Death, Yet the Force

Samhain, All Hallows' Eve, Calan Gaeaf, Allantide, Kalan Goañv, Hop-tu-Naa: names of a variety of beginning of Winter festivals, days of remembrance and veneration, and in ancient times New Year’s Eves, that occur at the end of October/beginning of November. ​

​Winter is a dangerous time, even these days, and modern technology has only mitigated some of the dangers it presents. International trade, preservatives, and refrigeration might have mitigated the dangers presented by the need to subsist on seasonal food our ancestors lived with. Insulation, central heating systems, and electronic and gas-based technologies make issues of keeping warm a less immediate life and death concern; where as an inability to get a fire started, and kept alive, might have been the difference between surviving the night or not to our ancestors. Motor vehicles, and public transport, make travelling in the weather that winter is famous for much easier than it was even a century ago, though even now it carries its own dangers still. Books, Television, the internet, and other luxuries also protect us against the terrible burden of inactivity and boredom that would have worn down our ancestors during the harsh, dark, winters of the past. We live in a time where winter no longer feels an immediate, threatening, thing that fills us with moribund. Death because of winter alone is not something we must make peace with as winter approaches and autumn end. We do not concern ourselves with storing food and water, and indeed, the winter is perhaps now a time of consumerism in contrast to a time of austerity. Halloween, Thanks Giving, Black Friday, Christmas, and New Years are all times of indulgence. Celebration, rather than contemplation, is now the nature of the Winter months. 

​However, with that said, all the festivals I mentioned prior, which mark the start of Winter are still treated as times to remember the dead. To those who practice the Wiccan Faith or the Celtic branches of reconstructed paganism, the time of Samhain is one to remember those who have left us in times prior. It is a time to remember life is fleeting, and none of us escape the embrace of death. Perhaps a way of thinking inspired by the terror of winter. November is also a deeply sombre month, for it was the eleventh of November 1918, that the guns fell silent and the war to end all wars came to an end. We know now that sobriquet, said both in horror at the scope of what had happened, but with the hope that perhaps humanity had seen something it would not dare repeat, was naïve. Perhaps, it is the knowledge that we know that the hopes of generations were crushed beneath the behemoth that is war, wars on a scale never seen before, that makes November a poignant time. The eleventh of the eleventh marks armistice day but is now the day of Remembrance Day and Veterans Day. From the last day of October to the end of November, it is almost impossible to escape the concept of mortality; we surround ourselves with stark reminders of death. 

​As Jedi we have the Mantra, and no matter it’s form it evokes the Force and reminds us of death:

​“Death, yet the Force.”

​“There is no Death, there is the Force.”

“Death is not the end of life.”

Some interpret these, as one should from the content itself, that Jedi believe that we become one with the Force after we die. That though bodily we no longer exist, we in some part carry on. Many Jedi believe that we have a soul, and that the code is discussing a metaphysical truth; that we have a soul that will return to its origin. However, this is but one belief, and I myself make no secret that I do not believe in a metaphysical force, or the soul as classically understood. Yet, I do believe in a concept of the Force; the connections we have with our world, and how our actions have consequences and how we ourselves cannot escape the force of History, and what the past has set in motion. 

​I lost friends due to the war on terrorism, and I have lost friends to battles with disease and mental health. Death to me is just a stark reality, it is not something I fear; if anything, it motivates me to try and make what I can of life itself. However, at times like these it is hard not to contemplate death and the inference of the Jedi Mantra. Several years ago,I wrote the following on the line “There is no Death, there is the Force.”

“Death is both a beginning and an end, the end for the person whom has died and a beginning for those left behind. I shall opt to avoid discussion of the metaphysical and the afterlife in my discussion of this part of the code. I feel to do so cheapens and trivialises the true impact this idea that there is no death, there is only the Force can have. Though this is only my own feeling on it.

I have dealt with the death of close friends in my life and each time it never becomes easier, because each loss is fundamentally different. You will never talk to this person again, you can never again seek the comfort or challenges being with them presented. There is an ending there, they will never make choices again, they will never directly affect this world again by choice. They have faced their end.

Yet in a way they remain a part of the people they influenced. How having these people in your life will have shaped you somehow, made you the person you are. Ultimately here in lies the beginning I mentioned earlier. If the memory of the person remains, they will always have an impact on our actions and our behaviours. They live on in the fact they shaped the person you are, and in turn the lessons they imposed on you, you shall pass on to those that come after you.

If the Force is simply life, then we ourselves are part of the Force and carry the legacy of those before us. They are not gone in the sense we are products and proof of their existence and the impact of that existence. Our decedents will in turn be the same.

Thus, the line “There is no death, there is the Force” is a reminder to us of our responsibility to life, and to preserve it. It is not a dismissal of the weight of death, or the certainty of the end. Rather it is to remind us that death is not an end, but part of a universal journey, one death does not end reality.

Thus, death is not an end or beginning, it is a transition. There is a time someone does not exist or live, then they do, and then they don’t again. They return to a state of nonexistence.” – Keith Williams (2014) 

It is this idea that people remain with us, even if they are bodily gone, which informs my understanding of the Jedi Mantra, and the Jedi approach to death. If we remember people, and continue to interact with their memory, they continue to live in some manner. Similarly, I feel that the code serves to remind us to not have an egotistical view of death; our own death will come, and for us it is a terrible thing. We shall no longer exist, but what matters is what we do now, and the impact our actions have on the future. Our death in itself is an act, which will leave its mark, and thus a Jedi considers deeply the question of how we die as much as how we live. What will our life say about us after we die? 

As Jedi, it is important we consider how we approach death, and in the coming weeks where we are surrounded by reminders of death, I think it will be important to remember death. To celebrate, and remember those who have gone before us, and to perhaps consider how we wish to be remembered. Once we are gone, we are gone, but that which we leave behind remains.