Good Friday For You, Too...

This is Good Friday.

I awoke and remembered I needed to get in touch with a woman whose son died a year ago this past February in a one car accident.  This young man’s death was listed in the paper and my husband and I read about it and decided we needed to go to his funeral. 

We did not know him or his family, but there were things said about him in the article that made us feel this was the passing of a great soul; and so, we did something we have never done before, we went to a funeral uninvited.

The funeral was held outdoors in a park to accommodate the hundreds that showed up.  Prayer flags were waving through the trees and the memorial program was handed to us with a recent photo of him grinning and resting on top of Mt. Maud after a tramp up this mountain.  It was a picture of him in the environment he loved—the great outdoors. 

But, to counter-balance this picture, on the back of the program was a picture of him with his logo for a muffin making business he had developed.  The memorial program had the Muff Man sitting on Mt. Maud, and inside this tribute was printed for him:

There are some men

who should have mountains

to bear their name to time.

 

I had a friend:

he lived and died in mighty silence

and with dignity,

left no book, son, or lover to mourn.

 

Nor is this a mourning song

but only a naming of this mountain

on which I walk,

fragrant, dark and softly white

under the pale of mist.

I name this mountain after him.

Leonard Cohen

My husband and I sat in awe as people came up before the crowd to reveal what this young man had done for their lives.  It was an incredible display of a life lived at a normal pace with hyper-drive results.  This twenty-four year old had affected as many, if not more, than any eighty year-old statesman.  He was already a legend and we never knew him, but had intuited him to be someone of Great Spirit by what was said in his death notice.

Ironically, this young man and I share the same birthday.  And so, my husband called this young man’s mother on our birthdays and put her on the phone with me so that I could tell her this:

For the first six months after Mark’s death, his funeral program sat on top of our refrigerator where he had the pride of position in our kitchen.  (He loved to feed people so much that one day he dug up his parents’ yard to plant vegetables for the neighbours.  And, his muffin making business was born out of his desire to share good food with friends). 

A few months ago I moved his program to my ‘family alter’ next to a picture of me with my father.  There are candles, a bell, a heart painting my daughter made, little sculptures the grandchildren made and three sweet treats lying at the bottom of Mark’s feet for the memory of the three things he shared with me after he died…

Faith, love and hope….the faith that there are mighty souls everywhere in our everyday lives that for the most part go unnoticed; the love of doing simple things that strengthen others for a life time and the hope that comes when you are pulled to a funeral unawares by a powerful spirit that lives forever…

This is what a Good Friday means for me…

Looking at Chaos in the Rear-view Mirror (a tribute to 2012)…

 

Looking back over 2012…there were many shifts, both seismic and metaphysical. Emerging from our traumatized environment after living as if the entire world might fall down around us at any moment day after day, from September 2010 until now, finally, we are beginning to feel like we might live again…

How long we shall live is open to debate and wagered

against and/or for us because of vices and/or virtues

perceived by those of us with little else to do and/or

too little consciousness—and so we criticize and/or

judge.

How often  I am aware of it in myself  is not easily weighed.  I am told that becoming more aware is part of self-realization. One can only hope, until they decide to do something.

Christchurch has no time for worrying about what it cannot reshape. It’s time to throw a new pot and it’s time to shut up and carry on— It doesn’t do any good to yell during the noise of crisis—it’s  best to conserve energy for the trekking, dodging and running because:

Freaky natural events happen all over the place…

it’s only different, unique, unseemly, unfair, horrible and unacceptable when it happens to you. If it’s not happening to you, it really isn’t happening to the degree that reality dictates to a real body, otherwise, it is all pictures in your head, awesome photos, someone else’s stories.

Surely, this experiential necessity to evoke reality is recognized by everyone over whatever historical and/or untimely events necessitates an invisible meridian line from childhood to maturity. The course of this planet navigating the same ship with so much technology advanced beyond a cannon, well, the network for interconnected mayhem and hems mended is palpable.

Elton John can be heard singing ‘Rocket Man’ in some places in the world at no particular time and date, like a twinkling, now you hear it, now you don’t. Magic or mayhem, are two sides of the same coin.

