tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post6130017464357021491..comments2023-05-21T05:56:57.842+01:00Comments on mindfulness and mortality: An unexpectedly honest funeralgloriamundihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12476712899700515223noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-27343999576312325162010-07-09T10:15:00.065+01:002010-07-09T10:15:00.065+01:00Great post, Gloria (sorry I'm a few days late ...Great post, Gloria (sorry I'm a few days late coming to it).<br /><br />You speak truth. I often fear that I don't put a family "through the wringer" enough, but all we can do is give them the funeral that they want - and if that involves laughter, then great.<br /><br />Well done on your ceremony. I'm sure that your balancing poems were perfectly chosen. After all, not everyone there would have wanted to laugh, even if those you had met were determined to have a giggle.<br /><br />Onwards...........X. Piryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17484665119103422982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-6846280250510894602010-07-05T19:49:37.105+01:002010-07-05T19:49:37.105+01:00Time is only one measure.
I may be having a moment...Time is only one measure.<br />I may be having a moment gestalt.<br />Maybe I'm wrong?arkayeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09863542411248361164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-34817651084943836932010-07-05T19:07:39.138+01:002010-07-05T19:07:39.138+01:00Tarragon: Won’t you lift a had once in a way?
Obv...Tarragon: Won’t you lift a had once in a way?<br /><br />Obviously should be<br /><br />Won't you lift a hand once in a way<br /><br />Fingers lagging behind the brain or the other way round. I can never tell which.<br /><br />I saw Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen performing Godot fairly recently.<br /><br />Really fantastic. I loved that play the moment I started reading it. At the interval Clare said "This is your life really isn't it?" and it is.<br /><br />Glory of the world to you.arkayeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09863542411248361164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-39450187663200387962010-07-05T17:55:33.905+01:002010-07-05T17:55:33.905+01:00Class, Ark, sheer class. Thanks. How nice to get s...Class, Ark, sheer class. Thanks. How nice to get some homework out of you at last....!<br />Be well.gloriamundihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12476712899700515223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-44215765928487755692010-07-05T16:42:41.670+01:002010-07-05T16:42:41.670+01:00Did you ask for some spoof Beckett?
You mean like...Did you ask for some spoof Beckett?<br /><br />You mean like this:<br /><br />Thyme watches Tarragon scooping earth from the grave with his bare hands.<br /><br />Tarragon: Won’t you lift a had once in a way?<br /><br />Thyme: Someone has to keep the ledger, keep a ledger of events, an archaeology of what you achieved.<br /><br />Tarragon: You mean it’s worth taking notes on a man scraping at the ground with hands for a lifetime? You think this is a noble history?<br /><br />Thyme: It’s the only history you’ve got.<br /><br />Tarragon: And what about your history? Who’s jotting down that little lot?<br /><br />Thyme: I am; I’m just notes n the margins of your glorious work.<br /><br />Tarragon climbs out and sits on the edge of the grave.<br /><br />Tarragon: So what ever happened in this shithole that was worth writing down? Give us a butcher’s.<br /><br />Thyme: This is a private work. Not to be pawed over by a breathless man with mud on his hands.<br /><br />Tarragon: Well that’s very least you could do. You think my scraping has just been a performance for you and your quill? That’s my existence not yours.<br /><br />Thyme: I was standing here right beside you every scrape of the way. That’s got to be worth a little acknowledgement, a little intellectual property at least.<br /><br />Tarragon: There’s nothing I’ve done that’s been worth your pencil I’m sure. Nothing but scraping<br /><br />Thyme: And sweating<br /><br />Tarragon: And spitting<br /><br />Thyme: And grunting<br /><br />Tarragon: I feel depressed. I’ve achieved nothing but dirt under my finger nails.<br />Thyme: Aha, but that’s not true. What about the child who fell into your grave? You comforted him.<br /><br />Tarragon: I wiped his eyes and nose<br /><br />Thyme: Used your own handkerchief<br /><br />Tarragon: Stopped him crying.<br /><br />Thyme: Lifted him up out of the grave.<br /><br />Tarragon: Chucked his football after him<br /><br />Thyme: Waved him bye bye<br /><br />Tarragon: Run along now<br /><br />Thyme: Adieu<br /><br />Tarragon: Until we meet again<br /><br />Thyme: Dosvidania<br /><br />Tarragon: He’s gone. . . . .arkayeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09863542411248361164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-9655130914401809612010-07-04T15:15:04.831+01:002010-07-04T15:15:04.831+01:00Thanks R and C for comments. And as usual Charles ...Thanks R and C for comments. And as usual Charles absolutely no need for apologies! <br /><br />I agree with you, we are not innately downbeat in these cash-strapped islands, and our response to being cash-strapped may well be not in the least downbeat!