We’ve had a few deaths in the neighbourhood. Every time I hear about one, my reaction is to draw my breath in, put my hand over my mouth and exclaim, “Oh no.” Tears well up in my eyes, followed by a pause and silence.
Each time, I am surprised that one day the person is in the local park with their dog, waving to me from their front porch, messaging me about an article they loved, or sitting in their usual spot having a smoke, and the next they are no longer there. One day they are there, the next they are gone. The suddenness of death can be breathtaking.
In my book coming out in 2027, I am exploring an everyday spirituality, a spirituality for non-spiritual people, grounded more in the ordinary than the mystical. Perhaps just a little mystical. It seems to me that we need to include death in this way of thinking about spirituality. After all, it is strange that we are shocked by death when it appears, since it is an everyday occurrence happening all the time, in every part of the world, and to all of us eventually. It is a transnational, undesirable but faithful companion to us all.
Most of us have felt the icy touch of death at some stage, perhaps through a health scare, a suffering friend, relative or pet that has died, or by being confronted with danger. Death is an everyday part of life. That does not make it easier to accept. We are fearful of what we know very little about and no one has come back from the dead to tell us exactly what lies behind that impenetrable curtain. Even if someone claimed to have done so, many of us would rationalise away the experience and demand undeniable but impossible proof. We remain largely agnostic about death and the afterlife, and most of us remain fearful.
Tasmanian writer Jane Rawson, in her book Human/Nature, candidly describes the process of death and decay. She asks what would happen if someone died somewhere unseen and unnoticed, beyond the reach of human society. While we are alive, our cells work hard to keep bacteria from taking over our bodies. As soon as we die, a build-up of carbon dioxide ruptures cell membranes and the body becomes the domain of microbes. These microbes, along with the body’s own enzymes, begin to break down the substances we are made of.
Flies, mainly Calliphora species, arrive early, laying eggs that hatch into maggots that feed on the human body. Sarcophagidae flies arrive to leave their live young around the same time. If scavenging carnivores such as Tasmanian devils, dingoes, wedge-tailed eagles or currawongs are present, they may feed on the body. After two or three weeks, skin slips away, liquids leak out and gases from decomposition build up. As the body splits open, these gases escape and beetles begin arriving to consume the softened flesh. Liquids from the body seep into the soil, nourishing plants, fungi and soil microbes. Eventually, only bone and hair remain, while countless creatures are sustained through this return of matter to the cycle of life.
Rawson’s description is stark and confronting for Western audiences accustomed to speaking about death in hushed tones. Yet there is an ordinary spirituality in her account. Sometimes the truth of things is more beautiful than anything we fabricate. The process of decay is mundane but powerful, grounded and reflective of nature’s ancient cycle. The message is clear: humans are part of nature. From dust we come and to dust we return. We are born of earth and ultimately return to it. In doing so, we nourish the earth, much like compost feeding new life.
Are we not deeply connected to plants, animals, waters and skies? Are we not made of stardust? Are we not nature ourselves? Too often we separate ourselves from nature instead of accepting that we emerge from and merge with it. This everyday spirituality points to transcendence in all things. We are threads woven into the never-finished web of life. Living and dying in our local spaces, including our neighbourhoods, are everyday glimpses of this eternal cycle.
