the one-eyed traveller » death

I am Learning to Abandon the World

John Holman — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:37:23 +0000

Leif Gunnlögsson, a friend has died. I don’t want to sound trite but I think he’d learnt to abandon the world before it abandoned him. Me, I’m still learning …

I am Learning to Abandon the World

by Linda Pastan

I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.
And every night I give my body up
limb by limb, working upwards
across bone, towards the heart.
But morning comes with small
reprieves of coffee and birdsong.
A tree outside the window
which was simply shadow moments ago
takes back its branches twig
by leafy twig.
And as I take my body back
the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap
as if to make amends.

Field Note #10: from the bathroom

John Holman — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:08:38 +0000

Arriving home from a month in India and Nepal was great. Hugging my wife at the airport and then driving up to the northern beaches of Sydney always reminds me of how fortunate I am. How, in the scheme of things, I live in a kind of ‘heaven realm’ with clean air, food and water. There is a lack of noise and visual pollution and a feeling of general safety that follows-on from the incredibly fortunate life I was born into.

Amoebic dysentery seems to have a way levelling the playing field of life. Sitting in our bathroom, five or six times a day and expressing this stuff that is partly of my body. Stuff, that if I didn’t know intimately where it came from I would swear originated from some rather dubious industrial process. Makes me realise that the procedure is no different for the untouchable caste Indian rickshaw driver, the high Brahman priest or this white man sitting on his pristine porcelain and looking out over blue skies and the waves of the Pacific Ocean.

Life is life. By that I mean people are ostensibly the same. I didn’t meet more angry, or unhappy people in India and Nepal, than I meet here on a daily basis. Yes, many have a lot less than I have. But I have not seen an increase in despondent people. I have not seen more unhappiness than what I generally see here. What I have seen are people getting on with their lives the best way they can. What I have seen are mothers suckling kids and fathers going to work each morning. What I have seen are people whose fears, hopes and dreams are not that much different from mine.

Okay! I know this is all a tad simplistic. But sitting on the loo doing what comes naturally, even if it is recovering from amoebic dysentery, has kind of helped me fill my heart with the realisation that we are much the same — and that, as the saying goes ‘those things that unite us tend to be far greater than those that divide us’.

Field note #8: Japanese Temple, Sarnath

John Holman — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:19:46 +0000

There is a Japanese Temple in Sarnath and as you might imagine it’s a quiet place with a nice garden and an accommodation block off to the side. I’m not sure what the rooms are like, but the veranda is nice and away from the tourists and the noise. There is a table and a chair and I have used them a few times to sit and write emails and read my book.

There is something nice about being able to just wander into a temple and find a quiet place to sit. Being still, finding a place that doesn’t assault every single one of my senses, all of the time, is a luxury for me and quite difficult to find here –but I have discovered a few of these special places and I visit them to reload and calm my fried brain.

Constant noise is the worst form of pollution for me — music that is played 500 decibels above whatever the human ear was made to receive. People shouting with loud and strident voices, vehicles with their horns penetrating and constant pushing, always pushing, saying “get out of my way you stupid person, can’t you see I’m important and in a hurry…”

Everyone in India is important! Well, almost everyone — shopkeepers, rickshaw drivers, monk, sadu or Brahman. Everyone pushes and if a gap appears on the road, 328 people, vehicles and bikes dive in to fill it.

Funnily enough, once you calm to it, once you stop fighting the noise and the pollution, the acrid smells and the closeness of humanity you begin to see people simply going about their business–buying, selling, living and dying. Nothing different–nothing special.

In a few days I leave for Nepal. I’ve enjoyed being in India again. For me it’s a special and an awful place. It’s kind and also a horridly uncaring society. It’s calm and peaceful and it’s also hell — it’s life on steroids.

Losing things

John Holman — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 01:00:33 +0000

flash fiction by John Holman

My father died three years ago and, although I didn’t realise it at the time, it left me with a sense of loss that I have yet to truly understand.

Your father died last night in his sleep, my mother called to say.

Losing my father was not like losing my keys. I mean, I didn’t take off in a panic running here and there, calling people and generally feeling frantic and with a pit in my stomach because I was sure someone was now going to break into my apartment, steal everything I owned and probably murder me in my bed as well. In fact, all I remember about the moments after my mother’s call is putting the phone down and repeating back to myself, Dad died in his sleep last night. That’s all. I don’t remember feeling sick — in fact I don’t remember feeling much at all.

One thing that did spur me into immediate action was the realisation that I was over here and Dad was over there. Over there being half a world, one hemisphere and a few continents away. So, getting from Australia to England in time for his funeral wasn’t going to be easy.