I am, I said, not even the chair heard me anyway, and a diamond can be a girl’s best friend in verse to break the curse of being alone. The earth has settled down now, our imaginations restructured and the ‘real bad guys and gals’ have revealed themselves from our mis-conceptualized guise of believing that because we are paying them to protect us, they will in return protect us. hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

I won’t discuss insurance companies and the bureaucratic nightmare they create to withhold payment to tens of thousands of befuddled Kiwi residents in Canterbury—it is a can of worms for better fishers of ‘bad men and women’ than I can be.  My style is more of going around the objects blocking the road rather than through and/or over them. I have watched wildlife in their natural surroundings curve away from, rather than confront impending disaster.  It feels like an appropriate time to do that.

So in rear-view of that, it is summer in Christchurch and earthquakes are old news and there is a much needed reprieve for the folks of Canterbury…I’m curving away from the cracks in the road…

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Christmas Day 2012

Destiny, Clark and I had a wonderful ‘easy peas-y’ day, filled with Clark’s traditional potato salad with savoury and sweet mixtures of dates, cranberries, olives, capers and of course a few potatoes, yum!  The beetroot mould was made with the beetroot we canned last summer and a blackberry jelly (or jello for my American audience)…The small slice of watermelon suggests how expensive it is here.  There are no large watermelons to be had within New Zealand and a small one can cost up to $25.00.  Herein lies the vegan portion of my story…

The Christmas Day tradition in this portion of the world has become a date with Destiny and the barbeque… the one built by my brother John, and so, he is forever here in spirit.  Destiny is one of those patient, unpretentious, meticulous cooks where everything is gently brought to perfection!  The kebabs were unbelievable to look at and consume with many thanks cast about to one another and the produce available…we had a splendid meal together as Destiny’s picture of Clark and I captured what she said, ‘Ah, you look happy for a change’…

And then, the music came on and we were all whisked away by the sounds of George Harrison to begin with, Helmut Zacharias playing the violin, and then Destiny picked Joe Cocker because he looked like a ‘freaky dude’ and she fell in love and proclaimed that Clark’s and my generation’s music was so much better than her own.  And yet, one of Destiny’s friends, Sam, got caught on Youtube singing a pretty mean Halleluiah http://youtu.be/0lwfeKZueHk

I think in view of how well these young New Zealanders do this song…we have a lot more Merry Christmases to come…With this we send our love and good wishes for a fabulous New Year.

 

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My Politically Incorrect Christmas

This is Christmas Eve in Christchurch, New Zealand, my adopted home for the past ten years.  Originally, I am from Oklahoma, ‘the place of the Red Man,’ and that is what we all are when we open ourselves up from the inside.  This is what writing is for me, an opening up of my conscious self for my family and friends.  And sitting before me as I write this are the symbolic representations of my past, present and future ghosts of Christmas…

This is the whole table, nothing is hidden or tidied, it is what it is…a red hand-painted tin can my grandmother was famous for recycling into usable objects.  This one I now use as a brush holder fifty years on.  Inside this tin can are a small collection of my grandmother’s, my father’s, my mother’s and my own brushes…a legacy of artistic tradition passed down through the generations….particularly at Christmas, when hand-made or hand-painted gifts use to be abundant, I reflect on the many objects embellished with these brushes over time, before my attention is attracted to the next object on the table…

                    

Here sits a plant renamed ‘Cylindrica’ by the person who lured my husband to purchase this for me.  It turns out that it is an appropriate symbolic representation of much of what he hears me talk about these days—the interweaving of our lives, separate, but connected—sporadic intermittent patterns sometimes dutifully controlled and cared for and sometimes touching and then darting off into seemingly chaotic directions…like the patterns I found myself drawing while reflecting on ‘cylindrica’…

I was thinking about how we communicate and create patterns that form our lives. Patterns that come in the form of creative actions and interactions sometimes by accident, sometimes by intention, often leaving us feeling the synchronistic or chaotic expressions that amplify these patterns.   We begin to see patterns if we live long enough, or consciously enough to see what our actions and reactions create into our experiences.  Caught in ‘cylindrica’ is where I long to remain, but alas, this is a utopian model to merely try to replicate.  These days, there are those trying to dissolve some replications that I inherited from my family that also sits on this table, like the enjoyment of a good cup of coffee and a cigarette…

 

