Doing: Death to Death

Dead Line Art Project

2012-01-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

This is a project that I have just been asked to be involved in - as one of the Death Specialists.....It will be a really fascinating couple of days for all concerned!

Dead Line is a live performance installation which opens up a space to talk openly, or a little more openly about death, dying and our own mortality.

"Dead Line offers us the opportunity to step away from the hustle and bustle of just being and to think about coming to a stop. Strangely this experience is immensely positive and uplifting...a privileged moment I treasure still and I hope you will too."

Helen Cole, Director, Inbetween Time Productions

Island Funeral

2011-12-21T17:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-16279350

Well - that was an Island Funeral - quite an epic one!

2011-11-11T14:58:00.001-08:00

Thanks Chris Quigley! For writing about my graduation in the famous Quigley's Cabinet... I feel honoured indeed.
http://quigleyscabinet.blogspot.com/2011/11/death-scholar.html

Chris Quigley writes books that any self respecting death student shouldn't resist...they are fascinating and often pretty odd. They are the kind of books that are very difficult to put down, which is sometimes difficult when one is supposed to be writing an essay or dissertation. Chris is very generous with her encouragement - and her blog is a one stop shop of strange delights.

Seriously - the degree result was great, this mention is just the icing and candles on the cake!

2011-11-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Strange but true...so they say.

2011-08-10T05:17:00.000-07:00

A Quest for a Father………….!

Because of the nature of my parent’s relationship, (what this nature was exactly I will probably never know), my father has always been to me, a nebulous two-dimensional creature. This dimensionality was due to the concept that I had of my father, which was for a long time based entirely on an incident that happened when I was about four. I found, somewhere or other, a photograph of my mother and an unknown man holding a little girl…(Me!)

“Who’s this?” I asked my mother as I peered at the small picture.
“It’s your father” my mother replied quickly as if to brush the matter aside.
I persisted with my questions…….”what’s his name?”
“John”.
“Oh!”

The photograph disappeared very quickly afterwards and was not mentioned ever again!

That appeared to be it, but I never forgot the faces looking out of that photo.

Even in my extreme youth; I felt that the subject of my father was not a one that could be pursued easily and this proved to be the case. Throughout the years I was to find out only limited, sketchy and strangely romantic snippets of information about this man whose name was, in fact, not John at all, but Andrè.

Several stages in the growth of this strange daughter/fantasy-father ‘relationship’ stick out in my mind.

I had been told that I had been born in Johannesburg and that my parents had met when my mother was a Doctor’s assistant in Alexandra Township, where my father was serving as a policeman. This work of my mother’s was quite unusual, as I am led to believe that at that time in the 1950’s, she was one of the very few white women to be allowed access to such a highly segregated black township.

My father was apparently skilled in many of the African languages, I suppose that this was why he was able to do his job which, in the main, would be to patrol the black immigrant workforce brought into South Africa to mine for Gold. He rode around on a large white horse and according to mother, looked very handsome. My mother was known to be ‘horse mad’ in her youth and so the combination of the dark good - looks of the uniformed policeman and his white horse obviously swept her off her feet.

They started out by living together in a small rondaavel in someone’s garden in a pleasant leafy suburb of Johannesburg. When I eventually visited this part of SA myself, I did a trip to see the places that appeared on my parent’s marriage certificates. I sat in the church where they were wed. My mother said that she cried, throughout her marriage service, (either in mortification, or in joy, who knows)? They married in April and I was born in the October of the same year. My maths has always been bad, but even I cannot get the intervening months to add up to nine!

Despite the year of my birth being 1958, my mother said (on one of the rare occasions that she spoke about him), that father took great care of me and bathed, changed and helped to feed me. I suspect that mother was grateful for this as by her account she had not been at all well during pregnancy, or my birth which happened during a fierce thunderstorm.

When I was seventeen and not particularly well myself, suffering from depression that would eventually lead to a secretly borne but never the less debilitating agoraphobia, my mother took me to see a homoeopathic Doctor. We sat in the consulting room and I answered the many questions that go into making a holistic homoeopathic profile; from which the Doctor makes subsequent diagnoses and prescription. The Doctor asked me if there was any illness in the family, a query that I answered to the best of my ability. After which my mother chipped in with a gem of a conversation stopper; “of course her father was a schizophrenic”

WHAT? I thought, completely flawed by the remark.

The Doctor looked at me and realized, bless her, that this piece of news was as new to me as it was to her and she gently brushed it aside and continued by saying to my mother, “was that a confirmed diagnosis and did he receive treatment for it?”……………..
I don’t remember the answer, or much else about that consultation at all; my mind was going at ten to the dozen.

I tried more of the cross questioning tactics when we got home…..
It did not have much effect other than my mother’s flat response of “I don’t remember”.

But eventually I did get a bit more out of her: “We went riding in the bush together, his parents ran an Algemene Handedaal (trading post) and had a pet baboon on a chain that I was afraid of………..He threatened me with a gun once, I found some uncut diamonds and flushed them down the toilet…………I always wanted a daughter called Angela, but when you were born, he registered you as Marianne Angela…….He painted and played the guitar, he wore white swimming trunks and looked so handsome when he dived into the pool….he was a good diver…….He sold my house and when I came to England, I only had you, a suitcase and fifty pounds.”

So the ‘romantic’ of the tale of my father continued to unfold!

The news about my father’s illness posed many internal questions and led me to read about schizophrenia. I was already struggling to live with a manic depressive and often suicidal mother, so I quickly concluded that as far as breeding stock went, I could be a walking time bomb. Not only this, but I asked the inevitable question; would I too succumb to mental illness myself as I got older?

There were so many unanswered questions.

When I was eighteen, mother reluctantly conceded that there were documents at the solicitors that would enable me to obtain a passport. I sent off for them and became the proud possessor of a birth certificate, stating my race to be white - in true apartheid style; plus my parents’ marriage certificate and a change of name document. As well as these I had a naturalization certificate, which proved that I was now a British citizen.

