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Letters to Biddy

~ a weekly reflection as a letter to Biddy Early, 19th Century Irish healer from Ennis, County Clare

Letters to Biddy

Monthly Archives: April 2014

Fly Past

25 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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ANZAC, Australia, Biddy Early, flag, Leunig, war

Dear Biddy,

Today my country commemorates the futile slaughter of young men in a foreign land, a huge loss in battle, tactical errors and sheer stupidity, that sent a generation to their deaths. We continue to remember them, now 99 years on.  This same week the Australian government, between forecasts of austerity measures, announced a purchase of 58 fighter jets for $12Billion. The horror of this juxtaposition was eloquently made by Australian national treasure Michael Leunig.

Michael Leunig

Michael Leunig

As in year’s past, I commemorated Anzac Day by going to the Dawn Service in my village of Willunga. This year more people than ever and for the first time a recognition of the Aboriginal soldiers who fought in WW1 and WW2 long before they were granted the vote in 1967 (another travesty).  A young student from the local primary school told the story of a friend of her great grandfather who had fought along side him who was an Aboriginal man with distinguished military service, she was followed by a fellow student who told of his grandfather who was German and lied about his nationality so he could join the armed forces for Australia and serve during WW2.  As the flag moved from being at half mast to being raised towards the end of the ceremony, there were no jet fighter pilots accompanied by a sonic boom, but instead the gentle cooing of doves and as if on cue, accompanied by the morning song of magpies, a flock of birds flew over head.

I was deeply touched by creation having the last word. As dawn broke and the bugle mourned, a glorious day was revealed, with no wind at all. The flag remained unfurled with no billow in its sail.

Victim impact statement.  Silent and still in meditation. Downcast. Weeping.

Flag, Willunga War Memorial, Anzac Day 2014

Flag, Willunga War Memorial, Anzac Day 2014

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Kintsukuroi

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

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Biddy Early, Easter, gold, Good Friday, Kintsukuroi, Leonard Cohen

Dear Biddy,

I have been introduced to a beautiful Japanese parable and image today on Good Friday, it is called kintsukuroi.  It is the concept of a broken ceramic being repaired by gold or silver, making the bowl even more beautiful because of the repair.  In the original fable the source of the gold is from the incoming monarch’s crown thus making the crown simpler and stronger in the process too.  What a beautiful metaphor for this Good Friday.  I have always loved the Leonard Cohen song Anthem that contains the lyric:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

The interplay between light and shade that is offered by both the crack and alchemy of healing the bowl with a precious metal brings together all the elements.

The Christian story of Good Friday has all these elements too although the promise of healing and wholeness is not fully realised on this day but with the dawn of Easter Sunday.  The broken body, betrayal and humiliation that comes with the day by the founder of the firm (as Fr Bob Maguire refers to Jesus) is played out time and time again in history by the prophets. Those who stand up for those with the least often go the same way as Jesus and indeed it is the mark of many a successful prophet, even those who do not espouse to follow Jesus of Nazareth.  The idea of being broken is one thing, and then patching up the broken-ness with a golden (or silver thread) opens me up to deeper meaning of renewal and restoration.  The light that gets reflected through the crack and then when it has been closed by metal that has been subject to heat and a crucible seems to me to be an incredibly relevant metaphor for Good Friday.

The word crucible comes from the Latin word for cross (crux / cruc).  I love this idea that the cross itself is the vessel holding the molten precious metal corresponds for me to the blood of Christ flowing in the Passion and through the process humanity is made new again – the cracks repaired and we are all more beautiful because of the repairs that are applied by the Divine in the rays of Easter morn.

A Good Friday Poem (c) Moira Deslandes

The wooden crucible holds the body

And the blood.

The transfusion of molten red liquid flows in Divine

And human veins.

Expired sigh.

Inspired – the cosmic breath is received.

The night comes,

The night goes,

The dawn comes.

Arrayed in golden light

Slithers of threads fusing,

Restoring, creating.

Forming magma to apply to the cracks.

Divine mortal unification.

Kintsukuroi.

More beautiful

Because first broken.

Kintsukuroi

Kintsukuroi

 

 

 

 

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Freedom of Movement

12 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

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Biddy Early, borders, Burma, passport, pilgrim, refugee camps, Songkran, Thailand

Dear Biddy,

The freedom to move between borders is a privilege and I am deeply grateful for my Australian passport. It has magical properties and seems to transcend language, culture and most importantly gives me access to foreign lands. The capacity to traverse these physical borders is an expression of stable democracy in my country, our historical ties, our foreign policies and trade arrangements, our military agreements and I hope in part the friendly disposition of its citizens.