…with my paints not far from reach.  I am not here to paint and promote my ‘vices’—but, to state that coffee and cigarettes are still a part of my daily rituals wherein I contemplate deeply whilst not drinking alcohol or making or supporting wars anywhere.   I have noticed that outlawing, ridiculing and banning is not actually the best choice we can make.  I often feel like a criminal in my own world…whilst watching others perform acceptable activities I abhor, there is no ‘cylindrica’ to that, but something more like the patterns I drew on my page…making me dislike connecting with those who shake their finger at me and comment each time ‘so, you are still smoking’ and I have yet to reply, ‘so, you still support war?’  LOL…you have to laugh, otherwise…

There is a bowl of chalk on my table I leave readily available for the grandkids, as well as my own consciousness.  Chalk is easy to wipe away and needs no hard rules from any audience.  My grandchildren are very young and need to write and experiment on different surfaces without intervention—I tend to think chalk is a more appropriate tool to create with in this rapidly changing universe we all have to share with our various vices that no one is exempt from.  Mine are just more obvious and better accounted for by the mediation that surrounds us, thereby alleviating some from having to think about their own.

So, what does any of this have to do with Christmas?  Well, it precedes my Christmas wish for all my family and friends at such a great distance…please write my faults with chalk and I shall do the same for you…and, leave the painting for our legacies of love…I love a good cup of coffee and a cigarette, but…I love you more and that will just have to be good enough for now as I am still learning how to draw…

 

 

 

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Kali

This week started off in one hell of a hurry. No holds barred, we were off!

Defying every type of government and Santa Claus, this week lasted a millennium in some ways—in others just a second.

Duality personified in seven deadly days, this week is almost over if you count the working week, and just beginning if you count ‘time off’ for good behavior.

That’s what my young ones are looking for, ‘time off for good behavior’—but, it ain’t over yet. Karma is time in the wind vacating the shelter belt.

Step into the winds of change—this goddess was raised from keeping watch too long…

to creating exactly what is needed…

… and those who do not desire to participate can just get out of the way…Om, ma!

We don’t aim to harm you, just burn you up with the desire to be creative without limits…chum, chum.

See her streaming toward you, shreeming at the top of her voice? Of course not, sum… sum kleem to the surfaces of an onion and shri…….eek! Ma namaha.

Feels Like Home

Source: paintingsalley.com via Andrea on Pinterest

This painting reminds me of my life growing up. We were (and still are) a family of bird lovers, fascinated by patterns and at home under trees. My grandmother was a very good decorative painter, my mother still is and I was handed the tradition by them both at a time when they worried for my sanity. That time still exists, but I always get to paint my way through my less than stable moments thanks to their influence. My father was an artist and one of the first artists to throw his brushes down and take up painting with light on the computer. I have yet to master that aspect, but it 'ain't over' and I've learned to try to remember to not say 'never,' though I doubt my love for painting in light could ever match my enjoyment of getting paint everywhere and all over me simultaneously. I have a wardrobe that proves it, I am no stranger to 'getting wet' and letting it dry right where it landed. All my children inherited a strong dispostition to express themselves, too. However, one exchanged a brush for boxing gloves, another for the art of healing, another with a gift for words that makes me warn her to keep the rocks out of her pockets, and another sings like a bird. Yes, we are all artists here, and this bird thinks everyone is an artist in one way or another.

Post Apocalypse

I want to thank all my family and friends that allowed me to talk ‘earthquakes’ for over the past two years. It is only in the past few months that I could think, feel or experience life again without EARTHQUAKES being my median line. Phew! Glad that is over!!! And, maybe it’s not, but I do believe that even if the rocking and rolling starts again, my new median is simply LOVE and the motivation to seek and extend COMFORT.

It is hard to think in terms of another apocalypse, when you have been living one day in and day out for so long now, the flip side is…this girl has come out of her own hell, Facebook be damned and loved, because it takes away the social interaction I once was use to and puts me into a new one that needs to be mined for the COMFORT it alone can bring.

I can peek in on all of you no matter what time of day it is and no matter how far away you are. The nearly two months I went off FB left me feeling personally empowered, but wondering, what the heck are they all up to? And, coming back is easy now because I learned how to turn the damned thing off and THAT ALONE brought me the relief I was seeking. Yep, I can do it or not, and for now…I’m doing it instead of it doing me…lol. So, Facebook is better than earthquakes and that is a good enough comparison (or opening) for now.