Death is negative space.
In art negative space is the empty, blank, unused space, the boundaries of which establish form and line. It is essential to the image.
Without death, we would have no illumination of life. Without our imminent mortality we would have no sense of our own aliveness.
Those close with death, are close with life.
Cresting the hill, big Dodge engine running like a hound, a heart drum of blown muffler hurrying me onward when I see the sign. At the artilleryman’s crest, just before you can see over the hill, is the marker: Yellow and square, turned onto a corner, “Accident Ahead”.
I slow making the crest and rolling the wheel into the declining turn, and see the glut of disorder that marks an accident scene. Emergency response vehicles strewn across the road at cubist abstract angles, uniforms and bunker gear hurtling around masking the people inside them. A black uniform yells at yellow bunker gear, and we all get directed onto the shoulder. Parked, waiting.
It is in this stillness that I really see it, the maroon van off the shoulder of the road, down the slight slope and through the barbed wire fence. It sits on all four wheels, perfectly inline with the fence, someone could have parked it there except for the obvious. All the glass is gone, save the windshield which is shattered, a crystalline spiderweb narrowing in focus to the solid white knot of a million sand-grain fractures where the drivers head hit. The drivers side of the van is crushed inwards, the surface metal twisted into figures and forms challenging the imagination. The drivers door is covered with a yellow plastic and foam emergency blanket, held on by duct-tape. The blanket moves gently in the breeze, dancing with the tall grasses surrounding the van, its bright color highlighting more than hiding the nature below.
It is quiet as I stare at the van. It sits alone, ten yards from any police or emergency vehicle, ten yards from any living humanity, perfectly lined up with the fence and pointed up the hill. There is no illusion that it might start moving again though, its stillness and quietude are of something much older, much more final, something that is now part of the earth and grasses.
The uniform and bunker-gear shatter the stillness, waving us on and ordering us to stay on the shoulder. Further down the hill, further into the curve, other uniforms are picking up pieces, measuring distances, and speaking loudly and irreverently of the materiel of the dead. Beyond them, just off the shoulder, is another vehicle. Small, black, a pickup before the top of the cab was crushed down into the seats, and folded back into the bed. It is surrounded by activity, and we’re rolling now, hitting the road again – Chaos rarely sees itself in the maelstrom.
As I drive, picking up speed, passing the van ahead of me as it struggles to regain sixty-five, my thoughts return to stillness and death, the order of it all. How natural it seems, death in the tall whispering grasses. And, isn’t it?
Tookie Williams is going to die. The Govenator his'self has declined to grant clemency, and the execution will go ahead as planned. In the wee morning hours Tookie is going to close his eyes and take the big nap.
And everyone seems to be upset about this.
I'm not.
There are a few people on death row, and a few others doing hard time, who I think need their situation improved - be it taken off the row, or pardoned all togather. I think there's probably more than a few who I dont even know about who dont deserve to die, and may be innocent all togather, and I'm all for doing what is necessary to find the truth.
But, if you've been convicted beyond any reasonable doubt, not railroaded, set up or framed (and I think we can all agree that Stan "Tookie" Williams was guilty, of some murders if by some slim chance not those murders) then you need to take your lumps.
Now, I believe in vengance to a degree. But I think vengance is personal, I dont believe the state has a right to carry it out. The state's duty is simply to handle the working end of a jury's decision, and carry out sentance - be it jail, or actual punishment - as an aid to the society it (the state, the government) serves, to keep harmful and predatory humans from having room and freedom to cause harm and prey upon others. If that means execution, then so be it.
I've said this before, people are too serious about death. Death is not an end, it is another part of the journey.
Tookie Williams, people like him (or like he was, if you believe he has truly changed), have lived horrible, tortured lives. They have also chosen to inflict that horror and torture on others in some awful ways. Beyond the need for vengance, beyond event he need for justice, there is a greater need served by their deaths - They need to be set free from this world, for their own good.
If you are Christian and believe Tookie has reformed, then you can take comfort that he will stand before his God, and be welcomed by Him.
If you dont think he has reformed, you will take the same comfort that he may burn in the fires of Hell.
