/*

1/13/2008

To live With Dead Bodies, Why?

Henrietta McCall reported in her book Mesopotamian myth that Pietro della Valle, an Italian Noble, who lived in the first half of the seventeenth century made a spectacular journey to the Orient. Twelve years later he returned, he was accompanied by the embalmed corpse of his wife who had died ten years earlier. He had taken her on the trip everywhere.

Why do people so hard let go of the dead?

In the Gilgamesh epic Gilgamesh wept for his dead friend Enkidu,
"Whether my friend not yet would rise from my yelling --
Six days and seven nights I wept over him,
Until that the worm attained his face. "
Source. McCall Mesopotamian Myth

The death of his friend is inconceivable for the grieving Gilgamesh that he does not bury him, and while I read it, it gives me the creeps. This creepy feelings have been exploited by Hollywood. In the Hitchcock film Psycho, in which a young man lives together with his dead mother in a house. He runs a motel and kills women. His dead mother has still authority over him as it seems. Or the mummy movies that teach me shudder.

If I still consider that the old Mesopotamians buried their dead under the floor, it is completely clear to me why I was afraid as a child to go into the cellar.

Not able to let go of loved ones may be a reason to keep dead, sometimes the need of money is the motivation. There is an old lady accused having concealed the death of her husband in order to get his pension. She kept her husband 10 months in bed.

Probably too, a 56-year old man didn't report the death of an old lady.

In these special cases, the sayings are true, that adherence means death and life means letting go. But talk is silver and silence is money uh golden.

4 comments:

Chus Piñeiro said...

Too many questions about a enormous matter in just one post :)

We in Spain have an historical exemple, Johanna, daughter of the Catholic kings loved so much her husband that when he died, she travelled around the country with his body in a coffin.

Somebody you love completes you in a way, makes you to feel more secure, stronger or "fill" you so much that when he/she passes away, you refuse to let him/her go, I think it's possible to lose one's mind and keep the body. The economical causes are clear.

Ray Gratzner said...

Well I learn from you, I didn't know of Johannas travel. Remarkable. Thank you chus.

Anonymous said...

I believe humans are energy beings that never die. Instead, I sense we transform when an outer shell expires. We are not exclusively the physical parts of a body. Our soul may be invisible to the naked eye. Yet, souls surround us all the time. Anyone can expand perception and beliefs. Decide to enjoy infinite mystery.

Ray Gratzner said...

Dear liara, how much can we learn about the process, that takes place when we die, while we are living.
There are al lot of sacred texts, which might be corrupted by the intent to govern people.
There are written sources who have witnessed seers.
And there is tradition, when we learn from someone who had entered the path of wisdom long ago.
What if the 'soul', 'energy-body' leaves the body and is called. That call would be perceptible while you are living.
I once heard that call and I had to fight to survive and to anchor again. Because of this call, I cannot believe that the 'souls' will be left alone after death to live an infinite life.