I arrived in the afternoon. He had been buried that morning, so I hired a car and drove to the cemetery from the airport. I walked the isles of mud and grass between the marble plaques, passed square-cut English hedge rows and a bright orange tractor and found his new abode, his grave — row 28H, plot 137.

I stood there for quite a while. I didn’t cry, in fact to this day I haven’t found any tears for him. I just closed my eyes against that miserable scene and remembered his face and the warmth of his hands and the stubble on his cheeks and the many, many hugs and kisses and impromptu winks and smiles and words that told me so unequivocally and throughout my whole life, that I was loved.

As is our way, I found a pebble and placed it on the newly turned earth and then sat on my haunches for a moment in front of this strange place the universe had chosen for us to say good-bye.

I think loss is a harsh word. Its sound, its taste as it sits inside my mouth gives it a harshness that I can’t really describe — and as I walked away from his grave, and as I thought about loss, about never seeing him again, I searched my pockets wondering what I’d done with my car keys, and a pit opened up in my stomach.

Dylan Thomas: Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night

John Holman — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:01:44 +0000

I came across this Dylan Thomas poem quite a long time ago and copied it to a notebook I keep on my computer. I find it sad as well as sort of uplifting. His poem addresses us (men) with a rather sombre and challenging message — to pursue our passions even in the face of our own mortality. His message is not to let our passions be compromised — but he also reminds us that our rage will be ineffectual in the face of death. This poem is one of his most popular …read more at wikipedia.org

Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night

by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Margaret Atwood: This as a Photograph of Me

John Holman — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 08:36:55 +0000

You gotta love Margaret Atwood — she knows how to write great books and super funny poetry.

This Is A Photograph Of Me

by Margaret Atwood

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

ANZAC Day: The Ode

John Holman — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 21:59:07 +0000

ANZAC Day – 25 April – is probably Australia’s most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The name ANZAC, stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

The Ode

The Ode, which is taken from Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen was probably recited at every ANZAC Day dawn ceremony across Australia today.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

The Last Post

The bugle call The Last Post is used by many countries as an accompaniment to a soldier’s farewell. You can download a wav file of The Last Post and read more about ANZAC Day here | Link.

I also found an outline of a simple Anzac Day Ceremony along with various ANZAC related mp3′s which you can also download here | Link.

Animal rights gone mad

John Holman — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:11:53 +0000

You kind of know when someone nicks the remains of your mother-in-law that things might be getting a bit too hairy to continue.

It seems that four British animal rights protesters have admitted plotting to blackmail the owners of a farm that bred guinea pigs for medical research. They have also admitted to using the theft of the remains of 82 year old Gladys Hammond as part of their campaign.

I’m sure at the time their strategy seemed very logical and correct — I know, let’s save the poor little guinea pigs by acting like complete twits for the next six years and if that doesn’t work, we’ll just dig-up one of the owner’s dead relatives.

Oh yes, that’s a plan! I can really see how it all hangs together… Link

The way I want to die

John Holman — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 23:29:42 +0000

For most of my life, whenever I thought about dying, I hoped I’d die in my sleep. I didn’t want pain and I certainly didn’t want any lead-up to that final moment. The thought of waiting to die, being told I had a few months or years to live was not something that sat well with me. I couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it must be to live each day with such knowledge. For me, death was something to fear and depressing to consider.

A few years ago while attending a Vipassana meditation course it came to me that death would be the last experience I’d have — that it was something that would definitely happen and there was nothing I could do to change it.

There is nothing terribly profound in those thoughts — except for me it was the first time I had thought them. After I’d calmed down and was able to think about it without my pulse racing, I realised I could go back and try to ignore death again or I could start thinking about it more, which is what I chose to do.

Thinking about death was not just scary, it was downright terrifying for me. I don’t believe in reincarnation, nor do I believe in heaven and hell. I do believe something carries on, but I have no idea what, and anyway, I don’t think we are conscious of whatever it might be.

I see the whole life death thing like this: It’s as if we’re a glass of water plucked from the ocean and given life and form and then one day the glass is upturned and we are returned to the ocean — death and whatever. The form in the glass, I, no longer exists — it has gone back and been mixed, diluted, joined with the ocean.

Over time, I have begun to feel differently about death and the experience of dying. Today, I would prefer to be present, I would like to experience my death in the same way I experience a sunny day. To be in it and a part of it. I can still get scared when I think about it all, but most of the time the thought of death as my last great adventure has a somewhat calming effect.

Photo Friday: Technology

John Holman — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:04:01 +0000

Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, was their technology and like some of ours it allowed them to sacrifice people to appease their God. Technology is this weeks Photo Friday assignment.

god’s chosen
slay god’s children
a deathly silence on high

Haiku by soji.