Birth and death. These are the two inevitable and seemingly opposite extremes that form the framework of our earthly existence. The philosopher Françoise Dastur notes the paradox that birth and death are the most important events in our lives that we will never experience ourselves. This is of course debatable, but we can state that in any case, few people remember their birth and any previous death they have experienced. Perhaps this is also why birth and death are, for many, the most incomprehensible events in life.

The immersion day in Aarhus formed a good framework for meditations on “the fragility of life” as Hanneli described it.

From the morning and throughout the day, we are drawn into stories that show us in different ways the powerlessness of humans in the face of life. We are invited to feel empathy and the desire to use our own lived experiences to help and spare others from pain, but at the same time we are presented with the realization that every person must walk their own path in life and draw their own experiences. We are only human. Therefore, we cannot prevent our loved ones, or the loved ones of our loved ones, from dying, just as we cannot change our own mortality. The realization and acceptance can be painful, but as we were told: immersion contains an ease, but at the same time cannot be achieved without the relationship with grief and pain intensifying. Another one of life's paradoxes.

My inner pain intensifies already in the morning in one of Peter's very captivating stories by the sentence; "...my brother, who committed suicide a year ago". Bang! It felt like a sharp pain in my heart and the sentence became in my head: "My beloved, who committed suicide a year ago". It hurts. But I have become familiar with the pain and at this point I can still contain it. The pain is mixed during the day with other emotions and sensations, sometimes calm, sometimes joy. At one point an inner fit of laughter is triggered when I discover that I have turned my pants the wrong way, so that the bottom is in the front and the bow is in the back.

Between two walking meditations, we are guided into an opening of our love for our fellow human beings. Love fills my body and I am grateful for the warm energy. Then I retell Peter HC Andersen's "The Tale of a Mother" and it feels as if my world is exploding. I feel the love and see in my mind's eye those I love most. Just as the fox I met this summer did not want to lose her cubs, I do not want anything to happen to my loved ones. I do not want them to experience death. I do not want to lose myself. It is as if in a moment I relive the deaths I have been confronted with in recent years all at once. My spiritual mentor and friend, who died in the hospital in Johannesburg because she did not have health insurance. The little infant that I cradled to sleep and three days later was dead. The child's mother's decline. My friend who drowned. My uncle, my acquaintances, my beloved. I can't even contain the pain in my body and the tears help me. I feel powerless – small.

Before I set out into the world again, I am allowed to look into Hanneli's warm eyes. I get a hug. I come back to the present. Right now is okay. Something is falling into place. The obvious. My painful feelings relate to a lived past and a possible future. The only thing I have the power to do is choose how I confront the present. To be able to choose, I must be present and awake – now.

Like the fox of summer, it was when our eyes met for a moment. Its fear, but also its will, was related to the now of which I was a part. Not the past. Not the future. Now. A now that was over – along with the fox’s alertness – the moment I turned and left. From now on, I will practice engaging in the life of the present. The now that, in an almost imperceptible transition, is born and dies with every breath.

Photo: Jeanette Lykkegård