The death of the macaw

The death of the macaw

I was looking from the window of my childhood bedroom. I looked at the trees in front of the house and I saw an old, dull colored macaw landing on one of the branches. Then the macaw died and fell down on the ground. I went outside to look for the bird, but it was gone.

This short story was part of a dream I had recently. I couldn’t make any sense of the dream, so I started talking about it with a few friends. And while sharing this dream with others, I got hints and clues from them and myself as well about the meaning of this dream. So let’s talk about death…

After my dream I felt sad for the bird. I didn’t want it to die. And I was kind of hoping it would be like a Phoenix that would rise again after death. And then I was confused because I couldn’t find the dead bird. So is death really the end? Dead and gone?

On the physical level it appears so. But just like birth, death is part of a cycle, the circle of life. You enter life through the portal of conception and birth and you exit through the portal of death. In this view, it’s obvious that ‘you’ isn’t just the body. ‘You’ is much more then the physical body. People refer to it for example by Soul, Spirit, Astral body, higher Self. A portal implies the concept of going from one place to another. So death in one place, implies birth in another. So in a way, the bird was a Phoenix, but I didn’t realize it. That’s why I couldn’t find the dead bird!

Then I remembered as a kid I had the wish to have a macaw. I got some small parrots instead. The macaw was a childhood dream, my desire. So when I saw the macaw die in my dream, I witnessed the death of my childhood desire. No longer I have the desire to keep a bird in a cage. The bird being a symbol of freedom. So there was a desire in me to have or own freedom, but it came with a cage to be able to ‘keep’ that freedom. But that isn’t freedom at all right? A nice paradox.

Also the notion came to me that as a kid I had a big fear that my birds would escape. Because I was afraid they wouldn’t survive in the wild. So I projected my fear of death on them. And this is a deep rooted distortion in our society. Because we fear our own death, we cannot deal with the death of others. Up to the point that we don’t even allow someone to die. We want to save lives. No matter the costs. And I am not talking about money. But let’s face it. We can’t save lives. We only postpone death. But it makes us feel good, because it is what society dictates us from the paradigm that humans can control life. We can control how we look, we fight aging, we fight wrinkles, we go through cosmetic surgery to look younger. We should all take CPR courses. But what are we really fighting against? We are fighting against nature because we have so much pride that we even think to be able to overcome death. But we can’t overcome death. We can only accept death as a fact of life and be completely ok with that. Realizing death is only a portal.
So when you feel compelled next time to ‘save’ someone, be honest with yourself why you feel this urge. The other day someone told me it would be painful for him to watch someone die, knowing he could have saved that person with CPR. I invited him to examine his own pain. I am not going to discuss the collateral damage you inflict on someone that receives CPR. Rather I would like to call for a heart-felt personal inquiry how you truly feel about life and death.

And doing that, I could think of an alternative idea. Just to give some food for thought. How would it be to be able to hold someone dying, being completely present and at ease so the travel of this person’s Soul through the portal of death is a smooth transition… rather than your personal fight against death…