All these and more had to go off to the passport office, it took ages and waiting was a nightmare, but the precious blue booklet eventually came.
Not that I would have been able to go anywhere at that point you understand. My boundaries set by the agoraphobia were confined strictly within my village patch, with the very occasional foray to the nearest town. These self-imposed limits were to dog me for many years. I was (outwardly) fine if I had someone with me, but could only go so far on my own. I became excellent at excuses and for years, no one actually realized.

Nevertheless I had at last got hold of information that gave me the feeling of having some kind of identity the crumpled pieces of paper that the solicitor had been harboring for so long gave me roots.

I wrote a letter at this point to my South African Guardian asking if he had any memories of my father, but for whatever reason, access to any information or mutual friends was denied. Someone else ‘couldn’t remember’!

Then, I found another photo!

It was stuck between the pages of a book called ‘Jenny’ (mother’s name).

I kept it very firmly for myself this time!

It was bigger than I remembered the first one to have been and seemed to be a blown up version of the original, as it appeared grainy. As I looked at it, I realized with the help of my older eyes, that we were all sitting in my Grandmothers garden in Bournemouth! Gran’s stool, Gran’s hedge. What was this about, where was Africa?

More cross-questioning ensued.
“I don’t really remember”. Was my mother’s first, predictable and most unsatisfactory reply. “But…” mother went on…..” he did stay in Bournemouth. He came over on the next flight…. he had sold my house and all my possessions….he tried to climb out of the kitchen window and Mr. Timms (next door) saw him, thought it was a burglar and called the police.”

“What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was supposed to have a job at the School of African and Oriental Studies in London with his languages, but I don’t know if he ever really went there….he just disappeared.”

And that was all I was going to get. Except of course for mothers immortal advice about ‘men’, which I am sure, must have been drawn from very personal experience!

1. Men always have to go to the loo as soon as you dish out food.
2. Men always want to put ‘it’ in from behind when you are trying to sleep.
3. Once they get excited there is no going back.

Mother died when I was thirty-two, so I felt free to ask my Granny a few things.
This tack proved to be somewhat more rewarding.

I started the cross-questioning……………with the photographic evidence.

“Oh yes” she replied, “your father lived here with us for about a year, he was very polite, but I had to pay off a lot of his debts. He sold your mothers house you know, and all the things we had sent out for her. It took us ages to pack everything up and ship it to her. Even Joy sent some of her paintings…It all went………He was supposed to be going up to London, but he just disappeared in the end. Even the South African Police came looking for him. I had to send them away. It was all very trying”.

Then she went on…..”After he went away, I received a letter from his father begging us not to give up on him. He seemed a nice sort, an agricultural type. I think your father had a brother or something, I don’t quite remember any more. It really was a trying time; it upset all of us very much, especially your mother”

So when Gran died at the age of 104 having been preceded into heaven by her siblings as well as both daughters and her husband, I ended up sorting out her personal possessions. To be honest, it was more like sorting out for all of them. I had the remnants of eight lives to contend with and understandably the experience really got to me.

One of the main things to affect me was that I found a five-year diary that had been written in the 1950’s by my aunt Joy. This covered my mother’s move to Africa, my parents meeting and their engagement - to the disapproval of his parents – who were an American father and French mother - and the eventual marriage. The families mounting excitement at the lead up to my birth… and mothers visit, with me, to England when I was fourteen months old. Principally because she wanted to see my Grandpa who was very ill with yet another nervous breakdown!

Suddenly my two dimensional father became more of a reality. Suddenly, I found out, from the pages of Joy’s diary, that he had simply ‘followed’ my mother, traveling apparently on the same plane and arriving at my Gran’s house three days later…………. Why?

Joy writes of “enjoying ironing his shirts….the fun of a larger family”, of him being” jolly and easy to speak to”…of my mother “being withdrawn and secretive”.

Nothing really explained what was actually going on. Or what happened when the whole event went pear-shaped.

A family friend (who I remember mostly for sending beautiful Easter eggs to me in Yorkshire, the boxes of which I kept my cars and Lego bricks in for years and years) later let me into another startling revelation:

“Of course you know that you were hidden up there (Yorkshire) and only two people outside the immediate family knew where you were…don’t you!”

NO I didn’t! Was there actually abuse? Did he try to kidnap me?

Well, that did it! I decided that I would try to look for his family…………..the Salvation Army had a go too. No chance, there was just not enough information!

Does my father still exist I wonder, even in anyone else’s memory?

Do I have any other relatives bearing his name in Africa, America or anywhere?

Or will my Father simply remain a two-dimensional face that peers out of that photo – mirrored by my own as I grow to look more and more like him.

Wherever he is and whoever he was; he left his mark, on me – a memory of him through my cells - albeit rather enigmatic, I am, never the less, in part, his genetic monument!

Gran - a bit of her life before her death

2011-08-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

In my last blog post, I talked a little about my Grandma, a woman who was born in 1896 - a time that I have come to regard as one of the prime eras of Victorian industrialism. Gran was born in West Vale, Halifax in a Mill cottage belonging to Prospect Mill, which in those days, probably didn't look too unlike this photo of it.

Prospect Mill, was started by my Great Great Grandfather, George Ingham, and my Gran's father Fred Sutcliffe had started work there 'at the bottom' and through a passion for self education, managed to better himself into eventual marriage of the bosses daughter Harriet and promotion to wool buyer and a seat on the board of directors.

Gran was the youngest of four children and to give some scale to her story, her sister Lily was twenty years her senior. Gran said that even as a small child she never felt excluded by her older siblings. At family concerts, she sat under the piano until she was old and adept enough to sit at it and accompany her sister Olive who played the violin. Gran's brother Ingham had "a bit of a gym" set up in the loft and patiently taught his little sister, my Gran, to climb ropes and wall-bars.

