the time of resurrection. New life.

Inhale. Exhale. (repeat)

P.S. And, it just so happened on our day at ARAS Dr. Athan was wearing a t-shirt with a skull on it...