Remember…

Two pillars stood across a chasm flowing with a river dark and without reflection. One pillar was crowned in light on its side of the bridge; on the other side one was lost in darkness.

Arriving alone at the bridge between the two sides a soul appeared where it found a token graven with Memento Mori upon one side and on the other Memento Vivere. 

The soul examined the token and realized that it had often been reminded of Memento Mori, Latin for "remember you must die." Throughout life the soul was taught lessons like all things fall; all temples crumble, all flesh turns to dust. So the soul lived life measuring, guarding, and fearing the loss of life more than its absence. As a consequence, the soul learned to build walls between itself and others rather than places for fellowship with the Divine.

Somewhere on the middle of the bridge the soul felt the presence of something unseen – neither angel, nor specter, but of a Witness. It did not speak nor guide, yet the air itself felt the weight of its watching. It was as if the foremost consideration of the moment was which will the soul choose? It was then that the soul turned the token over and observed the second inscription: Memento Vivere, "Remember that you must live." The soul then understood that Death is not the lesson. The LESSON is to LIVE life without fear of death.

The pillars were not opposing truths, but rather the same truth from different perspectives. The river was not an ending, but the means of passage–the river of life. The bridge was not meant to be a place to cross in safety between the sides, but rather to be a crossing on the River of Life to be experienced, to be crossed with consciousness in the pursuit of living LIFE. 

The soul then realized that when one seeks to live life considering only and seeking to live merely to avoid death, before they are ever buried within the Earth, they become as hard as its very stones. So the soul made its choice and turned toward the pillar crowned in light; not in rejection of the shadowed pillar, but in balance of consciously pursuing the light in life that had previously been wasted pursuing shadows.

And as the soul made its way across the bridge it stopped and placed the token near where the soul had arrived. It was left not as a relic, but as a lesson for souls following after. The Masterful would not ask which side of the bridge is the "correct" side to be pursued to the exclusion of the other. The Master would be aware that BOTH sides are truths and that we often pursue both the light and the shadow in this life. 

Yes, we must die, but yes we must LIVE before we can die.  Between those two truths of life and death the masterful contributes to the construction of creation seeking to build something that refuses to be forgotten.

– Excerpted and expanded from a poetic presentation The Coin Beneath the Pillars by Daniel Edwards.