I love this. And on the turn of the calendar year, as 2012 arrives...well, I simply had to share it with you.

MHH

"Disappeared" in healing sabbaticals

"Not all those that wander are lost." Tolkien

One day I'm going to disappear to a shack on a remote beach somewhere warm, sleeping to the rolling waves. I'll become a check-out chick called "Rachel": going to work doing the shift, going home to my reclusive shack. People will come through my check out and not know why they feel a little better, why they smile a little broader, why their heart is eased a little more...


One day I'm going to disappear and become a stable hand called "Toby" at a stud in the hills somewhere. Awake well before dawn, drinking the crisp shifting air, assisting the preparation for the elite and most magnificent horses. They won't know why the horses I tend are a little more settled, a little stronger, how the horses' injuries disappear "overnight"...


One day I'm going to disappear deep into the jungle, pushing deeper through the thick, dark, untouched foliage until I reach a people of no common language. They will baptize a name unheard of there if I prove worthy. They will not know why they feel a little better, a little stronger, why the jungle holds her boundary, embraces her people tighter and flourishes a little richer...


One day I'm going to disappear in the crowd. I'll be one more anonymous human, walking the planet in purpose no greater or lesser than any other. 
Not higher nor lower than any other. 
One more essential human in the mix with a difference only discernible by those with the same affliction...

the eyes are open.

2011 ;) MHH

Have I reached my limit...?

I call halt to the rhythmic clatter of my heels on the asphalt.
I have walked back to my car, covering the length of the car park twice, for reasons neither necessary nor urgent. Both times I have turned just as I approached the entrance of the hospital and keeping cadence akin to the military drill I once lived, paced back to my car.
I know people are waiting for me. I know their hearts are desperate and the wait is torturous and long for them. And I'm doing this...

I turn and start to run back to the hospital, diverting down to an entrance not commonly known that will take me through the basement to the elevators hoping to avoid crowds. As I enter I slow, it is a hospital after all, and all too clearly can hear the clatter of my heels again.

My bag falls from my shoulder. I bend to pick it up and only when I reach for the handle, faltering to take hold of it, do I see the tremor in my own hand...
Of late this has become the most difficult of hospitals to enter: The Royal Children's Hospital.
It is all too familiar for the journey I share with my own son, Jack. We have been heavily dependent on this hospital, have known many traumatic and frightening journeys ourselves in here. I know it all too well: the grounds, the floors, the incredible staff, the chapel always empty ( it seems few parents hold faith when they're watching their child struggle). Brilliant doctors, some of the best in the world, reside here, and it has been blessing to have them help us. It is not our family's experience that has my hands trembling.

In the cool, quiet corridor of the basement, I am squat down staring at my hands but not seeing them. Not in this moment.
I'm seeing the brain fluid of a nine-year-old girl running over them, the sutures across her head failing while staff code and frantically prepare to rush her into surgery...
I see the dirt of India beneath them, bloodied by the dripping birthing fluids of newborn twins, both still attached to the placenta fighting for breath...
I see them softly cradling a seven month old baby, screeching in agony from her infusion of chemotherapy...
I see them holding the hand of a mother...
Wiping the eyes of the grandmother...
Soothing the fussing infant, untangling the drips and lines as a toddler runs about me, assisting to hold little posture as the physiotherapist tries to rehabilitate...

The work I"m privileged to do in healing is extraordinary. The people I'm privileged to help even more so.
In the years I have been doing this, I have seen so very much. Perhaps too much.

Suddenly my hands come back into focus and I'm back in the hallway of a hospital with many memories, amid the children's paintings lining the walls, the chill tiles upon the floor...and my hands are trembling.

Staring at them, I can't help but wonder:
Have I reached my limit? Have I seen too much?

Years immersed in this, walking a pioneering road amid the claims, the criticisms, the publicity, the skeptics, the wonders, the healings, the global walk, and more...All that ongoing noise...
Have I reached my limit?

My stare is broken by the tolling of my phone in my bag. A text message from the office. The family are waiting: apparently a little voice is "asking for Melissa".

I grab up my bag. My pace is long, light and quick as I head to the isolation doors of the children's cancer unit.
And I will joke and sing, laugh and play, all the while immersing this child in frequency (quantum bioenergetics) All I can do, my best, all I can, to help him.
For that little voice, louder than any of the noise just told me,

There is no limit.

