Some Thoughts on the Concept of Death

...

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

What do you think has become of the women and

          children?

They are alive and well somewhere;

The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait

          at the end to arrest it,

And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward... and nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and 

          luckier.

from "A child said, what is the grass?" in Walt Whitman's A Song of Myself

I really love it when things going on in my different classes afford me some major and satisfying connection.  As my junior classes work through some Romantic poetry on their way to their first writing assignment of this school year, I've stumbled upon a new love and appreciation for the depth behind Whitman's words.  I remember studying Whitman in high school, and disliking the entire concept of the Romantic movement, especially the Transcendentalists - I found it boring, unappealing, and way too touchy-feely for my very "intellectually-driven" and detached self.  What an idiot I find myself to have been, in hindsight.  I, very much like a character or two in the final novel we'll read in my Philosophy in Lit classes (Huxley's Point Counter Point) failed to appreciate the full gamut of perspectives and interpretations and aspects of what it is to be living -- choosing one (intellect) over the other (feeling) as the more superior mode.  I didn't realize then, what I do now, which is that (as Huxley also says in his last novel, Island, the answer to the issues of P.C.P.) "nothing short of everything will really do."

Today in analyzing the above poem, this final selection really struck me as relevant to our current readings in Out of the Silent Planet -- in the poem, Whitman begins with a discussion about the nature of 'grass' as asked by an innocent, curious child. He then begins to postulate an answer, beginning with short statements of connection -- as a sign of God's existence, as the produce of vegetation, as a reflection of his own feelings, etc. -- and then spends the bulk of his time further ruminating on the idea that strikes him: "And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves."

While death seems to us, most of the time, the greatest evil or wrong to mankind's existence, the inhibitor of flourishing, the limitation upon an infinite mind, the highest of all fears (especially in its inevitably) -- Whitman shows it need not be.  He, in essence, calls it the "Great Equalizer" in its ability to "give them the same" and "receive them the same" as the grass of the graves cover all kinds of beings -- great young men, old people, women, children "taken soon out of their mother's laps" and yet nature then becomes itself "the mother's laps." He goes on to give this, though, a hopeful tone  saying that these thoughts and those deaths are not "for nothing," that those beings are "alive and well somewhere."  And while it may seem like he's advocating for some sort of supernatural metaphysical realm here, I don't think that's what he's entirely going for.  If we continue with the end (as given above), there seems to be this kind of "circle of life" reference, as we remember that here he is talking to almost a personified idea of grass, a stand-in for 'Mother' Nature, itself a real, tangible, experiential thing -- not some unknown beyond.  Thus, death for him is always "led forward life" and death "ceased the moment life appeared" as all "goes onward and outward."  Thus, he concludes, "nothing collapses" and he claims that death is something very contrary to our conception of it -- it is not an ending, something to be feared, but rather the final comfort and long rest to a weariness at the end of an individuals life's trials; and yet, life continues on as things grow from it and change from it and never cease to continue (links to the text of the poem can be accessed here, if you're interested).

C.S. Lewis also enlightens us to a different view of death in Out of the Silent Planet, in chapter 19, when the hrossa bring Hyoi (shot by Devine and Weston in an earlier chapter, generally out of their own fear of other life forms on this planet - again, fear at the root) to Oyarsa to receive his final rites:

     "And now," said Oyarsa, when silence was restored, "let us honor my dead hnau."

     At his words ten of the hrossa grouped themselves about the biers. Lifting their heads, and with no signal as far as Ransom could see, they began to sing.

     ...

     "Let it go hence," they sang. "Let it go hence, dissolve and be no body. Drop it, release it, drop it gently, as a stone is loosed from the fingers drooping over a still pool. Let it go down, sink, far away. Once below the surface there are no divisions, no layers in the water, yielding all the way down; all one and all unwounded is that elements. Send it voyaging where it will not come again. Let it go down; the hnau rises from it. This is the second life, the other beginning. Open, oh coloured world, without weight, without shore. You are second and better; this was first and feeble. Once the worlds were hot within and brought forth life, but only the pale plants, the dark plants. We see their children when they grow to-day, out of the sun's light in the sad places. After the heaven made grow another kind on worlds: the high climbers, the bright-haired forests, cheeks of flowers. First were the darker, then the brighter. First was the worlds' blood, then the suns' blood."

