For my Death and Dying class for Psych, I had to design my own funeral. I’m really having trouble dealing with Leonard Nimoy’s death, maybe because I have my own junk going on, and maybe because I always just so admired him, his role and his works, the picture of who I imagined he was, just…I guess because he’s a piece of the background of my life which I thought would always be around. He’s a chunk of my Nerditry. Spock, growing up in my house, was comfort, a place where I could go to deal with the everyday trauma, a place where I could process without hatred or anger. Hatred and anger were always available, but they don’t contribute to your survival, other than as fuel…Logic was how you figured out that it didn’t matter who was in your seat, the trials and tribulations would be the same. It wasn’t your fault. Logic was how I learned my self esteem. Many people were telling me I was beautiful or valued. I didn’t believe them. But logic dictated that the entire group of people who were telling me these things did not come together in a giant conspiracy to lie. Logic dictated that they must all be seeing something I wasn’t seeing. Logic dictated that, they didn’t even know each other, so there must be some grain of truth in such a scattered sample size. That perhaps I should be trying to look through their eyes instead of my own.
So I have this reading for my funeral from Promethea by Alan Moore. I have one reading from a physicist representing the male aspect, and one reading from Promethea representing the female aspect. After glancing at them today, I think that is where my comfort lies. I’ll miss you Mr. Nimoy. I’ve never met you or known you, but you have had a profound effect on me, and I have been blessed for that.
“Ah…it’s you. Good. I’ve been waiting a long time to talk to you. Come and sit by the fire.”
“Thank you, but…but I’m not really here, am I? This room isn’t real. Nor are you. This is all a story, something I’m dreaming or reading.”
“Hmmm….perhaps you’re right. Although isn’t having a dream or reading a book a real experience? After all, real or not, this room is where your awareness is currently centered. And someone is talking to you.”
“Well, yes, but…I mean, if it’s a dream, it’s my own subconscious talking. If it’s a book, it’s just some writer. Either way, you’re just a fiction.”
“Ha Ha! You’re wonderful. You’re always so difficult. Ooooh…don’t look hurt. I just meant that’s one of the reasons I love you. You’re stubborn. You don’t just accept things…. Okay …now listen to me.
Yes, Promethea’s fiction. Nobody ever claimed otherwise… I’m an idea. But I’m a real idea. I’m the idea of the human imagination…which when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain isn’t imaginary…I’m the best friend you ever had…who do you think got you all this cool stuff? The clothes you’re wearing. The room, the house, the city that you’re in. Everything in it started out in the human imagination, your lives, your personalities, your whole world, all invented. All made up. All the wars, the romances, the masterpieces and the machines.
…And there’s nothing here but a funny little twist of amino acids, playing a marvelous game of pretend. Nothing here but me and you. Me and you little lifesnake. By the fire where we’ve always been since this room was a cave. Do you remember? When you first thought you saw things in the flames, in the dancing shadows and you needed me to tell you a tale. A story grand and glorious…complex self organizing life somehow emerges from the boiling clay of spacetime. Pinsparks of awareness dust its countenance, plankton imperatives and moss agendas…All things are precipitated by the nature of existence. Nothing, therefore, is unnatural, be it bee-hive or termite mound or all our shining, poisoned cities.
Everything is Universe. Everything is holy. Life and consciousness are creation’s rarest embers, and all of us, the lifesnake’s myriad contingencies, embroiled in three dimensions, suffering time’s illusion, fear our end, don’t understand each second is eternal, here forever. Our lives are bubbles, decades wide, suspended in eternity, each hour immortal.
No instant ever dies. Live joyfully. Live well. Live knowing that you are already dust, long gone, already outside time and looking in, reviewing life, finally understanding every déjà vu, your own guardian angel…[know that] from whence the myriad gods unfurl…they are your once and future selves, your attributes blossomed into their purest and most potent symbol forms.
This, then, is revelation. All is one, and all is deity…know yourself and know you are divine. Know that our universe is all one place, a single firelit room. Know that there has only ever been one person here. Know that you are everything, forever. Know I love you.
Rejoice. Your world is ended. Time’s jail-yards are unlocked. The prison of material ambition that reduced you now demolished. Rejoice. Return now to your separate moments, selves and rooms, and know that separation for illusion. Know that you were one, were here and in eternity are here forever.”
For the male aspect: “Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than the atoms in your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about the universe: You are all stardust”
~Lawrence Krauss – Theoretical Physicist
Go, Mr. Nimoy. Be one with the Universe. Say hi to The Oneness for me, whatever it is. Maybe I’ll be lucky next time and have a piece of you within me.
