Seems Emily Dickinson experienced some kind of enlightenment at a young age, and then lived for another thirty-five years, speaking of herself as being already finished, dead. This week I read about Irish-American Christian Buddhist monk Maura O'Halloran, who wrote:

"I'm twenty-six and I feel as if I've lived my life. Strange sensation, almost as if I'm close to death. Any desires, ambitions, hopes I may have had either been fulfilled or spontaneously dissipated. I'm totally content...So in a sense I feel I've died...At twenty-six, a living corpse and such a life!"

O'Halloran died the next year, traveling home to Ireland from Japan.

Something about this "living dead" to think about at this time, the Feast of All Saints. Not a common experience, but not so uncommon as one might think. I don't there's anything wrong or unusual about thinking about death, a lot, even if one is not living dead. It brings more attention to each moment of life.

Between seasons right now. So that when I walk to the Music Building from the car, I could mistake it for early spring. The air, feel, touch, taste, shares characteristics with its opposite season. I like this, not knowing when I am.