Leave Me To The Beasts

One day you will understand your own mortality. You will understand that you have far fewer years ahead of you than behind you. What will happen to my mortal remains when my heart stops pumping blood? What should they do with my body when brain ceases sending information? No way I would want to be buried, waste of space. Cremation? Maybe but…I think I came up with a better idea.

If I have people in my life around the time I stop writing blogs and making cheeseburgers and fretting about my sharpai forehead, I would like them to carry my body deep into a wild forest. 

The forest? But you love the desert!

Yes, I will explain, read on.

A bonfire would be lit, intoxicants ingested. As the flames rise and perceptions alter, participants would be encouraged to go feral, to scream and laugh and run through the trees—

This is why a forest and not a desert, the desert is a lot less forgiving if your wasted ass takes a tumble. Plus there are snakes (depending on the time of the year). 

Non vegetarians would roast meat on the fire and eat it with their hands, drinking red wine from the bottle, just carrying on and having more than a good time, just being free, not thinking about work or social constraints, laughing and screaming at the top of their lungs like beasts.

I started this whole thing as a way to occupy my time: An imaginary wake, but it became more…something I think a lot of us need. We are too constrained, too worried about what other people think, debts, the stress of conforming to our modern “civilization.” We need to do on a regualr basis, just go out in the middle of nowhere and get drunk or high and go nuts. I have been to these places, places far removed from Starbucks or traffic or where you have phone signal. No one is out there; I have places I go where you might see a passing car every hour….and then darkness falls and you are alone…alone and free to do whatever the fuck you want to do. I think about these places often, they are burned into my heart, I pine for them and plan to return when the moment is right but this isn’t just about me—

I can see the people out there, writhing to the rough music of a drum, in and out of the firelight. Running through the trees, occasionally falling, waking up the next day dirty and scraped up…and having touched life again, dared to embrace it, life red in tooth and claw. We are too constained, this is why heart disease and strokes kill so many people. It’s not bacon that kills you, it’s stress, it’s expectations, it’s this fear of fitting in with people you meet and workplaces. Burningman was started as a celebration along these lines but it got too big. This gathering would be a dozen people or less.

Back to my wake (or the wake of whomever was the guest of honor)…

I personally don’t care what happens to my body when I’m dead. I do,however, enjoy the idea of feeding the bears and wolves and crows. This is another reason for the woods opposed to the desert. The next morning, everyone would just leave my body out there for the beasts and I would truly return to nature, bones scattered, some pieces carried off by the crows and ravens I love…I can think of far worse ways to end things….