I am not a Christian, but I think thats a lovely idea... both of them. To a point. I believe that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, on the spiritual plane. For every kindness, a kindness. For every evil, an evil in return. Salvation, in whatever form you believe in it in, is a work in progress for us all - Tookie Williams has a lot to attone for... far more than he can in this life. If he has already started here, more the better, but to be free of the brutality, the negativity, of his life and to really turn it around he has to be free of his life.
I also believe that if Tookie were truly reformed he would accept his death, without whining and sniveling, trying to get out of it.
He would stand up, comfortable in his own skin and comfortable with his fate, look at it head on and go quietly. He hasnt gone quietly, and that strikes me as very selfish, self serving.
Tookie Williams is a murderer, among other things, and in his heart probably an unrepentant one. Tookie needs to leave this life, and try, try again, in whatever form the cosmos would provide, to do better the next time around.
And the families of his victims need to know he is dead. Vengance is personal... and if they can find it in this, they deserve it.
Driving in to town from the ranch this morning I saw a strange set of contrails in the sky.
At first it looked like two planes, and then two become four, branching off into wildly different directions at first, and then after a mid air explosion four become two, and two disappeared into nothingness.
They were not planes.
As suddenly as the previous two had disappeared through that far away place in the sky where everything turns blue and is hidden, four more appeared out of that blue nothing to the East.
The missiles chased each other, to the west and then turning back to the east, and then back west again, before finally ending it - Either dropping out of the air, or blowing up each intercept having met with its target.
Most people have never seen this.
I've seen it several times, living not far (not in air space terms) from the Stallion Gate of White Sands Missile Range.
Most people wouldnt know, for sure, what the missiles were until they hit their neighborhood. Most people of my generation anyway.
Those from the cold war - They know all too well what missiles look like in the sky, or would look like should that day ever come.
They are beautiful, really. Most of my shots were taken from a moving pickup, camera held out the window. and couldnt capture it, but missiles catch the sun and glitter like jewels against the pure blue sky.
The big ones, the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, would glitter like that too, streaking back into the atmosphere and arcing above the Earth, flying to their horrible, final, destination. And then, like God said, there would be light.
I am Pro-War (not any war - really not the current war - but the right war, absolutely), and Pro-Violence. When its necessary, its necessary - No two ways about it.
But I am absolutely anti-Nuclear. It is not a tool anyone needs to have. It is a tool I hope to never see used - but one that I am sure will be in my lifetime.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientist for the Manhattan Project, said as he witnessed the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Stallion Range, White Sands, New Mexico, "I have become death. Destroyer of worlds".
The day of the dead (Dia de los Muertos) is actually tomorrow, but since Halloween is today I'll act like the typical gringo and mix the two up, a little.
These three days, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos (also All Saints Day) and All Souls Day, are days to celebrate, make merry and take part in good food, good drink and good company.
Halloween is a great way to celebrate, especially if its really made into a family thing. But its not just all about costumes and candy.
Remember those who have gone before, remember those who made possible for us, and celebrate them - their lives, and the journey they took beyond these lives.
People are so damn funny about death.
People are afraid of death, they are afraid of dying - They fear their loved ones dying, they cannot see beyond the shell and when it dies, they are lost without that person to see, touch, talk with. Because no-one likes that feeling, losing someone, many people come to fear death and dying. They fear their own death, they dont want to be sick, they dont want to be old, they look at what they have done, or not done, and are dissapointed, they look at their shit (possessions) and dont want to be without it.
We have developed a culture that regards death as an unnatural thing, and fights it tirelessly, wasting so much energy against it. When someone dies, even naturally, it becomes a tragedy for most people. Death is evil given form - a thing to be feared, reviled, and attacked.
Personally, I find this very sad. Maybe thats why I love it that there are cultures who celebrate death, and the dead.
Life has one guarantee, and only one - Death. Some day you will die. I will die. The people we love will die. We all die. Death is not the end. Death is not a bad thing. It is the first step on another journey.
We celebrate Birth, the other essential element of life (the balance, the yin to the yang) - Why not celebrate Death?
Two Essentials - Birth and Death - One Guarantee. What you do between, thats up to you. Do it well.