Finding Meaning

For most of my life I have thought about religion and spirituality in a somewhat wishful fashion. As I get older, less busy with material life, closer to death, and less 'useful' my wondering has become a bit more focused on purpose - what is the point of continuing to live? It's not that I'm particularly depressed: just sad and lacking in meaningfulness.

Recently I have been involved in a short online workshop, that has been quite enlightening for me, mostly because of the questions Lucy asks, rather than answers. One of the exercises involved thinking about my spiritual background and I was amazed at how much followed on from there. 

I'm going to write about my thoughts about spirituality here, as I ponder the questions, for as long as I find it useful. I'm not going to hide my posts, but neither am I going to link to them on Facebook or the like.

I grew up in an ordinary Presbyterian, taking God as a given but without much day-to-day godliness, just Sunday School and a bit of church kind of home. I had a brief 11yo born again stage, then....

Became a born again atheist at almost 17, after a Saul on the road to Damascus revelation in reverse, which was devastating and dumped me into suicidal depression, which has repeated many times over the decades.

This little course has given me more clarity than I have had in the 52 years since ! The questions Lucy asked, plus contributions from other workshop participants, have helped me make huge progress in sorting through my beliefs. Oh my! How obvious it all is when someone asks the needed questions!

Someone spoke of the ‘god-shaped hole’ that she felt was left when she left the church. This idea has been revolutionary! I knew what I believed but was always looking for something – some ONE thing – else that I assumed would take god’s place. This idea of the god-shaped hole, and thinking about what I DO believe (as opposed to what I don’t believe) has made me realise that it doesn’t have to be just one mighty thing: it can be lots of smaller things that can together fill that hole. In fact, a few weeks on, it occurred to me that if there is no god, there can be no hole that is god-shaped – if there is no hole, what is there? – there is ME and this wonderful universe! So what do I believe, as opposed to what I don't believe?

I believe in connection. As someone in the group said, “Everything is connected, connection is everything” I have finally realised that I don’t need to be connected to some huge, external, god or god substitute. I just have to be connected to myself and everything else – together we are all.

I believe the wonder of science is enough. There is still so much that is unknown, and that’s okay – I feel no need to make up a god or something to explain the unknown.

Deliberate awareness and appreciation of the world and science leads to greater understanding – mindfulness and gratitude don’t have to be surrounded by religious terms to be valuable.

My action and inaction in the world affects not only me, but all the world. And as a basis for action, I look, as I have done for decades, to permaculture, a system that grew out of scientific academia, whose ethics are:

·       Care of the earth – kaitiakitanga

·       Care of the people – whanaungatanga / manakitanga

·       Fair share – kotahitanga

I grew up believing I was the least in all ways. That, unless I got everything perfect, I would remain that way. That I was entitled to nothing. That unless what I did was valuable to others, I had no right to waste resources (paper for writing, art supplies, time, space....) I’m fighting that now, and I think I’m winning.

I grew up believing that I couldn’t participate in gatherings, rituals, ceremonies etc unless I believed in All The Things, another reason for the search for a single filler for the god-shaped hole. Now I realise that as long as I don’t denigrate the beliefs of others, I can still connect with them on some level without selling my (non-existent) soul.

I’ve been searching for meaning for five decades, and expect to continue the search until I’m dead, but I am finally feeling more comfortable in all my unknowns. Or maybe ‘comfortable’ is the wrong word, because I’m also excited. Is there a word for ‘crazy, exciting, comfortable adventure into the unknown’?

Distractible

I started the morning with a to do list.

☑ dishes
☑ washing on
𐄂 send a thank you message to Liz McAuliffe

• maybe I should write a thank you card.....
• maybe I should make a thank you card.....
• I have mountains of papers n stuff to do that.....
• but I need to feed the animals

☑ feed cats, ducks, chooks...... oooh bush....

• I could collect some leaves 
• and do some gelli-printing 
• and make a card from those....
• ooooh bush.......

 

 

 

𐄂 soak chick peas
𐄂 take rubbish to dump
𐄂 go to farm to buy milk
𐄂 hang out washing
𐄂 weed strawberry garden
𐄂 finish knitting project
𐄂 work on hand sewing project
𐄂 cook dinner....................................................

to be continued...........