A little "chook time"...

Took in a little "chook time" today...

Our chickens hatched from eggs in an incubator at my daughter's kindergarten on her birthday, so they gave her two: Sela & Judy (she named them)

They came home, two tiny fluffballs in a shoebox.

No-one ever taught them.No-one ever showed them. Yet as they grew they knew how to scratch, to dirt bathe, what to eat & what to avoid, how to scuttle blissfully at full cry, how to come home each night to roost ...

how to be successful at being a chicken.

There was no mother, no teacher, no "rules" guiding them...just survival each day with nothing to lose. 

All came from within.

Every now & then I'll pause life & take a little "chook time", quietly sitting in the sun, watching them be...for they do it so very well.

Steve Jobs - a name we won't forget

Today, Steve Jobs, of Apple died, losing his battle with cancer at the age of 56.
An incredible man with exceptional vision, may we remember without the need to belittle for our own ego sake, that such legacy of vision we should all leave behind us.
Thanks Steve Jobs for your brilliance. In your honor, as you now rest,
One of my favorite Steve Jobs pieces is attached :)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/steve-jobs-his-10-commandments.html

For Linda - Finding Home

Disappointment's black oil meanders a descending slick
clouding a cheek's flush, dousing hope,
smothering love.
Memory,
time spent
scorches
the facade held tight in
disguising discretion.
Exoskeletal cracks, shattering as the fire within grows intolerant.
True heart cannot hold the breach.
Discovery splatters the inner walls as the home is ripped,
slaughtered,
becoming only house.
Ramshackle,
Uninhabitable,
A house without home.

A deception without heart.
The fire builds,
the flame ascending,
temperature soars,
the weapons loading betrayal with the cruelest ammunition:
truth.
A house without home.

Mere shadow encasing refugee.
Ownership displaced, affection withdrawn,
Careless.
In the echo of battle, new coordinates required,
The owner falls deeper, grappling in memory amid answer...

Breath drawn and held for too long,
exhales.
The poised tear,
hanging,
tremulous with fatigue,
releases.

She finds Self.
And within,
Smile.
Laughter.
Play.
Warmth.
Rest.
Comfort.
Safe.
She is Home.

For Linda Hughes-Brehaut, with all my love and admiration.

MHH 2011

The Cry of Integrity

In my favorite city on this earth, people left their electronic screens to come together and demand Integrity! Government has reacted with lies, concealment , fear. Dangerous to underestimate the power of that which cannot be denied ;) MHH

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTH2p_91_os&feature=share 

 

All the beauty, all the atrocity, all of our race's history is built upon the limited equation of a linear time frame... Yet evidence is plain of existence now beyond this equation.
We are infinite. Boundless. The possibilities for us are genuinely without restraint...
if we can but evolve our minds. ;) MHH

Restore the Masculine

Just wrote this as a comment in a massive thread debating sexism.
What are your thoughts?

"Both men & women are essential & irreplaceable in the balance of humanity. Both have their roles. Both equally important & neither cannot survive without the other.
Recent decades has seen a damaging demoralization of the masculine in the name of an equally imbalanced "feminism" creating a strange, displaced mutant sexualism in society.
I am a lady: I have been an officer in the military, I am a mother, I head up an international company, I am wife.
Being woman does not make me weak.
Being strong does not make me "man" either.
I am woman because the balance of my presence is Man.
As such, let the masculine restore."

MHH

Autumn

The sun swings lower upon her orbital axle her late light streaking perpendicular through the hemisphere's autumn adornment.
Leaf cries spectacular hue in it's final curtain call preceding it's host's hibernation.
And I, a single inhabitant, am blessed to be witness beneath it

MH2011

The Wedding Approaches: Instalment Five

Yet another unexpected delight of this unique unfolding event (yep, the wedding) is just how cleansing the process is. And "unexpectedly" is exactly how such things have arrived.

Cathartic delights are upon me. Its hard rubbish collection time (only happens once a year in the mountains in which we reside) and the cathartic outpourings of a natural purger are enraptured. Old mattresses, boxes and bags of miscellaneous rubbish, tiny push bikes (still usable, so they're up on the roadside with matching still functional bike helmets), wheelchair arms removed upon delivery and never used... its a melange of wondrous abandonment :) And as I am there at the roadside, carefully positioning items, making them look pretty to those that may wish to make treasure of my trash, a thought occurs... Should I formally cast off the closing of this chapter in life?

