(Slaps Forehead)

How could I have _missed_ “The Inferno” by Dante?
Gonna have to see if that journey looks anything like the Tibetan one.

I read that back when I was probably 20 years old…

Anyway– (makes a note)  ”The Inferno”… might be one of the guide books that goes into the heap.

The notion of “How” we transition into “over there” keeps returning to “Where did you say you were from?  Oh, well in that case, here is your vocabulary… this time you get a cave, not a tunnel.”

Onward,
X.

Among parents studied, one in eight, or 13 percent, said they had considered asking about ending their child’s life, and 9 percent said they had that discussion with caregivers. Parents of five children said they had explicitly requested euthanasia for their dying children, and parents of three said it had been carried out, with morphine.

Dr. Susan Sencer, a cancer specialist who did not take part in the study, said in a text message that doctors will often tell parents this when dying children are suffering: ” ‘To alleviate pain and suffering we may need to increase the narcotics; increasing the narcotics may result in respiratory depression, which may hasten death,’ so that they are aware of the trade-off.”

via Nation & World | Parents say doctors hastening deaths of dying children | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and volunteer medical director for Compassion & Choices, says patients should skip the euphemisms, and — in private — ask their doctor a yes-or-no question now: “If I become terminally ill, will you prescribe life-ending medication for me under the Death with Dignity Act?

“Any answer other than “yes” means “no,” says Robb Miller, the group’s executive director. “You must know, so you don’t waste time. I’m not saying change physicians; I’m just saying: Know where your physician stands.”

via Local News | Why some couldn’t die on their own terms | Seattle Times Newspaper.

This whole article is quite useful.  You can’t look at how Tibetans write about dying, or Mayans or Egyptians or Indians, without looking at your own country too.

FORA.tv – Death Experiences: Stan Grof and Scott Eberle.

Starting a new Tag, Death.

I’m putting this marker here because I’m reading a new translation of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”  This has expanded into a study of the NDE, and a study of current concepts in death and dying in America, and revisiting the “Death with Dignity” movement.  I seem to be sticking to this subject for a while so I’m going to make a record of the stuff that influences my thinking, here.

This video is in multiple short sections, but it is very, very long.  Grof is a fairly cool guy and I keep meaning to read more of him.  This reminds me to look into his holotropic breath work, and reminds me that in 50 years we actually have improved the death experience in this country.  It could be worse.  It could be 1960.

I think probably there’s going to be another thread on entheogens, too.  It’s no coincidence to me that we started moving forward in roughly the same year that legal hallucinogens were hitting the street.

I don’t know where I’m going.  I’m reading a book.  I’m looking at why we in this culture are still fascinated by a book written 800 years ago in a remote place and a completely different language.  It’s because we don’t have our own.  It’s because we’ve made death as foreign and remote as Tibet.

Soon the HBO movie “You Don’t Know Jack” (about Jack Kevorkian) will be out, with Al Pacino playing the good doctor.  I’ll probably mention that too.

I’m in no hurry to try out dying, but I’d like to organize my thinking on the matter.

Grama turns 100 this June.

She has tried to talk to mom but mom won’t listen–really avoids the topic.  So grama doesn’t have the kind of closure and preparation she would like.  And that means that when mom is where Grama is now, that obstruction to working through this is gonna make it that much harder for me, too.    I can’t blame her for being in pain but I can try to stay mindful about the death experience.

So I’ll blog it.