In death there is a symmetry of power. We see and nearly grasp a fundamental pattern that pervades our seeking for purpose. For each person the response is unique. For everyone a death touches, the event penetrates to touch a resonant sound deeper than our thought. It is the sound of dropping a pebble down a well to plumb its depths. Yet we are afraid of attempting to throw ourselves down into the silent darkness.

There is a fascination in us when we discover a well of mystery; when we explore an old house; when we stand in a graveyard.

In the moment of discovery, we stand upon a new frontier perilous and deep. We are curious. We are drawn to ask and to listen. Standing by the edge of a well, we peer down, trying to penetrate. We caste pebbles, counting the seconds until we hear the sound.

There are special moments of exploration. We may stand upon a cliff jutting from a mountainside and cast a Frisbee out to watch it grip the air and curve in perfect balance through the depths that we want to plumb. If you stand upon the edge of the Grand Canyon and throw a rock with all your strength, it will fall in silence for a lone moment. You watch and see it hit, but the sound never comes. Silence is deeper than sound.

Old houses are another focus of our fascination. They evoke a sense of wonder. Every creak of the timbers, every gust of wind whistling over jagged windows, every flutter of motion sends shivers of nervous tension through us. Each corner holds a possible revelation. Each room seems to hold its own memory of those who had lived there and what may live there now. We search to hear, to grasp that knowledge, even as we wonder why we believe in something being there to know. The answer eludes us. The house is silent. Its sound is too deep to hear.

Many have seen mists and apparitions, but these things are not answers; they deepen the question. These houses draw forth legends. We explore them and watch the slow turn of years strip away the shell of wood and ornament. We search and ask to know the mystery their form carries away with it into the soil. Long ago its function, which gave it purpose and meaning, had ceased. The form breaks down; the silence is getting deeper. It is the after-image of a living activity and the movement of life within it that now 1ingers on in residues seeping through the wood. Leaving all questions behind, it falls to a formless pile. The form can only hold a short tine after its vital rower has ceased.

It is the moment of cessation we name death. In ceasing and beginning we have the sane question. What will or what did it become? Beneath this lie other questions. Why do we believe there is a meaning? And can we ever know? The first question concerns our life as an unfolding process of vital power. The second question concerns our power to question our own meaning. In both questions, we see two sides of the same mystery. We are born and we die. We begin and we cease. We are the definition of meaning and mean nothing. We have entered an arena of silence in which we search for the sounds to guide us.

In beginnings and endings, we attempt to capture a total picture of the moment. We try to condense and absorb our vital experiences. In creating meaning we build vast patterns of language and culture; in doubt we open ourselves to the next wave of change. In the balance of power, we alone hold the symmetry.

In the graveyard standing with the family as the casket is lowered, each one holds the moment. The movement of the wind and the low sounds of sorrow hold the after-image of the event of cessation that drew them together. The sound of the casket touching bottom and the shovel of dirt are sounds of the pebble striking home, sending us the last sound before it sinks into silence. The last sound is the message; the event itself.

We question deeper, attempting to set closer to the last sound that is possible to hear. It is said that the Tibetan lamas gather around a dying brother and begin to sing. They share his death moment. They sing and chant, moving and opening to sense the movement and sound of this man until he passes. They move through the Book of the Dead, reciting in chant as the images fill them. They listen until the silence deepens beyond their hearing. Then they sing the return and rebirth cycles, caught up in their images until they return to the silence of the moment. They cease their singing to return.

The Lakotah people, living upon the plains before the settlers, erected spirit lodges to give the sound a form to cling to for a period of years, then they released it. The Japanese and Chinese peoples kept touch with the sound of their ancestors, holding jealously to the meaning of life until it ceased too deep to follow.

In every culture and every age since the Neanderthal, the burying of out dead has found its own map of the event of ceasing. We cling to forms and memories, attempting to fuse them strong enough to regain the total knowing of what is fading away and where the sound ceases. Carl Jung studies the events within our psyche set off by a death event and showed how these inner events may reverberate for years, gaining energy to burst out of silence and be played anew.

Perhaps in his idea there is a key. We have to play out the event to return to our lives without having to deal with the terrible power the search for the last sound demands of us. In many religions, concepts of 'after-life existence' or 'reincarnation' have been developed to shift the burden of this quest from the individual to the collective in which he lives. These and many other broad structures give us maps to use in playing out the power of death. We must strike back with our power to question, to listen, to play.

When we go to a concert, we enter into an event. We listen and image the meaning. We participate in a living cycle of events. We begin the cycle by adjusting to the situation. We are drawn into the movement and meaning of the music. We allow ourselves to imagine and participate. At the end of the cycle, we leave with our minds trying to capture the meaning of what we shared. We walk out into the night. Some turn around, watching the lights go out and the crews scurrying to load the equipment and replaying the images of songs. The echo may return many times, but it will now be simply an echo. The event has ceased.

We return home and resume our other activities. We may replay the images with our friends until we have absorbed the meaning, until the echoes themselves cease.

Deeper still is the event of the cessation of a lifecycle. The awesome mystery of all powers of a human being reduced to silence may deeply penetrate our mind. To see all our powers and functions cease; to know any living thing can be reduced to its form alone draws us into whatever map we choose in which to play out death.

Beneath the theology and philosophical arguments, beneath the disciplines and beliefs, and beneath our power to express ourselves, we each listen for the clue. Death can open an abyss of anguished searching or a moment's reflection, but it is an event that can only be shared by the living as they cast out for the understanding that will return them to their own life.

There are those who say we only have the power to begin and cease, and that our social and individual structures and meanings consist only of these simple things. There are others who say we have no power at all and the beginning and ending are arbitrary events. Yet something begins and ends. We are part of it for a time, then no longer. The one who dies is not powerless and our lives are not arbitrary events. They are the context of meaning we alone hold. Part of our power is exactly the ability to see causes and patterns in events. But we have no power over silence. This power is locked within the dying as they move away from us into a gloss beyond our imagination or knowing. Their events no longer touch ours. Participation ceases when we reach the edge of our map. We pause there a moment, looking deeper, trying to see. Then, we return. These moments are singular and meaningful within us, however arbitrary it may seem to others. When friends part ways, when a civilization falls, when a person dies, we are drawn to see the depths of our understanding. Those of us who remain, stand upon the edge of the wells listening for the sound of ceasing. For a long time some will stay casting pebbles and wondering. Over timer each one will leave. The well waits in the sound of the wind, air and earth. But all of this is silent to those now far away.

You may find an old well someday covered with vines and cracked with age. For a moment you may pause, questions stirring but beyond your hearing. Perhaps they will move you to sit for a while casting pebbles and listening.