chasing away salt water

new poetry blog is up!

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:02:00 +0000

It's called 'bruises you can touch' and it's all about my time at Blackstar Coffee as their poet in residence. May you fall head over heels in love with words and welcome poetry into your hearts and minds.

excitement! throws confetti

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:02:00 +0000

I am delighted to announce that I've been chosen by Australian Poetry to be a poet as part of their Cafe Poet program. In January, I'll begin a six month residency at the luscious Black Star Coffee where in return for all of my caffeine related needs (and they are needs), the lovely people at Black Star will get some kick arse poetry outta me!

I'll be spending between two to three days there each week to ~~get hideously caffeinated~~ write poems and drink my ~~poison~~ passion. At the end of the six months, I'll have amassed a substantial (and publishable) body of work.

I applied for the cafe poet program because I want to engage with my community and experience the cultural diversity that West End is home to. I'm so excited about this opportunity and I'd particularly like the thank Marty who owns Black Star for being so inclusive and passionate about what lies ahead.

In Queensland, there are two of us cafe poets and we're both in West End - West End is where it's at! As my friend and Queensland State Library poet in residence Mandy Beaumont says, 'VIVA LA FUCKIN' POETRY!'

Just a heads up, a Black Star long macchiato is to die for. They have their own roastery and supply coffee to a tonne of places around Brisbane. I've not been getting my coffee here for three years for no good reason ...

Head to http://blackstarcoffee.com.au

comfortable with uncertainty

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:24:00 +0000

Comfortable with uncertainty. That's where I'm at. It's where I've always been. After two weeks of aggressive intravenous anti-biotics, I'm feeling healthy and settled - physically, mentally and spiritually. I'm detoxing from the drugs that made my piss smell rank and juicing myself up with green smoothies, vitamins, meditation as opposed to medication, and energising my soul.

I've never used the term 'aggressive' and 'anti-biotics' in the same sentence before, but the drug I was on effectively disabled me. Lethargy, vomiting and diarrahea, farting with follow through, stinking piss, terrifying headaches where I'd be on the floor clutching at my head - sometimes banging my head on doors to try and move the pain from one side of my head to the other. There were a few days where I simply could not move. It was a struggle to get from my bed to the bathroom or to even get off the couch.

Then I remembered.

I used to do this ALL THE TIME. Lung infections have become so foreign to me and I know why I always handled them pre-transplant - I knew no different. I'd grown up with constant chest infections so the pain, the fatigue and the side effects of the anti-biotics had never really troubled me.

I am blessed that I can go from one extreme to the other. I am blessed that lung infections have become an unusual occurrence. I am almost always well with my lungs, so when I lose lung function with an infection, I feel like I've gone five rounds with Ali. My whole body ached - particularly my neck after having a CV line shoved into scar tissue with a scratch of local anaesthetic (that was my choice - I wanted to feel the process. Really fucking stupid, I know but that's how I need to do things). A CV line, or a 'central line' is a catheter ~~placed~~ shoved into a large vein in the neck (in my case, the internal jugular) so fluids like chemotherapy, TPN feeding or anti-biotics can be infused. The line is then stitched in to anchor it and keep it secure.

What are all those dangly bits? They're lumens. You can run several infusions at once with each lumen - ideal if you're sedated in intensive care. At home and going out and about? Not so much. I had a quad lumen, because that's standard for ICU, which is where they insert the lines. Here's a picture of the central line kit -

And here's me injecting my anti-biotic before I ~~was released from the clink~~ went home. Cake walk. After a few days of enforced rest and morphine for the literal pain in the neck, I ~~was ~~allowed~~~~ went home to do my I.V's like a ninja.

And here I am at home, my neck free of tendrils and comfortable with uncertainty. No rejection, no viruses and big, beautiful clear lungs that feel as big as trees. ~~My body~~ The human body will never cease to frighten, inspire, horrify and excite me.

wishin' and hopin'

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:56:00 +0000

I meditate; consider what is happening in my lungs. Are they fighting the infection or are they giving up? Is the infection gathering momentum and readying itself to assault my body, or is it subsiding - fading like the embers of some fire as I'm hoping it will? There are always options and tomorrow I will know what mine are.

