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Similarities Between

Birth and Death

In the West, we see life and its 3 most salient events, as having qualities attached to those events.

BIRTH - a celebrated event representing a new beginning:  a clean slate - innocent - all things are possible.

MARRIAGE - a union marking the beginning of two people committing to interweaving their lives together: - a wonderful ceremony in most all cultures

DEATH - a lamentable footnote to a life - an unfortunate thing to happen to us.

Fascinatingly, these three principle events have startling similarities in spite of the the fact that they represent passages symbolizing very different things.

Oxytocin is a hormone that produces a euphoric, bonding and fearlessness in us.  It is released into the body at the time of birth for mother and child.  It is also released, to a degree, when shaking hands, and hugging…but particularly during intercourse and at the time of orgasm.  Based on most all NDE (near death experience) accounts, the same feeling of ‘everything is going to be alright’ is reported as the subject is being released from his body.

And just as NDE accounts have, with near universality, reported a tunnel with a light at the end of it, children that have related accounts of their birth speak of a passage with a light coming from it.

What do we have to learn from these similarities?  

Once we sweep away the cultural qualities that we

ascribe to birth and death - seeing them as neutral events,

a much broader picture opens up and an even broader set of questions emerge.

PRESENTATIONS

Oxytocin