July / August Reading 2019

I forgot about this again! So I am doing July and August together, but missing a lot out.

Family Secrets by Liz Byrski
A novel about the family of a recently deceased man. Quite good character development, with only a couple of stereotypes. The plot is a familiar one of endings followed by a quest to find oneself, and I just wish that there could be a few about people doing it on the cheap, rather than going on expensive overseas 'pilgrimages'! It ends a little unexpectedly but still a bit too happy-ever-after for my taste: I don't want books to end in apocalypse but a bit more realism would have satisfied me more.

Rain Birds by Harriet McKnight
A sad and terrifying novel about two women. One is living with and caring for her husband who has Alzheimer's. Hers is the story of losing the man she loved as he changes into a stranger. The other is a young woman living in the thrall of childhood memories. It's really well written, heart breaking, and way too real.

Pacifica by Kristen Simmons
Young adult fiction. Futuristic, almost apocalyptic fiction. Politics, corruption, pirates (not romanticized) and romance but the characters are mostly not black and white. I enjoyed it and will probably read more - I like young adult fiction because it tends to be less descriptive, less detailed in its depictions of sex and violence.

The War of the Wives by Tamar Cohen
When a man dies unexpectedly it turns out he was a bigamist, and this is the story of the two wives coming to terms with the situation. As they find out more about his shady financial dealings, and his mortgaging of his wives' homes, things become a bit frightening. An unexpected ending is great - I thought it was descending into the trite, but, no.

The Shadowfell Novels: Shadowfell, Raven Flight, & The Caller by Juliet Marillier
Fantasy series of the usual storyline - heroine on quest to overthrow evil empire. Yeah, sounds trite and same-old, same-old. And I guess it is, but I really enjoyed it and plan to seek out more by this author. I feel like Australia has produced some of the best fantasy authors, although she was born in New Zealand so in this case we can claim some glory.
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And then I forgot to keep records again, and now it's September!

Breaking the Trust

There's so much talk about self-care, and walking away from toxic people, and how to remember that when someone criticizes you it's really about them not you, and so on and on.

Sometimes these things are true and right, but, actually, sometimes they are not. If I say something that is untrue and hurtful, and then take offence when someone else calls me out on it, then it isn't them who is being toxic, it's me!

Everybody has a past. Everybody gets triggered by things that don't affect everybody else. If someone tells me they were hurt by what I said, it is not okay for me to attack them for telling me on the grounds that I have a past that leaves me vulnerable to criticism. I need to consider their vulnerability too.

Of course, we have all lashed out defensively on occasion, but upon reflection, upon realizing I was in the wrong, it is incumbent on me to apologize and to try to make things right. Not to just re-write the story in my mind, reinforcing the idea that I am the victim, and the other is the bad guy.

And vice versa.

I can forgive most things in a relationship, but not that. You can criticize my behaviour, my words, my actions, and I will consider your criticism and act on my consideration, one way or another. But I expect the same from you. When I tell you that you have hurt me with your unkind or untrue words, and you turn it on me, I will distance myself. I will allow time for you to reflect, but if you continue to blame me, or cannot bring yourself to apologize, then I will walk away, because that behaviour is toxic to me, and I can no longer trust you.

Just saying.

June Reading

Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Despite struggling with some of the language being unfamiliar, even though we both speak 'English, and with stories of a world so different from mine to be very foreign, I am glad I read this book. It is so well written, and gave me insights into not only the world of a Black American, but also into things also suffered by Maori, and by other ethnic minorities in this country.

Craftfulness: mend yourself by making things by Rosemary Davidson and Ahzu Tahsin
An interesting little book that talks about the importance of making things to our mental health, particularly in its ability to calm us. The first half of the book is a mixture of ideas, reports of scientific studies, and personal anecdotes from a number of makers and artists, The second half of the book contains a number of simple projects to try. I really like the emphasis this book places on process rather than end product. My personal roadblock is my learned attitude that things must either be useful (such as a garment that can be worn, or a book that can be read or written in) or perfectly made (as in a saleable work of art.) Obviously this places considerable restraints on me! I am going to henceforth regard any art / craft I do as therapy to get around this block - therapy is useful, isn't it?

