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It came, like a thief in the night, it was death, visiting upon our door step. The hen was gone, there it lay and will lay no more. It had been ill, been coughing, ginger had been administered and part recovery observed. Did we not persevere, did we fail, was it inevitable that the man with the scythe cut her down? We shall never know, remaining calm in the knowledge that we tried, lived and learned to death did us part. She is gone. And buried.
“…Af jord er du kommet, til jord skal du blive..”, they say in Danish, for the passage in Genesis 3:19, ashes to ashes, which Bowie rendered funk to funky:
"...Ashes to ashes, funk to funky We know Major Tom's a junkie Strung out in heaven's high Hitting an all-time low..."
"...By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are and to dust you will return....”
"...Nu må du leve af, hvad du kan dyrke på marken, hvor der også vil vokse tjørn og tidsler. Du kommer til at arbejde hårdt for føden, indtil du dør og bliver lagt i jorden, hvoraf du er formet. For af jord er du kommet, og til jord skal du blive..."
A ritual burial was performed. Our first on this land, with many more to come. Offerings to the earth and meditation on the cycles of life and death carried out with the hedengangne hen. As for the rest, words carry little meaning, it is a matter and manner of customs and habits. we saw it out, the kids understood hands on that the thief comes in the night, we embraced death as a concept and rejected it for now: we still have tasks, hopes, dreams and responsibilities, it is not our turn yet. Incense was burned. Dried tobacco leaves drizzled. A simple pagan cross made from dead branches fallen near by.
It was early in the morning and the light in the hen house was not optimal for the phone camera. It felt inappropriate to Gimp up photos of death, so there you are, the naked truth, untouched.
We have now – on a plane – moved past Ground Zero and into the real world, to matters of life and death. “..Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth, I want to be ready…”, Mojo Risin’ said, and we are. Now.