Glitter, Not Grief

"Why not then make meaning out of the magic of the mundane?" Alua Arthur

Synchronicity. What a mysterious entity! It came into play for me the other day when I chanced upon this TedTalk. I wasn’t looking for it and didn’t expect it to come from the source from which it came. But that’s synchronicity for you. Things get tied together in ways that you didn’t anticipate.

The Ted Talk is by Alua Arthur, a woman that I had never heard of before. She is a death doula. That sounds grim but she is anything but grim. She exudes encouragement and buoyancy. Yes, her theme in the talk is death. It is not a somber presentation, however, but rather a thoughtful and powerful reminder to embrace mortality. She gives us a chance to view death as a cosmic event, potentially full of a life well lived.

I know it is a 20 minute video and time is treasured. I get that. But if you are looking for a way to possibly live a richer life, a way to notice the beauty in both life and death, I urge you to carve out that 20 minutes. Ms Arthur opens the video on stage in what I consider a party dress. Also wearing her glorious smile, she launches into a description of her death including the time, the location, what she’s wearing, and which loved ones are with her. Will it happen as she describes it? Obviously she has no idea but she sets the stage for accepting death as a rich part of life. She goes on to briefly reference her own experiences with death and mortality and explains how she came to be a death doula.

The parts of the video that most got to me included her composite narrative of one of her clients - a woman living an average life of relative privilege. Through this woman’s story, Ms Arthur suggests that it is the small things that mean so much in life. “Eat the cake!”, she reminds us. She goes on to suggest that life is truly about living in the moment, not in some idealized yesterday or in some perfect tomorrow. What about our legacy? Ms. Arthur has something to say about that:

Leaving a legacy isn’t optional. We’re doing it every single day. You’re doing it with every smile, every word, every kind word, every harsh word, every action, every inaction, every dollar you spend. You’re telling the people who are paying attention exactly who you are, and that is what they’ll tell of you when you are gone…..We’re human. Messily, magically, fantastically, beautifully, briefly, perfectly human.

The final five minutes or so of the video are really cool! Ms. Arthur takes that cultural demon Death and turns that moment into quite an affair. Watch the video and get a whole new take on that instant when your body leaves the planet. Think glitter. But watch it anyway.

Why Thinking About Death Makes You Live a Better Life