You can't have hope without options.

it's raining again

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 13:28:00 +0000

So it's raining. In fact, it's raining down hard, just like it was this time thirteen years ago. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, I wondered if my donor had been in a car crash, then I remembered 'False Transplant Hopes 101' - the heart and lungs are usually squashed on impact and are unviable for transplant. It sounds cruel and harsh, but that is what I had been told. Selfishly, I still used to look forward to public holidays.

The Ekka holiday had just passed, but I was just concentrating on getting through every minute of every day and I was so full of morphine that I didn't even remember Brisbane had an Ekka. It was just 'breathe in, breathe out; breathe in, breathe out.' Physiotherapy had been ceased - something I was grateful for, because of the pain it caused and it was proving to be more harm than good. It would leave me in a state of cyanosis (lack of oxygen), where my oxygen saturations would drop to dangerously low levels. There wasn't a crash cart outside my room for no good reason.

It was a calm ride from the Mater to the Prince Charles, but it was rough. Ambulances have no suspension and it was like we were in a dune buggy on a goat track. I lay back on the gurney; a little sleepy but otherwise awake despite the morphine bolus I'd had before I was taken down to the E.D to where the ambulance was waiting. It was all very calm but exciting, and the E.D nurses - none of who knew me, but had seen me stumble in at 2am in stilettos, skin tight jeans and a fur coat with berry lipstick applied ever so perfectly - were so excited that I was going to get the lungs I'd literally been dying to get. I knew the code on the keypad in the E.D to let myself in, claiming to be 'on call/I've just been called in to attend an emergency. On the ward.'

But not tonight. I hadn't been out for a while and the last time I went out, I had to be carried up a flight of stairs with my oxygen, while my boyfriend at the time sat in a corner and complained about his cold*. Several of my friends wanted to assault him, but I digress.

I believe we crossed the Story Bridge and that's when I could really see the city. I tried to sit up, but couldn't and the ambo asked if there was anything he could do for me. I asked him that we get to the hospital before anyone else did, but that was not to be, as Dad had run several red lights and ironically nearly ended up being an organ donor himself, along with my mother and my sister. People drove from all around the city and across the state to be with me and I felt as though I was taking too much. I had always thought that I'd taken too much, and now this?

'Carly - mate, I've got good news.'

But it's raining and I'm asleep.

'We've got lungs for you, mate.'

What was I taking from this person?

'This is great news.'

Who said this was any kind of wonderful? For all you know, this might have been a really good day to die.

*

And so I sit here, looking at that familiar blanket of rain cast over the city, just as it was thirteen years ago. It's as if the city is covered in gossamer, and as I listen to that powerful drive of rain that's thundering up through the coast, there is a candle in front of me. It will burn all night.

I know that technically, I haven't taken anything - it was an anonymous gift that I knew from the beginning would always be a shared responsibility. I know my donor's family moved away with no forwarding address, but to know that tonight they will be caught in a fishing net, grappling with the why's, how's, and what ifs', then surely I should be taking on their suffering? But I already do that, so maybe compassion and sharing the suffering is not enough. One day, I might be able to forgive myself.

This post is dedicated to Sonya Jackson, a 21 year old C.F'er I did not know, but who passed away tonight only a few months after her double lung transplant. I hope she is flying with Kate somewhere.

* Lachy and I are still very good friends and I happily watched him marry the love of his life in 2008.

interlude

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:07:00 +0000

Every so often, life likes to give us reminders. Some are gentle - benign, even - while others can be fierce, cruel, merciless. Last week I was bitch slapped back into remembering that our time is precious and under valued beyond measure. It also reinforced my belief that without my health, I am nothing and as good as dead.

With any admission to hospital, you're met with unfamiliar faces. But there is one face that can alleviate fear, offering comfort and a soft place to land. They are nurses. Nurses who are underpaid, under resourced, overworked and not loved or respected enough who somehow manage to keep their wits about them. Earlier in the week when I had to have my central line* re-dressed, a nurse stayed for at least an hour after her shift had ended just so she could make me more comfortable - a nurse who was getting married in three days time who would have had a million thoughts coursing through her own jugular in regard to her impending nuptials.

