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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: November 2014

Bystander in the Herd

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Google, grief, herd, mourning, Phil Hughes, putoutyourbats

Dear Biddy,

This week a man got up in the morning and went to work and never came home. He died doing what he loved best in a place that was very special to him. It was a freak workplace accident. This terrible series of events happened in more than one place on the planet. This particular case has left an international community of cricket lovers in mourning.

Simple acts and rituals started to emerge as fans, friends and family worked out how to express their shock and grief. Enabled by imagination, technology, passion and deep knowledge of the game these expressions have touched me and millions of others … and reminded me of the humanity of the herd.

Some of the acts are:

  • young cricketers all retiring their innings this weekend at 63 – the score the batsman was out when felled
  • using #putoutyourbats to accompany photos of bats leaning against wickets, gates, doors – a solitary weeping willow graced Australian Google
  • suggesting the young felled cricketer be named 12th man the next time his team goes to play
#putoutyourbats

#putoutyourbats

All self-organised – no committee, no direction from authority – people authorising themselves, taking up their own power to act. The cultural power of sport and grief coming together is phenomenal.

This deep, deep desire to name and claim, that which is deepest inside of us, is a universal truth. When death comes, our capacity to mourn what has gone is insatiable and sometimes surprising. We pine for one last kiss, one last hug, one last innings. We give thanks that we won’t have to bear the horror, the hurt, the violence any longer. We ache to see a smile, share a laugh, glance into eyes with no words needed. Whatever forms our mourning takes – grief comes, knocks us off our feet and may even hit us for a six.

We can support those in grief, by holding their hands, wiping their brows, reminiscing, giving hugs and putting out our bats. These gestures draw us closer, without appropriating, to the sadness of those at the centre of the loss. That space is unique and intimate and can only be occupied by the one at the crease – the rest of us are in the stands.

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Othello – Metaphorically Speaking

23 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

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Tags

betrayal, Biddy Early, blue bottle, Desdamona, Iago, innocence, Love, Othello, Shakespeare

Dear Biddy,

I am always on the look out (or should I say sound out?) for a good metaphor, one that translates and transcends meaning. In the course of my life, I have been a counsellor / therapist and the power of metaphor to support a new direction or bring depth and understanding to the past was a regular tool. In my improv playing metaphors can be found in the toolkit and become visible on the stage (life is like a roller coaster, bobbing up and down struggling to survive in a life boat on the ocean, flock of birds teamwork …. the list goes on).

Blue Bottle - Portuguese Man O War Jellyfish

Blue Bottle – Portuguese Man O War Jellyfish

I’ve been wondering about your blue bottle as a metaphor – for here in my country a blue bottle is a lethal sea creature – a jellyfish that stings. The sting itself won’t harm you but as soon as you rub the place where you are stung, a poison is released and before you know it paralysis sets in. If you don’t touch it and wash quickly the chances of you not being poisoned are good! Surely this is a metaphor of it’s own! How often do we scratch and rub a place where were a bitten and the situation gets worse and before we know it are poisoned and even death might come to visit in one form or another? This was certainly the case with Othello, destroying his beloved Desdamona, having his insecurities and fears fed by his trusted lieutenant Igao. I saw this play yesterday, Biddy, and I expect some came to see you to find ways for their fears to be fed too, I hope your blue bottle offered an antidote.

The seeds of doubt sewn by Iago, could be sown because Othello’s mind was fertile ready to receive the evil thoughts, slander and anxieties to take hold. What is it in a person that the trust founded on love can be so easily eroded? Power and control corrupt and mutually assured destruction often follows closely behind. We see this in all kinds of relationships – between families this turns into feuds, between nations into war and between friends and lovers hatred and divorce.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.”
― William Shakespeare, Othello

When we love, we want the best for the other, when we get seduced by our fears and anxieties we rub the sting and there is the terrible potential to release poison, become paralysed and, at its very worst, experience a kind of death.   Being eaten up by our own fears and being susceptible to poisonous barbs does need an antidote; for myself, I prefer inoculation.

I inoculate myself, as best I can, by recognising and celebrating with gratitude the little acts of trust each day – each perhaps like a sip from your blue bottle – keeping me strong. I trust the other drivers will stop at the red light so I can go through on the green; I trust the cook to use fresh ingredients, I am trusted with news to share and not to share; I trust there will be a kindness when I call a friend; I trust I will be paid for work done … and it goes on and on. When these little trusts are betrayed destruction follows – the car is crashed, food poisoning comes, disloyalty reigns, debtors arrive … and it goes on and on. Desdamona maybe pure and white; Cassio loyal and faithful to Othello’s dark, broody soul; but it is our shadow, the cunning and deceitful, Iago, who we must keep at bay.

Iagos are abundant in those politician’s trading on fear, lies, deception, telling tales of what is not true – what innocent child fleeing a war zone is a terrorist, a brigand, an illegal? Iagos are fuelling fears and doubts and too many of us are eager to be seduced. Another Shakespearean metaphor handed to us from the early 1600s standing the test of time.

 

 

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Shirt Front

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Abbott, Biddy Early, Indigenous Literacy Foundation, Middleton, Putin, shirt front, testosterone

Dear Biddy,

There has been a lot of talk about “shirt fronting” lately, a new word entered into the diplomatic lexicon by the Prime Minister of my country. World leaders gathering in one of our northern tropical cities, pondering planetary issues and testing alignment of ideas, values and economic trade to guarantee futures for the citizens in their countries. A complex set of conversations on a grand scale.  I wonder what their sooth sayers might offer them? Would your blue bottle contents have helped ameliorate overdoses in testosterone? Is there an antidote?

image

Brisbane Times – Funds raised go to Indigenous Literacy Foundation

 

World leaders are not the only ones with toxic testosterone; there are liberal doses all around me. Generous hugs from big men who don’t know when to shut up, air space occupied by male voices, a contest of ideas being little more than ‘my train is bigger than your train” are all around me. I wonder Biddy how your presence offered an alternative narrative and the elemental nature of the Celtic spirit brought the feminine to life?

The sea is rolling in and the wild winds are adding the treble to the bass line while the higher notes of nature and melodies are a mix of staccato and triplets. The elements have all the balance I need to remind me there are times when storms come and times when the sun shines. And always there is the constant in and out of the waves, moderated by sister moon in how they come in and out.

I want to be moderated by this gravity, and be healed and have my planet healed by this in and out, yet I find myself infected by the testosterone. I hear my language infused with violent metaphors, I watch myself regaling against the tide not going with the flow, hiding behind clouds unwilling to come clean and to let the sunshine in some days … my own set of shirt fronting behaviours.

image

Middleton Beach, South Australia

 

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Nostaglia

08 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Biddy Early, Flinders university, Gough Whitlam, Margaret Whitlam, Noel Pearson, Siobhan Owen, social work students, The Parting Glass

Dear Biddy,

While the moon casts its fullest shadow of the Vale last night I listened to the haunting and delicate music created by the harp and voice. Some of the tunes would have been familiar to your ears as well, perhaps first heard on Faha Ridge in County Clare. The lilt and air created in the spaces between the breaths and the plucking are as full of life to me as the sounds themselves bringing to my awareness your blessed land and taking me back in time and in place. I check myself for self indulgent nostalgia and decline the offer of my ego to accept that is what I am falling into – it is not a descent but a rising to the horizon and longing for a homeland that is embedded in my DNA and that I carry with me. I don’t run towards it or away from it. The sounds call me to a deeper part of myself and connect me to those roots.

Nostalgia is a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming”, a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache”, and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home.

There are many aches and pains in life that call me home to myself, to remind me who I am and where I am from. Some of the aches benefit from a good stretch, some healing hands or medical intervention – both physically and metaphorically!   A stretch to remind myself what is still body memory of what I am able to do and pass on to the next generation.

Flinders students advice on facilitation

Flinders students advice on facilitation

Invited to share some of my skills and knowledge this week with a new generation, I was called back to fundamentals and in turn the next generation called me home to myself and my passion for change and my first calling. While I was teaching this batch of students a nation was farewelling a past Prime Minister (E.G. Whitlam) who oversaw the greatest social reforms in my life time –  no fault divorce, land rights, equal pay, ending conscription, creating arts funding … and the list goes on. The lessons of inclusion, respect, listening and celebrating diversity were echoed in an exercise I invited the students into and a little ripple in our room in a community centre that began its life due to those very same reforms was not lost on me. His wife (Margaret Whitlam) was a social worker and found that a comforting thread over the years as I live out my vocation.

The evocative strains in the songs and stories shared during an old man’s memorial service called me home to my values and passions. It was also a dreadful reminder of how fragile change can be and a call to action confident in the knowledge that reform trumps management (Noel Pearson: Whitlam eulogy).

Nostalgia dipped in seduction leads to impotence.

A homecoming ache is fuel for reform.

When I lift the parting glass I will have spent my time in good company and with comrades and I trust that was true for you too dear Biddy.

 

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Harmony not Unison

01 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

All Saints, All Souls, Biddy Early, Byrds, Ceres, Halloween, harmony

Dear Biddy,

The seasonal changes are the epitome of the life and death cycle and my quest to live more in sync with the seasons emotionally and spiritually helps this pilgrim walk more in step with the UniVerse.

Halloween – All Saints – All Souls – is here and even though the hemisphere I am in doesn’t have many rituals to go with this seasonal change, it is part of my heritage to mark this transition. I am grateful that celtic spirit seems to be in my DNA and my knowledge of the classics reminds me  Persephone (Proserpina) and Demeter (Ceres) bring the spring. So there is an alignment of sorts at this time where I live and all the colours of the rainbow bloom in my garden. Maybe I will have a ritual glass of Ceres to mark the occasion? I am sure you would have raised a glass Biddy!

Ceres Rose from Scarpantoni

Ceres Rose from Scarpantoni

So it was, trying to be in step this week, I found myself driving past the hospital my father died in – the last place he drew breath. I stopped off, went into the café, bought a drink and sat in the sun in the courtyard. I have done this a few times in the past years and I felt his absence deeply last year when he was not there for the first wedding in the next generation of my family at this same time (as regular readers may recall). As I left the hospital to continue on my journey for the day, the trees next to where I had parked erupted in song and circled ahead and flew high into the sky – a hundred fold of blessings rising into the clouds. I had a lump in my throat, a few tears trickled into the sunlight.

It had been a spontaneous action to stop by and while I had done it before, never in this season. I found myself humming the tune of Turn, Turn, Turn – the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes put into song for my generation.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Another season brings an another time and the seasons do help me – in reality and metaphorically – work out what time it actually is and no one time is mutually exclusive to another – they are co-exist is splendid harmony (not unison).

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

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Dancing with Speeche… on Kintsukuroi
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