     This was as much of it as he contrived later to remember and could translate. As the song ended Oyarsa said:

     "Let us scatter the movements which were their bodies. So will Maleldil scatter all worlds when the first and feeble is worn."

     He made a sign to one of the pfifltriggi, who instantly arose and approached the corpses. The hrossa, now singing again but very softly, drew back at least ten paces. The pfifltrigg touched each of the three ear in turn with some small object that appeared to be made of glass or crystal -- and then jumped away with one of his frog-like leaps. Ransom closed his eyes to protect them from a blinding light and felt something like a very strong wind blowing in his face, for a fraction of a second. Then all was calm again, and the three biers were empty...

It is no secret that much of the beauty of the world, and the response to that beauty, for C.S. Lewis lies in the idea of music -- it is how the world of Narnia begins, it is the important way to translate the stories and mythos and meanings to all the major issues in his books, it is that art which naturally binds us to existence and natural reality. It seems fitting that music should be the way in which the hrossa and by extension all participating creatures here on Malacandra react to the end of life, as it was in the beginning.  The metaphysic expressed in the song talks of this as the 'first life' the 'feeble' life that is then replaced by the second, better life everlasting (expressing C.S. Lewis' view of the afterlife, clearly connecting to his theism) and yet what I think is most impressive about the whole thing is the ending here.  As it is expressed earlier, after the killing of the hnakra, death is only something dealt out by the ruler of the world (their near-equivalent to an archangel), Oyarsa -- not by other hnau ('sentient beings' or 'persons').  So here is the showing of such, in which the body, the matter tied to the imperfect 'feeble' world, is removed, and the strong light and the wind that blows across Ransom's face signals the point of departure of soul and body -- one almost wonders if Hyoi becomes and eldil at this point, if that is even what the eldil are. There is a definite touch of mystery, of magic and the unexplainable, but in a positive way -- no fear here. 

So we see two competing metaphysical views of death -- the naturalism of Whitman, and the spiritualism/theism of Lewis -- no less positive, either one, and both quite beautiful in their own way. The key to both views is that absence of fear, the trust that there isn't a 'nothingness' that follows death, whether it be the human's fulfillment as a natural object of earth returning back to the cycle of life of that earth, or whether it be the promise of a second and better reality beyond it -- in the Christian sense, the undoing of death and the promise of "life everlasting." That nothingness, the idea of insignificance of life, the lack of fulfilled purpose I believe are really at the heart of what makes death a scary thing for us (though I would contend many believe that nothing of these things are reason for fear, either).  It has become a natural instinct to want to extend life, be it through our own personal extension or through that of the entire species, and may be the root of the fear itself.  In fact, as we get through the rest of these chapters of Out of the Silent Planet, Weston stands himself upon the platform and preaches for the idea of human extension as the goal of not only his small movement for Malacandra, but of the entire human race -- thus, giving credence and justification to the actions he's used as a means of ensuring that transcendent survival of humanity.  Without that fear, death is not something that needs to be fled; it isn't something that strikes fear, and thus condones the use of violence, immoral means, and justifies stupidity.  I often wonder what it would be to live in a place where that's a thing -- and while I don't think we can entirely erase the 'fight or flight' response so embedded in our evolutionary makeup, I do think we can take steps to rationally (and emotionally) engage LIFE from a different perspective, of higher value and awareness, in which the necessity for fearing death is less the focus than the need to invigorate that life we do have.

Just some thoughts from me before we head into the weekend.  Have a great one! Please feel free to comment and respond! I'd love to hear perspectives on this!