On any given day, a nurse will be a psychologist, hairdresser, teacher, chef, style consultant, relationship counsellor, patient advocate, personal assistant, bodyguard, personal trainer, photographer, personal shopper and mediator.

Last week when I was in ICU to have a central line inserted, a medical practitioner who has clocked up nearly forty years of nursing, plied me with stories about her constantly evolving career, including a stint in several hard arse correctional centres (as an employee, not an offender).

Then there was the gentleman who would bring my meals to my bedside. He was so polite, eloquent and dignified. Each time he brought in a meal, he would say, 'Enjoy your dinner, darling.' I could have said to him that hospital food is gross and substandard, but instead felt grateful thinking about people across the city who wouldn't be fed at all that night, as well as other vulnerable souls who never know where their next meal is coming from. He accorded so much kindness and mindfulness to every word he spoke. These are people you never forget.

*

The reminder is still with me and it has me feeling like I've dodged a hail of bullets; catching them in my hands and throwing them to the ground in defiance. The strains of gratitude are never far away, though there are splintered thoughts of what could have been. But there always are. I hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

It's odd to be in hospital as an inpatient because I am so used to leaving. The stain of memory and its patterns mushroomed. Other reminders surfaced. While there is no need to tell you what they were, it's important to acknowledge that they will stay with me, and that this is a good thing - a gift, even. While I didn't need a reminder, it has happened and it shall pass. It just won't be forgotten or lamented about.

* a central line is a catheter inserted into a large vein in the neck - in my case, the jugular. It is used to administer medication that needs to be delivered intravenously, such as antibiotics or chemotherapy.

haibun

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 04:56:00 +0000

Salt shoots up my nose, ferried by the wind. Blasts of air, not sparing in their rhythm crawl over my skin and I pain for water. Untrammelled waves crush any sand that lays crumbling on the beach. I see the man I was with last night - a half-smoked cigarette cocked in his mouth.

He is still - kind of like he's stranded and doesn't know where to go; not sure about how to stamp one foot in front of the other, or even how to breathe. The cigarette recedes to his lips and he spits it onto the sand. I don't know who he is.

I walk to the bedroom, see the sheets and remember, nodding at the colours that have seeped through to the mattress. Worry abates, curiosity turns my lips upward. The wind shuttles between the terrace door and the kitchen table and I walk to where the kettle clings to the bench, closer to the edge than I would like. I push it back, smell him behind me and drop my head.

Salt on skin
like raw sugar
though not sweet at all.

wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:30:00 +0000

If he is a good man,
a man of faith, honoured and prosperous,
wherever he goes he is welcome.
Like the Himalayas
good men shine from afar.
but bad men move unseen
like arrows in the night - Buddha

do you speak voodoo like I do?

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Mon, 23 May 2011 06:06:00 +0000

You know who you are ...

more musings

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sat, 14 May 2011 06:54:00 +0000

Never let a feather fall.

Help those around me to understand who I can't be.

Claw our way out of this.

Cups of intention, empty and listing.

I read you; your face like a map. I am hopeless at reading maps.

Staking an apogee, if I could give you all that you needed, I would.

You taste so good, my hyoid just imploded.

Higher than an eyrie in the thickest of trees.

Cast away skins like nets.

Stars splatter the heavens like spit on the ground. Astronomical glue.

He asked me what horology was and I knew. I'll never speak of that word again. Makes me feel distal and scattered about that time. About him and my judgment. My lack of muliebrity where I have no control. Such extreme self-love he had and such a pattern I've created and honed. It's like I set myself on fire; a moth to woollen houndstooth. A beetle to the light. I get apoplexic and find that I have no excuses for this to shoot me into some parallel void of hurt. Just my blindness to what is right in front of me. And has been all along.

Saturday 14 May 2011

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sat, 14 May 2011 05:10:00 +0000

There is beauty.
There is strength in pain which makes it beautiful.
There is wisdom in pain - wisdom borne of pain.
Dipping into the pain can be like the sun sinking into the ocean - shaving off a million degrees, nebula pitching upward and north until there's a closing of eyes and a numbing of lips.
Though there may be silence, between the groves of trees, there is a whisper. Like a sordid secret.

