My Canadian colleague at GCC used to say this while we were waiting for something to happen. It was synonymous with "My life is disappearing" or "I am growing old while this is happening." A workstation was booting up slowly or someone was taking a bit too long to work something out. I think about being in a situation where things move so slowly that cobwebs have time to form because of your lack of mobility. Runinng through molasses. Swimming butterfly through treacle. Two and half months ago seems closer to the Mesolithic period than the present day. It is seems like a long time. Both my son and I agree on this.
I was listening to the radio all afternoon yesterday while I was furiously making pies and spanakopitas and someone was saying that these days we don't have time to be bored and we should make time to be like that. We always have some form of electronica to keep us from it. But boredom is apparently a way that we can put things aside, relax and calm. I think it would be nice to be bored for a while. A PHD in boredom might be on the agenda at your local Uni. Doctor of Boredom!
Aside from this my aunt has finally decided to call it quits with her battle against cancer that she has been keeping ahead of for the past five years or more. This takes more courage than any reward for bravery pinned on any tunic.
I got another call today from someone who was not present to my partners passing. I'm so sorry about missing them out. Its seems like such a hole in the net I thought I made for this.
Time passes, time passes.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Ashes Ceremony Speech
Before the last syllable of recorded time comes around again dear partner, here is yet another tale, to quote the bard, told by your loving idiot, full of sound and fury and as always signifying nothing. The tale begins with an intent and purpose that you were never were clear with me where you never thoughts lay in relation to belief. That lack of clarity could be defined as a mist and it is a mist which binds that menagerie together. You will always be a lady of the mist with regard to this. From mist your eyes get misty and mistier until you get mystic. Then you have a mystic mist made of auras, essences, zephyrs and spirit winds of what you believed. This is a mist which binds them all together. So in this fog bear with me while I stumble about for a little while with my respectful foghorn to say asta la vista at this time, on this day and clarify with a list, recipe and subsections of mystic essences make up your mystic things.
Mystic essence No 1 an essence bearing great tradition and long standing culture. It is the Hindi, Buddhist, Satyananda essence that you have carried for many years. It is a strong sweet essence much like Vanilla...and...not Almond. We have acknowledged this essence through yesterdays Havan and down at Roaring Beach, the Puja table and through the chanting at the celebration of your life way back on the 20th of March.
Mystic essence No 2 is another essence of great tradition, The Quaker meeting and meditation essence that we honored again at the celebration of your life through the silence and conversations that 200 of us shared together.
The following mystic essences involve the things that we shared together and intertwine, grow out or are seperate from the more traditional ones that we have celebrated with you but are equal in their import & which must be expressed and made measure of here today.
Mystic essence No 3 is the essence of your being. Your being here, now and then. The being of presence. Your being is a perfume that all who have known you will carry with them for the rest of their days. It is the way that you have been with them. The way you have shared and the way you are with them. They in turn will share your and their being together with others. This essence will always be with them. Mystic essence number 3 is an essence of being with each other.
The following subsection of mystic essences can best be described by us mist theologists as quasi-shinto-atheisitc.
Mystic essence No 4 is that there is the spirit of our surroundings which is in us all. The essence of physicality that you believed with me, that we become from particles that have made up many things. The ability for the universe to be recognised through your eyes has been completed and now you are once again giving your particles back to the universe. You soon may be part of this tree, this ridge, the birds and sea. For me this is akin to shinto. It was akin to the reason for buying this land. It is that it is and nothing less or more. It is an essence of the mist, a spirit wind on which to fly. Inevitably we are all at one with the universe and that is all and can ever be and ever is yeh baby.
Mystic essence No 5 is an essence that becomes real on a daily basis. That is the essence passed on to us through geneology. Your smile and laugh was most definitely a large part of this essence. You can see it passed on in Kelsey and your sister Jenny.
Essence number six is the last essence I have to share . It is the rememberence stone. Dragged up here by many dwarves. Great effort and thanks to all of you! It is a shrine to you and what you loved and where the last of you wanted to be. Something tangible that we know is here, where your wishes were, to celebrate that we have fulfilled them as you wanted. Something that will bring those essences of yours out of the myst for while or maybe two, maybe three, four, five or six more times.