A Gathering of Secrets by Linda Castillo
Apparently Castillo has written a number of novels about Kate Burkholder, a detective, and one, Sworn to Silence, has been made into a movie. I doubt I will seek out more, because although it was an easy read, and I didn't guess 'who dunnit', it seemed very formulaic. It was great for a night when I was lying awake with an upset tummy, but that doesn't happen often enough to warrant having a bunch of these books on hand for the purpose.

The Songs of Us by Emma Cooper
Another easy read, this time with way too many exceptionally rare circumstances to be remotely believable, yet somehow the essential characters were believable. They came to life as people dealing with shitty circumstances in real ways. I probably wouldn't buy another book of hers, but would certainly get another from the library.

Reading May 2019

My blog has fallen into disuse! I have been reading but not recording - time to start again, albeit briefly.

The Binding Bridget Collins
This was recommended in a bookbinders' Facebook group. It's a fantasy novel about a bookbinder, but these binders bind more than books: they bind people's unwanted memories, leaving them without those memories, but with a vague feeling that something is missing. It is the author's first adult novel, but despite the definite adult content in parts, has the feel of a young adult novel in that it does not go into graphic detail of the sordid stuff. . I really enjoyed it.

Born a Crime Trevor Noah
After watching a Youtube interview of Noah by Oprah, I borrowed this book from the library, and am so glad. What an amazing man! I wish I knew the trick of being so positive in outlook yet being realistic as well. An easy read as far as the reading goes, but so much to reflect on. Well worth a read.

On Finding my Wings and my True Self

There's all this talk
of learning to fly
of transforming from
caterpillar to butterfly,
by growing wings
of letting go and soaring
free as a red-billed gull
gliding on currents
free to be your True Self.

But have you walked
slowly and consciously
on springy dew-covered kaikuyu grass
down to the soft sand
just above the high tide line?

Have you kicked
along the ocean edge
sending sparkling droplets
high into sunshine
making rainbow crystals?

Have you thrown yourself
face down in a field
of buttercups and dandelion
 wild carrots and plantain
and inhaled deeply?

Have you clambered down
through cool earthy bush
past the ponga, the ferns
and the parataniwha
to the bottom of the waterfall?

Have you danced
without a care
surrounded by unknown friends
joined together as one
by all enveloping music?

Have you battled through surf
and swum way out
beyond the break line
to the deep swell
where you can't touch the bottom?

Have you dived into the river
and drifted with the current
until panic set in
before your toes felt
the mud on the bottom?

Have you ridden a bike
on the track beside the water
lost your footing
panicked as it sped up
on the downward stretch?

Have you stroked this cat
recognising the uniqueness
of this particular fur
its smell, its texture
as the purring reaches maximum?

Have you learned
to differentiate the scents
of the lemon and lime
grapefruit and tangelo
as well as their tastes?

Have you eaten a plum
fresh from the tree
in the cool of the orchard
ducks quacking for a share
bees buzzing on clover?

I don't have time for
transformation, wings, flying
or finding my true self.

Fear and Hope

Should I live

in fear of death

or

in hope of life?

Yet fear and hope

drive each other,

and life and death

are a continuum.

In the moment

it's probably best

just to BE.

At The Edge

stand at the edge

supported by firm sand

watch the foam

feel the cool

lapping at toes

be still

just be

let it be

slowly the sand moves

starts to wiggle free

from toes and heels

know that the time

for stillness

is past

know it is time

to chose

rigid, false control

followed by

an inevitable fall

or to release the grip

let go, let loose,

and dance

with the sand

and sparkling spray

Book Camp 2018 - The Process

Another of the questions we were asked in the lead up to Book Camp was:

Do you have a goal/challenge you’d like achieve while at book camp? (It’s OK if
you want to cut loose and just go with the flow!) To create without anxiety.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, although I had anxiety around driving in Auckland, what if I have another stroke while on the motorway, what have I forgotten to bring, what if I get sick yet again, what if I die.... and although I had some frustrations and difficulties arise during the creative process..... I actually found I did not suffer debilitating anxiety when creating as I usually do, especially in the presence of others.


On the first morning of Book Camp, Liz gave us a package of goodies, which included a little pad of Post-It notes. She asked us to use these to keep track of our process during the week. She told us to stick them on the wall as we went along, but I knew that I would forget to do it unless it was right in front of me, so I stuck them on to a piece of sheet music that I happened to have in my bag, not because I am a musician but because it is delicious paper.

