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It seems to me there's some confusion here between brain and mind. The brain is physiological, it dies with the body. What Dickenson is talking about is Mind, big mind. It transcends our relative experience, it has no beginning or end, it has no attributes that one can ascribe to it per se. It is the pure sky against which relative reality, our lives and thoughts and passions, etc, is viewed. It isn't tainted by the relative experiences, nor is it subtracted from or added to by any experience. It is referred to as God or Buddha, etc., and cannot be understood directly by the rational mind. We participate in it and manage to create an ego around a small part of it and call it our self. If you look at the poem from this point of view it may make more sense to you.