Fire.

Last night we had a fire for Mary. A few dozen of us came together, lit a fire, and Mary came outside, probably for the last time in her life. The lighting of a ceremonial fire is rooted in Haida tradition, and several Haida elders were present. We prayed, made offerings, and then there was a time for individual prays, silent or out loud. It quickly turned into everyone taking turns telling Mary how significant she was to them, how grateful they were to know her, and how much they loved her.
And you know what? We shouldn't wait till people are dying. We really, really shouldn't. It is a maddness of our society. We are all ingrates! (I say with my tongue in my cheek). Other cultures have a much more highly developed sense of gratitude. Yet we have so much to be grateful for. And, odd as it may sound, there is a tremendous joy and power in gratitude.
I didn't write down insights that I had during the fire. I didn't want to interrupt to whip out my notepad and pen and start jotting notes. They were so clear I was sure I would remember. But now, they have lost coherency, and I find it hard to even begin to express them. But I know they had to do with an intimate relationship between death and gratitude. Almost as if one was the shadow of the other, or perhaps a boundary.
Mary is dying, and in doing so, she is showing us how to live, I remember saying this at the ceremony. I remember saying that it seemed to me the cerimony was as much for us, as it was for her. The essence of it, was letting go. Mary, getting ready to let go of her mortal coil, and the rest of us, getting ready to let go of Life-With-Mary, and begin Life-Without-Mary. And I think maybe the key to that, to making the transition, for all of us, is gratitude. By being grateful for something I incorporate it into myself. I am running out of words to explain what I am trying to explain. By being grateful for something, I move away from needing it to actually be present, to actually exist, because by being grateful, I have created a verson of it within myself, independent from the actual object. Gratitude blurs the subject-object distinction. And now I have been sufficiently removed from my original insight, that I will stop this here.