You do not have to speak or sing or shout or bellow; I'll bring the sound.
And you do not have to move; I will move you.
And you will need no food, for I will be all that you need.
Root yourself to the marshes, link yourself to the bog - lay inert and crumbled and I will give you tread and I will give you breath.
I will hold your hand on the pilgrimage to sleep.
I will wrestle with your fingers, my palms will cradle your face and you can tether yourself to my breast.

new beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:47:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I moved into my first home. Not a house or a flat or a bungalow, but a HOME. After unpacking at warp speed thanks to my Mum, the first night I retired to bed and began writing a journal. I've written in it every night since, whether I'm awake with the owls or nearly unconscious and I plan to do this for an entire year. Here's an entry from the night after I moved in. The photograph was taken by the divine Elly Fisher. Elly and her husband Ben were my first dinner guests and I managed to not poison them.

Ah, yes. I am HOME.

12.4.11

Each night there is something different. It is like the city is on bypass all day, then as the sun sinks into the mountains, the city resuscitates itself and comes to life, bleeding light and sound. Dusk paints the sky in shades of tangerine, peach, ocean water blue and eventually sapphire when the night rises.

Tonight has given us a perfect half moon and the breeze tickles my skin, playing on my lips between sips of red wine.

I woke at one minute to seven this morning and embraced the sunshine and vista with an industrial strength coffee and breakfast on the terrace.

Two visitors graced me with their calm presence today. A buoyant, yet sad Vince, around 11am to do the key exchange and to show Dad and I secret key hidey-holes and how to lift the windows in my room so they can be cleaned and other such stuff, and while Vince was sorrowful, I don’t believe he’s regretful, despite throwing himself on my bedroom floor with his head in his hands … I patted his back, gave him a hug and told him that I would cherish this place – my home – and that he was welcome any time for coffee/tea/vino. He seemed happy with what I had so far done with his home of eleven years, which most pleased me.

Bec popped in around 2pm – she fell in love with the place and the panorama, and by that stage, I had unpacked all of my precious books onto the shelves in the lounge room. It was a calculating placement of my precious books and nick-knacks.

Also there was Dad, who was kind enough to bring over what I had left at Moongate while staying with him and Mum. He hung my Pro Hart dragonfly and my Lone Cypress painting. It is as though I knew many years ago that this place would be my home. The colours, the furniture, the books, the art – everything.

After two loads of washing and christening the kitchen (by cooking), I shall now sleep.

transplant poem

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:28:00 +0000

More poetry torture. This was a poem I wrote in a few very hasty minutes just before Alicia Alit-Trevatt's photographic exhibition which chronicled the journey of my transplant - from being listed to administering I.V anti-virals after I was discharged from hospital after transplant and everything in between, including photographs of the surgery. I call this my 'transplant poem'. Cheesy, but true.

A Night Without Armour

Steal away,
I am vagabond.

A palmtree
nomadic, bending with a thousand fronds,
massaging skin and kissing air
with a million petioles.

My night without armour -
keep a bower quiet for me
cocooned within a shell,
this decayed arbour and
while I lay in slumber,
I shall ascend with the dawn, a new spirit.

valentines day

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:12:00 +0000

Since moving, I've been sorting through old journals and found this horror of a poem I wrote after asking Lachy if he was ok during a bout of gastro. Ah, the romance. We were driving back to Brisbane after spending a couple of days in Byron Bay. I remember the exact point when he became tired of me asking if he was ok, and looked out of the car window feeling empty. I had been on the transplant list since New Years Day and was deteriorating faster than I ever expected to. Posting this poem is truly embarrassing, but I'm posting it anyway*.

Saturday 14 February 1998

There is never one.
I promised myself in a car bustling along a highway, one thing.
A feeling upsurged within me
and I was sick.

My eyes burned, I didn't break, will never break under, for or over a man.

I turned my head east toward the sun
while my core flamed like coals.
Red hot.
Standing still, waiting to be snuffed out by a long forgotten coolness.

The promise was as such:
if I should ever be upsurged as I was just now,
I must leave.
Not look back,
instead lust after what lies ahead.