Eventually, the family moved from the cottage, to a huge house in Halifax, 'Gads Hill' (named after Dicken's house), it was set as the name suggests, up on a hill. They had large gardens and a tennis court. As the older children matured into teenagers and then early adulthood, house-partys and tennis evenings were common. Fourteen places were quite usual at meal times. These family parties, were also often bi- or tri lingual, as Ingham had been sent to study in Germany, spending time in Hannover and learning to speak the language fluently. Following Ingham, when their turn came, Gran's older sisters Lily and Olive were sent to 'Finishing School'in Switzerland and also became talented linguists. My Gran, Phyllis, visited them in Switzerland and shared the family talent for languages; even aged 104, she would sing herself to sleep in French or German. Lily corresponded in French to her old friends even in her 90s hampered as she was with bottle-bottom glasses and failing sight. Sadly Auntie Lily died when I was in my teens. She was the one that I really would have liked to know as an adult - we have several interesting things in common.

It was a priviledged childhood for all of them - one where servants reigned in the kitchen and were summoned by bells. Fine art and music were topics of discussion and actively persued as hobbys. Music was my Gran's first love and as she finished her time at school, she stayed on to teach the younger ones music and trained to become a concert pianist.

That was the plan - but then war broke out "and that..." said Gran, "...was that!".

Coming from a home where servants cleaned, they soon found themselves as trainee nurses scrubbing floors with carbolic soap, making ready a large house to recieve wounded soldiers covered in mud and blood from the 'front'.

Lily and Olive also nursed in France and their younger sister, my Gran nursed in England and Scotland. She had fond memories of 'her boys' and kept a photo album of some of her patients as they recuperated from the horrors of the trenches and the front-lines of places such as flanders. Ingham was sent to Egypt, where he survived war, only to contract Pneumonia from a swimming pool and die prematurely leaving a young widow and two daughters. The years of war were pivotal to my Gran, the austerity and horror of the First and then the Second World War gave her a self discipline and a code of living that remained with her always, it shaped her attitude to life and society. The live-in home helps that she had to have in the 1990s had a very hard time trying to live up to her very simple way of life and I was constantly smuggling loo rolls and other 'luxury items' in for them. Gran declared that they should only use one sheet of toilet tissue at a time and woe betide anyone found throwing food away! Gran used to search the rubbish bins in her kitchen for food waste and on finding anything discarded by her home help, would 'tut-tut' through her teeth - mumbling darkly while observing the newly found scrap - words like "this would feed a child...".

She was not an easy person to care for, or shop for. Nothing was ever quite right - or up to scratch. When she once cut her leg and I spent 5 hours in A&E with her, it was an eye opener for me. She spent the time re-arranging the department from her cubicle, stating what (in her WW1 opinion) was not rightly placed, proportioned or positioned. The Doctors, all of which she declared, were "...far too young and LOOK he even has a PONY-TAIL". Being deaf as a post, these comments came out at full volume. I was mortified and I think the Dr with the Ponytail was pleased to discharge her!

As a consequence of her fussiness, I never ever offered to do her shopping, having realised at quite an early age that it was a recipe for disaster, more than that, an open invitation for criticism and for falling out of favour...

My mum was terrified of Gran and also her sister, my Aunt Joy. Having lived her whole life on the end of my Grandma's critical tongue and my Aunt's equally critical and caustic tongue, she never felt that she had gained her mother's approval - certainly she didn't get her sister's approval. Having witnessed this, I was not going to enter into the possibility of a critical relationship with my Gran and Aunt as I saw how destructive it could be. So, when I eventually started to visit them more regularly, after my mum died, we ate cakes, drank tea and developed a relationship that involved art and literature. It was a relationship, for the most part devoid of conflict - I simply wouldn't play into the game and avoided it.

After my Aunt Joy died in the 1990s (Gran nursed her from the age of 3 till her death at 58), the dynamic between us mellowed and we became quite good friends - regardless of this, I still had to maintain the status-quo between her and her 'carers'.

However, after mum had died in 1991 and I became inseperable from coffins, hearses and graves, Gran was more than a little perplexed at my chosen career. She would often pronounce in exasperation her mantra, "women don't go to funerals in our family..."

When my Aunt Joy eventually died, Gran refused point blank to go to her funeral - repeating again and again, the family funeral mantra. I pointed out that as we were a family consisting only of women, it seemed a shame that none of us would therefore go to each others funerals...and she backed down, but only as far as saying she would be picked up in the limousine. When we arrived in the cemetery for the graveside service, Gran refused to get out of the car - hence (see last blog post) me having to place it nearer the grave in the hopes that the very expensive set of digital hearing aids would pick up what the doddery Vicar that Gran had chosen was about to say. I didn't realise that the Vicar was doddering about behind the limousine, hence he got a bit of a tap on the leg. Things went from bad to worse when the doddery Vicar started reciting the 23rd Psalm and a pneumatic drill sang forth just down the road, drowning out his words.
However, by some miracle, (or wishful thinking on her part), Gran said that she heard every word of the service and that it was lovely - funny that - I was standing next to the grave and couldn't hear a thing. This was possibly, either because I didn't have any digital hearing aids, or because I was laughing so much internally as the doddery Vicar didn't seem to know a thing about my 'Auntie Wheels'. Joy by name but not always by nature!

Gran perked up hugely after Joy died. Being her constant carer for 58 years had been a huge commitment and although her life didn't change much from a routine point of view, Gran became more interested in my work and we started to have more regular afternoon teas. Her 100th birthday came and went - she was disgusted when she spotted the printed signature on her telegram from the Queen, but failed to notice that her birthday lunch was held in a very camp Gay Hotel. She was however, astonished that her Neice (Auntie Joan - who's funeral I blogged about), had been brought down from Worcestershire and the following day, she entertained Joan, who returned to my home in the evening, shattered, and remarked wistfully about my Gran, that "she didn't even have a rest after lunch...." Joan was at least 30 years her junior!

So, that was my Gran - well, a little insight into her. She was a tiny woman with a large personality. Throughout her life, although her parents moved down south after the Great War, she remained a Yorkshire woman at heart. Her motto was that "if it's Yorkshire, it's alright" - but, you have to say that like she did, because she retained the correct accent!