Should I cast off what it has been to be alone for many years? Alone with 3 kids, one severely disabled, running an international business and all that goes with it: the clinic here in Melbourne, the courses, the travel, the books, etc.

Each involved with this wedding, however involved they are, have invested in it their own emotional endeavors. Naturally. Rite of passage like this have the ability to cause all to take stock at some level. As the event itself draws nearer a funnel-like effect develops and the intensity in the agendas at work condenses. I see in me plainly as much as I observe it around me.

I see it in the events unfolding, the lessons intensifying, the demands grappling more urgently. The rising waves of grief gripping me. The mental strength demanded for my patience to withhold. I see it in the dance of a heart once shackled.

A long time ago now I married a good friend (Do not do that. Love is real.) . Years later, out of the blue, he chose to leave us. In hindsight it was more premeditated on his part than that but at the time it was unexpected. We were alone: all money "disappeared" and inaccessible, pregnant, 2 babies, one with disabilities...wow, it was scary.

Simultaneously I am feeling the bitterness (several years overdue) and the bliss of the end of this chapter.

In a matter of days I will walk down an aisle into a sacred union with the greatest man I know. From the first, my heart has always been his. In a few days my vow and pledge will be before you all.

I had long ago given up any belief that this could be. A few years ago one of my greatest friends and colleagues, Jainee, and I came to the conclusion that it must be that we were married to our work. I then selected my heart become chaste, closed to any but always giving where it could.

For years.

Then out of nowhere a hand plunged into the dark chasm of this decision, gripping my heart and drawing it into light. Within days, (I often wonder if it was the same day) the same occurred for my friend.

I place ring upon that hand in a few days.

Should I formally cast off the closing of this chapter in life? Perhaps through ritual or process? Perhaps it was closed for me.

Or perhaps in these very musings, as I cast memory to the curb, someone may find treasure in my trash,

and too, reprieve their heart from Love's chastity.

For I was wrong: believe.

A Marital "obedience"

"...and obey."

I recently commented on a genuine friend, the wonderfully intelligent and fabulous journalist, Helen Barradell's, status on facebook:

"The emasculation of man over the past several decades is one of this planets greatest imbalances and perhaps core to our race's demise."
The approach of nuptials and the chosen venue for the vows had required we attend premarital counselling via an age-old religious doctrine housed within this hallowed venue: the church.

Those of you that know us know well enough that we both walk solidly in spirit and as such we both relished the opportunity to dance amid this atop of ancestry and history.

The church was onto us immediately, it seems, for we were separated from any "group" counselling invitation and offered a rare opportunity to undergo the sessions privately with the upper hierarchy of the establishment.



The first session left us divided in expression as we departed it.

I was appalled, saddened, disgruntled. Ferg: bemused.

One thing was plain: this church's view of marriage was not at all as either of us had ever seen it.



A little backtrack: the precedent working with us , a minister within the cathedral itself, was a woman. Plain in her countenance, her dress, her manner was the battle she had fought, and the strength she had summoned for it, for her place in this political community. Even more so was this battle plain in her approach to marriage. It is a battle that plainly is still present among us, but so much a common part of us that we don't really pay it much attention. These changing times have, as with all things caught in this acceleration, brought this to the fore...

Only last week at the meeting for the Order of Service with the church did the need for us to speak up become a necessity. The church immediately and, for the first time, quite passionately tried to dissuade us from our choice of service: a beautiful, linguistically luscious service worthy of the mystic warrior I am pledging to.

"Um...no." A pause as she glanced from Ferg (sitting back, arms folded and intimidating in his silence) to me, desperately trying to be patient,

"No," slight scoffing," Melissa, I think you should consider one of these.."

She pulls out a couple of alternative, more "modern", ready-to-go marital orders of service.

" This one is the one you'd know: its from 1962, the modern service and commonly used for some time, although, this..."
She drops volume with a flourish on her unkempt desk, "Is the Australian version, updated and released in 2005."

Her triumphant smile shows not a flicker of doubt that, of course, we would choose this one.

