the Soapbox of Perception - The Chemistry of Tears

When someone we love dies, most humans express their emotions with tears.  Even if the death is a healing; even if we believe in a next life that is better, we cry.  The tears roil up out of some mysterious pit and head straight for the eyes.  Then they spread to the nose, the throat. A sound often emerges.  The body shakes.  The head aches.

We rarely get to control when we cry.  Sometimes we can control how much noise we make, whether it’s a few artistic tears or a flood.  Often, we can clench our teeth against the dying animal sounds.  The headache we can do little about.

But why do we cry?  Why does the emotional wave wash over us?  Why does the stomach clench and the breath hitch and the nose run?

Here is today’s theory, specifically related to death.

We create connections with each other, with family and friends and teachers and clients.  We form energetic bonds with many other beings.  Thus, when we think of said being, we reach out energetically, with heart or soul or mind or psychic field or what have you, and touch quickly upon that being.

When a being is alive, she is bound by the physical nature of the body, the limitations of the rules placed by time and space.  So when we think of the being, the energetic touch reveals information we are able to translate easily, even if we don’t know we’re doing it.

But when a being dies, her self is released from the physical form.  The soul or heart or consciousness or what have you becomes an energetic body.  This body, this state of being in whatever afterlife, is a body unbound.  It is a body that can experience, encompass, embrace, expand into a whole new existence.  And existence with which we, as bound humans, have little experience.

So when we think upon the being who is dead, we reach out energetically, with heart or soul or mind or psychic field or what have you, and we touch upon the awesomeness that is heaven or the universe or the cosmic mind or. . . or. . . or. . .  We touch upon the beauty we have no words for, the emotions we have no ability to feel, the richness that is overwhelming.  And we cry.  We cry from the wonder of it.  We cry from the shock of it.  We cry because we cannot experience the fullness of that existence.  We cry in fear and sorrow and wonder and desire and envy and anger and bewildered acceptance because that is how the human body releases the overflow of emotions.  When we are full physically, we belch.  When we are full emotionally, we cry.

So reach out to the beings who are no longer in this physical existence.  And when you cry at their memory, perhaps you are touching the other side and are full of the wonder.