When The Mind Leaves The Body/When The Body Leaves The Mind
Joel Elveson
As a recruiter I am defined by the successes of the clients and job seekers I work with.
When The Mind Leaves The Body/When The Body Leaves The Mind
By Joel Elveson
In the beginning, there was an embryo fertilized from an egg. As the second hand of the clock swept around the numbered face with each being perfectly aligned with the other the arrival of the date of birth of another human to live upon this earth that is too busy spinning on its axis to notice will come to be.
The child’s mother will lovingly look down at her creation tearfully smiling as it is the most beautiful thing her eyes had ever seen. Although it cannot know or see instinctively it will gravitate its head to the soothing sound of its mother’s voice. It has heard that voice deep from within for nine months now but this time the voice comes from a different place. Not fully equipped to think the child begins to cry as for the first time it feels fear. The mother holds the baby close to her beating heart while rocking it to and fro. In a state of contentment, it falls to asleep.
This is the beginning of the journey along the road from parent to a grandparent or better still a great grandparent. From caregiver to a teacher to nurse to mentor the role evolves as does that of the provider of the component needed to start the creation miracle. He too takes on the moniker of a teacher at the end of the day of the toil for the gold or the silver aka his slice of slightly toasted bread he so valiantly battles for. The next morning he will adorn himself in his garment climb into his royal chariot while vanishing ahead of the plume of smoke he leaves behind.
A mind is formed and as a mind, it will grow with the parents agreeing to see it as it happens. Theirs is to move the life further down its own road be it dusty or paved. The mind will know as it needs to know. It will know its body is it’s own to occupy until its usefulness is all gone. In between those poles, there is a world to move upon. Frameworks of moments that will be forever frozen in space until a thaw brings them back anew but in a different place in a different place in a different form but never ceasing to be what it was long after it has been gone away.
Soon as soon is very soon as the reversal begins as the cycle begins to go backward in erratic increments. There are signals that are sent to warn the decline has begun with no way to go back to going forward. Inevitably there is the struggle to hold onto you for as long as you can. Hold on! Alas, one then the other or both in synchronization with each other shall start the exodus from being in existence while simply existing in one part or the other without you knowing it.
When the mind leaves the body. When the body leaves the mind. What pieces of fragments are left to pick up to hold to treasure when one is no longer with the other? A body can be a body without a mind but only a body comprised of deteriorating rotting flesh shall it be. A mind can be a mind without a body to live in but it will only be a mind that cannot act as a mind as it lacks a soul to keep it whole. No thoughts feeling or ideas can it convey.
A body may be encapsulated or entombed to be laid to lay amongst the lilacs, daisy ’s, dandelions and fragrance filled purple, tulips or lay under a waterfall, It may have once danced with the grace of the prancing dear or lunged in anger at its enemy but does so no longer. The mind that was once its partner is now somewhere else is no longer there with no possibility of reunification. Perhaps by disease perhaps by the bullet of the gun or just perhaps the time it had run out of time but the need for it to have a mind is only now for those who need it to have a mind but know it cannot. It cannot any longer hold a mind.
The mind once so cunning, shrewd and keen could command its soldier to do whatever bidding it wanted it to do. It made its charge dance like a marionette just because it could. Whatever it wanted its slave to say it would say irrespective to meaning or intent. Yes, it could take the blame for the damage done but behind the scene safely hidden from sight, it left laughing as it went. Only being a mind there was everything that nothing else but a mind could do. By disease or slow decay, the dislodging from the body comes on as suddenly as lightning streaking across the astonishingly black night. A location not known. Faces that have no names. The mind is mad as all at once everything is clear but becomes a blur again.
A whole, as we know, is the complete assemblage of parts blended together to fit so they can perform or function in unison. A piece no bigger than a thumbnail can tear everything asunder when broken, missing or malfunctioning. Torn or broken down a repair or rebuild may be possible but sameness is not possible. What was then cannot be now. As to the future nothing yet that might be is not now.
The human machine is no different. Your kidneys, your liver, your pancreas, your heart, and your lungs must work as they are intended. In the event of failure or potentially fatal infection or infiltration of cancer, the body will grind down die leaving its brain to fend for its own finish. To transplant organs from another abandoned body may be feasible but the faintly living body does not want what was not originally there. Rejection by way of a massive assault on the new organ will reach a climax when despite efforts to keep the union going the body will leave the mind. Moments prior to that the mind will orchestrate an exit.
We are not assembled in a day. A full nine months must pass before we can emerge from the safe harbor as a whole living being. Anytime after that something, almost anything can cause one to expel the other. The severest sensation of pain that can reverberate back to the birth mother will elicit shrieks in accompaniment with torrents of tears. Perhaps she may very well desire or initiate divorce of her mind from her tortured body.
When the mind leaves the body gradually or all at once the body must follow suit. When the body leaves behind the mind starving for nourishment so too the mind must now follow suit with the body unless an old connection is reconfigured and ultimately reformed. Does whatever dies somehow come back? Can the mind miss its body? Why does the mind have to leave the body? Why does the body have to leave the body? Why? Please, mommy, tell me why.
Neither mind or body are beholden to each other. According to the plan, each may leave the other when they so choose or when the moment of separation is prescribed. To keep yourself whole keep yourself well. Always hold those dearest to you nearest to you. Never let a dream go undreamt. Take a deep breath and breathe in life. Live your life as only you would live it. Put a seashell up to your ear and listen to the sounds of the ocean. Blaze a new trail but only if you must. Be faithful. Be true. Stay alive.