As she expands upon the brilliance of this choice of service, her pitch enthusiastic and true, we simultaneously lean over the desk, perusing her preferred versions. We look at one another, smiling, and gently lean back into our seats,


"We'd like the 1662." Ferg.

"But the Australian version..."

"We aren't being married in an Australian church."

She's confused. Yes, granted, the building is in Australia, the church does not originate from this country.

Me, "We'd like the 1662."


A cacophony of emotions run a sequence of shadows across her face in a moment.

"The version from 1962 is still commonly used, let me go over it..."


But the dawning of change was upon humanity , even in our slowed society, in the 60s. The "age of Aquarius" was on approach, the feminine rising, bras were burnt, men cooked their own dinner... and the balance of the sexes became a political game in a struggle for power. "Feminism" rose, hostilities were born is claims of "equality" and in those claims no foundation of being equal could be found.

In short, we did not want an order of matrimony founded in an era of gender power and politics.


"Marriage is not the "partnership" in compromise people continue to refer to.

It is unity. Duo Incarne Uno, "two become one" as was always foretold.

A balanced unity where each is as essential as the other, and appropriate in their presence. Love is still real."


"But Melissa, you will vow to "obey" him! "Obey!". In the service it says, "and obey"." She looks me in the eye, "You don't want to do that."

Me, "And he will "serve and cherish" me."


In our minds we, Ferg and I, understand these vows from where they dawned: 1662. When "obedience" was to clan, tribe, community and family. Where, as has always been the case, the women were the spiritual keepers of the clan, as the men were the pinnacle to the survival of  it. "Man" was guardian to the spiritual, just as "woman" was obedient to the survival and keeping of the people. All was in balance.

Recent times. The past several decades have seen a travesty in that "balance". A skew as the feminine power rose, the kundalini shifting from Tibet to South Amercia, the age indeed of Aquarius, has risen fear in the man and so it should...they have been denied the very power they need to hold.

"You are being dogmatic about this. I cannot change the service. I cannot change the words. You would say "and obey"." She's standing behind her desk now, going for authority in her body language and nervously picks at her underwear.


I gently concede, "If it is so disturbing to you, I'm happy for you to remove those two words."

"I can't change the service!"

"Then it is not I that is being dogmatic." I quietly say with a smile.

Her passionate war is her own as she leans in on Ferg, looking for his support...for only a second or two before she realizes...

Firmly, unhappily, she is absolute in her tone as she departs,

"I'm going to leave you to think about this. And I hope you do just that."



I hope we all do ;)



MH 2011
Postscript: not only did this minister do the 1662 for us on the day, but she did it magnificently with such sacred beauty and spiritual eloquence...I will always hold her dear to my heart :) M

The Wedding Approaches: Instalment Four

Just looked into a now crowded bathroom cabinet and discovered 6 different curl enhancing/defrizzing hair products. All new, used only once or twice each.

It makes absolute sense...

Its remarkably obvious and practical...

And yet still, despite the calm logic of a woman not prone to panicking, it has been an utterly irresistible force: The past few weeks has seen me trialling strange and wondrous "beauty" treatments, manicure technique and substances, hair products, hair tools, and more, that I have never tried before and have never had much interest in,

ever.

Yet, despite the ridiculousness of it, and somewhere within my absolute knowledge of this, I continue to venture into unknown territories. Needless to say I probably, right now, look terrible :)

Blessedly a greater force (perhaps "logic" itself ) stepped in and I have come to my senses.

Ok, it was seeing another bride looking tad uncomfortable at her own nuptials, who then asked me if I could work on her (see QBI page for details) to relieve her discomfort.

Ok, so it was more of a reality slap shaped in the cruel, open visuals of dry, red, patchy itching, oozing in-growneds, bright red scalp and oddly discoloured epidermis, crowned nicely by the distorted expression of "determined-to-be-a-princess" survival on the bride's face.

Aware of several friends intended to be married in the nearish future, I feel compelled to share a little learned wisdom so that these brides-to-be do not go to the alter worriedly patched, oozing and itching as the poor chick I helped last week:

If it works, don't fix it.

Just looked into a now crowded bathroom cabinet and discovered 6 different curl enhancing/defrizzing hair products. All new, used only once or twice each.

By nature a purger, I too stay true to what works...

and bin them :)

The Wedding Approaches: Instalment Three

"A three thousand dollar jewel..."


