One thousand funerals

A poem for times of death and transformation

If it feels like you are going through a personal period of death and rebirth, you’re not alone. Most people I know have been going through a tough time.

In Chinese astrology, we just left the year of the snake, a time of shedding dead skin. And, as I type these words, we are right in between the solar and lunar eclipse, a time of death, transition, and renewal.

Just last night, Israel and the U.S. bombed Iran, attempting to overthrow the regime that has been in place since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

There are numerous examples of how the old world is dying and we’re on the threshold of something new and uncertain.

If this feels familiar, perhaps you will relate to this poem.

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One thousand funerals

“I’ve attended many funerals
this year. All of them
were mine.”
– Emma Zeck

Every seven years, each
cell in your body has died and
been replaced by a new cell.

Life isn’t static, like a statue.
It’s fluid, like water so willing
to change form.

There’s a season to freeze
like ice and a season to fall
like rain. We live in a perpetual
state of death and regeneration.

I wish I could throw a funeral
for all the people I used to be
who had to die to make room
for who I am today (and who I am
still becoming).

Some of them I killed intentionally.
Others I outgrew like old clothes,
a costume I wore to a particular party.

The thing about being alive
is you have to periodically die
and decay into compost
to give your natural life force
a fresh container to express itself
without the shackles of outdated
patterns and expectations.

Death is a portal to transformation.
The true and lingering death is
staying the same, stuck in a prison
of who you used to be.

A funeral needn’t be a somber affair,
but a celebratory turning of the page
to reach the next chapter
where you’ll meet new characters
and embark on new adventures.

I once witnessed a funeral procession
in New Orleans where a jazz band
marched down the French Quarter
playing triumphant melodies
while the mourning friends and family
followed, dancing to the music.

There are seats waiting for you
at tables you haven’t imagined
and a radiant version of yourself
is patiently waiting
for you to shed your dead skin
and dance with the beauty
of becoming.

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