Exploring different ways of writing, capturing moments in time.
Do I owe, you, my reader, and explanation of what I have written. Or do I allow you to make your own meaning. I choose the latter.
Forever Part of Us
She knelt onto the dry, grey earth and reached into the slender stalks of wheat. She caressed the dry, brittle stalk, reached its head, the full roughness of the grain protected by thin husks. Gently she reached her touch to the tips of the thin strands of its beard waving, sighing into the hot air that bruised her breath.
Her glance upwards, across the waves of gold, held her, mesmerized. Paused in time and space. That spaciousness that would soon lose its heads of life-giving grain, to become mere stalks, food for the sheep in the next-door paddock.
Upwards, her glance, into the haze of white above the waving golden heads. Sweeping left, right, the curve of the horizon a container of the promise of a good harvest. But that was not what she saw today. Today she saw the richer blue, as her eyes lifted above the horizon and she knew there, in that richness, her father’s spirit – at one with his handiwork, blended into the earth that held his footprint, that grew his last harvest.
Her soul ached as it reached upwards, ever upwards, like the stalks of grain, straining into the energy that the sun emblazoned into the caked, dry earth. The same earth that held him, forever, now, becoming part of the star dust, beneath its crust.
It was too hard, being in this place. She knew she must leave it all behind when it became hers. That place where his soul lived and breathed. Where life is sown into the soil, reaped, and sown again.
***
In an earlier post, I shared a photo of stalks of grain from the last crop. These are long gone now, due to a carefree pet’s playfulness.
A highly readable biography, Maureen Walsh creates an enduring image of May Gibbs, Mother of the Gumnuts.
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – May Gibbs’ creations
I came across Snugglepot and Cuddlepie as a child. At the time of my reading, May Gibbs’ tales were already enmeshed in Australian culture; these unique tales of fantasy cosily snuggled into the bookshelves of my family home.
Where are the original copies of the books we owned? I’ve no recollection. However, I do recall the covers, a faded brown, with the gumnut babies proudly peeking out of their homes and the title in shades of golden yellow. The whole image as I recall it, is faded, partly due to time, and possibly the print at the time. The spine is bound with a foreign material, possibly to keep it all together. Like many books in our family library of historical novels, comic books and journals that graced our shelves, it was ‘part of the furniture’ of my childhood home. I am hoping my memory serves me correctly.
May Gibbs would, I am quite sure, be horrified at my recollection of such a cover. Her letters, quoted in the biography, note her preference for strong colours, tones that are rich and full. (An example of one of her letters, specifying layout and colour on pp 103-104 of the book). Regardless, the quirky images remain strongly imprinted in my memory banks.
As I fossick through my bookshelves today, I come across a 1983 edition, printed by Angus and Robertson. On this cover, each colour is as rich as our Australian bush and skies: gum leaf green, wattle yellow, reddish-pink blossoms and gumnut brown set against a vivid blue.
My current copy is part of the small repertoire of books I’ve kept for my grandchildren.
Looking Back
II gained a great deal of pleasure reading works by a range of authors in our family library. An abbreviated list includes –
Mary Grant Bruce, Australian, children’s author of the Billabong stories
L.M. Montgomery, from Prince Edward Island, Canada, who wrote the ‘Anne’ series, (Anne of Green Gables…)
Louisa May Alcott, an American author who wrote Little Women
Emily Bronte, English author of the classic, Wuthering Heights
Jane Austen, a classic English author who wrote Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion and others.
Back to Snugglepot and Cuddlepie
Maureen Walsh has captured a lasting impression of a strong-minded woman who made her way in the world of the late 1800’s and early to mid-1900’s on her own terms. Such spirit and fortitude enabled her to support herself on her income from the comic strips. Men of the day, many of whom did not achieve the same measure of popularity as May Gibbs, were paid much more. I, for one, am thankful that such inequity, did not hinder May Gibbs’ fiercely independent personality from producing and publishing her adorable, uniquely Australian characters and their stories.
At the time of her passing, in 1969, I was still living at home where her books graced our shelves. Now, fifty plus years on, her legacy remains a bright colourful contribution to Australian literature.
State Library, Sydney, where I discovered an excellent display of May Gibbs’ cartoons.
Perth to Sydney – May Gibbs lived in WA
As happenstance would have it, on my visit to Sydney earlier in the year, I stumbled across an exhibition of May Gibbs’ work.
Meandering through Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens, I exited opposite the State Library of New South Wales. As I take a leisurely tour of the displays, I am delighted to see her original drawings, housed behind glass viewing windows.