It worked for her.

20 Years of daily death...

2011-08-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

In the middle of the night on 31st August 1991, my mum aged 58 - not feeling well, ran a bath and got in it....sometime later on the next day, she was lifted out of her bath by the coroner's men and taken away to be examined. They wanted to know why she had died.

I have to say, it was a question that I asked myself, when I was eventually tracked down at a friends house. I asked the question more than once and still sometimes re-visit it.

To cut a long story short, the coroner never worked out the reason why mum died, and gave an open verdict. I think it was to shut me up as I refused to accept that she had taken her own life (the path' results suggested an overdose), and luckily, I went to the inquest armed with a portly solicitor as I had wind of the way things might go...the process was a little long-winded, but we got there in the end.

The whole event and the unfolding circumstances around mum's death and funeral were particularly surreal and impacted my life to such an extent that 20 years later, there has hardly been a day in which death has not featured loudly or largely in my life. My mother, by prematurely dying, gave me a whole new outlook on the meaning of life. Moreover, I gained a new career path along which to stumble and acquired a whole lot of interesting skills and a depth of knowledge about hitherto unknown aspects of human existance. These skills and knowledge of the way in which death actually works, from a practical sense at least, came in very handy when the rest of my family and bloodline started to disperse into death's dark void...Firstly, my aunt died at the age of 58 - my cousin died aged (yes you guessed) 58... then my gran died aged 104.5 (yes really...) and her cousin, being the last except for me followed on in her late 80s.

My aunt's death and funeral is a story in itself, it involved among other things, a loud pneumatic drill, the vicar being 'nudged' by the limousine as it edged nearer the grave to let my gran (who refused to get out of it) a view of the proceedings and afterwards, the solicitor handing me a copy of my aunt's will, over the open grave, as we stood on the boards, one at each side, looking down at the coffin below us.

Gran's funeral proved a shock to the registrar, who asked which funeral director I was going to use. I replied that I was going to 'do the funeral myself...' her face was a picture! Like my aunt's death and funeral, it is an epic tale and hopefully befitting a life of 104.5 years.

My cousin died in America, so I couldn't do much except write a bit to be read out during his memorial. He was an activist in the world of LGBT Queer & disabled folk and apart from being a tiny man with a massive personality, he was known for his teaching, writing and poetry in the USA, especially in SF and NY. In spite of his notoriety in his own LGBT circles, he didn't manage to pluck up courage to 'come out' to his mum till the 90s. He told me that I had inspired him to have 'the conversation'. It was his mum who was the last bit of my branch of the family tree to die and apart from collecting her from her final dwelling in a nursing home in Worcestershire, I was determined that I would do everything else for her.

So I did.

Having rung the funeral director, I arranged to go up and embalm her....knowing her size, I ordered her a lovely wicker coffin - to be delivered the day before I was due to go up to Worcestershire. Then before the day dawned, I set off in my little red van, with my embalming kit on board.... All did not go well - The van broke down on the M5 and I had to ask the rather startled RAC switchboard operator to send someone out ASAP as I was on my way to embalm my 'Auntie'.

Eventually I was rescued and arrived at the funeral directors - with a quick coffee break I took a look at the forms I had to fill in for the Crematorium - the Nursing Home Matron had registered the death for me...I went to spend a few precious hours with Auntie Joan.

I embalmed, dressed and placed her in her coffin myself - she was a very thin lady, inspite of being quite tall. When she was alive, I had never seen her eat huge amounts of anything except tea and homemade biscuits.

Having made her comfortable, I went back home down the M5 - and in the next few days, ordered the flowers - a coffin spray of Nerines (she worked in a nursery that bred them for 30 years)...I also wrote the funeral service, chose the music and arranged for the wake to be held in the church hall opposite Auntie's house. She had never really been into going to church, but as an artist, was very much a part of the local community and lots of people wanted the chance to chat about her.

I have many memories of Joan's funeral - walking in front of the hearse along the High Street in Upton-on-Severn where she had lived for so long. Allowing her to leave her community slowly, with quiet dignity - but the maximum of traffic disruption would have made her smile. Later, at the end of the service, I remember being being thanked by people who had known her for decades, for having given her such a special and appropriate funeral. Being my Aunt's chief mourner, her Embalmer, Funeral Director and Celebrant, I couldn't have done more and wouldn't have done any less!

Practical involvement, has always been my way of coping when death has touched me personally and for me, the practical tasks take on a spiritual quality that has an essence of healing and a continuum that bonds me within the great circle of existence. Of course I miss them all, my family and many friends who have gone before me - but I am not grief stricken. They live in me and continue in my memory and as part of my life.

That first time, twenty years ago, when my mum died - I had no idea what to do. What could I do? Being a French Polisher, the most obvious thing to do was to polish her coffin.....it kept me occupied for a few hours, gave me something to focus on and time to think - that's where it all started. I came into the business of death at the sharp end. It isn't a job or a business to me, it is who I am, who we are as human beings. If you call Funeral Directing an 'Industry' in my presence, I am liable to bite... People like me, look after people like you and people like me will look after me when I die, if you can't manage it yourself.

However, twenty years on from mum's death, with an Embalming Diploma; a BA (Hons) in Death Loss and Palliative Care and an MA (Distinction)in Religion: The Rhetoric and Rituals of Death under my belt, I still have no further clues as to the real mystery of death - that's why it's so special.

What I have got, is a comfortable relationship with it - a knowledge that it is natural and inevitable. Moreover, I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't the end...rather, as Peter Pan suggested the start of something new and exciting. After all, he said 'To die would be an awfully big adventure' and that was my grandma's outlook, she misquoted it beautifully - often - and as the last branch on the family tree, I think it is only my duty to go along with her sentiment - it's traditional to do the same thing in families after all, isn't it?

Though having said that, I am approaching my 58th year cautiously and with some trepidation!!!

test

2011-05-27T04:36:00.000-07:00

I wonder if this will work as a link...?