An artist-surfer-skey of Carmelian artistry?

A stockman with raven curls and a sable eye?

I may well wish to abide as a single dish;
a tasty morsel that a few can sample, savour and lay stock to.

This day of wine and roses has not been quite there.

For it is written that this Blonde may never again know the joy of being loved
without sickness, other girls and freak outs.

I am waiting for the day when I can breathe amour.
I am here for a term of tedium, a mere expression of ennui, waiting to breathe.
In and out.

* ohmysweettinylittlebabyjesus, thank fuck that's over. I am SO sorry for raping your eyes with that.

20.1.11

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:20:00 +0000

Fear drops into my bones - an unwelcome anchor. Heavy and fetid like the break of a thunder storm fracturing a fall forward.

Content to let the bones crunch with concern - click, pop and knit - her face gaunt with disappointment.

CT room

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:08:00 +0000

10.3.11

What strikes me is that we're all huddled in this cubicle for the same reason - a diagnosis. The only other similarity and certainty is that none of us want to be here. From the hairless young man in a standard issue hospital gown to the older man sitting next to his giselle-like wife, we are all connected. But among these similarities, there is also a difference. Some of us will get good news. Some of us will not.

dancing in the mud

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:16:00 +0000

Three years ago, my mangled body had just been moved from the operating table to recovery after seven hours of surgery for vulval cancer. For those of you that don't know, I had what is known as a 'radical vulvectomy', which in layman's terms means that the skin from my vulva and surrounding areas was cut away. On the day, my surgeon wasn't sure whether he would have to remove my clitoris - thankfully, he didn't have to although the skin covering that wondrous little mound had to be sliced away.

Because I had to have so much skin removed to ensure there were no cancerous margins left to chance, this meant I had to have skin grafts taken from my left inner thigh (yep, my thigh is now on my vadge) and my bowel redirected. Having your bowel 'redirected' involves bringing the end of your small intestine out onto the surface of the skin. In mid-January 2008, I had my ileostomy successfully reversed which was most convenient. Convenient because my parents didn't have a funeral to arrange after my suicide had the reversal not been successful.

This morning I drove to my beautiful friend Lynn's place, where we were to go to the beach at Sandgate, so her pup Charlie Moo Moo could go for a run and a paddle in the water. After an early lunch, the three of us walked out onto the sand and mud flats, waded in the water and splashed around like crazies - it was a glorious day. Watching the joy on Moo's face as she trotted and paddled through the water had my heart bursting with love and joy, because when I see a dog smile, there is a light that switches on and I have this permanent smile of my own dancing across my face.

Advancing towards the blue, Lynn and I splashed around and muddied up our jeans; dragging our feet through the warm water, not wanting the day to end. The breeze off the water cooled our skin, and it felt so heavenly, I took my shirt off. Not an unusual thing for me to do, but I felt a mindfulness as to why I had ripped my shirt off and shoved it into my jeans.

At this stage of my life, after my life altering journey with Karuna, I've never been more mindful or at peace with what is right now. When I think about today, it's not really about me. It's about the people - my family and friends - who have fought for me, continue to fight for me, love me and nourish me. It's about the people who excite, inspire and trigger loving and creative responses from the seat of my soul (so, yeah - it is a little about me ...)

The last twenty-four hours have been karmically serendipitous. Last night, I received an email from my beautiful friend Josie who was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer in May 2009 which required both vicious chemotherapy and a double mastectomy. She's participating in the 2011 Ride to Conquer Cancer, which supports the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. Instead of giving a donation, I registered to ride with Josie through the Queensland countryside. It's a 200km ride over two days and there was no second thought about it - I just knew I had to do it. Josie's donations from the ride will go toward Breast Cancer research, while mine will go toward research in Endometrial Cancer.

Josie is beyond brave. She has lost her mother to breast cancer and she has lost her breasts from her own fight with breast cancer. But loss always yields itself to growth. Cut down a tree, and another will sprout.

Dance in the rain, dance in the mud and dance in the shit. Just dance.

