death_and_taxes Doar Wahoo! 040827 ... pete gotta work to pay the taxes, but the work is killing me, and as of 7 minutes from now i am officially late wheeee haw! 40 minute bike ride to go, plus lunch first, plus... ovie 040827 ... once again and they're wrong about the taxes 040828 ... daxle excellent beer 040829 ... dafremen "The only sure things are death and taxes." Apathy disguised as wit. 051125 ... daf My son, zmo and I spend some time tehse days, sharing our thoughts on life, death and happiness. (Cars, women and video games tend to monopolize a lot of the discussions on happiness for some reason. Not sure why.) Today our mental wanderings rustled up a few pieces of the puzzle that hadn't occurred to me. I thought I would share them here. I have always found it curious that the meaning of the death symbol, and in fact death itself has always been one of tied up loose ends followed by new beginnings. Death would be a good symbol for the moment of graduation, perhaps a subconscious or conscious reason for the wearing of black. Here we have the moment of death, but not as we are commonly taught to see it. Isn't this a joyous celebration? We are graduating and yet..this is death. It is the death of childhood, and the beginning of a new life as an adult. On a more sociopolitical level, it is the death of society's days of investing in us alone, and the beginning of our indenture to society. So perhaps it is a day of mourning for our spirits. Still the factories await and the corporate machine stops for no man. This symbol of death is as representative of what happens after the end as it is of the end. This isn't commonly taught in most classes. Our Western notion of finality might stem from our need to bring things to a conclusion. Assimilation, domination or destruction is our motto. In that spritit, I turned my thoughts again to the symbol of death..and this strange parting of ways between accepted and occult views of death. This isn't a debate, and so I'll try to avoid my usual rambling approach to explaining every pieces of this picture: Briefly, it appears as though early on in the history of our society..we were taught to fear death, so that our "leaders", both religious and political could better maintain control. And for only that reason. If your average citizen thought of life as a ride, rather than a race..and wasn't afraid of death..can you imagine what sort of daredevils would emerge? Can you imagine? Our ultimate penalty in society...is death. Pain, punishment, incarceration...death. These are the tools of false power..and their tell-tale signs are everywhere to be seen. But what if we knew or believed that to die for a right belief or cause was to graduate from this life? To have passed the test and moved on to the next stage in this strange evolutionary journey we are each on..who would run from the guns then when it was time to stand up for another? Or ourselves? And the tie in, between organized religion asking us to take what the state has for us without any vaseline. And also promising us the reward after death..if we're good..according to a new and ever-expanding array of criterion and circumstances. The whole tie in to death and religion and judgement and capricorn (aka Saturn ruled Father Time) and an overly controlling society. Control. Is this the reason for the doom and gloom and fear view of death fed to us in a curriculum based on the mechanistic views of the material sciences? Is this why we are taught to think of life as little more than a series of chemical and eletrical interactions? There is no death I don't think. I believe it's a hoop of fire. It just seems like it might burn you when you're passing through. We just do our best, and when the yellow bus comes and we're looking the wrong way..it's time for a new adventure. See also: Tarot Major Arcana - The Fool Tarot Major Arcana - Death mobile_tax_collector 070204 what's it to you? who go blather from