Burmese refugee camp Thailand - 5 generations of being stateless.

Burmese refugee camp Thailand – 5 generations of being stateless.

So what to say of the internal passport we might hold and issue to ourselves? The one that gives us courage to go deeper into our spiritual landscape, the one that navigates us through challenging terrain, the one that stops us going into new territories?

My passport is issued for ten years and will expire in a few weeks. On this passport I have travelled to Europe, Africa, North America and Asia. I have learnt about myself as much as any of the places I have visited. Each journey more important than the destination, and each return a ritual of coming home to myself.

The plight of the pilgrim is a mix of being settled and unsettled; on the move and being still. The extreme pilgrimage I have spoken of before (TEDx Adelaide) does not respect borders – it is a vocation that recognises the borders are real to the journey to the interior. Travelling and poetry push me to the limits of my internal borders – helping me to see with an inner eye the faces and places I find myself in. Seeking the poetic in a dusty, headache inducing polluted air space is harder than in a luscious tropical oasis and so it is true for the inner life, finding the poetry when the body and soul is crowded by fear, anxiety or greed is harder then when blessings and gratitude appear on every corner. Yet it is in the dust and dry times the blessings abound it is just that you need to administer the occasional eye drops!

Lent is coming to an end and I am entering into Holy Week while in Mae Sot Thailand where the Songkran festival begins on Sunday. It is a water festival, where one of the rituals to start to New Year is to throw water on everyone. Everything is cleaned and cleansed, and although I can only see the outward signs of this relentless drenching, I am sure that those who treat it as a spiritual exercise are also doing some internal cleaning up as well.

Early start to Songkran at Minmahaw School.

Early start to Songkran at Minmahaw School.

This lent I have done a tiny little twitter poem each day as my discipline and it has proven to be a useful reflective practice. They can all be found in one place and are tiny little insights and memories of the last few weeks pilgrimage. The internal spring clean is not seasonal and I find I need to be constantly alert to the potential to be seduced by the dry and the hot. As the humble Nazerene’s ride into town on a donkey facing the Empire is remembered this weekend, and the water is thrown to make new the year ahead, I am touched by the universal desire for wholeness, new beginnings and the recognition that after the heat comes new life.

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Invasion

05 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

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Biddy Early, Invasion, liberation, Sydney

Dear Biddy,

It’s early morning in Sydney town, where the legacy of the currency of rum continues to play out in commissions of corruption. Irish rebels find themselves reincarnated as victims and advocates with names by Ryan and O’Brien and sitting on the bench ancestral DNA presents in a big and gown … Yet the city faces the Pacific and in the street the Middle East and Asia look back at you and still not quite enough yet to undo the foundations of the colony. The custodians must just shake their heads in utter bemusement and grieve us foreigners don’t appreciate this privilege we have of being on this piece of planet.

Nothing could be worse than being invaded – dispossessed. But it has got me thinking about all the other types of invasion and in its turn liberation.

Goolwa markets

Goolwa markets

Invasion can take many forms, a virus, disease, new idea, new technology, a new person in your life, such as the everyday invasions, some more debilitating than others. The invasion of fear, anxiety or greed, may ambush us. Finding a way to protect ourselves, to be inoculated against an invasion if the flu is a lot easier than holding fear at bay; and putting anti virus software on a computer is a walk in the park, compared to securing the borders of the heart.

And what about being one of those invaders? The scene of a little fishing village that has you and thousands of others each summer season, comes to mind. We recently had our annual invasion of ants in the kitchen. I find it hard to get motivated about pest control, their arrival a kind of reminder about my place in the food chain and despite all my efforts, they still keep coming, so many working out cohabitation and a truce might be a better plan than a search and destroy with chemical warfare. Finding a way to coexist is a challenge of invaders and invadees.

When disease invades a body, finding a way to coexist may not be a strategy we are drawn too, preferring toxic chemicals to go and search and destroy with precision. What ever method we deal with invaders, tangible and intangible, we all have the first instinct to reject and repel. Building resilience comes in many forms and I wonder Biddy if you had a repellant potion to help keep “baddies” at bay?

Liberation comes to me through remembering to breathe, by calling on who I am and all the generations who have gone before me to enable me to be here this day and embracing who I am in the here and yet to come. Song, story, beauty and my inheritance help too. Looking into the skies and seeing the bluest of skies and the stars twinkling back at me are a constant reminder of the fundamental truth I am a child of the UniVerse and that helps the most on days when the invaders might be getting the best of me.

 

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  • What if
  • Tall Tales
  • Lies, Denial, Truth
  • Bystander in the Herd

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Dancing with Speeche… on Kintsukuroi
Made by Disappointme… on Kintsukuroi
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