Greetings from the Xyphokonic Order and Ordinance. Today, we usher in the start of the new Xyphojinamic Xyphokonic Calendar and the first of Lord Vuetenexzyei’s Periods of Watching, Juliar. For this Period, the topic will revolve around some more emotional and spiritual angles regarding the topic of Death from the mortal perspective. So far, when speaking on this most delicate of topics, the Commentary has revolved around the philosophical, cosmological, or liturgical aspects regarding Death. However, the time always comes to talk about Death not just from a faith-based lens but through the view of the Heart and Psyche. Therefore, the Commentary direction this Period will be heavily focused on heavier topics regarding how we, as humans, view Death and how we deal with Death; these Commentary will naturally be informed by the Philosophy and teachings of the Hayles.

For today’s topic, as the title preludes, we will be taking a closer look at Fear and Death, and how we can use the Xyphoist perspective and the teachings of Hayle Kizu to better understand Death from a mortal perspective. The Ordinance has spent several essays over the previous year expanding on the human condition in regards to Death—including Commentaries on the Innate Personality Flaw and how we may feel inadequate and fearful of our own inevitable ends. We also covered how theigrited philosophies desperately fear Death and seek out eternal life or immortality through Deceptuary’s manipulation; that was also traced back to Deceptuary’s fear of irrelevance and his own lack of peace with the idea of his own spiritual end at the hands of his own mortal vessels.

As we can recall from “Xykozheiz,” Deceptuary’s scheme of escaping Gheisialez involved using forbidden spellcast to break apart his own spiritual wills and transplant them into artifacts and mortal beings in Xyphojinami using cracks in the Gate of Zeiga. In doing so, Deceptuary made part of his own being mortal and vulnerable to Death via the Sacred Spirituality of the Sacred Children. Upon realizing the error of his plan, Deceptuary created yet another vessel from his most desperate of wills, Zrabrevogue, and instructed his first living vessel to manipulate human circumstances in order to hasten Deceptuary’s transfer into the mortal world—all done out of fear that his mortal vessels could now die.

We witness this depraved and pitiful display from a being classified as a deity; through his own fear, Deceptuary relies to the lowest of tactics in order to desperately cling to life. From that example alone, we see the hideous blight of fear as it consumes even a being as powerful as a god. In that respect, the fear of such a pitiful state may itself outweigh the fear of Death for some.

However, if one isn’t familiar with such circumstances, the fear of Death is a very real circumstance for many people. For this, the Philosophy offers us the Sacred Lesson given to Xyzukizusia, Child of Death. We can revisit the proper analysis of that lesson in this Commentary written last year. To paraphrase, Death for mortals comes in the form best fitting for how one views Death during life, and even the most horrifying of fatal ends can be reasoned from a human perspective through this lesson. Death is the end of the vessel’s ability to hold onto the soul, but Death does not erase the presence that life once had. Remembrances are held and cherished to celebrate Life and to give value to Life from the futility of Death. And so, while the circumstance of Death itself may be tragic and difficult to accept, the value of the Life lost will always reframe that Death not as a fearful and unfathomable circumstance, but as a memorial to the power of Life and the gift that it is.

Death will come at the time that it does, whether it is temporarily avoided through various means, the Eternal Reality of Death remains constant. This does not mean that one must live life always looking around the corner or over their shoulder expecting to see an Angel of Death waiting to reap them from this world. In fact, processing Death is much more a subconscious or passive action than an active one. The Xyphoist Philosophy teaches that Death is Eternal and necessary for the flow of spirituality, and that even with the most gruesome of Deaths, the souls of good tenure shall always receive a cosmic peace through Heaven or other Pathans. Finally, those of us who remain here alive must seek our own peace and allow ourselves to grief and feel the fullest extent of these powerful emotions that come with the Gift of Life. Through the power of Remembrances, we channel the memory of a Life passed and add that value to our own lives knowing that we will one day also die and give our Remembrance to enrich those that we love who are still alive.

It’s through that compounding enrichment of Love and Life through Death that we find the courage to accept Death as an Eternal Reality. We can look through our various ancestries, read the names or even see the pictures of people we’ve never met but know are deceased and understand that through their past lives we now live upon. From the Xyphoist perspective, we recognize Death as Lord Vuetenexzyei, one of the Nine Lords that seek the Greater Will of existence as a whole through Love. Death is not a demonic force; it is not an evil or dastardly miasma seeking our suffering. Death is the Creator of Ends coming to greet us before sending us to our next paths in existence.

And while, through the words of Hayle Kizu, the Lord of Death is solemn and absolute, He is not malevolent or crude. He is not fickle or ripe with malice. The Lord is reserved, absolute, and expected. Through this image of Death, we can find comfort in knowing that, out of all the uncertainties of this Free life, that we shall always find a reliable and constant reality in Death. We may not know when Death shall greet us, but we know that it shall, and there will be no uncertainty when it does. To give away the fear of Death is to accept that our Lives are worthy of a finale, that our value as mortals is build by the past lives of others, and that Death will always be a firm certainty in a world of endless possibilities.

—crX