At my standard sprint pace I was gathering goods to leave the office for a series of appointments then the clinic.
"I'll do the banking if you like. I have a meeting there anyway about the merchant stuff..." I offer to Elaine. They look at me dubiously in the office. I continue, "You know, I do know how to deposit funds. I can handle it. So... this envelope?"

I have so much on. Let's face it, I always do :) This impending event, the blessed wedding, is frustrating me no end with its constant intrusion into an already strained schedule. God forbid when, like this week, people have jerked the chain on me: no-showing me and not calling, changing appointments last minute, various things not arriving as they were meant to (not least of all my bridal gown heading off on its own to France, apparently. Still don't have it).

Sure enough in my bag as I exit were several last minute wedding invitations to be jammed in the nearest postal reciprocal somewhere on my journey. I bolt from the office.

Ahem, well...I forgot to deposit the cash at the bank yesterday (don't tell Elaine!). This morning I frantically stripped my bag looking for the envelope... Did I put somewhere "safe"? I'm looking about the office, flinging stacks about, "Did they have no faith and take it themselves?" I text Elaine, in a disguised confession: "do you recall where I put that envelope...?"

Before she replies there is a knock at my door. The postman. He never comes to the door. Our mailbox is a significant and steep distance from our door...

"Can I help you?" I smile.
"I think I can help you actually." The postman says, "Looking for anything?"
Ok, a cryptic postie.
My true answer would have been , "Patience." However, before I could summon a polite response he procured an envelope.
An envelope with over $3000 cash in it and several cheques.
THE envelope.
"You posted this yesterday" he grinned

"What?!"
He chuckled at my astonishment.
"But, but...how?!"

Trying to get the mail in the mailbox before the 6pm pick up the night before, I had stopped at our local box, car still running and deposited the wedding invitations, before leaping back in. This postman saw me doing it as he was about to do the pick up.
"When I was pulling the mail out a few coins fell out of the pile you'd just put in, so I investigated. Lucky you had the return address on it!" (Bless you, Elaine, for your choice of envelope (disguised cash transportation). I shall never again laugh at the few coins you put in to be "absolutely exact".)
"Even luckier that I saw you, so when you answered the door I could return it."

Messy, exuberant gratitude gushed from me. I offered him cash reward which he had to refuse.

What great integrity this man had. It was mostly cash: no-one would have ever known if he had kept it. Yet not only did he return it, he went out of his way to do it. A good man :)

He left wishing us "all the best for our wedding" and for a moment I wondered "Is he psychic?" then recalled that the envelope had been disguised amid wedding invitations...sigh...

Invasive rite of passage is this wedding upon my usual schedule madness.
And what a jewel this man was amongst it :)

The Wedding Approachs: Instalment Two

"Ivory is close to Aubergine..."

I don't usually talk to people at the gym. I'm in and out, very focused when I'm there for I don't have a lot of spare time. But of course only last week...

"You have a gorgeous shape!"

Rivulets of sweat are running down my spine, the weight of the squat rack cutting the flesh on my shoulders (it ain't pretty when I'm training) as I lift my gaze to a warm, welcoming smile. I hook the rack up and run my hands self consciously over any lumpy bits,

"Thanks."

"I'm a dressmaker and your shape would be perfect to work on. Just so you know I'm not perving or anything. I just appreciate it." We both laugh.

At the time I remember thinking to myself "I so hope I don't need you"

Indiscernible packages arrived today. Covered in Chinese writing the only English word on them was "Shanghai"... What the?

Yes, that's right. I ordered the flower girl and bridesmaid dresses online.

They have arrived.

Ok, well some dresses have arrived. What I ordered wasn't what emerged from the packages.

There are two colours I have nothing to do with: ice blue and purple. ("Purple": even saying it sounds like you're puking) Both look rubbish anywhere near me and I return the favor. So as my excited seven year old and I tear apart the first bag what should rupture forth;

PURPLE!

"Oh Mum! Its SO beautiful!" She's dancing about delightedly, holding the dress to her.

"Oh dear god..." came my dismayed utterance

"What a wonderful surprise, Mum!"

"Wonderful..." with all the enthusiastic tone of a Monty Python "hooray". I grab up the "receipt" trying to make sense of it. "What the...?" Nothing.

