The Ides of August or the Winter of my Discontent or just a time of Grief!

There are times when the challenges rise up around us and when so many things are happening at the same time we begin to wonder if we have offended the Gods. 

I am more likely to put it down to astrological influences and the Soul demanding that inner work be done now. I do believe that what appears in our outer world reflects what is going on in our inner world. But that does not necessarily make the process of pain any easier. 

The first week of August, barely a month before I was born, and I remind myself I was three weeks late, does seem to be a 'time of challenge' for me. August 3 marked the 31st anniversary of my father's death; August 5 marked the ninth anniversary of my father-in-law's death and on August 8, a friend, mother figure and mentor of some 45 years died.

 My father-in-law, Roy, whom I adored and who was mother and father to me and even more special on that count because of the difficult and complex relationships I had with my own wounded parents, died on a Monday and was buried on the Friday. Sadly we were flying back from Africa on the day he died and our children were not able to attend the funeral so it was an even more demanding day for Greg and I. Maxine, who was the mother of one of my oldest and dearest friends and who yet, while often mothering me became one of my best friends and one to whom I could at times offer mothering, died on a Monday and was buried on the Friday.

And all of this happened at a time when Greg and I were separated because he was caught up with work in Africa and I was here caught up with work sorting family and watching their struggles and pain and feeling helpless, powerless and confused in the face of it. A bit like our response to death I guess but then any change is also a 'death' and involves grieving. So perhaps it was not so much a winter of discontent as one of grieving; or perhaps it was and is both.

There is one sure thing in life and that is Spring will always follow Winter; beyond the darkness, ice and death there is new life and fresh becoming. Hecate is the Goddess who tends to us at such times and she is a mighty force who protects but does not hide; who supports but does not carry and who tends but does not enable. 

I think and feel that death is confusing because we don't want to believe in it. Things do end and things are destroyed but in truth, there can only be new beginnings if this happens. But sometimes things end irrevocably, as they have with the death of Maxine because with her passing also comes the end of an era. Her home, which she shared with her husband Bill until his death two years ago was an extra 'family' home for Greg and I for 45 years. With both of them gone it will be sold and there will be no more 'dropping in' for a chat, a drink, a comfort at Pine Avenue.

Such finality is even more absolute than the finality of death. All gone, in what seems an instant. Death is so final but when something material like a home goes at the same time, it is an even greater shock. Of course there were slow signs that this way of life was ending, would end, but there is nothing like reality to provide the greater shock. At the wake I stood and looked at the slightly dishevelled garden and it was a sign that things were being allowed to pass; a letting go.

I watched Maxine's coffin lowered into the earth, as I had watched my mother's.... I was not there for my father's funeral and Roy was cremated so a small curtain closed at the end of his ceremony. We did however scatter his ashes a year later, in Spencer's Gulf, as he had requested. And in that lowering, that passing of timber and flowers into cold, wet, tumbled earth there was and is the sense of emptiness, of pointlessness, of how, so suddenly, it all comes to nothing. It is then that we so dearly want and need to believe there is something beyond this world, there is a point to this world and it is then so very, very hard to hold to that belief.

The birds were riotous in that moment; lorikeets, galahs and parakeets jostling in the nearby eucalypts. It wasn't a bad day for a funeral given that it is winter. The sun shone a little, the clouds edged aside to reveal a glorious blue and the winds were stilled. It could have been even more bleak; grey, wet, windy and freezing. But it wasn't.

It was the music which made us all cry, even sob.  It is always the music which touches our very heart and soul. It is said that the universe is made of music, of sound, of holy notes and I can believe that. Music touches us like no other. Many cried during the service and most cried as we stood on the artificial grass at the graveside. It is strange that grass, so green, so plastic, so unreal as if to pretend this is a pretty, easy thing. The flowers, the music, the false grass, the soft words are all there to help us pretend it isn't real..... her body is not in that coffin being lowered into the cold ground; dressed in her best as the physical decay begins to seep and stain .... that she is not dead.

I can tell myself that it is only the body, that the real Spirit, Soul, Self of Maxine is not in there and I can believe it but the truth is that it was her body which warmed and hugged and held and laughed and cried and talked and was and that is absolutely gone. At least for me and those who loved her in this world.

I remember when my father-in-law died, for I loved him dearly and missed him the most, thinking that I just wanted one more hug - a hug from someone with skin on! Any dream appearance or apparition would not be the same as that big, warm, flesh-full, human, living hug.

And when we look into the face of death it is not just past losses which scramble for attention, but future ones which lurk and taunt; the utter awfulness of losing someone even closer like a husband, a child, a sibling.  I am sure it is why so many go into shock at such times; there are realities too awful to bear. It is then, I believe that Hecate, with her black compassion, draws down the shades upon true consciousness.

But there it is and now, after 13 hours sleep and days if not weeks of tears and grief, I am ready to move on, back into life. Until the next time. And that may be a small 'death' or a big one; an emotional death or a physical; a literal or a metaphorical but return I will, as we all do, because loss and grief and death is an intrinsic part of life and of being human.

