Is not all the world beyond these four little walls pitiless enough, but that thou must need enter here-thou, O Death?
—W.EB. Du Bois—
The concept of a refuge strengthens us. For some of us, it’s a dark basement and headphones, or a workbench; for others, a garden or a bedroom. Some of us take refuge outside ourselves, in our spiritual faith. There we find a death-de-fying certainty and a reminder that our being is a gift. Some of us find this refuge in service to others; we feel the benign power of creation stream through us, and we’re strengthened. Death is part of life, and it belongs on the same plane as life’s other events: birth, nurturing, and sickness. But spiritual refuge lifts us to another plane, where the powers of life and death join to form the whole of existence. This higher truth, like all real refuge, lies within us. We can summon it as the need arises. The more I turn outward to others, the stronger I become within.