Cartoon strips of other characters such as Bib and Bub were popular in their day.
On my return home, I pulled my copy of May Gibbs, Mother of Gumnuts from my bookshelves. I learnt how she frequently travelled between Sydney and Perth. She often visited her family in the south west of Western Australia where she roamed the bush. It was here that her love of Australian flora flourished.
It was a delight indulging several leisurely hours of reading. May Gibbs ‘carved for herself a distinct niche in the world of Australian art’ (p88) and literature.
***
Links to authors and places mentioned in this post:
It’s wildflower season here, in WA. Are you a lover of wildflowers? I’ve found a few and I’m keen to spot a lot more!
Exploring our own back yard as local tourists is a favourite past time. With warmer, spring weather, we head out for few hours – along with fellow picknickers and trail-walkers, and an endless stream of traffic, possibly with much the same idea! Our Sunday drive takes us to Walyunga National Park.
At the park
Exploring as local tourists, we find a handful of wildflowers as we drive through the park. We stop and discover a walk way, paved and much used, leading to a river.
An unexpected volume of water is flowing. I recall my visit to Canadian rivers, near Lake Louise, in the Rocky Mountains. The flow is much gentler here, and the debris not as heavy. But that is where the contrast ends, for right here, now, I capture the presence of this flowing river. And its unique beauty.
Wildflower memories
As a child, I recall my dad driving between our farm and the local town. As we pass a stretch of newly cleared land, he comments that burning off the scrub would probably bring it to life in a fresh way. That spring, the paddocks are sea of blue leschenaultia waving in the warm spring sunshine. Their bed of dark soil and ashen sticks of black and grey wood are a stark contrast to the bright blue flowers and rich green leaves. Fire had burst open dormant seed pods and birthed a lasting impression of stunning beauty. An image that is forever printed on my mind.
Sharing the love of wildflowers
On my childhood farm, stretches of uncleared, scrubby bush along fence lines were home for seasonal wildflowers. Many flowers were tough, and prickly, but the hardy leschenaultia is softer, and the petals delicate.
For one of our parent’s wedding anniversaries, my brothers and I gifted a print of Meryl Bell’s vase of Blue Leschenaultia. Why did we buy the painting? My mother liked that Meryl was a local artist whose work captures the beauty of our native flowers. The painting held pride of place in the lounge room for many years.
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Wildflower seasons are short
There are many wildflowers drives in WA: further north, along the coast, and inland. This season, our planned trip up the coast and back via the midlands is deferred due to an inclement weather forecast. If we wait too long, though, we may miss out! That’s just the way it is!
It might take a couple more weeks of sunshine for the plants to blossom along our local roadsides and in the swathes of bush along the highways. A week or so ago, at the start of spring, we checked out our Great Southern Highway. We enjoyed a random show of colour.
The drive is as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I’ve travelled it more times than I can count, as it is the link between the city where I live, and my childhood home town. Innumerable visits to family for over fifty years!
I am accustomed to the glorious spread of green paddocks and the stark contrasting trunks on different varieties of gum trees stretching tall into the sky, canopies of green for the grazing sheep. Others, stark grey, dead wood reaching high, proud reminders of what they were before cockatoos stripped their branches clean, or an untimely disease diminished their greatness.
A rich smell of lanolin from the unshorn sheep drifts across from the grazing mob. I feel very much at home as I lean into the scene, capturing more than images – revisiting inner mindscapes of childhood paddocks.
Will there be wildflowers later this month?
We plan a trip to Bunbury at the end of September. We hope to spend time capturing more yellows, reds, pinks and oranges and all shades in between as we travel south.
With the shifting seasonal patterns, we will just have to take pot luck!
In the comments below, do let me know your favourite wildflowers. (Or click here and scroll to the end of the post.)
Have you ever wondered how someone copes with the magnitude of grief? Of loss? Of another person moving on into the energetic world, leaving a bereft hole in the space and endless amount of time one wishes they’d fill? How do you find comfort in loss?
My grandfather comes to mind – not of my loss of him, that is a story for another day, but of his loss of his daughter. Perhaps there is something in my story about his loss that may resonate with, and in some way, help you or someone you know.
Grief is a journey of unknown duration
In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler Ross outlined a process, a graph, of the journey through grief. Much debated over the years, it is generally acknowledged that these five stages are recognisable, and recognised. However, they do not necessarily follow any order, and may occur over any length of time – including a lifetime.