We cannot escape and we are not meant to no matter how much we may wish we could. We can only embrace life, ensuring our craft is sound and our sails are strong and learning, all the time, to navigate the calm waters and the chaotic. And even as I write this I know I am using images and symbols to describe the indescribable; to distance myself from the reality of what is the worst of times.

But sometimes it helps to see things symbolically, to look at the outer experience and events and to interpret them symbolically for that will show what is at work within. My outer world has reflected back to me issues of loss, abandonment, rejection, powerlessness and helplessness, all of which are sourced I am sure in my Karmic lesson which began when I was hospitalised near death at the age of one and did not see my parents until I had recovered. That was how they did it in those days.

It was 1950 and there was little or no comprehension of bonding, nor the trauma experienced by a child in such a situation. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't really anyone's fault; it was just the way it was. But I am sure the child had no-one to blame but her parents. At such times small children are faced with the most awful of choices; to survive they have to rely on their own power.

Was it one week or two? It doesn't really matter, the sense of abandonment, rejection, powerlessness, loss and helplessness must have been enormous and created, as it does in young children, a feeling of being unworthy, undeserving of love and unwanted.  Such responses have been studied in children and babies in orphanages and clearly show two instinctive responses; surrender which often brings death, or the will to fight and to live which often means the child separates from the unbearable pain and develops, along with the determination to survive, a determination never to be hurt in such a way again - a determination to control his or her world.

My mother told me I was standing in the cot eating a banana when she walked in to get me. She said I looked at her as if I did not know her. I am sure I never expected to see her again. I am also sure it was a ripe banana, probably very ripe and I have always loathed the smell of them. 

And yet again, when I was nine my mother disappeared again - this time into a madness from which she did not return, except in physical form. It was only as an adult that I realised my mother died when I was nine for the woman who returned to take her place, some three years or so later, was not the mother who had left. Yet more loss, more death, more grief and more desire to control.

And therein lies the impossible dream for this world cannot be controlled and Death laughs hardest in the face of such fantasies. Grief is in essence a working through of all such responses and feelings, to greater and lesser degrees depending on one's woundedness; depending upon how solid is the emotional foundation on which we stand. When we are wounded or damaged as children, because so much is subconscious, it is that much harder to do the repair work which is necessary and so it is a process of repair and restoration which takes place with every loss; with every time of grieving.

The work must be done. It is as simple as that and if we do not go willingly to the work it will come to us. I thought I had but perhaps not enough. We are good at hiding the truth of ourselves from our consciousness; some of us are masters of the art. That too was a part of the survival process.

There is a saying: 'Those who will the Fates guide; those who won't the Fates drag! When Death appears, most of us are dragged.


Grief is at times a desperate, drenching process but it is, after all, Life and without Death we would never appreciate Life in the way that we do. Perhaps that is the sole lesson of this world!

POEMS

Tears

In tears of trembled falling

I offer grief and love;

in salted wash of feeling

rides deliquescent heart.

We cannot bid the tears to fall

but just allow them time;

an honouring of suffering

and gift of human life.

It is my Soul which cries

and grieves in oceanic truth;

a symbol of the mother lost

of life and death and hope.

Grief

Like layered, tissued longing

grief builds  slow and quiet,

beyond the call of consciousness

through ancient days and nights.

From earliest beginnings

life spreads it strong but sure;

within emotion's cellared heart

it waits to be recalled.

For everytime we need to shed

our Self, our dreams, our hopes,

we lay it down in silken spread

as grief's fresh broken face.

From our first breath it builds

and grows, like rings around a tree

and every time we feel new loss,

that floor will be revealed.

It is our sure foundation,

our feeling Self laid deep

and if we do not tend and mend

it will grow weaker yet.

We try to close the door each time

and lock the pain away,

but deep within our darkest Self

the damage is displayed.

Without the time and courage spent

to see and feel and heal,

we build our Self on shaky ground;

a floor which cannot hold.

Farewell my friend

Farewell my friend
and linger not
for life has urged you on,
to new and old beginnings,
to worlds beyond this one.
You were my friend
and mother too,
in ways beyond mere birth
and we held thoughts
and hands through years
and times of joy and loss.
We mingled all the moments
and ways of being too,
with me as friend
and mother yet,
when you had need of it.
Through decades four
and half again
you were a constant guide,
with all
the flaws and faults of Self
for you, for me, for life.
We knew our faults
and laughed at them
and drew from deeper springs
of love, respect and trust;
through all the best
and worst life brings.
So travel well
and don't look back
and I shall hold my course,
adrift in countless memories
of moments,
dreams and thoughts.
We had good times,
you said, once, twice
in that last gifted hour,
and yes we did, we truly
did through darkness
and through light.
For Love is no shy, fearful
thing but strong and brave
and bright and in the face
of life and death it shines
eternal guide.
It is your love I held
in life, and still hold
even now, for nothing
can destroy it's power;
it triumphs over all.