Our instructions were deliberately vague to the point of being suggestions: we were to do something with a large old book, bottles, calico, paper, collected words, plus or minus anything....

Thoughts were to be noted on the Post-It notes as they occurred. I found this as silly as the proposal that we 'listen to the book and it will tell you what it wants' and 'the book will emerge' as Liz always rabbits on about.

Except the notes really helped, and my book really did speak to me and emerge! It's the first time this has happened to me, and I put it down to the fact that post-stroke I have an excuse to let go of the tyranny of the absurd expectation that perfection is both possible and required.

So here is some of my process as recorded on my Post-It notes:

• Arrrgh! Too many thoughts and ideas... 
• Calico book - 'renovate' the one I started at home...
• Altered (medical) book - collage - magic potions - cures
• find the rat in the wall (we heard a noise which was suggested to be that, though was actually just a branch in the wind) - rat behind a flap in book.... 
• old marbled book end-paper to line holes cut in book to house bottles...
• what can I do wit all the bits of paper cut from the book? (I threw them out at the end - couldn't come up with an idea._
• rust paper for cover of miniature book 'Instructions for a Cure-All' with the pages made from a Romanian encyclopedia...
• words - losing words - swallowing rats - Violet....
• type out poems about losing words

• gluing together pages individually - gesso no, pva too slow, glue stick too slow, pva edges - partially worked, make holes and tie pages together yay!
• gesso edges
• 'lost for words' - 'falling' - 'calling for help'....
• larger bottle - message in bottle - 'the stopper has been lost, the bottle knocked over, and my spirit has spilled out across the universe'
• stamp designs
• note from talk: thinking positively v negatively - challenge v struggle
• note from talk: starting day right with a walk, meditation, to still the mind, to open mind
• note from talk: Hilary's joyful approach, 'glorious'
• can I develop something of that or is one born with it? Can I discover? rediscover? retain? that childhood enthusiasm?
• half way through I have found that I can start something without any intention other than the intention to start and not be bothered by thoughts that it may come to nothing
• doing / being - standing in the edge of the waves doing nothing 
• it's ok to say 'I love what I've made, this is gorgeous' - after all, why bother doing it if it's not something you like?
• 'Emerging' my medical book is telling me it wants to be about my stroke, about my aphasia...
• gesso index, all except my ailments

• 'bee hopeful' - tape in bottle
• collage cover

• paint gold on edges of book
• wipe gold stamp pad on edges of book
• next project? too tired - do something familiar
• gelli prints..... on calico.... round gelli plate
• stitch on gelli printed calico
• make prayer-type flags from them?
• hang them from ladder in The Messy Playroom?
• Maybe it's time to put my art - yes 'art' - in a living area, a more 'public' space - never done that before....
• BUT WAIT..... there's not much room .... because there are already a bunch of my art on all the walls....
• ....I have just never seen them as art.....
• but my womad flags ARE art!
• I am a writer. I am a poet. I am an artist. I am okay.

Thank you, Liz Constable or Book Art Studios.

Book Camp 2018 - The People

In the lead up to Book Camp, Camp Leader, Liz Constable  asked us some questions to give us a hint or two about each other. Here's one of the questions, along with my answer:

What are you most excited about? Just being in that wonderful space again: free of responsibilities, going for walks in the amazing grounds, visiting The Fabulist, creating in the company of All The Best People.

It was indeed All These Things! The people especially were wonderful. Some had been to the previous camp, others were new to it.

Liz is an amazing teacher and guide. She will teach a particular skill where needed, but more importantly, she guides, challenges, encourages, laughs, listens, validates - she claims to have previously been a life coach, but in reality 'previously' is a misnomer. She is inspiring both as an artist and as a person.

Camp Mother, Cath, was fantastic. She looked after the nuts and bolts of camp, fetched coffee from the local cafe, made life easier in general, and still managed to create some amazing art.

Jo, Liz's sister is also an amazing creative, fun, generous, professional artist and graphic designer operating as The Design Space Gallery in Lower Hutt - though I was encouraging her to move to Raglan....

Michelle was an wonderful last minute addition to Camp, and a wonderful human being. Just go look at what she does - WOW!