"What's in the other bag, Mum?!"

With dread my eyes slip sideways toward the other package. Bridesmaid dresses. We brave it:

And once again, although right colour, completely foreign dresses to what was once ordered.

I hit the inbox, find the number and call them.

The person I had all my transactions with was "Sarah".

There had been no indication that they were coming from China. Or that "Sarah" has even less English than I have Cantonese.

"Sarah, I ordered the dresses in Ivory."

"Yes. Ivory. Yes. Yes." Within her voice she's smiling broadly.

"They're purple!"

"Aubergine."

"Excuse me?"

"The dress is Aubergine." Sarah's still smiling, evidently quite proud.

"No. No. On every receipt, every email they are ivory!"

"Ah well yes, ivory is very close to aubergine." I am informed with stoic authority.

"Ah, no its not. Ivory and aubergine are very different!"

"On our chart there are close....have look at website" Sure enough on their colour chart on the site for some obscure reason there is no sequential order in the colours; ivory is right next to aubergine. Regardless on every receipt, order form etc I had ordered "ivory".

"They are close."

"So is the wedding they are to be worn at, Sarah!" This isn't going anywhere...

Sigh...

My daughter now has the dress on and is spinning and twirling in front of the mirror, her delighted smile brighter than the aubergine itself. I can't help laughing. "Ivory is close to Aubergine."

I email our magnificent florist, a gifted artist, for somehow she will save this

"Elaine, a challenge in improvisation is upon us..."

Then search my bag for the card Imogen, the dressmaker at the gym, gave me. I don't usually speak to people at the gym...

I cannot help looking at the handmade beading and cringing at the thought of a six year old in a sweat shop slaving over my bargain dresses. Goddamn that! :(

"Improvise, adapt and overcome."

It was the catch cry when I was in Infantry in the Australian Army. I carry it through life. And it seems this approaching event is as tactical as any enemy contact I'd known before.

This wedding may well become a mastery in camouflage and concealment. :)

MH

The Wedding Approaches: Instalment One

Its so easy to forget what you're doing! There is such anticipation, such expectation upon a wedding I can now understand how easily one can forget they are actually getting married.

A month out from our own wedding and as expected all that is planned, ordered, organised and hoped for starts to intensify. And fall apart. And change. And unravel. And develop. And so much more. I should probably be devastated, a little traumatised, tantrum enhanced perhaps but the humour in this is just too rich... I have to share this journey.

And so you're welcome to join me over the next month.

I'll be doing it in instalments. Notifying through facebook, twitter and for those following on here. Hope you enjoy.

Instalment One:

The invitations that were meant to go out over three weeks ago have still not gone out. I find this out four weeks before the wedding through friends sending me casually worded text messages pointedly but not absolutely saying, "Just making sure you have our postal address. Here it is again..."

No invites. This is despite the "rush order" recommended (for a convenient extra $150, of course). On the website it states that the invitations will be delivered 5 working days after the approved print mock-up. This is reiterated to me upon a phone call to the company, fitted in between web design meetings, patient appointments, frantic meetings with financial team, school pick up...

"That mock up that was approved 4 weeks ago? Is that the mock up you're referring to?" I ask her. I'm driving the mobile office, hollering at the touch screen even though the microphone is up behind the rear view mirror because a visual helps you to be heard on a blue tooth apparently.

"Oh well, " I can hear her smiling,"we've had a long weekend in Victoria and that would have delayed the process."

"For three weeks?"

"Yes." She happily chirps.

"Uh, no. I'm afraid no." Couldn't help laughing, "Those invitations need to be out. Today."

"We can have them express post to you tomorrow."

"How about you express post them to the people invited? The addresses are on the envelopes."

"We don't provide that service, I'm afraid."

"Well...lucky you provide refunds and discounts, isn't it?" I'm smiling. She's appropriately wary now...the saga unfolds.

So text I resort to. I'm sending out text massages to all that I do have the numbers of (many relatives, friends, colleagues, etc, I do not ) just giving them the heads up of date and time. Feel free to text me if you feel I've lost your postal address too :)

Now there is a dignified wedding invite :) Text.

If the guests are lucky they may receive an invite in the mail while we're on our honeymoon, so they can revel in the joy of us married already.