Charlie Moo Moo and I at Sandgate - oh, the love!

sinking

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:56:00 +0000

I am writing a book about grief. While I'm grieving. I thought I had forgotten how grief makes your heart sting, but like the flick of a rubber band on sunburned skin, it bites. When Anita talks about losing Jet, she says that sometimes the pain is so real, it's like she can touch it. I'm so close to touching something I can't see.

I'm used to my friends dying; I grew up with it. But I had time to prepare. My friends were put into the dying room, and when they were put into the dying room, you knew they had reached the end of their lives and that within a week or so, they would be dead.

Sudden death leaves you shell shocked. The hurt trickles into every crack; it permeates every cell of your skin. You physically hurt. You ache. No one was prepared for this, and now I don't know how to go on, except that I have to. I have a book to finish, a body to nurture and a soul to feed, but I can't help but feel empty, no matter how much fairy bread I shovel into my mouth. I worry about the people who truly love BK; those who had known her for most of their lives. They're not even close to treading water - they're like sinking stones. I want to pick them up, but can't. I'm in the water with them, but they're out of my reach.

beautiful kate

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:36:00 +0000

There was a reason I didn't write on Tuesday.

I didn't know what it was at the time, but by night's end, it was clear to me why I was so restless and couldn't settle in for a morning of writing. Instead, I was messaging back and forth with my friend Kate (BK - Beautiful Kate) who was preparing to return to Australia after a devastating diagnosis.

We 'talked' boys, boobs, desserts, counselled each other and made plans to go out dancing and to wear silly hats to high tea. Kate, being a performer with the Canadian Cirque du Soleil, had told me she was planning on making me an outfit so she could teach me one of her routines, and ultimately so we could shake our booties together. I made an arrangement with myself to brand it into my lines of memory so I could pass it on to other lovers of dance.

She had even chosen the colours - pink, cream and gold, and although I didn't know it at the time, our beautiful friend Nic let me know that Kate had bought the beads for the bra and knickers. I totally lost my shit when I read that. On Tuesday, when our friend was in a world of pain, when she felt like drilling into her own head, she took the time to write me. We spoke of intimate things; we spoke of terrifying and hilarious things, but most of all, we laughed.

There was a reason I didn't write on Tuesday.

On Monday, Kate had had an appointment with a doctor and he spoke about her to two of his colleagues as though she were not present in the room. He spoke with such detachment and disassociation, and so Kate - an earth angel - backhanded him across the face. I congratulated her on officially being a 'real patient'. The evolution of Kate's illness had been hurried and this doctor had demoralised and dehumanised her, making Kate feel as though she was just her dis-ease. How very wrong he was.

In life, some people take more hits than others and Kate's one of these people.

There was a reason I didn't write on Tuesday.

I've howled at the moon and I've sat in silence; I've cursed the sun and have waded in the shadows; I have spent time with close friends and my Mum and I have been alone. I am having trouble understanding the inner machinations of the universe right now.

I realise life and everything that comes with it, is impermanent, but I'm finding it hard to accept the unfairness of it all.

It's day three, and I feel a little empty; like someone has taken a brush to my heart and swept something away, and I'm not alone - far from it. There are so many people who love Kate, and will continue to love and honour her. I like to think she's showing the angels and her Mum how to trapeze Cirque style.

There was a reason I didn't write on Tuesday, and I feel honoured and grateful that I was so closely connected to such a beautiful soul in her final weeks, days and hours.

I was going to give BK this soundtrack when she came back to Brisbane ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FovWdpVhB4w

slipping

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:41:00 +0000

20.9.10

It's been three months since Karuna and I have slipped.

I am not as thoughtful or compassionate.

I am not as patient, tolerant and take less care with everything.

I am not as mindful as I was three months ago when I took my seat in the Mandala Room, spending entire weekends within the grounds of this beautiful place.

So what does this say about me, and what does this say about the people I surround myself with?

I feel less of a person because I feel less compassion and tolerance.

There is only one place that can pull me back together. It is where I need to be, so that's where I will go.

stupa

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:56:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Lynn invited me along to Karuna, a hospice for the dying in Brisbane to participate in something very honourable. Karuna's stupa has been in dire need of tender hands with paint and soft brushes to brighten it up, as well as the more pressing issue of water damage and a plague of toads under where it stands. The Stupa is a very important part of Karuna - it is a place where Buddhists come to worship and it is a place where anyone can rest to gather their thoughts, meditate, pray, write or feel perfect peace.

