Experiencing all of life

I used to experience life only through my brain.

It didn’t work.

Recently, I woke up to a moth dead on the bathroom floor. There I was, just waking up, and feeling a little sad for a moth that once was a living creature and now was not.

I don't feel sad for every creature that dies, but sometimes it just happens. It's hard to know what you'll feel sad about on any given day. There's usually something. Sure, it's just a moth you might say. But its life was over. Done. Ended. Mine too one day.

I know, it's a lot to take in when you just wake up.

The night before the moth died, I noticed it flickering around the bathroom wall, alive and looking well. Although I admit I am untrained in moth wellness. And several nights before that, as I opened the door to go outside with the dog, a moth darted indoors toward the light. It was the first moth sighting since fall. An odd marker of spring.

Neither the moth nor I knew its end was near.

Years ago when I was having a hard time and waiting for the kettle to boil on the kitchen stove, I noticed a moth fly into the light and die. A closeup moth death. At the time I felt so chronically numb and in despair that in that moment all I thought about was whether it was a moth accident or a moth suicide. Which led to wondering why moths hadn't evolved to fly near light, not directly into it. And how people think light is salvation and darkness bears pain, and how that really isn't true—like at all—for moths. It also wasn't really true for me either. I had been struggling every day whether the sun was shining or not. Also this: what a waste (of life).

I was all thinking and thoughts back then, no feelings. All brain, no body.

Now that I'm feeling better and no longer numb or in despair, I get a little sad at weird times, like when I see a dead moth near my bare feet on the cold bathroom floor. This is wholeheartedly better than before—through sadness for a moth death comes an honoring and happiness for a moth life. Happiness for life. If you cut yourself off from the pain in life (an understandable strategy), you also cut yourself off from life itself. And that is not living.