In 2022, Healthcare Central published a discussion around the Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief, given the acronym, DABDA –
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
It is a path I discovered and found useful as I sought to negotiate my own losses, the first of which, as it happens, was my grandfather, five years before Kubler Ross published her insights.
My grandfather had no map for his grief
My grandfather’s lifetime preceded this publicly available knowledge that may have guided his journey through losses he experienced. (He was born in June 1897 in Midland, Western Australia and lived until 4 Feb 1965, aged 67 years.)
I recall a hymn, apparently his favourite. It is this, in all it’s archaic phrases, heavily doctrinal, and profoundly insightful words, that I believe he found solace when he tragically lost his little girl.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain: It is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.
2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul. (Refrain)
3. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! (Refrain)
4. And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul. (Refrain)
Not having anything more than a light recollection that this was his favourite, I would hazard a good guess as to why.
He was a staunch Methodist, a churchgoer, together with his wife, Nora. They brought their three children – should have been four – up ‘in the church’. This phrase means, they attended church every Sunday, as part of their life: they served the community with their Christian faith as the rock-bed of their beliefs. In short, he saw and lived his life through the lens of his Christian faith.
I am not sure where I read it, or grew to believe that the original words of the hymn were penned and inspired by a father who lost his wife and children on a sea voyage. My recollections are modified in Wikipedia, a summary of which follows –
Horatio Spafford, who penned the lines, was a business man and hymn writer. His financial difficulties took their toll on his life but it was in his role as an evangelist, he planned a trip to England from America. On that trip, he tragically lost all four daughters, and almost lost his wife as they travelled ahead of him on the sea voyage. When travelling to join his wife, he passed the spot where his daughters died, and as a result these words were penned. A deeply tragic story.
“It Is Well With My Soul”, also known as “When Peace, Like A River”, is a hymn penned by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss. First published in Gospel Hymns No. 2 by Ira Sankey and Bliss (1876), it is possibly the most influential and enduring in the Bliss repertoire and is often taken as a choral model, appearing in hymnals of a wide variety of Christian fellowships.[a]
When sorrows like sea billows roll
In my imagination, I see the prospect of my grandfather’s version of coping: he may well have found resonance in this hymn. Harold, my maternal grandfather, lost a daughter, the youngest and last of his four children, at barely 18 months old. Even though I cannot imagine the loss, the words, “when sorrows like sea billows roll” resonate with me for my grandfather after the loss of his little girl. She died from an inoperable hole in the heart.
Captured moments
As a parent, I know the fear of the possibility, whether one’s child is a baby, or is a grown adult, I know how the fear of prospect of loss tore at my heart at the times they arose. Losing a child, at any stage in life, is traumatic.
Rewinding time
If I could go back in time, I would ask my grandfather, how did you cope? How did you manage losing a brother-in-law while your wife grieved the loss, while she carried the child who became my mother? How did you manage, barely four years later, losing your fourth baby, only eighteen months old?
I cannot though.
Furthermore, in his generation, emotions were not freely expressed. As loving as he was, in my recollections, he may have been a closed book when it came to talking about matters of the heart. Hence, I imagine an outlet in the words of this hymn, sung from the depths of one’s soul, giving a measure of release.
All is not lost
Spafford’s hymn creates a positivity. I can understand the hymn in the context of the Christian teachings that are integrated into my upbringing. That of faith in God, of belief in Christ’s redemption and how these beliefs can bring comfort. Also, the belief that, in the long run, there is the day of resurrection – when all souls go to be with God and it is then that he (Spafford) will be reunited with his loved ones. I read and grasp how he longs for the day when he will join his loved ones, when the trumpet sounds for him.
Emotional freedom
Today there is greater freedom amongst men to express their emotions openly. The road is long to full acceptance by society in general, and by men themselves, but it is happening.
It would seem that, for Spafford and possibly for my grandfather, grief was something he/they lived with every day. It shows that, for some, there is no ‘finality’ of grief. There may be an acceptance of the loss, and with it, a capacity to move forward. And that is okay.
My way forward
Today, my beliefs are simply that we move from the human form to being purely energetic: that reconnection as pure energy is what happens after death. In having lost my parents and grandparents, I can and do connect with them now. It does not short-circuit resolution of the emotional loss, but it does bring immeasurable comfort.
That is how I find comfort in loss.
Faith Jeanette with her brother
NB: Please check out this link for further insights on coping with grief, should you feel you need it, or know of someone you love who may find it helpful.