<br /><br />In any case, in our rapidly-changing times I have less and less confidence in ideas of national characteristics and generalisations about typical behaviour. Though I note that a transatlantic friend of mine finds our funerals strangely subdued and "stiff" (no, not stiff, no - dignified and restrained, I tell her....)so maybe au fond there is still some mileage in these generalisations. But your one about families being inscrutably private mostly rings true, I feel. Or maybe that's just because I am in sympathy with the privacy of families and individuals and writhe when people seem to feel the need to destroy that privacy by telling us stuff we Don't Want To Know.<br /><br />Will look at Dorry Bless more carefully - I think underneath the rhetoric, which simply reflects cultural differences and perhaps a more energetically market-aware position than mine, she looks to be saying useful and interesting things. Maybe I suffer a slight rash from some kinds of US semi-public rhetoric because it is so close yet so far from our (?my?) own. <br /><br />Case in point: she speaks of helping people to "access" their emotions. I think I know exactly what she means, but I (we?) would say "express." "Access" seems to me a leaden contemporary cliche. But the difference is unimportant. Perhaps I should access a little more tolerance when I access my keyboard and access my blog...<br /><br />Yet there is a difference. I think our job is often to help people find, generate and express an emotion. So a good ceremony may help the bereaved generate feelings and express them, whereas before they were inchoate. Whereas "access" suggests the feelings are already there, they just need a tap to pour out of, fully matured and realised. <br /><br />Seems to me you often don't know fully what you feel until you start to express it, then it defines itself as/whilst it is expressed, whether by you or for you. That is why people can't predict when part of a funeral will, quite unexpectedly, catch at their throats. They may be solemn and dry-eyed at the committal, the moment of goodby, and then afterwards some cheesy song will cut them in half just as they thought the worst was over - because the song expressed an emotion they hardly knew they had till it was expressed for them.<br /><br />Maybe. I dunno. We have to keep making meanings out of all this, don't we?gloriamundihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12476712899700515223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-16574200022813542622010-07-03T14:52:35.040+01:002010-07-03T14:52:35.040+01:00'Garnish' was ill chosen. You contextualis...'Garnish' was ill chosen. You contextualised and enriched, and provided form and structure. My apologies for that carelessness!Charles Cowlinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757185376546920527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-87310882639042357862010-07-03T10:56:30.438+01:002010-07-03T10:56:30.438+01:00Well, you've certainly got my brain working ag...Well, you've certainly got my brain working again, GM! <br /><br />Did you see that interview with Dorry Bless over at The Daily Undertaker? Very interesting. It addresses some of these themes. http://www.dailyundertaker.com/2010/06/celebrant-conversation-with-dorry-bless.html<br /><br />Perhaps the really significant thing here was that the family undertook the writing and delivery of the tribute? If you like, they did the meat and left the garnish to you. So they really did it their way, they did the 'shoulder and shovel work', they didn't outsource that which, arguably, should not be outsourced. <br /><br />I think that families are very private and inscrutable places. In this case, given the degree of self-reliance they displayed, the email correspondence was enough, and the finished product very difficult for an observer to analyse beyond a recognition that, to all appearances, it worked. Who knows what sub-texts there were in that tribute!<br /><br />That Brits are not a demonstrative people has more to do with resolute holding back than being innately downbeat. They either go on a rampage or they express themselves in elegantly, highly disciplined, repressed ways, through irony and self-deprecation and understatement. No wonder we are a mystery to so many other cultures - we are a mystery to one another! Perhaps there was quite a lot of that going on here? <br /><br />Hmnn, I don't know. I've got to clean the house now. I've got lots to think about... Thank you!Charles Cowlinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757185376546920527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1456857068476095225.post-66852055616958314752010-07-02T20:38:48.102+01:002010-07-02T20:38:48.102+01:00You are right, and proper in my view.
Funerals ar...You are right, and proper in my view.<br /><br />Funerals are for them and not for you.<br /><br />I'm glad that you are a thinking person and not procedural, and that you question, and analyse what you are doing.<br /><br />Not enough of us do that. <br /><br />Glory of the world to you.arkayeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09863542411248361164noreply@blogger.com