Sara had had strokes as well as other health issues. She had an inspiring determination to get everything she could from Camp, despite having to withdraw from the sensory overload even more than I did. It was wonderful to meet someone who really 'got' my issues, even while I wished, for her sake, that she didn't. I learned so much about post-stroke life from her, and about persistence.

Delwyn, well, she'd be welcome just for the divine red roses she brought for the dining tables! But she was so much more. She sat on my left, between Sara and me, and was very quiet which was great for us, but was quietly humorous, kind, and creative - her wrapping paper made with her hand carved stamp was very special.

Oh! I haven't mentioned Sandra Waine who came in one afternoon, and taught us a bit about stamp carving! Check her out! Personally, I feel a stamp-carving binge coming on.

On my other side was Sarah, another quiet, but creative first timer. She had a distinctive artistic style and I spent a lot of time peeking across at her beautiful work.

Fliss is just so energetic, she just gets stuck in and goes! But her energy is catching, not wearying.

Ann was at the far end of the table, just quietly  and determinedly working away at beautifully finished creations, right to the very end of camp - she did not waste a minute!

Liz, as always, worked with delicious eco prints, nature themes, leaves etc. - I love her work.

Hilary. Hilary, as Camp Leader Liz pointed out, brought the light of joy into the workshop. Her work is beautifully executed, and imaginative, but most importantly, just joyful. Every room should have a Hilary in it.

Sue is more a fabric, button and stitch person than a paper artist. Where Hilary brings joy, Sue brings passion. I just love listening to her speak about her love for her work. Which is so amazing to me, as someone who has never been a stitcher, it leaves me gasping in wonder.

Directly across the table from me was Gill who despite being stung on the head by a wasp, kept her lovely sense of humour and created with some beautiful decorated wallpaper she had created before she came, and did amazing things with copper wire, inspiring me to dig out the stash that I've been meaning to do something with for years.

Apparently Carol intended her creations to be magenta, but instead they turned into pink treasures that I loved, despite my normal dislike of pink - she may have 'turned' me!

Sara spoke at one point of 'finding her tribe'. I don't really think of myself in terms of belonging to a tribe, but when I am at Book Camp I certainly feel a deep sense of being Home. Thank you, Liz, for creating this space.

I'll be back!

Colouring-in My Life

I read something the other day that had some initial appeal but then, no.

'Finding yourself' is not really how it works. You aren't a ten-dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. 'Finding yourself' is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an evacuation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you. ~ Emily McDowell

I totally agree that 'finding yourself;' isn't how it works. And I agree that I am not lost. But after that, McDowell loses me.

When was this time before the world got its hands on me? The world got its hands on me the moment I was born. But wait. In the womb I was affected by 'the world' - by my mother's world. By her food, by her state of health, by the noises in her world, by her emotional state and more: science has shown this. Even before the zygote, the gametes were affected by my parents' bodies and worlds, 'the world' got its hands on my DNA right back at the beginning of time!

It feels that the world has treated my lifeline the way a kitten plays with a ball of wool, so that there's that ragged indeterminate beginning, and a piece of yarn that will continue on, also indeterminately, where my genes and my actions in the world will mean that I will continue on after death in the lives of others.

It seems to me, that all that handling by the world has made me exactly who I am now. That I have made it through so far, through all the ups and downs, the tangled and the breaks and joins, and the thing to do is to accept that who I am now is the sum total of all that. But it's not the end. Once I accept that, I am free to do and be whatever comes next.

I don't want to deny and dismiss my past to find who I was way back when: I want to find out who I am in the present, and look forward to who I can be tomorrow - or even later today.

This is to remind me of all I have gone through to get to this point, to remind me to keep going, to remind me that even when it seems like there is no way out of the tangle, I've managed it every time for 67 years so I may as well keep trying. And if all else fails, I can grab some felt tip pens and colour in the scribble drawing.

Between Conception and Death

We are conceived. We die. In between we exist.

After I got seriously ill and was diagnosed with diabetes, and again when I had a stroke, my focus became putting off death for as long as possible, and in making my journey towards death one of the least possible pain and misery. I researched, and amended my diet, exercise routine, my mental health with the aim of harm reduction. That has certainly helped improve things, but yesterday I realised something else.

From the moment I was conceived, I have been moving towards inevitable death. The time between can be spent living or dying.

I chose living.