On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for August 26th
Grieve Your Own Death
If you’re a real ego-maniac or you absolutely abhor yourself – or if you’re special and share the two – you may have fantasized about witnessing your own funeral. You float down from the ether as a spirit and hover over your family and loved ones, grieving your loss. They cry and moan. They speak about the good times. They speak highly of you. They realize that the world is a darker place without you in it.
Maybe if you wished you were never born at all, Clarence could earn his wings by showing you the wasteland that is the world without your existence.
Maybe you think there would be relief if you weren’t around. Perhaps you picture no one or just your mom at your funeral. She shrugs her shoulders and says, “It’s for the best they aren’t around anymore.” Then she walks away as the priest sadly shakes his head and drops a handful of dirt on your coffin, and soon you are forgotten. Maybe the sun shines a little brighter, the flowers blossom a little bigger, and the birds sing a little more beautifully when you aren’t around.
Why would you want that to happen? Wouldn’t you prefer to be remembered fondly? Wouldn’t you wish to have had an impact on those around you?
Why not live your life like you want to have a massive funeral? How do we touch every person so that our loss would absolutely destroy them?
A good example of how to do this is when we socialize with other people. I personally hate two things: board games and karaoke. I don’t sit in a corner with my arm crossed and angry because we are doing something I don’t like or can’t do, I put in all my effort to make sure everyone is having fun with me. I play the game, and I badly sing my heart out. I want to make sure that if I hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have been as much fun.
Instead of talking about myself all the time, I listen to people. I want the person to be heard and understood. I don’t want to sit and wait for my turn to talk about myself. I need to understand what supports the person as they express themselves and work through a problem. Do they want the problem solved? Do they want to be listened to? Do they want me to share a story so that they know I’ve been where they are?
Everyone we meet could be a guest at our funeral.
Prayer
Chepi,
You dance in the mist on the Rhode Island coast,
Waiting for our souls to become dreams.
You will take our souls into the surf of the Atlantic.
But I want to look back,
on to the shore,
and count the people who are saying goodbye to me,
and I hope I lived a good life,
where a lot of people would want to say goodbye
Craft
Host your own funeral.
Let everyone know that you need to be the center of attention for four hours.
You will write a short biography and have a chosen person read it out loud.
You will lie on a cot or couch as still as you can.
People will take turns grieving your death.
Ask them to really pretend they will never see you again and speak from the heart.
Listen to your family and loved ones speak about you and how sad they are that they will never see you again. Listen to how they imagine a world without you. Imagine leaving all these people.
Now sit up quickly and yell, “Surprise, bitches! I’m alive!”
Now haunt people. You’re a living ghost.
Goal
Live your life as if you’re planning the biggest funeral in history.