In the meantime I think the wedding party are still coming. So at least there will be two of us.

MH

We are but residents, alongside many others, upon a planet that is shifting, aching in despair. Every resident, all species, are effected. All are trying to communicate warning. Even the human.
Put aside the cognitive superficiality of policy, politics and process... We are all in this together.
Feel this. Heal this.

Throw glitter in her grave...

My mother died suddenly.
The kind of "suddenly" that has the police walking up your path and knocking at your door to inform you "suddenly". The "We need you to identify the body" suddenly.

Our father was terminally ill and incapacitated (he left us only months after Mum). As such my sister and I entered a world of "arrangements" that were directly foreign to us: death certificates and autopsies, diversions and decisions...
We sat down with the funeral director to organise the service itself and I curbed my tongue for the most part as he, with all the sweetness and sympathy of a well trained salesman, showed us through coffin brochures and flower arrangements.
I was opting for a cheaper coffin. My sister was leaning toward the fully upholstered, satin lined, Latvian Orthodox version at which the gentleman was nodding understandingly (chi-ching).
I was forced to remind Linda that we were only going to look at it for 30 minutes then its permanently in the dirt (don't start me on the burial choice!) which was met with the director's disapproving frown. My practicality was plainly eating into his commission.
Linda broke into discussion with a friend and I took the time to grab the director's attention...

"At the cemetery..."
"Yes, Ms Hocking?"
"Could you please throw glitter into the actual grave prior to our arrival?"
He sat back and stared at me, his shock clear upon his face. "Well I can honestly say I've never heard this before." He replied with a smile. "Any way in particular?..."

The service at the church complete, the procession had arrived for the graveside service, and my young children and I lead the congregation to the graveside.

My children and my niece, my mother's grandchildren, were young: 8, 6, 4 and 4 years old. As we walked down the funeral director approached me (he had realized at this stage I wasn't lacking compassion, I was just on good terms with "death".)
"I have four balloons for the children to release during the service." he whispered.
I was concerned, "I don't know...it would be better if you had eight. Could you summon another four? It would work better if they got a keeper each too."
"Ah...no. I just got four..."

The service began.
It was summer in Australia: the light bright and brilliant and warm.
As we stood beside the grave, my mother cradled upon it, our hearts once heavy, lightened as we looked down:
The very walls of the freshly cut earth of the grave sparkled. The light caught upon the glitter sending coloured shards, dazzling and divine from the earth itself. It was spectacular.
The funeral director leaned in and said, "That is amazing! What made you think of it?"
"I needed my children, my family to see my mother going into light, not into a cold, dark abyss."
"Of course." he smiled,"Do you mind if we use that from now on? I have a child's funeral tomorrow..."

The kids to their delight were then handed the balloons and upon the closure of prayer invited to release them. None of them wanted to let go of their balloon. Would you when you were 6?
"Helpful" relatives started using loud voices at the children,
"Let go, Maddy!" "
"Teagan, let go of your balloon and watch Nana fly like an angel!"
"Jack, let go of Nana!"
Jack burst into traumatised tears, "Nooo! NO letting go of Nana"
I brought out my Army voice, "Everyone stop!"
I squatted down to the kids, engulfing in cuddles,

"Its okay guys. The idea is you let go when YOU are ready to let go. If you're not ready then you hold onto that balloon until you are. No-one else can decide it for you."

Within only a few minutes, by their own choice, one by one, they each let go of their balloon and we watched each one soar into the deep blue.


Grief is such a unique journey: no-one else can decide it for you.
You let go only when you are ready to let go.
Hold onto that balloon until you are.

Melissa Hocking 2011

Remember? We chose to come here...

Kissing my girl's goodnight, I was quietly decending the spiral staircase from their room (the Ladie's Loft) when I heard Colby say to Teagan (the youngest),
"Teags, remind me again where we came from... I think I'm starting to forget."
"We came from Spirit, Col. Close your eyes and remember... Remember? We chose to come here..."

Melissa Hocking 2010

To walk to the edge of any of life's symbolic precipices & consciously step off, this is courage in self as no other. Such conscious decision gives intent & dawning, trusting in self and in spirit absolutely, to walking your path and walking it true...
M

A lost communication in these unfathomable times

An unsual solitary moment within a world in turmoil....

