i don't think we can fully live until we have come to terms with our mortality. my friend Fred Branfman calls it "life-affirming death awareness." there's something far worse than death, i think, and that is to not really live.
have you noticed how we are presented with the same lessons, over and over and over, before a tipping point is reached? the lessons we need to learn circle round us, closing in, until finally we are ready to take them in. take them in. those are the words that matter, because until i had embodied the lessons i was supposed to learn, absorbed them into the warp and woof of my being, they didn't "take"; they remained a head trip aand didn't lead to changes in my behaviour.
in the house of fathers, there is no room for soul.