Arms draped by my side, palms facing up, feet relaxed, my eyes grab the light sneaking in from the sunroof of the yoga studio, after an hour of sun salutations, twists, and lunges. The instructor invites me to scan my body for left over pain, tension or struggle still moving about my tissues, and in these found places to settle my awareness. After a brief pause, she instructs me to breathe into these parts—to allow breath to move through the denser parts of my being, then on the exhale to let go. This is the lead-in to Savasana, the final posture in a yoga class. It is sometimes called the final resting pose. But another name, hardly mentioned, for this supine rest on the mat, is corpse pose, the practice of leaving your body behind—The practice of dying.
In our culture we call it anything but that. If a yoga instructor wants students to filter into her class, she will avoid this little detail. To talk about death is to commit a crime in our culture. So, we don’t do it. Our people work hard to play hard, chase youth to look young, and somehow think if they run fast enough that death will not catch them—as if death will never come. To discuss it at a cocktail party, will land us alone in the corner with no friends. We run from this truth, while building fortunes, and marathoning on arthritic knees. We apply creams, cut, and pull back our faces, and hide our necks with scarves. Do we think that if we disguise ourselves enough, death will not find us, when, so far, it’s been 100 percent successful at its job?
The oldest documented person to ever live, was a woman from France named Jeanne Calment, who celebrated 122 birthdays. She stopped breathing before her 123rd. Both of my grandmothers, Josephine, and Angela died three months before their 100th birthdays. At times it seemed they would live forever. But like Jeanne Calment, they blew out their last candles, celebrated their last holidays, ate their last meal, and hugged their last hug. And as for my grandmothers, when nobody was watching, they breathed their last breath.
I lay in silence on the yoga mat and continue to focus on my breath. I sink into a place, of surrender and control. Originally Savasana was meant to teach us how release from our earthly existence. (The letting go). And in the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient scriptures of India, offer that we can choose the exact moment we leave our bodies. (The control). To our great loss, this detail from the birthplace of yoga is rarely shared, in the West. “Resting pose,” or Savasana, has a much nicer ring to it than Corpse pose. “Now class, lie down on the ground and I’m going to teach you how to die. Nope. Not going to sell. What does sell, is forty pushups interwoven into a 75-minute yoga class on a fortieth birthday. Although this is a fun activity and builds comradery to laugh among peers, as one by one, muscles atrophy, and yogis fall, it does not encompass the sacredness of the practice of yoga.
Every year on my birthday, my siblings, and close friends, call or text. Facebook sends out an alert directing folks to my page to wish me a happy birthday. I am invited to lunch or an afternoon coffee and scone, and at night, the glowing chocolate ganache mixed with dripping wax, slides across the table, and spotlights my face, so my family can sing a deliberate out of tune version of the Happy Birthday song. I blow out the candles, they clap, I open gifts, and then we look around for the person who’s “one more year” we will celebrate next. But we don’t mention, not for one little second how we might celebrate the transition into death.
One time a brave yoga teacher started savasana with this imagery.
Imagine it is your 100th birthday, and you are sitting at the head of the table. Glance down at your hands. What do they look like? Trace the lines that show a life well lived. Notice the aches and pains in your tired bones that walked you through this life, that once glided with ease, now stuck, and twisted. Sit back and be in this moment, joyful to have lived this long. (the teacher pauses for a moment so her students can sink into this vision). Look around. Who is there celebrating your life, showing you that you matter? Your heart pushes through your squinted, filmy eyes, and lights them with a smile. Your body glows with light and warmth. These are your people. (Pause). You see a cake being carried by a familiar face, but not so familiar that you can name her. The cake with one hundred candles is placed in front of you. Take a deep breath in. On a long slow exhale blow out the candles. (Pause) The group claps, and cheers. You look again at the life you have created and feel satisfied. This is what matters. These connections you have made over the years.
The instructor then invites the 100-year-old me to sit back and watch the family and friends gathered around me. After about a minute of quiet, I am instructed to reflect on my present life, and the people in it. At the time I am fifty-five. I see my friends, neighbors, family, and colleagues.
“Who out of these people will be with you at that table, on your one- hundred years celebration. Who haven’t you met yet that will be present that day? It’s possible that you haven’t yet met most of the people that will sit at that 100th birthday table."
I try to drag into the picture, everyone I love now, and realize it is just not possible.
I am the youngest in my family. My siblings will not be present at the table. They won’t be calling me on the phone or writing on my social media wall. Statistically, women live longer than men. My partner in this life, my best friend, my husband who saw me when nobody else did, and stood by me until his death, will not be at this table. My father, who presently, is in the first phases of dementia, won’t be there. My cousins, aunts and uncles, neighbors, will have gone before me. It dawns on me that the humans surrounding that warm table in the future, are mostly strangers. Grandchildren not yet born, friends from activities, I have yet to discover, and a caring nurse who tends to my slowed body. Yet they all love me and celebrate me. What have I done to deserve this attention. How have I lived?
The teacher’s voice fades and leaves me in silence on the mat in her studio. I drift deeper into myself. My body peels from my soul, and I let it. I am a corpse done with her skin, her heart, her mind, her bones. I have used it well. I have embraced and learned how to accept people as they are. I have learned to release all judgements and criticisms, and to lead with compassion. I have raked through the tall weeds of my father’s racism and quelled the generational trauma of the women before me. I have found forgiveness for the addiction that took my mother, which took my son, which might have taken my will to live, but I chose to stay because it is what you do. I chose to embrace all people, not just the ones who agree with me. I have chosen to create bridges, not tear them down. I have chosen to create boundaries, which are laden with flowers and love. To listen more than I speak. I have chosen to create from my gut and from my heart. And because of this, I am ready to pass the torch of love to the people left behind, so that they may paint the world in colors that I only thought imaginable. And I am satisfied and with warmth glowing through my transparent skin, I deem my 100th birthday, the best I would ever know.
This future image of my birthday stays with me longer than any of the 55 I have celebrated so far. It reminds me, for as long as I have, to sit in the wisdom that only comes with a dying body. And in that decay, to embrace every moment with those who love me. And because I have put in the practice on the mat, I die with grace. In those final moments, my body peels from my soul and a new date is born. The celebration of my death—and in the passage of time talking about death is no longer a crime, but instead an effortless triumph.
Comments