Funeral......

2009-06-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

I have just been to a funeral.......
It was a Co-Op one and I was told off!

However, the cortege arrived nearly 30 minutes late to the church and the person sitting next to me was wondering if the FD had managed to get them out of the house.

My reply was that if that was the case, they hadn't done their job correctly in the preceeding days - to support the family and prepare them for the funeral.

I was smartly told that it wasnt appropriate, moreover, that it wasn't a competition....

Little does the layman appreciate, that it is, indeed, always a 'competition' and that every step/movement/gesture and facial expression of FD and bearers is to be scrutinised by opposing funeral professionals........every time, no matter what/where/whom. It is a matter of instinct and of great interest. Perfectly natural behaviour!!!

Not only that, minute details such as the very way in which flowers are placed on top of the coffin can generate endless discussion.

I know - you will point out that I am very anti Co-Op - so would look for problems and issues regardless!

The delay was apparently due to traffic - not local....so no family crisis on the doorstep...but hey - here I am in my posh clothes writing this, instead of going to the reception.

2009-05-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to Grant McLachlan's website...

Worth a look if you enjoy wildlife documentaries and films with decent soundtracks!

I am very proud to have a link with such a talented composer.....enjoy listening to the small sample of clips on here.

von Hagens and the mating human corpses...

2009-05-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here........he's gone and done it!

von Hagens has mated corpses........he said he would.

Sex and death in the ultimate freak show peep show..........

It had to happen. Right now, I am simply shaking my head in disbelief.

I have decided that they must be NECROSEXUAL...............heheheeeee!

Allowed Grief

2009-05-05T01:10:00.000-07:00

Over the years, I have seen a lot of ways of dealing with death - some of these have not seemed to me to be helpful. Not only that, I have met plenty of people who carry the long term, still open, scars that they just can't seem to resolve; from deaths that they were not allowed to acknowledge fully as important emotional events.

The British 'stiff-upper-lip' is a case in point. Often I have watched throughout the post-death period - the removal of the deceased from home; family visits to the chapel of rest - and then, while sitting at the back of funeral services as an observer of the unfolding ritual, I have watched those closest to the person in the box, trying all the time to hold it together. Later hearing things said like "I didn't cry - I kept strong for the children", or "I didn't show myself up by crying". It's not only the public grief that was being pushed aside - it was seen as something to be avoided even in private places; within the family and home.

I ask this question....If we feel that we can't cry when our child dies, If we can't cry when our parent dies, If we can't cry when our spouse of 50 years dies; when can we cry?

Grief is sometime seen as a negative emotion - something to be avoided, negated and pushed away. This clip from a very wise man is a how I believe human beings can heal in cases of 'Death Loss and Palliative Care'.

The quotation marks are there because that's what my BA degree is in......actually, we don't need to do a degree in order to realise that the truth is often very simple.

What we need to do, I think, is to remind people that they do not need permission to grieve......

Body Worlds.....thoughts.

2009-04-16T04:47:00.000-07:00

I was going to reply to Fi's comment in the little box, but I filled it up...so instead I decided on a copy and paste job:

I came out of the exhibition curiously unmoved and spent some time unpicking what the thought processes had been and why the reaction had been so flat.

Some of it was due to the ambiance - black backgrounds to show off the plastinates...this made a womb like quality to the exhibition and people were very much quieter than my previous experience of Body Worlds in Brick Lane. Whispered comments...quiet interaction. It was very different to the mirth and light I had witnessed in 2002 (I think that's when it was).

The other thing was that the venue (the O2 Dome) is/was just like a circus tent...this and the fact that some of the plastinates were encased in highly reflective glass cases - which reflected not only the plastinate that was enclosed, but also the onlooker and other adjacent specimines too - made the fairground/circus effect all the more surreal - it was sometimes almost like being in a hall of mirrors. This photo of an artist at work at the exhibition gives a taste of the reflections I refer to:

I think as a tool for medical students plastination is very valid........
BUT, on the whole, I think that the public market is a niche that has been jumped into and exploited without much thought as to the future.

Many plastinates are being produced - not only by the 'Body World machine', but other rival businesses....and they will be on earth for who knows how long. They will not decompose....they are truly non bio-degradable.

How will these plastinates be 'curated' in the future - what are the ethical/practical considerations behind this aspect of the legacy?

More interesting is the re-constructed concept of death being taught to a world wide audience. The didactic shows a clean, grief free demise...Death is displayed as upright, inert - having lost any abject or emotional quality.

We are told that death is represented in the exhibition, specifically by a plastinate shown walking up the steps of a tomb (designed after an anatomical image from the renaissance)......we are told that this makes us consider our own mortality...does it? Did it?

Don't get me wrong - the invention is brilliant - the positioning of the whole body plastinates is breathtaking - the anatomy very - very interesting.....well, for the likes of me, fascinating....but there is something missing.

From the perspective of someone who has had quite a broad experience of death......

Something really is missing.

Prof. von Hagens speaks of the "...need for unadultarated reality..."

I believe that the plastinates are, not unadultarated realities, but rather - as Bazon Brock terms "...real virtualities...".

Adittionally they might be seen in a way that Baudrillard used to describe onscreen or photographic images - as 'hyperreal'. They are indeed spectacular, however, they have lost the vital nature of death and sadly I think, we (the paying audience), have been lead to believe that it is not actually terribly important, it is something to wipe out and hide.

As such, the plastinates are works against death...they portray a skinned version of life and living, looking out at us and future generations through plastic eyes. They promise a new afterlife in a strange kind of posed limbo. These body donors, will become more like the people of an eternal carnival.

We learn about anatomy - possibly, but do we really learn about ourselves and our relationship with mortality?

I don't think so...I am with the little boy who shouts "look, the Emperor has got no clothes on..."

Happy Easter.....

2009-04-15T07:06:00.001-07:00

I have been a bit quiet on the blogging side - but busy enough elsewhere.
Pink balls on the golf course show up better in the 'rough' than the others and essays have been flowing thick and fast out of the house.

