O' Life is Sweet & Death a Dream

For memory's sake, I have to post about a conversation we had at dinner last evening.

During yesterday's morning recess, the 1st and 2nd graders all went outside to find a dead bird lying on the blacktop. Andrew first told me about it when we were walking home from school, and he was quite graphic about how it looked and he seemed upset. By dinner time, Sky brought up the subject, but with a very different outlook. Andrew started talking again about the details, how sad he was for the bird and that he was upset his teacher picked it up with gloves and threw it into a trash can. He expressed a healthy sadness that the bird had died.

I stepped in saying, "No, Andrew, the bird didn't die. He just needed to take off his clothes." There was a silence at the table, and Sky grinned at me. He said "Yeah, that's true. He took it off because he didn't need it any more. It may have been old or sick."

Andrew seemed confused and curious. Being Yogic/Eastern in our spiritual beliefs, we often talk about reincarnation so that wasn't confusing to him. I think the idea of a body being equated with clothing was somewhat new to him. He looked at me asking "But when he took off his clothes, what was left?" I had to explain that his spirit was free and could go anywhere and do anything; that he was happy. Sky supposed that his spirit is lying inside of an egg somewhere in a new bird's nest, waiting to hatch again, and that the bird didn't care what the teacher did with his old coat. He rejoiced "That bird will soon have a brand new coat, Mommy!" and Daniel said, "Yes, and he's coming back again because he has more work to do. We are all here because we have work to do." Amen to that!

This turned the whole idea of death into a joyous one, and this morning they were talking to each other about whether or not the bird is about to hatch soon. Sky said "The bird is in a cycle, just like everything else; the seasons, the days, the years." Like the ancient sages, he's already seeing how natural it is, and that death is indeed a dream. Nothing has been more comforting to our children than this awareness.