Mystic essence No 1 an essence bearing great tradition and long standing culture. It is the Hindi, Buddhist, Satyananda essence that you have carried for many years. It is a strong sweet essence much like Vanilla...and...not Almond. We have acknowledged this essence through yesterdays Havan and down at Roaring Beach, the Puja table and through the chanting at the celebration of your life way back on the 20th of March.
Mystic essence No 2 is another essence of great tradition, The Quaker meeting and meditation essence that we honored again at the celebration of your life through the silence and conversations that 200 of us shared together.
The following mystic essences involve the things that we shared together and intertwine, grow out or are seperate from the more traditional ones that we have celebrated with you but are equal in their import & which must be expressed and made measure of here today.
Mystic essence No 3 is the essence of your being. Your being here, now and then. The being of presence. Your being is a perfume that all who have known you will carry with them for the rest of their days. It is the way that you have been with them. The way you have shared and the way you are with them. They in turn will share your and their being together with others. This essence will always be with them. Mystic essence number 3 is an essence of being with each other.
The following subsection of mystic essences can best be described by us mist theologists as quasi-shinto-atheisitc.
Mystic essence No 4 is that there is the spirit of our surroundings which is in us all. The essence of physicality that you believed with me, that we become from particles that have made up many things. The ability for the universe to be recognised through your eyes has been completed and now you are once again giving your particles back to the universe. You soon may be part of this tree, this ridge, the birds and sea. For me this is akin to shinto. It was akin to the reason for buying this land. It is that it is and nothing less or more. It is an essence of the mist, a spirit wind on which to fly. Inevitably we are all at one with the universe and that is all and can ever be and ever is yeh baby.
Mystic essence No 5 is an essence that becomes real on a daily basis. That is the essence passed on to us through geneology. Your smile and laugh was most definitely a large part of this essence. You can see it passed on in Kelsey and your sister Jenny.
Essence number six is the last essence I have to share . It is the rememberence stone. Dragged up here by many dwarves. Great effort and thanks to all of you! It is a shrine to you and what you loved and where the last of you wanted to be. Something tangible that we know is here, where your wishes were, to celebrate that we have fulfilled them as you wanted. Something that will bring those essences of yours out of the myst for while or maybe two, maybe three, four, five or six more times.
Ashes Ceremony
The Ashes ceremony went very well and many have said that it was an invaluable experience. Thanks for that. The ashes are probably sitting up on the ridge now as it is unlikely that there has been sufficient wind to blow them off the Dias that we made for them.
Thanks once again to all who could make it and we were really blessed by the weather.
Thanks once again to all who could make it and we were really blessed by the weather.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Rider Wait Allegory
A few people wanted access to the speech that I did at the celebration for my partners life. So here you go...
Just to introduce, clarify or confuse my bit you may be wondering why, on the Program for Celebration it says Rider Wait Allegory. To explain this, my partner and I threw a few great dinner parties over our many years together. On that very rare occasion, after a wee too many Cardonays, a poor unsuspecting guest might be very lucky to get one of my terrible tarot card readings. A friend, who is here today has been one of those poor, poor guests and will bemoaningly testify to this.
I have a Rider Waite Tarot Card pack. One of the cards in the pack is The Fool. It can symbolise lifes journey and that you never really know what is around the next corner but you march merrily on through it.
I first met my partner on a bicycle ride that another friend of mine who is here today, took me on back in 1985. Thanks fellow rider Soddy. Good things come to riders that wait. So now that's as clear as mud to you.......
Another Rider. Waite. Tarot card. Fools story. Starts. NOW! One of those huge, tassie, blue-day mornings, way back when, maybe 2nd or 3rd time you've done this. It was a nice cycle before. Would be nice to do it again! You charge the water bottle, make sure the tyres are hard, don the helmet, sunnies & lookin' pretty flash in those skin tight lycra shorts, knobbly knees blowin in the breeze, you take off down the streets. Air rushes past. Through the city, domain, govie house to the left and up to the bridge...
The future segue is Melbourne. You. The Rider. Waite. You share a house. You becomes we. We lives together in St Kildas. After a few years she becomes a well known potter. Going crazy with clay, she helps set up South Melbourne Gasworks Arts Centre. Always busy. The first few years of 26 good ones pass...
Back on that bridge, traffic whining, sun heats up the blacktop, you start peddling hard through those eastern sore suburbs...