Death - well, I have cared for a number of folk this year, but most of them have been very much alive and unlike the embalming clients, have asked for return visits. Looking after feet has been a pleasurable experience on the whole and I look forward to collecting more regular clients as time goes on.

What else has been happening?.......the usual - scrabble on FaceBook....and River of Life in Dorchester
which has proved to be a real joy.........it is so, so lovely to be involved in a church that doesn't consider a multifaith multi-path soul like me as a threat......in fact, I get to be involved on a very profound level, which makes me feel really humble and proud all at once! Somewhere buried on the site you even get to hear me preach, I have blogged about the AIDS service last December.

So, back to death. Hmm - I am currently writing about 'The Abject Didacticism of 'Body Worlds' and Bread Works'. Looking at Gunther von Hagen's plastinated corpses:
and the bread sculptures of Kittiwat Unarrom

This link is just one of many on the net - I just selected it at random as the pictures were quite fresh looking!

The essay is proving to be quite a challenge; while it's very easy to be descriptive - and I so want to be - it's a different matter when it has to be argued through the work of accepted death theorists and other philosophers......I have just finished a first draft and am going to sit on it for a bit, look again...make changes, then send it off for comments - I have hopes that my tutor will accept the tack I have taken!

So - lots of death theory. A trip to london to see the current Body World presentation at the 'Dome'.....you want to know what I thought of it? Just don't get me started..........it's another post in itself I recon, however, why not go and read 'The Emperor's New Clothes' by Hans Christian Andersen - here's a link:

That ought to give you a bit of a clue.....!!!!

Paris Catacombs

2009-01-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

Back from Paris.....and we went to the Catacombs

It was quite an experience. Here are some of the pictures I took - they are blurred, but my excuse is that it was very dark and I had to crank the poor camera into open eye mode, while trying to hold it still........on the other hand, you may think that it added to the atmosphere!

The entrance, is via an
un-prepossessing green tin shack - then after a steep decent down a spiral stone staircase you enter the tunnels....there are a maze of them down there, but for the sake of visitors, a route has been selected that eventually leads to the Ossuary section. Bones from cemeteries all over Paris have been moved there and stored decoratively. The uncountable piles have been arranged in such a way that the bulk of smaller bones have been walled in behind piled up femurs, interspersed with skulls - some facing, staring oddly and others showing only occipital blank curveture. Individuality between the skulls is present if one peers closely enough - a phrenologist's joy - if only they could speak!

Fascinating and possibly grim, but of course we loved it!

Angry!

2008-12-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get frustrated by peoples attitudes.......rarely do I get truly angry.

Today just at the moment, I am really angry. I know it will blow over, but before it does, I thought you would like to share the cause of it!

Thanks a bunch Pope and a happy Christmas to you too.

Right - that's it for now.

But as 'er Indoors says "It's all very well - but we need 'straight' people to speak out against this."

Know any?

Rattus Flattus......Mus Musculus!

2008-12-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

I am just so excited!
From my sick bed I write.....

Just read Chris Quigleys Rat post......of course, we all know Americans like to 'do it big' so I don't mind - Chris has Rats in her collection and so, of course, in little Britain, I have a small version..a flat mummified mouse.......Framed, I might add, in a red velvet victorian frame.

I found my mouse under the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, when I sneaked 1/2 an hour in this house before I bought it.

Having found the mouse, I named him Cedric and promised to rescue him if he was still there when the deal went through.....he was and I did! (The carpets were all chucked in a skip...and the many mouse nests sorted. Cedrics friends have not been back to see him - to my knowledge).

Yo ho ho Chris! Meet Cedric...I did contemplate sending him to you for Christmas - but I just couldn't part with him!

Harrods

2008-12-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

Harrods was bombed when in 1983 the IRA planted explosives in a car outside. The blast blew heavy parts up onto the roof of the building opposite... and it abruptly ended several unsuspecting lives.

Having spent an uncomfortable couple of days re-living my past, I thought I would share this with you - and I promise, I won't delete it!

I worked in Harrods myself for five years, doing all sorts of things - which I will tell you if you want - I was there from 1980. But then,.....on that particular day, I had taken time off, because my husband (yep!) had taken it into his head to have a concert at our home, starring all his piano pupils. My job he declared, was to feed them....In all we expected about 28 people to turn up and participate in the 'grand' production. The studio had been re-organised - chairs set up in the (thankfully) long room - a piano at each end and...(I have to say, this was not an unusual happening at the time; however, - I wonder if wife 2 has to do such impromptu event catering? I doubt it, I've tasted her cooking!!!!! (honest, it's truly awful).

when the bomb went off at work, I was in the kitchen, making soup for the masses...in Brentford - thankfully not in Knightsbridge.

Had I been at work, I might very well have been one of the unfortunate people, leaving or entering the staff entrance - and ka-boom, you wouldn't be reading this blog now.

However, I was at work when the IRA bombed Hyde-Park-Corner.

This was the lead up.....

I was standing by a big trestle table in the toy department idly chatting - it was covered in sheets of brown wrapping paper as we were using it as a temporary 'packing' area for parceling up anything that the customers cared to buy.....

Yep, you can ask me to wrap anything from a model car to a rocking horse in corrugated cardboard and brown paper and then to tie string round it....i'm your girl for the job.

I worked in the packing section of the toy department at the big store for years.....I am an expert - but just brown paper and string - parcel stuff, not that 'girly-gift-wrap' crap with tight corners and ribbons!

I had my back to the windows at the rear of the store. The picture here is of the front, on Old Brompton Road. We were on the 4th floor...(the department moved from the 3rd to the 4th floor around that time). Prior to that, the toy department packing room was on the front of the building I think the 4th window along from the curved corner - the row above the 'Harrods' Sign...which in those days had 3 Royal 'By Appointment' crests above it!!!!!!!!!!

