Death Is Like Changing Avatars
The Road to Bethlehem
"Unable are the Loved to die for Love is Immortality" ~ Emily Dickinson.
Wow People, what a fabulous response from so many of you to my first promo, and I cannot thank you enough! The phenomenal support you have given for my book in your thoughtful reviews is truly a gift that I will always treasure! It was exciting to see reviews from Canadian readers on Amazon.ca and from my American readers on Amazon.com. Thank you all for subscribing to my newsletter and for your interest in my poetry and its related topics. Your positive energy keeps me motivated! Remember, if you missed out on my five-day promo last month, you can still post a review if you feel so inclined https://www.amazon.com/dp/1965016162 (U.S.) or https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1965016162 (Canada) and receive an ARC (advance review copy) from me. This paperback copy will be gifted to you from me through Amazon. If you would care to receive a PDF copy of my manuscript to use for a review, just let me know at soulscapepoet@gmail.com.
(Note: Even if you are in the U.S. or elsewhere, check out the Canada link https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1965016162 to see my extended book site page with added illustrations by Daniel Schmelling, extra reviews and quotes from my book! I am expecting this additional content to be posted soon on Amazon.com.)
I also received the stupendous news just this afternoon that my book is being launched tomorrow on Reedsy Discovery at 3:01 EST! Yayyy! Please log on if you have a moment, and give my book an upvote. The most highly upvoted books are considered for the Reedsy Discovery weekly newsletter, which reaches thousands of readers internationally . . . so exciting!!
In my last newsletter, I conflated the dawning of the Age of Aquarius with the entrance of Pluto into Aquarius on November 19. I have been advised since that the dawn of the Age of Aquarius has to do rather with the greater astrological cycles in the sidereal astrology. On a more specific astrological scale, Pluto was in Capricorn for sixteen years before November 19, 2024, and then moved into Aquarius, where it will now be for the next twenty years. This is to be a time of new positive energies, science and spirituality merging together, multi-dimensional lifestyles becoming the norm. These themes many of my poems embrace. The Age of Aquarius, on a vaster scale, is the overarching tableau for my vision of Death and our souls.
One of the nuances of Emily Dickinson’s poem Because I could not stop for Death that always has intrigued me is the dual possible meaning of the second line “He [i.e. Death] kindly stopped for me.” It is one of the reasons why I named my book Death Kindly Stopped For Me. This title can mean that a personified Death comes to visit, i.e. to see the speaker. Conversely, it can be interpreted that death can at any point in time cease to even have meaning. In other words, it ceases to happen at all . . . Death actually “stops”. I find it rather beguiling, with the thought of Pluto having just last month entered Aquarius, to see my title as a reminder of the latter interpretation. When our corporeal forms cease to exist, Death indeed has no meaning. Our essence lives forever in Eternity.
In my poem Death Is Like Changing Avatars, from my book (Poem 28, page 77), the idea of Death stopping, or in other words, Death coming to visit is enhanced by using the metaphor of a video game. Death need not be considered as a termination or an endpoint; rather Death can be personified as a muse. This metaphor is extended as we imagine that Death as Muse is simply our liaison as we change from one avatar into another and start a new life experience. In the final piece of this metaphor, this new life experience is seen as the start of a new video game in our holographic existence.
Death Is Like Changing Avatars Death is like changing avatars In all those games we play --- No big deal just as long As we can win the fray --- Just as long as we remember Reasons why we lose, And learn from the mistakes we make Then Death can be our muse. Corey Elizabeth Jackson
As the days lead up to Christmas, I see a palpable connection between this concept and my interpretation of one of Emily Dickinson’s poems The Savior must have been/ A docile Gentleman in which she obliquely mentions “The Road to Bethlehem.”
The Savior must have been
A docile Gentleman—
To come so far so cold a Day
For little Fellowmen—
The Road to Bethlehem
Since He and I were Boys
Was leveled, but for that 'twould be
A rugged Billion Miles—Dickinson’s description of Jesus here as “A docile Gentleman” is so understated as to rivet our attention immediately, and thereby prepare us for the equally exaggerated overstatement of the second verse, that “The Road to Bethlehem” or to salvation, could be equal to “A rugged Billion Miles.” Dickinson’s assertion that the road becomes leveled is a slant message of hope. The road is still long and arduous, but still, it is easier than before. The dawn of Christianity is the dawn of hope for humanity, according to some. No matter how long and difficult the road, where there exists eternal life, then truly there exists no Death as an end in itself. Rather, we move in Eternity through innumerable avatars with Death in the role of Muse.
