The Recycling of Consciousness

Everything in our physical universe is being recycled from the leaves on trees to grass within the fields.  Recycling is one of the primary laws of the cosmos and of physics. This seemingly inevitable cycle of birth, maturation and death appears to endlessly go on. This inevitable law of the cosmos flows throughout the entire universe, affecting everything from the amoeba to the insects, from the trees to the weather, from the stars to the galaxies, and finally us Humans.  We don't escape this law or do we?  The physical body does decay over time and its energy does go back to the earth (universe), but as we know energy does not die it just changes forms.  What is consciousness?  What happens to the consciousness within the human body after death?  Does consciousness function like energy?  When we die does our consciousness die or does it just change forms (recyle)?…