A Buzz

by Dawn Zurlinden

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around — had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset — when the King
Be witnessed — in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes — Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable — and then it was
There interposed a Fly –

With Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz –
Between the light — and me –
And then the Windows failed — and then
I could not see to see –

Emily Dickinson

“I heard a fly buzz when I died” – a line from the poem by Emily Dickinson. I invite you to stop reading a moment and imagine this. These words, to me, symbolize it all. They put in a nutshell what this teaching is about. Certainly this teaching is about death. We walk down the Avenue of the Dead, dying, de-constructing, letting go of all our self-constructed concepts, and then . . . a fly buzzes. This is life. At the moment of death – life. This line of poetry is a portal itself.

I had a little death when I received this line. It was something greater and more elegant than my small point of view at that moment, and I surrendered to the bigger picture. And in my dream I shifted from corpse to fly so easily. I am the fly. I feel the sensation that, put into words, might be called the buzz of truth – that it’s all life! These words strung together symbolize detachment from any one form of life or any single point of view. Life teems!

And these words are spoken after death — who’s talking? Awareness after a ‘body’ is dead, is free to simply observe, merge, cohabitate a fly, be a fly and everything else in the scene – even beyond the scene. There’s nothing like merging with the present moment, and nothing like death to put us there. Death of a pointy little point of view, that is.

May every buzz you hear from now on link you instantly into the essential hum of life! Feel all of life in the present moment. Feel the buzz of the fly. Feel the impulse to move, to take action, to fly. Death is life. I’m reminded of when Barbara taught us that the angel of death is the angel of life. When you feel the updraft of life, take it; informed by an impulse that may not feel wholly your own. That’s because it’s impersonal. It’s life itself inviting you to create, with no other motive than the enjoyment of being in communion with life!

Are you no longer compelled to act on old, narrow beliefs? Is there little reason left to protect an image of yourself or to control an outcome? Experiment with taking actions that feel right or good before the mind fully knows why. Or create with full clarity but without expectations. You are already doing this to some extent, I’m sure. We are expressions of life and expressers of life, and as expressers of life we are becoming portals for life. There’s less and less personal agenda clouding our eyes. They are becoming clear shots to infinite life. It’s springtime and life is buzzing!