There was a loud low, rumbling boom and we all stood still, mid sentence, looking at each other. I said "...that sounded like a bomb..." A couple of moments later,I couldn't tell you how long, we smelled it - acrid, smokey and a bit like bonfire night gone wrong.

That was quite a time for everyone and one of the very many memories I have of the great red palace. The tales I could tell you! Thankfully not all so devastating.

Bedales: this just had to be gotten off my chest...sorry folks!

2008-12-16T02:54:00.000-08:00

I was doing a comment on the blog four paws and whiskers...then I realised my ramble wasn't suitable for a little box!

I suggest before you read this that you check out Fi's post.....This is my story.

Actually - that's enough of that.....! Anyone who wants to hear it can ask....!
x
Thanks for those of you who provided an ear or a shoulder today....

Doing: Death to Death

2008-12-15T05:49:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

looking for stuff......

2008-12-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

Having been on a very bizzarre fossil hunt by moonlight for treasure to send to Christine Quigley for her 'Cabinet' - I finally decided that the weather probably wasn't conducive to wondering about and I would have to share something from my cabinet instead.....so a parcel will be winging its way tomorrow......

No clues.

Just sorry that the post will be later than Christmas!

AND for a change, it's nothing to do with Nichiren....hang on, how did those monks creep in up there?

Hooray........feet over the threshold and into the swing...

2008-12-10T09:40:00.001-08:00

I went to visit my first patient today.......MY Patient.......not anyone elses - mine and all my equipment worked, and the routine went to plan. I took the right notes in the correct order and we were both pleased.....I looked very 'fetching' in my uniform and on the whole, I am delighted with the progress of the paperwork mountain........tho I MUST do my Diabetic foot health handout and my Verruca care sheet.

Tomorrow is after all another day - the day after that is a Golf Lesson.

Tomorrow however, also brings my presentation at University about my impending essay entitled:

Fast Track to Nirvana? Discuss the concept of Nichiren Buddhism and the attainment of Enlightenment in this Lifespan. and I need to print some handouts.......

Well - it's a simple enough concept... this enlightenment thing - like the man said, the hard part is sustaining it - I recon life is just like that in all areas....got to bloody well put the 'graft' in to get anywhere!!!

However, tomorrow, on the way to university, I get to pick up my new brand spanking buzzing whizzing Vascular Doppler......there won't be a foot pulse undetected on Portland If I get my way!!!

Reality check....

2008-12-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

This morning, I picked up the two packs of business cards from the local printers, for 'In Toe' my new foot healthcare business...I suppose it's real because I have that familiar sinking feeling in my stomach - you know the one - when you feel as though every last drop of confidence will seep out while you turn your head to look at something else and before you know it, the plan falls flat and remains just 'an idea'......well it was a bloody expensive idea, so I'll give it my best shot and force myself into action.

I am expecting a parcel of 'goodies' to wing through the ether in the next couple of days and have a bit of electronic kit to collect from the surgical suppliers this week and when it all gets here, I will be sorted enough to at least make a start.

The 'In Toe' Patient Charter has been honed and my 'Infection Control Policy' has been written - I have still got to write more Health & Safety at Work Policies, including the essential 'Risk Assessments' - then we're off with no excuses....to the dreaded meetings with local GP Practice Managers and suchlike scary official folk. In the back of my mind, I wonder if any of the rest of my class have gone into HASAW policy at all...I very much doubt it - however, my attitude is that if anyone says 'BOO' to me or complains about my business, at least I can show that I have thought about the wider picture and can look professional.....well - that's the idea.

I could be destroyed by harsh words even just the one word - so have to set my defences high!! It can't be too bad tho - other people have trodden this path, with less anatomical knowledge...and I loved clinical finals...the tutors were really pleased with my work...they were really encouraging.

So, what's my chosen logo? I know some of you were wanting to know!!

"..the blue one Basil..." of course.........That clever Ian Andrew did me proud... Now - I really do have to go out there and find patients... Don't I! Anyone got a corn - or like Sybil Fawlty, an ingrowing toenail?

Watch the first part of 'The Germans' on Utube - I have had terrible trouble uploading it!

Foot feet and fish food...

2008-12-02T08:29:00.000-08:00

Have a look at this link - it looks a wee bit fishy to me!
You can read what the man says yourself.....

"These silver-grey slithers are garra rufa, a tiny toothless carp that live in warm water. Also known as doctor fish, they nibble on dead skin cells while secreting an enzyme said to help prevent eczema and psoriasis".

Will they be on sale for Christmas? The latest 'beauty-have-to-have'...beats Botox in my book anyday!!!

DID YOU SEE THAT?

2008-12-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

Hey - I did the 'linky-thingy' like a real blogger!!!
again

Still banging on about a poor Cardinal...heaven forbid that the Roman Catholic Church should have a potential Gay Saint on their hands...they haven't got to grips with the fact that several men have been deeply attracted to the camp outfits, the Ritual, flowery Rhetoric and general lack of women.

I am convinced that the Cardinal has had the last laugh...tehehe...well - I hope very much that he has!

Cardinal Newman

2008-12-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

I can't help having been more than a little pleased that the Catholic Church couldn't find any remains when they tried to dig up Cardinal Newman...
here

He wanted to be buried with to his 'friend' Fr Ambrose St John....now who does that usually? It would be 'next to' or near....not WITH!

...The cardinal repeated on three occasions his desire to be buried with his friend, including shortly before his death in 1890.

"I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John's grave - and I give this as my last, my imperative will," he wrote, later adding: "This I confirm and insist on."

Newman wrote after the death of St John in 1875: "I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or anyone's sorrow greater, than mine."...here

So - when I heard that the 'Vatican-grave-robbers' couldn't even find trace of his bones - I smiled - a lot in fact, and wondered if he had made a secret arrangement with the grave diggers before he died!

art - and I loved it!

2008-12-01T00:53:00.000-08:00

I have to say sorry for not being able to post a 'live' link onto my blog.......somehow I just can't figure it out. However, this is clearly a 'death-related' link, so I thought it needed sharing.