Although not described in any Tibetan text on stupa symbolism, the stupa may represent the five purified elements, with the square base representing earth; the hemispherical dome representing water; the conical spire representing fire, the upper lotus parasol and the crescent moon representing air and the sun and the dissolving point which represents the element of space.

Building or contributing to a stupa is considered to be auspicious, leaving positive karmic impressions on the mind, the most important being the state of Enlightenment.

Here's a photo Lynn took of Kathryn, another of my Karuna people, intensely concentrating on the detail, as I smile away, just really happy to be back at Karuna and to be part of something so special.

A few months ago, Lynn was just finishing up a course at Karuna, called 'Spiritual Care with the Dying' and I was lucky enough to nab one of the last spots for the next course, which was to be held as an intensive over a period of five weeks. In a nutshell, it was the most amazing and fulfilling experience of my life and over the coming weeks, like an onion, layers would be peeled away and all twenty-four of us in the group would lay ourselves bare. Liberating? Yes. Frightening? Most definitely. Worthwhile? Without a doubt. I walked into Karuna a very frightened woman. Frightened of death after I nearly died in November 2007. But I left feeling comfortable with death and the issue of my own death.

My charter for compassion grew and grew for all sentient beings, which allowed a passage to be mindful of what is around me and the people I care about at any point.

I learned compassion, patience and loving kindness for strangers, too.

During the five week intensive, we did various meditative exercises, but one that propelled me into the headspace I'm in now was a meditation where we had to imagine we were with someone who was dying - someone we love very much, a stranger and someone who we perhaps had a complicated relationship with. This meditation took me firstly to my friend Bec, then to a Hindi man who collects the trolleys at my local supermarket. i don't know why I thought of him, but there he was. I unwrapped his turban and his hair came down. It didn't take me long to climb into the bed where he was and hold him. I could hear and feel his last breaths. Every time I see this man, I'm reminded of why compassion is so important. I smile at him and he smiles back. It is as though we have an unspoken connection and that's where I learned my most important lesson.

We are ALL connected.

Everyone has a story. You can never judge a person at face value - something I have always known, but was reinforced for me during my time at Karuna and thanks to our teacher, Chodron. I have bee hives full of stories about my own Karuna journey, but this is one I thought you the reader, might find some meaning in.

overland

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:42:00 +0000

Earlier in the year, along with nineteen other poets, I was invited to write ten lines of poetry to celebrate the 200th issue of Overland. Overland is a literary and cultural journal that's been thrown off the presses since 1954. Of course the invitation came as a very pleasant surprise, as many of the poets are both nationally and internationally renowned for their work. Here is the post and the poem, curated by the rather brilliant Derek Motion - http://web.overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-200/poem-various-poets/

You can buy the latest issue here - http://web.overland.org.au/current-issue/

Or you can go one better and become a subscriber - http://web.overland.org.au/about/why-should-i-subscribe-to-overland/

pencils

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:55:00 +0000

My long running love affair with Lyra pencils continues. I will not write with any other pencil. They are thick, sturdy, dark and their marks are all but impossible to erase on paper. I have a freshly sharpened bouquet of Lyra pencils in a box on my desk at all times.

iPad

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:11:00 +0000

So I caved and have joined the iPad revolution. It is slick, sexy and user friendly. It's LOVE, unless you're this guy -

Behold teh gloreh! (yes, I got the dock and keyboard, too)

And what would a Macgasmatron product be without a very clever and aesthetically beautiful design from Twelve South? This is the BookBook for iPad which I am currently coveting.

black rider press

noreply@blogger.com (CJM) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:54:00 +0000

The Black Rider himself, Jeremy Balius - the man who writes for the last of the red hot lovers - published a wee little story of mine. Enjoy - and as Jeremy would howl - 'Look homeward, angels!'

http://www.blackriderpress.com/diamond.html

Oh, and here's the bit all about meeeeeeeeeeeeee ...

http://www.blackriderpress.com/Carly-Jay%20Metcalfe.html