AFTERMATH
When Turmoil Should Come To a Rest
Long for me as I for you, forgetting, what will be inevitable, the long black aftermath of pain.
Malcolm Lowry
Malcolm Lowry
”After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes”. Emily Dickinson put into words the numbness after the grief and sorrow following upon the death of her beloved father. Autumn is the aftermath of the explosive and vigorous spring, the vibrant summer, a time to come to rest as nature allows herself a pause, an intermission in the soil, the soft darkness, before she starts her ardous labor to defy and survive winter. The aftermath is the God given time to let go, to come to a closure, to be still and mindful and vacate the inner self of the strains of the industrious previous seasons. Splendor and beauty can ultimately be blinding and intrusive, the flora, the fauna and the humans need a repose to make room for the coming challenges and impressions which have to be faced anew.
In rural times, this, after the harvesting, was a time to withdraw, to slow down, to come to terms with life´s tribulations and to, temporarily, sink into a state of sweet oblivion and nothingness before the seeds of life embark on the strenuous journey to sprout and grow in the circle of life which is governing everything alive..
Some will not wake up from the merciful haze, some will not want to wake up, while others start eagerly and impatiently to embrace existence as soon as our nature and individual disposition allow us.
The aftermath of a tumultous year, a year with dramatical changes in a hurried speed with the embryo of a new world order growing into a fetus destined to face environmental, political, financial, social, emotional and spiritual challenges stampeeding and seemingly unavoidable, has never been as unruly and hesitant.
Life has always been a struggle for everything alive. The difference is that we have never had to cope with the quantity of impressions that has moved into our reclosure or retreat by means of a medial dictatorshp which is virtually impossible to keep at bay. The havoc, the catastrophies, the destruction of our environment which garantuees our survival, the fratricides and excessive consumism which never have seen so plentyful have envaded our aftermath, our freezone and necessary space of rest.
Growing old and entering the aftermath of life, the bittersweet phase where we often eventually have grown wiser, more mellow, patient and less restless, may be meant to be the sanctuary where we accept ourselves as we are, not as we have wished to be perceived, to accept the inevitable without the drama, the exhaustive aspirations, the failures or the intoxicating heights of success.
Looking back I am aware that I was put on this earth in a epoque and in a social context, spared of famines, disasters, wars and may have had the privelege of living in circumstances no other generation ever have had through history. I could choose to passively ignore the major tribulations in the surrounding world, but then I didn´t. I still could withdraw from challeging experiences abroad, leave a warzone or the devastating misery of the refugee camps when I needed to, or choose another profession at home in a country almost unaffected by war and social unrest for over two hundred years.
I could, however, not escape the personal losses of my loved ones like all living beings and in the aftermath I feel gratitude and yet a sorrow of what is gone, never to return.
The aftermath is no longer a ”natural” part of modern living but an exclusiveness afforded by few and hardly hailed by a culture which is intent to be alert, proactive and productive around the clock whether it be for the common good or for mass destruction. Keep going until you drop. The implicit or explicit demands of our culture take little notice of the biological and emotional clock, the wheels are spinning faster and faster and to be a cost in effective non-productive elderly person is not a merit. I am not there yet but it is, as always, a matter of time..
When the sparkling last leaves against the pale autumn sky decide to fall in a soft and mellow aftermath it is time to reflect, to take some urgent decisions and then close the shop. Our minds cannot be on sale but should be allowed to be stored in a secure and and comfortable place, the place that is you, when you have the time to recognise yourself...
Douglas Modig
