Via Corey Kohn, my favorite photographer (and human being) like, ever. Subscribe to her weekly photo blog! The below post references American Buddhist Denise Thornton, who died of cancer recently and wrote about the experience of cancer for elephant.

After three years of illness, Denise died and was cremated in a fierce fire under a blue sky, ghee poured over her body and consumed by the bright orange flames. Seeing her body disappear like that, it seems strange that it is often so easy to forget impermance, as if we did not all have that fundimental reality in common: we all die. Denise encountering her own death with such thorough clear-sightedness, graceful diligence and humorful fearlessness was a generous and rich example of how to fully engage with that truth of impermance.

She said: ” If I would recommend anything, it would be, ‘Take death to heart’… Let it pierce you. If you can open and surrender to your own mortality and vulnerability, you will discover a fundamental, unconditional source of strength and confidence.”

[for more from Denise, please go to http://www.elephantjournal.com/2008/09/denise-thornton-the-dharma-of-cancer/]

>also, see more photos from Denise Thornton’s cremation on the blog [http://pix.blogtog.com/]; and website [http://www.coreykohn.com/]