When I find myself surrounded by the natural world and in touch with the cycles of life. I am filled with relief in knowing that my body will return to the earth and my soul will continue on to the unimaginable non-material world. There is a realm in which we cannot perceive. There, just beyond the limitations of our senses, lies the souls of those we have loved and lost. They are never gone if we choose them not to be. Every once in a while, I catch glimpses of the inbetween – the overlap.
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Excerpt from Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
