PART EIGHT
Epilogue: Why You Should Believe the Thesis of This Treatise
ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © 2024 Marlene A. Condon
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If nonnative plants, such as this Black Knapweed, fare better in your yard than native plants, allow them to grow! A healthy alien plant that provides food is far more valuable to wildlife than an ailing native plant struggling to survive, or worse yet, barren ground. |
From time immemorial, man has felt that there was more to
life than his physical manifestation upon the Earth. Throughout the ages and in
every culture, man has expressed a belief in his own immortality.
Is this preoccupation
with life after physical death just the result of man’s hope to avoid the
finality that appears to be the fate of all living things? Or could it be our
intuition that we really do possess an indestructible soul that lives on once
we depart our bodies, and we inherently sense this truth?
As stated at the beginning of this book, I have never
concerned myself with religion or even pondered much whether we would somehow live
on following death. Yet when my mother died in my home in 1993 as I held her
hand, I experienced what I truly felt to be a departure of her “soul”.
Several minutes before she stopped breathing, her eyes opened
briefly, and then reclosed. I immediately sensed that only her body remained
and that she herself (the essence of what comprised who she was) had just left.
I cannot explain why exactly I felt as I did, other than to say that—for some
reason—my mother just did not seem to be “in there” anymore. Her body seemed
lifeless, even though it was still breathing air in and out.
Having never before watched someone die, and never having
given much thought to the actual process of dying and what it might mean for one’s
soul, I certainly cannot offer any explanation for why I should have felt what
I did. However, about two weeks prior to my mom’s death, something else had
occurred which, in retrospect, lends credence to the idea that a person has a soul
that would indeed leave the body to go elsewhere.
My mother had cancer and I was her sole caregiver during the final
year of her life. About two weeks before she passed (how appropriate a word for
what I experienced), I walked into the room where she had been bedridden for
many months and noticed a strange look on her face. She was staring off into
the corner of the room in front of her.
I asked what she was looking at, and she told me her family
was telling her it was time to “come home”. Ever the scientist, I wanted more
details so I could understand what was happening. Although she herself was still
“all there” mentally, I could not help but wonder if this was simply an
hallucination as the cancer infiltrated her brain.
So, I inquired who was there in front of her. The answer
astounded me. She saw her long-dead father and mother, as well as her brother
who had died as a child from scarlet fever, a leading cause of death among
children in the early 20th century. She did not see her still-living brother;
she saw only the members of her immediate family who had all died a long time
ago.
If, indeed, we are more than just the sum of physical parts
that make up our being, and we each possess a soul (or some sort of spiritual
aspect to who we are) that really is immortal, my mother’s experience makes
perfect sense. How incredibly loving is the thought that the members of her
family, who had already moved on, would come to her as her physical body was giving
out so she would not fear going “home”.
Throughout my life, my mother had made clear that death was
not something she wanted discussed in her presence. For as long as I can
remember, she had been terrified of death, the result, I believe, of losing her
brother when she herself was a mere child.
In fact, the association of flowers with funerals so impacted
her that she absolutely hated flowers inside the house. One day my father brought
home a lovely white Easter lily, and she screamed
at him to get rid of it—a scene I’ll never forget because her angst so clashed
with the serene beauty of the blossom.
Yet, less than two weeks after my mother saw her long-departed
family, she met her end without the least bit of fear—a truly miraculous feat,
considering that throughout her illness, her impending death was not something
I could discuss with her. Her last words to me were in a tone of total
acceptance as she stated very matter-of-factly that she was “going now”.
I then asked if she wanted me to get a priest, as we had been
Catholic and she had gone to church up until she was too ill to attend anymore.
She chuckled—in a derisive manner, no question about it and much to my surprise—before
answering no. She seemed confident that no religious “fuss” was necessary. And
that is just as I would expect it should be.
The Dalai Lama XIV is quoted as saying, “This is my simple
religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own
mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”
[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/34322-this-is-my-simple-religion-no-need-for-temples-no]
Religions function as a way for man to feel connected to God in
communion with other folks, but perhaps a better way to find God is via the appreciation
of nature, the holy gift that not only makes our physical lives possible, but
also attests to God’s existence. It took almost two decades after my mother’s
dying days for me to experience my nature revelation, but when I did, it was astonishing
to see how well it meshed with my mother’s end-of-life experiences.
Still, you may be skeptical of the nature revelation that God
exists. However, you should not be skeptical of the information about the
natural world contained in this book, which is real and vitally important to
the future of mankind.
Each person must recognize how much his own life depends upon
the proper functioning of the environment that depends completely upon the
existence of wildlife. Only then will people understand the absolute necessity of
altering their lifestyles as necessary to live simply (with as small an impact upon
the Earth as possible) so that we allow plenty of room for wildlife to continue
to coexist with us.
Individuals must also speak out and set examples by their own
behaviors (such as landscaping in a more natural manner) to those who are
afraid or unwilling to make the changes necessary to sustain life on Earth in
these modern times.
My hope is that you will see this treatise as a beacon, a guiding
light to salvation for all life on Earth. I also hope that you will take
to heart the words of thirteen-year-old Anne Frank (the young Jewish girl who
wrote a diary during the two years she and her family were hiding from Nazis): “How
wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to
improve the world.” Indeed. Let us all get started immediately.
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A small artificial pond in the author’s front yard provides a “home” for frogs, amphibians, and many kinds of aquatic insects, as well as drinking water for all kinds of wildlife. |
TOMORROW, PART NINE:
Final Thoughts: Overpopulation of Man a Damning Problem for Eden
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