Amid the oppressing humidity, despite the heated, torrential downpour I took foot upon a familiar running circuit over the mountain to ease the turmoil within myself. Shallow, barely present trails had become channels for the deluge and each footfall in climb and in descent was calculated, my eyes constantly seeking the next rock to stabilise the pace...

Unfathomable floods and shattering fires, random senseless shootings and abhorrent acts of violence, I take road on this day on foot to relieve the tension I take up in the task I am here to do (as I often do). Each coursing rivulet of sweat takes with it the toxin of stress that does not serve me. Today is indeed a disturbing day. A run in the rain, often silent and solitary, is fine retreat.

As is common in my experience of life, I often have butterflies land upon me (no doubt related to the work I do in healing) so as the cloud of butterflies began to build about me, even as I ran, at first I wasn't disturbed. Rising from the very earth that sheltered them they took flight deliberate in their intent to draw to the runner.

An iridescent glitter began to dot and decorate the increasing cloud building about me as dragonflies, coming from it would seem nowhere, joined the chaotic throng. An unlikely coupling. And as such a quiet disturbance took root within...

I slowed to a walk, curious, and sure enough the butterflies started to take claim upon my flesh.

Not sure if this was uniform through the bush, perhaps many insects were behaving so, I quickly sprinted forward, finding that this kaleidoscope veil was isolated and focused about me... and rapidly caught up. I quickly returned to pace but ...something deep within stirred more unsettled.

Why were they seeking me like this?

On this when so many are suffering.

On this day when so many are bracing for an unknown but given horror.

On this day when a world is struggling to feel safe are they too seeking comfort?

This deliberate entry upon my path did seem a search for reassurance.

Only when I saw a dragonfly stutter in his flight did I consider that it was indeed pouring with rain. It had been consistently the whole way, cascades from my cap, rivers meandering the length of my limbs...

I have never seen such creatures endure the rain before. Running in the rain is solitary not just in those you may come across but in all creature, sounds, visually you are shrouded...

Not this day.

Desperation was clear in their actions but not in their language.

A warning? An attempt to comfort?

As my foot hit tarmac, almost home on my circuit, this gifted veil lifted from me remaining in boundary of bushland. I stopped and turned, my rhythm broken by this sudden shift. Rising and gently dispersing they rapidly disappeared...

and without knowing why, my own tears began to fall, heavy, burdened, lost and unheeded amongst the confusion of the solid rain.

What did I miss? They braved an atmosphere dangerous to them, life threatening, to desperately accompany me...and I missed it.

I do not know the message. I did not hear the communication. I would hope the solace they were seeking was found even briefly but I fear perhaps not.

For myself the weight of all that is happening, of all calling for help and assistance is heavier upon my return...

My friends, give light whenever you can, because you can, in these unfathomable times.

Know gratitude that you can share this much.

For we are still here on this day

Melissa Hocking

A Year Ago Today...

A year ago today my son and I were in the general waiting area of a major hospital about to be admitted for his radical, extreme and horribly painful orthopedic surgery.
He was hysterical with fear.
I was too. But there was only room for one of us to scream and cry.

A year ago today, according to my own doctors, I had three weeks to live at best. I had ceased treatment for my own terminal illness in order to be functional for my boy through the horror we were necessarily about to embark upon.
They were not supportive of that decision.

A year ago today two incredible girlfriends, true friends, had moved in to our house to help us as we had nobody that could and as such my daughters were at home with them in a childhood oblivion to the trauma upon us.

The experience of being human is never matched in intensity as owning the responsibility of guardianship: of family, of friends, of self.

On this day my son is laughing, loud and musical, at his mother's antics as he bears weight through is legs working toward promise of walking. This in utter defiance to the quadriplegia that claims his body. And only possible due to the surgery he chose a year ago.

On this day I breathe deeply, my mind clear, my body stronger than it has been for several years. My heart beats not renewed but instead, reborn.

On this day both of my incredible friends are moving through life amid blessing and trial as life would have them do so. It is delight to watch. And they are loved by all of us.
It is a rare gratitude, complex and rich, that we shall eternally bare for them.

This day houses light as never before. Love as never before. A future as never possible but I know no impossibility and so, I shall claim it.

For we are here on this day.

"Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will. It is always interesting"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Melissa Hocking 2011