We marry in Melbourne. Friends and family meet. The Mazda Capella blows its head gasket on the Geelong Freeway again! How the hell are we going to get to that lavish Queenscliffe honeymoon we spent our entire life savings on! The sky is falling!
A few minutes later, by some kind of divine intervention, our wedding photographer resident angel drives past and spies us on the verge. Shoulda put a few big ones on the ggs that day!..
Traffic dies, road winds up Grass Tree hill, down into low gear now, slowly climbing. Breath of Eucalypts. Stillness is broken by heartbeats thumping, drips of sweat. Black cockatoos cry and crows caw...
Another analogy. Another hill. Melbourne gets harder. She gets pregnant. A big mountain. Hobart looks like the summit. The rubber band snaps us back to Tassie and we move and buy 41 Louden St. Cheapest house in Hobart that year! Yeh and up near the tip!
Big & bigger from the beginning he is born and we. Become three...
Back on the hill, you've reached the summit. Gravity sucks. The wheels get the idea. Down, down, down towards Richmond you burn...
...She changes direction and does the day job. Supermum! You care for the lad, garden, make art and extend the house. Superdad. He starts school. Superboy. She stops the power towers in South Hobart and gets a masters degree to boot. We grow into our forties and share good times. I retrain and become a geek. We move to Arthur Street. Back in Sydney, her folks pass away. We buy a private forest reserve at Roaring Beach and start to make plans to be there until we are racing each other on our Zimmer frames. We move to the quiet of Roope street Newtown and spend nights listening to the dulcit tones of bogans burning up the Brooker.
The down hill run slows as you reach Malcolms Hut Road. Your in the flat of the Coal River Valley. You veer right and coast easily. Its an hour and half since you started.
It is the peek of day with the heat shimmering. The grass and sea breeze whisper their secrets, the journey cools...
She buys caravans and we spend a few years sharing weekends of paradise at Roaring beach.
We make more friends. She works for DPAC and we slowly design a house to build there. He grows taller than her - and then me. Rats! She turns fifty and we celebrate with many friends at a long table last supper down on the block...
You have now reached what is known as the Dulcot intersection. Your cup is half empty and the last hill is always the worst. You select the lowest gear and climb up and up steeply. It's a hard hill but you've shared such good times together. You are thinking about more you could share.
You see each other. See the smile and she gives you that look. That look! That look! Wah!
She waves as you pull off the road to the studio. The ride is over but the future and past come into being again.
Just to introduce, clarify or confuse my bit you may be wondering why, on the Program for Celebration it says Rider Wait Allegory. To explain this, my partner and I threw a few great dinner parties over our many years together. On that very rare occasion, after a wee too many Cardonays, a poor unsuspecting guest might be very lucky to get one of my terrible tarot card readings. A friend, who is here today has been one of those poor, poor guests and will bemoaningly testify to this.
I have a Rider Waite Tarot Card pack. One of the cards in the pack is The Fool. It can symbolise lifes journey and that you never really know what is around the next corner but you march merrily on through it.
I first met my partner on a bicycle ride that another friend of mine who is here today, took me on back in 1985. Thanks fellow rider Soddy. Good things come to riders that wait. So now that's as clear as mud to you.......
Another Rider. Waite. Tarot card. Fools story. Starts. NOW! One of those huge, tassie, blue-day mornings, way back when, maybe 2nd or 3rd time you've done this. It was a nice cycle before. Would be nice to do it again! You charge the water bottle, make sure the tyres are hard, don the helmet, sunnies & lookin' pretty flash in those skin tight lycra shorts, knobbly knees blowin in the breeze, you take off down the streets. Air rushes past. Through the city, domain, govie house to the left and up to the bridge...
The future segue is Melbourne. You. The Rider. Waite. You share a house. You becomes we. We lives together in St Kildas. After a few years she becomes a well known potter. Going crazy with clay, she helps set up South Melbourne Gasworks Arts Centre. Always busy. The first few years of 26 good ones pass...
Back on that bridge, traffic whining, sun heats up the blacktop, you start peddling hard through those eastern sore suburbs...
We marry in Melbourne. Friends and family meet. The Mazda Capella blows its head gasket on the Geelong Freeway again! How the hell are we going to get to that lavish Queenscliffe honeymoon we spent our entire life savings on! The sky is falling!
