It is like visiting one's funeral, like visiting loss in its purest and most monumental form, this wild darkness, which is not only unknown but which one cannot enter as oneself.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.
Darkness might seem to obscure what's happening, but I find it's always pretty revelatory: it brings out the awe in us, the fear in us, the excitement of exploring the hidden or unknown. It seems to conceal, but it really shines a light on what we want, what we need, and what we'll do to get it. Especially when we think no one can see us.
Death is with you all the time; you get deeper in it as you move towards it, but it's not unfamiliar to you. It's always been there, so what becomes unfamiliar to you when you pass away from the moment is really life.
The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped.
It is only in the light of the inescapable fact of death that a person can adequately engage and enter upon the mysterious fact of life.
What interests me is the sense of the darkness that we carry within us, the darkness that's akin to one of the principal subjects of the sublime - terror.
There is no such thing as darkness; only a failure to see.
At a certain age, death becomes familiar to you-or a loss becomes familiar-the tragedies that are more commonplace in life.
Death at times seems like a dark tunnel to be traveled, and the future seems bleak.
It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude.