Brave Souls That Have Passed

Many have passed this life in a short few weeks
I learned of another yesterday
Today I do not want to learn about anyone else.
Whether friends, family or patients
The grieving for each gets too intense.
It is easy to say
They are in a better place
The are free from the pain of their life.
The pain of my own life haunts me,
tied to all past pieces of grief
All bundled and tied
Put away in a memory cupboard.
Each time I open that cupboard door
Shuffling and wedging into ever tinier spaces
Finding an empty corner for the next sad bundle
Letting go of the heaviness of grief
Is part of the next step
But a piece of that grief - that memory -
Is mine to keep for a while
The memory of many loved ones
The memory of walking through many healing journies
And memories of the kindness and light in eyes
Even if just a flicker
The sign on the cupboard door reads 
Brave Souls That Have Passed
To know that my grief has not been in vain
That I will keep seeing goodness in the eyes of the living
Will sustain me through my sadness.

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”

~ Theodore Roethke

Taking Refuge

When I think ‘bravery’
I think life threatening

When I think ‘life threatening’
I think blood, gore and brutality

When I think ‘blood, gore and brutality’
I think of pain and tears

When I think of ‘pain and tears’
I think of healing wounds of mind, body and soul

When I think of ‘healing wounds of mind, body and soul’
I think of refugees, lost families, and opportunity

When I think of opportunity
I think of new homes, a new land and new beginnings.

“Taking Mum’s hand, I whispered “Are we really safe, here?”

~ Alwyn Evans, Walk in My Shoes

Silence

Silence makes the heart grow fonder. Silence is always a balm for the soul. The noise of any day, whether the noise of traffic, the hum of my refrigerator or the wild chatter in malls at Christmas time. As noise escalates, my level of annoyance escalates. Any fondness I felt for my fellow human beings fades and is assimilated into the steady hum and throb of city noise when I step outside on a crisp winter day in the countryside far away from highways and malls, my heart breaths a quiet sigh of relief. Relief that feels like a constricting blanket has been removed and yet, in the cold, I huddle closer into my warm fleece coat and mitts. Birds fly bravely in the blue sky just as I have bravely stepped into the silence of the prairies in winter. I can forgive and forget all the noises we humans make in our loving and living. I can rejoice in the grandeur that is blue sky and broad prairie or granite mountains and tall pines. I can listen more closely for the tiny snap of dry twigs, a distant twitter of birds, the scratch of a squirrels claws on frozen tree bark. Yes, silence does make the heart grow fonder and more aware.

“…..there are times when silence is a poem.”

~ John Fowles,  The Magus

Growing Up

When bills are all paid
Home is snug and warm
Refrigerator and freezer are stocked

When illness is not an issue
Employment is rewarding
Feet are shod and attire is warm

From a babe to a toddler
A child to a teen
Young adult and onward in life

Bravery is needed at different times
In different forms to do battle
With a most fearsome enemy within.

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles

 is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”

~ John Keats, Letters of John Keats

Book Review: Nellie McClung by Charlotte Gray

Nellie McClung, by renowned biographer Charlotte Gray, is one of a series of Extraordinary Canadians. This book provided food for much interesting discussion this afternoon. It was difficult for Charlotte Gray to develop this biography as most of Nellie McClung’s diaries had been destroyed. The reason for this destruction is not apparent, but did limit the author. Despite this, Nellie McClung is an easily read and well paced book outlining the strong role that she played in winning women the right to vote. Manitoba, where Nellie McClung resided, was the first province to legislate the vote for women. She was also involved in the Temperance movement at the time. As she and her family moved into Alberta and then into Victoria, Nellie maintained the strength of her beliefs, not all of which are acceptable today. According to Gray, Nellie McClung did support the eugenics movement when it was popular in 1928.

Regardless I am grateful for the bravery of Nellie McClung, the Famous Five and other suffragettes both in Canada, the U.K., the United States and around the world. This at a time when women were seen as non-persons. It truly was a world run by men, for men and about men. Women were, because of that, completely economically, socially and even politically dependent on the other half of humanity. Thank you Nellie, and thank you to Charlotte Gray for this book.

“The economic dependence of women is perhaps the greatest injustice 

that has been done to us, and has worked the greatest injury to the race.”

~ Nellie L. McClung

Title:  Nellie McClung
Author:  Charlotte Gray
Publisher: Penguin Group
Publication Date: 2011
Format:  Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-0-14-305455-9 (pbk.)
Type:  Biography
Series:  Extraordinary Canadians (Series Editor: John Ralston Saul)

Breathe

Pressure
Built up inside
No hint of build up
Momentum
Foot on the gas
To hurry up
Get it right
Now
Question the pressure
The reason
The need
Take the foot off the gas
Return to reason
Breathe bravery into momentum

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between 

sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

~ C.G.Jung

Movie Review: Revenant - Directed by Alejandro Iñárritu

Violence and grandeur. Survival and revenge. Trust and betrayal. Revenant, starring Leonardo di Caprio, was powerful and frightening. Taking place in 1823, this movie is based the novel of the same name by Michael Punke. It was developed from the true story of Hugh Glass, a frontiersman who survived a grizzly bear mauling. This mauling was at the beginning of the movie and set the tone and story line for the rest of the movie. From there, Glass was left in the care of three traders. Hawk, Glass’s son, his friend John Fitzgerald and a young Jim Bridger. Glass was left for dead but survived to track Fitzgerald, who had killed his son, Hawk. An important part of this story was trading with the Pawnee, along with the arrogant treatment of the First Nations population. Survival came before bravery at this time for white and native alike. Winter, was beautiful and harsh, leaving many close to starvation. Panoramic cinematography.

“As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. 

You breathe….keep breathing.”

~ Hugh Glass - Revenant

Revenant won three Golden Globe awards this evening:
Best actor: Drama: Leonardo di Caprio
Best Director:  Alejandro Iñárritu
Best Movie:  Revenant