‘I can’t give you anything that you don’t already have.’ This statement is important, and this podcast explores this and the uncomfortable edges that surround it. If the work of Soul Biographies is interesting to you, this delves deeply into its very nature.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ came the voice. ‘I don’t know. i just don’t know’ came his answer. ‘What on earth are you doing here, on earth?’ came the voice again.
‘… you think you have a map in your hand that’s going to guide you to where you need to go. And as you walk along you realize the map you’re holding isn’t helping. It’s somebody else’s map. It’s somebody else’s markings on it.’
The Hospice Community at Joseph’s House in Washington DC hold the belief that no one should live, or die alone. Welcome to ‘On the Edge of Life and Death’. It’s the film title, because it is just that.
A film made originally to open a Hollywood Movement started by Jim Carrey, Eckhart Tolle and John Raatz. Addressing the responsibility of the media in this World. In poetic fashion as you might expect.
From a palpable and utter stillness, it is as if the subject ‘is being spoken’. They are not speaking ‘to’ or ‘at’ the world in expectation of something in return, as is so often the case. Here, there is nowhere to hide. Here there is no need to hide. Here there is the letting go of control. The control that kept us from seeing one another.
I’m in an entrance hall. And I look towards the furthest doorway. I see her. She looks up. And immediately casts her eyes downwards. She assumes that I can see her. I can. But what she believes I can see, she is ashamed of. She doesn’t wish for it to be seen.
Might the eyes really be a window to the soul? And if so, what then? Filmed in unusual fashion for the early days of Soul Biographies. But now I have come to understand the importance of patience, stillness and unflinching human contact. The film asks if you are able to see beyond your assumptions.
What you seek is seeking you BUT you’re so busy looking that what is trying to find you, can’t. Know this, that there is a possibility that what might drive your entire life could be so dramatically different.
If I am to be entirely honest you would be a fool not to give this you full and undivided attention for its full and undivided duration. I imagine the experience will contribute in ways you might not be able to place words against. It is a profound wondering about the experience of life, death and cancer.