We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.
2. Write the story that has to be written.
(Author: Gwen Bell)
Sit. Feel the heart racing, pumping the blood around and round the heart and body in desperation. It refuses to stop even though you will in 15 minutes. Take a deep breath. It's hard to calm it. It's living you out before you live out it.
Feel the ground, the earth, pulsing below you. It mimics your heart just to let you know that you truly are still alive.
Dig your fingernails into the dirt. Rake them around until they are filled with stones and dust as your skin and bones will become in what may seem like a few minutes but yet also eternity, waiting, watching, wondering.
Watch your chest rise and fall with each inhale and exhale cause goodness knows that's easier than watching the tip of your nose. You've only got 15 minutes left baby girl, why watch the nose that's tormented you with it's size this whole time.
WAIT. I'm still breathing, I can still feel the blood pumping, the heart racing, the energy soaring.
You would have called your mother, sister, father, brother, girlfriend, boyfriend, cousin, friend, lover, teacher. You would have called them all if it wasn't for the fact that the 15 minutes you had left to live would be taken up simply by them asking:
"Hello, how are you? I've been meaning to call you for so long now and I just didn't get round to it. You know what there's some crazy shit been going on in my life. Do you mind if I tell you about it before even letting you say hello? No? You don't. I knew you wouldn't and it's not as if you don't have time."
No. It's better to breathe. Although they'll all be sad and wonder why you didn't try to communicate with them that you were dying. But you were always dying so why would this come as a shock to them? Has it come as a shock to you? Feel that heart jumping out of your chest - you can't deny it. Well I guess you could go ahead and try but don't say we didn't warn you.
You wonder how they're going to find you, right? Arms and legs contorted? Face in a grimace as if you died in pain? Tongue hanging out? Eyelids and lips as blue as the summer sky you gaze up into now? Will you have peed yourself? Shit yourself? Let's not go that far. Does it really matter? Well to them it does, but you'll be gone by there so it shouldn't matter to you one bit.
We can only control how we live. We can't control how we die. Well, I guess we could try...
But this is 15 minutes to live my girl and you're preoccupied with death? That's not much living is it? It's mostly thinking? LIVE as if you are dying. Don't DIE as if you are dying.
You feel frozen, don't you? What can you possible do in 15 minutes that's living, is what you're thinking, right? Watch some TV? Watch some other people live the fantasy life that you'll never achieve? NO WAY. That's not living although you certainly spent a lot of time doing so when you were alive.
But I am alive now.
That's what you think! Prove it!
Where's the cushion? Pull it to the floor. Adjust your posture. Remember that practitioners experience is noted in how long they take to adjust. Adjust your heart away. You've got at least 10 minutes now.
Wiggle those toes, itch those armpits, scratch away those insects that live under the skin. Make sure your legs don't fall asleep by sitting up high and allowing the knees to fall down to the ground.
That's it. Now take 3 breaths in slowly and surely. YES! I KNOW! Only 8 minutes left, but RELAX.
Place your hands in the mudra of your choice. There's no dictator here. That's it. Slowly. Move them around a bit till their comfy. Take another 3 breaths. Yes, I know, we got the order wrong. You'll just have to breathe again. Get over it. That's life isn't it?
Settle down into your spine but don't slouch. You're only as young as your spine and just because you're dying doesn't mean you're old. That spine is younger that you think it is. Drink in it's energy, maybe you'll get a couple extra seconds out of it.
Well, now just keep breathing. We're nearly there. Not much we can do about it now.
Shit - what about that recipe I promised to send mom???.
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You've always had 15 minutes to live, you just didn't know it.
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