Do we die a solitary death - like bumble bees?

I posted a little story of a bumble bee on facebook ...and one of the comments was - "what a beautiful story. it seems all beings die a solitary death in some way."

Coming up the driveway from the garden - chicken feeding time - I realized that an entire book could be written on the subject - from differentiating what could be meant by beings, as in the spirit or soul - whose death is something entirely different - IF they ever die - too ok, by beings it was meant - all the living beings  on the planet die a solitary death in some way . As in death bodies cease to be what is generally be called alive - death has to be solitary most of the time.There is the question - was really IS a solitary death? What is DEATH and is there a process. The bumble bees go out , by themselves - but as hives go, as a hive together, though separately - to die - is that really a solitary death when the entire colony dies. If there is a death that appears to be solitary, what makes it so? So, I don't intend to write a book on the topic, but just a post on a blog that is not too long to actually be read.

Seeing the words: they all die a solitary death - there was kind of the sense,  - a hint of something ...sacred and sad about life and death -  conveyed by the bumble bee's way of dieing ...but there was also something in me that says ...while it may be true, that everyone dies a solitary death in some way, it also is not. In some other way, we as humans don't have to die a solitary death.

Here is that bumble bee story in case you hadn't read it:  i learned something about bumble bees today - each fall, all but the queens die a solitary death .....it kinda hit me...they all die a solitary death. Here is the story, kept short - Yesterday on the way to the gardens - i passed a flower with a bumble-bee on it...so late in the season ...it was seeking nourishment from it. today, cold and rainy as it was...there it still was, on the same flower...not moving, or rather barely ....so i took it inside, gave it some warmth and some sugar and honey water ...and watched it come to life...wow...and started wondering about why it was out there....and wondering if it was a queen and maybe finding a way to save it...it didn't seem to have the size i saw quoted for queens....and i learned...that each fall all bumble bees but the fertilized bumble bee queens - die a solitary death. it seemed there would be no point going against what nature intended - even though it accepted the sweet water - and so i took it with the flower and the sugar dish and put it in the green house, under some cover. i won't be checking on it - but for a moment - dear bumble bee - i did see you and there was love....there still is ....

2 examples come to mind of a non-solitary death:

• Example 1 - I recall in the book  "Grace and Grit"  by Ken Wilber, when Treya, his wife, dies of cancer ...surrounded by family, she dies consciously, in the final moments looking into Ken's eyes - and she says - find me. To me ...even though there is a part of the journey through and into death where you,  as a human go on alone ...this was not a solitary death the way I would define it - and like all the bumble bees seem to die.

• Example 2 - And then this morning I remembered something that happened when my dad died years ago. He knew he was gonna die for least 3 months, and when it was time...they called me and I took one of those emergency flights to Germany. They kept him off morphine so he would be able to realize I was there...and he did, though he could no longer speak. He died that night - I was there with him. I recalled something that Tom Brown had tried to convey: when someone dies, you can accompany them with spirit, in the spirit world, to a certain point, after wish you either also die, or have to stay behind ...when they go into the light. So I did that- stay with him to that point....and then there came that time where there was a lot of light ahead ...and my dad said something like (communicated) but what about the family - and i replied - you can go say goodbye before you go. Reconstructing events later ...that was the exact time my then 3 year old nephew sat up in bed wide awake ...crying loudly saying: Ich muss zum Opa" I gotta go see grandpa. i gotta go see grandpa ...again and again, crying...and my sister knew my dad had died.  So - was his a solitary death? I know he wanted me there, was reassured I had made it (in fact I always had the feeling he waited till I got there - for my mother's sake). I didn't know about the ABD at that time - and all I whispered into his ear were things like - remember you are love. They only gave it 20 minutes in the hospital till they wanted to do what they had to do. It was a solitary death in some way - but not in another....i was there with him.

I felt  a resonance with that bumble bee too - or rather - the solitary death. The thing for me -this human me is this: I don't have a son or daughter, or a husband or even friends that are close enough. Whose eye contact would you hold in death? So if I died in the next few days, the human in me - will likely die a solitary death in that sense, even if there were people around.  I wish for it to be peacefully and prepared no matter what, I actually wrote some things about it in the Five Wishes - but sometimes I have seen it happening sitting in the garden, solitary, peacefully (not in the wet and cold though :) surrounded by birds and trees and flowers - and while that actually corresponds to some degree to my nature, it also shows a lack of connection to humans....that would be an entire other section in the above mentioned book.

There is an inner death's door we go through alone, but up to that point, it is possible to not die a solitary death - like the bumble bees. I'll leave it there - and also that in the "in between bardos" - you can travel as a group, that contact is possible. But that is a whole other story again. Being to Being contact is possible - across time and space.

To speak with a Native American saying - paraphrased: there is no death, just changing of worlds. When going through that door, death's door,  into another world, it appears you go alone, there is something inner ...that steps through - leaving everything previously known, behind. In that sense, yes, death is solitary. 

Are there ways to prepare for it death - sure, one that comes to mind right now is the doorway exercise.

OH DEAR GOD ....i could not remember what book it was in...so i did a search  online...and there it is...omg, "doorways" it is even printed as a sample from the book: Practical work on Self right there... it musta meant to go on this page. wow...i didn't know

it is right there for you

A Chapter From The Book

Practical Work on Self

by E.J. Gold

Doorways

 

:)