A few minutes later, by some kind of divine intervention, our wedding photographer resident angel drives past and spies us on the verge. Shoulda put a few big ones on the ggs that day!..
Traffic dies, road winds up Grass Tree hill, down into low gear now, slowly climbing. Breath of Eucalypts. Stillness is broken by heartbeats thumping, drips of sweat. Black cockatoos cry and crows caw...
Another analogy. Another hill. Melbourne gets harder. She gets pregnant. A big mountain. Hobart looks like the summit. The rubber band snaps us back to Tassie and we move and buy 41 Louden St. Cheapest house in Hobart that year! Yeh and up near the tip!
Big & bigger from the beginning he is born and we. Become three...
Back on the hill, you've reached the summit. Gravity sucks. The wheels get the idea. Down, down, down towards Richmond you burn...
...She changes direction and does the day job. Supermum! You care for the lad, garden, make art and extend the house. Superdad. He starts school. Superboy. She stops the power towers in South Hobart and gets a masters degree to boot. We grow into our forties and share good times. I retrain and become a geek. We move to Arthur Street. Back in Sydney, her folks pass away. We buy a private forest reserve at Roaring Beach and start to make plans to be there until we are racing each other on our Zimmer frames. We move to the quiet of Roope street Newtown and spend nights listening to the dulcit tones of bogans burning up the Brooker.
The down hill run slows as you reach Malcolms Hut Road. Your in the flat of the Coal River Valley. You veer right and coast easily. Its an hour and half since you started.
It is the peek of day with the heat shimmering. The grass and sea breeze whisper their secrets, the journey cools...
She buys caravans and we spend a few years sharing weekends of paradise at Roaring beach.
We make more friends. She works for DPAC and we slowly design a house to build there. He grows taller than her - and then me. Rats! She turns fifty and we celebrate with many friends at a long table last supper down on the block...
You have now reached what is known as the Dulcot intersection. Your cup is half empty and the last hill is always the worst. You select the lowest gear and climb up and up steeply. It's a hard hill but you've shared such good times together. You are thinking about more you could share.
You see each other. See the smile and she gives you that look. That look! That look! Wah!
She waves as you pull off the road to the studio. The ride is over but the future and past come into being again.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Whooshing past
Last night a friend of ours said she felt my partner wooshing past her as she left us. Whoosh!
She had been waiting at the departure gate for way too long and had listened to way too much lounge music - stuck record on Cafe del Mar Siez or Diez. Then her flight was called...It wouldn't have been a cheap airline...
...It would have been Guru...da!
She had been waiting at the departure gate for way too long and had listened to way too much lounge music - stuck record on Cafe del Mar Siez or Diez. Then her flight was called...It wouldn't have been a cheap airline...
...It would have been Guru...da!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Goodbye my lovely woman
My partner passed away at 2:35 am this morning. She is at peace now. Like times before she did not give up until she left us. Until there was nothing more to give or get. Her heart was young and strong. Her breath held her. At the palliative care facility I had slept next to her knowing that this was the last night. Hearing her consistent breaths when I rose to the surface of my slumber now and then. Through all of her life she was consistent and strong. An equilibrium had been reached between her breath and her heart. By the position she had been laid in. Reached by a marked change in her breath on Saturday that seemed a lifetime away. Then around 2:00 pm they came to move her. The pattern was broken. The equilibrium was disturbed and she finally let go. Two weeks since she made her decision not to go on. Many days since she stopped raising an eyebrow or making a smile or frowning when in pain.
My son and I packed our things. I put a picture of her swami in her hand. We said our last goodbyes. Our last kisses to her forehead She was smiling in peace as I took my last glimpse of her from the door of her room. We left her with her many vases of flowers at the foot of her bed.
Goodbye sweetheart.
My son and I packed our things. I put a picture of her swami in her hand. We said our last goodbyes. Our last kisses to her forehead She was smiling in peace as I took my last glimpse of her from the door of her room. We left her with her many vases of flowers at the foot of her bed.
Goodbye sweetheart.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Serenity
Last night she opened her eyes around five and her breathing seemed to be very faint. I thought she was leaving us. Then she came back. I stepped out for a while three friends gave my partner a massage all together as the same time. I came back and there she was responded with smiles and what seemed great satisfaction - moving her body more than she had done for days over which time she has looked so serene. We move into today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)