The Art of Dying (of Life) and Other Paradoxes

“Dying
Is an art, like everything else?
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.”
“Lady Lazarus”, by Sylvia Plath

The title here probably sounds like a bad idea for the first post on a blog for a website dedicated to the promotion of health, healing, and wellbeing.

Sugar and spice and everything nice is what one might expect here instead.

Well, that’s what most people—myself included, at times (yes, guilty as charged, but still learning)—would think.

Fuck that.

Another thing you wouldn’t expect here, right?

The greatest healers are the people who have suffered the most—and who are still healing themselves.

Didn’t expect that either? Okay, now we’re talking.

The greatest artists are also brilliant healers in their respective mediums. “Earth” without “art” would truly be just “eh,” as a wise person once said.

American poet Sylvia Plath—one of those great artists, and one of my favourites—was the first posthumous recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982, for her Collected Poems. Her tragic death by suicide often overshadows her poetic brilliance, though some of her most exceptional work was written just days before she died.

A reporter for the National Post noted that by the year 2000, there were 104 books in print about Plath—including a biography of her biographies—while in 2021 alone, there were three notable releases on her life and work.

So, what keeps the “peanut-crunching crowd’s” attention on Sylvia Plath undiminished over time? Beyond her obvious poetic genius, her raw and unabashed expression, her troubled life and tragic end—what is it?

It seems that even her uncensored Unabridged Journals, published in 2017, failed to shed much new light on who Sylvia truly was, or why she did what she did—only adding to the ever-growing mythology around her life and art.

Often widely misunderstood—personal aesthetic preferences aside—Sylvia was a pioneer in confronting life and death through her art, transcending both. As she wrote in her only novel, The Bell Jar:

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”

In that same novel, her famous fig tree parable perfectly captures her zest for life, and above all, her ambition—which did not wither and rot, but bore fruit posthumously, thus defeating even death itself.

In spite of, not because of, her poor mental and physical health, her life unravelling without the comfort she needed, and the oppressive political climate of her time, the “God’s lioness” teaches us to face death with the stoic smile of a Greek statue in her poem Edge:

“The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.”

Rising above personal adversity is another lesson Sylvia offers us in Fever 103°:

“I think I am going up,
I think I may rise—
The beads of hot metal fly, and I, love, I
Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,
By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean. Not you, nor him.
Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats)—
To Paradise.”

Even one of her most poignant poems, Daddy, though deeply psychological and heavy with themes of abuse, oppression, and identity, ends in a tone of defiant liberation:

“Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.”

Sylvia’s body of work contains countless examples of confronting our shadows and rising above them—not glorifying death or suicide, as is sometimes claimed.

Even the ominous Lady Lazarus, quoted at the start of this piece, ends in triumph:

“Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.”

But perhaps most importantly, one of her strongest messages—about how the mind, or more precisely the state of mind, shapes our reality—can be found in Soliloquy of the Solipsist:

“I,
When in good humour,
Give grass its green,
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any colour and forbid any flower
To be.”

As Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology, once said:

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

In that sense, artists who are often mistaken for being “dark” can in fact be powerful sources of light. In resonating with their work, we might say, “Hey, I felt that too,” and feel less alone.

By weaving their suffering into art, they give it meaning. They calm the turbulent waters of their inner landscapes—and when the water stills, a lotus flower appears. The flower doesn’t scream, but its beauty whispers: this is who I am.

Artists are true healers. They listen to the Universe, receive its secrets, and whisper them back to us.

And you are a healer too—if you rise above your hardships, even for a moment, and let your light shine for others to see. That’s what healers do. And the world needs us now more than ever.

In that spirit—and inspired by artists who dared to explore the eerie, uncharted territory of darkness from their unique perspectives—let us weave together ethereal threads of wisdom. May they serve not only ourselves but future generations, bringing meaning to the eternal flow of Life.