The Change we call death; Rice and Peas for the Soul - By Shirvington Hannays

Around the end of January of 2001, I walked into a bookstore in downtown Toronto, Canada and stood in front of a bookshelf of books on Death as if lead by some force outside my rational mind. If you knew me at that time, that was out of my character. I tried not to use the word death and tried as hard as I could to not think about it, certainly never using the word in the same sentence with my name.

Thanks to Elisabeth Kübler Ross, M.D., and her book “On Death and Dying” I was somewhat prepared me for May 6th later that year and certainly September 11th that same year. The book explores in plain and simple language a subject that to many is anything but plain and simple.

It skillfully highlights the author's seminal "stages of dying" or "stages of grief" model which is still widely quoted. According to the Kübler-Ross mode, there are five stages that a dying person goes through when they are told that they have a terminal illness. The five stages go in progression through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This model has been widely adopted by other authors and applied to many other situations where someone suffers a loss or change in social identity. The model is often used in bereavement work. Not all workers in the field agree with th Kübler-Ross model, and some critics feel the stages are too rigid.

Be cautioned that reading the book would not make you a superhuman or numb to the emotions or human reactions to the pains of death, as I found out four months after reading the book or on September 11th later that year. However since then I have had to deal with two more deaths of love ones. To which I can say I move from denial to acceptance very quickly. So in that that sense, yes, I can say I have truly grown to embrace death now more readily. However I am still ready to be open when it would be my time to confront my own death or that of another through the five stages, Ms. Kübler-Ross put forward. -- Shirvington Hannays (www.smahoo.com)


"Soon someone will say or do something the world will come to love and benefit from that you are too afraid to do or say NOW." - Shirvington Hannays - 05-03-2009

Soon someone will say or do something the world will come to love and benefit from that you are too afraid to do or say NOW. - Shirvington Hannays - 05-03-2009

You too can become a Buddha; Rice and Peas for the Soul - Shirivington Hannays (click here to listen to the audio podcast for this entry)

I have come to realize there is no final destination to arrive at when you consciously choose to embark on the road less traveled. However there is a state of mind and Being that can be realized and maintained in the constant changing Now moment.

Enlightenment is available to everyone. Therefore anyone with a desire to be in oneness with the present moment regardless of what might be appearing in the now moment as a person, situation, event or experience. Buddhism with it's practical approach to living and co-existing with everything in the Universal lends itself easily to this. But life would have to be view and embraced with a different mindset and state of Being than the average human mind set.

Buddhism speaks readily to ways to bring about the shift in your consciousness and mindset to do so. But you first need to accept and embrace the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path and undertake to live by the five precepts. I consciously explore Buddhism’s principles in my daily life because of it’s practical approach to living and its emphasis on everyone taking responsibility for their intentions, choices – conscious and unconscious, actions and reactions.

It may not always be easy to maintain and sometimes I am caught off-guard and have a little “pity party” or re-activate my membership in the “poor me club” for a few hours, days but now at most a week. However, I have come a long way because I was once a board member of the “poor me club”. - - Shirvington Hannays (www.smahoo.com)

The PROCESS or CHANGE we call Death is a natural part of Living or BEING alive. Which is really or simply a CHANGE of the Energy of who you are. Being afraid of it wouldn't change its reality about this Experience we call LIFE. - Shirvington Hannays - 27-03-2009

I will say NO until....

My YES can be empowered and the intention for saying yes is not attached to a hidden motive that is self serving, intended to "people please" manipulate or control another in any way. - Shirvington Hannays.

Most prayers SEEM to go unanswered when there is attached to a specific outcome missing the possibilities of the NOW moment. - Shirvington Hannays - 21-12-2008

The Poor Me Mentality.

Playing the victim may feel right but it is an excuse that prevents self growth and inner strength realization. - Shirvington Hannays - 01-09-2009