The Death Mask

In the depths of winter, a quiet form of despair can seep into our minds. A weighted apathy can slow our pace. A disinterest in the world can shut us away. We wonder where our enthusiasm went. We wonder where our passion went. Friends don't satisfy us. Books don't satisfy us. Food is always on our minds. We feel stuck. Bloated. Impatient. We worry this will not pass.

In the depths of winter, we put on the death mask. The mask is an opportunity to turn away from the world and look within. It is an opportunity to embrace stillness. In that stillness of the death-mask experience, we are invited to look at our true selves. We are invited to relinquish our false and fearful selves. We are invited to die to all that holds us back from realizing our full potential.

The death mask, with its accompanying despair and apathy and disinterest, is a divine tool of transformation. The only way to transform and move towards greater levels of happiness, is to see ourselves clearly as we are~ beings deserving of joy and goodness and loving kindness. We must turn away from the world and its distractions to see and hear the truth of ourselves. We must turn away for a time, to uncover new worlds within. To know ourselves more intimately. To attend to the rage and the shame that holds us back. To feel how beautiful we are.

We must die to the false beliefs we have stubbornly held about ourselves. We must die to the idea we are less than others because of our life circumstances. We must die to the notion our every life-affirming wish cannot come true.

The death mask is ours to embrace. We are not stuck. We are transforming. Through the gifts of despair and apathy, we can choose to turn inwards. We can choose to use winter's opportunity to heal our darkness and reveal our light.

{Egyptian death masks, from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Germany, discovered during my glorious light-revealing trip in the spring of 2006.}