The infatuation with death and mortality far exceeds my own experiences. It is a long stemmed, deep-rooted exploration that continues to this day, and will continue to do so.
Death has multiple meanings. An end. A beginning. A start of something old, new, in-between. To some, it is a loss.
But if one does not become lost, how can one become found?
Philosophers, scientists and students of alchemy have historically reflected on death as a becoming, not just a finite end. Part of a cycle that cannot be culled. Not an evil to be feared.
Philosophy
Epicurus (341–270 B.C.E.) of Ancient Greece resonated with the mentality "death means nothing to us", arguing that the time after death means just as much as our time before birth. An existence both in limbo, and in harmony; with us, there is no death, and without us, there is death. Rejecting the notion of a non-tangible soul, arguing that death is a state of unconscious and unknowing.
Socrates / Plato defined death as a "dreamless sleep", or release of the soul in hunt of truth.
(20th Century) Martin Heidegger elaborated that existence is merely drawing closer to death, carrying with mortality and the acceptance of limit being essential to cultivating an authentic experience of life.
Bernard Williams (Contemporary) Argued that immortality would result in meaningless, tedious existence and death is therefore necessary to craft anything meaningful.
Science
In physics and chemistry the law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any closed system to all incoming and outgoing transfers of matter, the mass of the system must remain constant over time. Implicating that material cannot be created or destroyed, but rather, altered and rearranged.
In Ancient Greek philosophy, "nothing comes from nothing" , elaborates further that nothing can pass away into nothingness.
Alchemy
Seen as vital, death plays a the part of transformation, nigredo, a blackened part of decay being the component for new life. Death, not as a final end, but a necessary catalyst for transformation and rebirth, paving paths through both the physical and psychological realms.
In both Western and Eastern alchemical traditions, "dying to be reborn" is a central metaphor, a shedding of an old version.
In Neidan, Taoist Inner Alchemy, practitioners symbolically "die" to worldly attachments and desires in order to awaken their pre-celestial spirit and achieve spiritual transcendence.
Nigredo (The Blackening), the first stage of creating the Philosopher's Stone. A base matter is burned and rots. Psychologically, this is seen as the death of the ego or a shattered identity, forcing an individual to confront repressed shadows before true growth can occur.
The life on Earth holds hands with death. As it always has.
Stasis. Transformative. Nothing. Becoming something. Gone, again, rinse and repeat.
Metamorphosis not possible without the lost.
An end of the old, a tale ended. Death of a prior, non-serving version, paving way for a new practice. Lost, but found again.
Death is the medium, and the middle.
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