As a sometime artist, I am impressed - and it leads on to even more interesting sites!

http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-54.html

http://thehumanmarvels.com/

World AIDS Day....

2008-11-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

Home from the service at MCC River of Life in Dorchester.......
Shattered - didn't realise just how much it would take out of me! (this photo is from 'Dorset For You' website....)

I said my piece and yes - I blubbed. I wonder if it will go onto the website for all to hear? I didn't 'lose-it' totally, but had to have a couple of really long pauses for composure.....and could feel the room literally full of people praying for me to keep going. Serving Communion afterwards helped the calming process. Phew!

This is what I said: hear it here!

‘Sanctuary’
The names we are going to share here today are those who spent their last days, hours and minutes at a place that was ‘Sanctuary’ in Bournemouth. A Hospice, dedicated to the care of those living with HIV/AIDS.

These names are from the ‘Sanctuary’ memorial book. [They scrolled up on the overhead].

To some of us those we remember now were our friends and fellows.

To others here, they may be just names – but they are significant none the less.

The ‘Sanctuary’ truly represented the nature of the word; also the deeds of Simon of Cyrene – the Good Samaritan of the Bible, whose name was used when the original Trust Fund for ‘Sanctuary’ was founded, by John-Luke Edwards.
Simon - if you remember, helped a wounded stranger when those of his own faith and social group wouldn’t.

The ‘Sanctuary’ was much more than an ‘organisation’ for all those who worked lived and died there.
‘Sanctuary’ was a place of spirit, where real and reality – often the most painful of realities, were held in the safety of non-judgement; a significant place where friendships and trust were tested too; sometimes to the bounds of breaking point.

A place where the simple – no, the complex love of humanity, was experienced in action, through service of staff and volunteers and in the very deaths of those who came through the doors; knowing on arrival that they were probably there...only to die. It was this reality that bound us then and continues to bind us in memory even now.
I would like to read a couple of quotes sent to me by Mags Smith – Patient Affairs manager at ‘Sanctuary’. She said “...how do you some [sic.] it up eh xxx It binds me to you Mark and to Neil..[and of course to John-Luke..hang on...”:

From the book A Soldier of The Great War:

The war was still in him and it would be in him for a very long time to come, for soldiers who are bloodied are soldiers for ever they never truly fit in..... That they cannot forget, that they do not forget, that they never allow themselves to heal completely, is their way of expressing their love for those friends who have perished, they will not change because they have become what they have become to keep the fallen alive...[Mark Helprin 1992 Avon Books].

“And another...The aim of the Sanctuary was to provide care..what greater pupose is there; No obstacle should ever be put in the way of caring..Gary Wilmot”

‘Sanctuary’ was also about life - living - in spite of the awfulness of AIDS and it was a safe space in which the dying and the living confronted both the best and the worst aspects of that life together. In those days before the drugs – the illness was very apparent, both physically and emotionally.
The fear surrounding AIDS was sometimes tangible....
Obvious you might think in those who were ill, but then, this fear was also endemic in wider society; where people who couldn’t or wouldn’t understand presented many very unwell people with several extra problems. Rejection loneliness and isolation were real in the lives of some of the folk who came to ‘Sanctuary’. Friends, family and workmates had often disappeared; in some cases a much loved partner had died previously.
For some tho, families and friends were there for the last journey and ‘Sanctuary’ encompassed them too – embracing them with food friendship, emotional support and open door visiting.

‘Sanctuary’ was therefore a dynamic flux of humanity, nevertheless, isolation beyond its walls was palpable and at that time, very much part of the AIDS tragedy.

‘Sanctuary’ cared beyond that isolation and was there when others wouldn’t or couldn’t hold thinning hands, care for the basic physical needs, or cope with the ravages of body or mind. ‘Sanctuary’ nurses and the ‘Buddy’ network were there 24/7. No one was friendless or unsupported. Dr. Gillett worked well beyond the call of duty and ‘Sanctuary’ - just was – for a short time, quite a remarkable place to be.
MCC was there too.....Neil Thomas as Pastor of Bournemouth laughed and cried alongside clients, friends and family and staff.

For some of those in the memorial book, I was also there as the very end came. Sometimes, with Neil and other carers, I was at the last bedside vigil as a friend and supporter but it was me who in my work capacity cared for many of those named here after they died.

So I remember all of them with love – but also with gratitude for allowing me to share in their journey and for the trust they placed in me as a professional – knowing exactly what that trust actually represented.

But I also remember sharing long nights with the nurses and days of cooking green chicken for Alec – because he wouldn’t eat anything else!

These are the names from ‘Sanctuary’ - they are but a drop in the ocean of World AIDS.........

Ok so another logo.....or three...

2008-11-26T07:42:00.000-08:00

A bit more my style - but I thought it would frighten the punters off before I got to see any feet.......

What do you think?
I quite like the coloured scrabble on the less anatomical one...but I think I chose the best one. I promise I WILL show you it - in time!

logos and things

2008-11-26T05:12:00.000-08:00

Yes.....you are right - I did have a post about logos and I got really frustrated with it as I couldn't post a film clip of them......
here is a taster of one that got away - that is one of the 31 possibles that the lovely Ian Andrew thought up.

At least I can upload pictures!
I chose a stunning blue foot, which I thought would go well with the slight nautical 'In-Toe' island based (all in my head of course....) kind of aspect. When I get it onto something, (like a card), I'll share it too.

I have had a good day so far - tho nothing Nichiren Essay has been achieved yet as I went down to see my friend Mick who lives in a big grey truck. He also has a very comfortable (huge) workshop that he makes things in - mostly re-cycled from drift-wood or furniture rescued from the skip/dump. An eco chap with a very kind generous heart. Someone who it is great to pop in on and drink coffee with....this morning, I found myself cooking a breakfast for myself on his camping stove. Eggs, bacon, sausage and beans...washed down with coffee (real) and plenty of conversation (also real).

On the way back, I picked up a box of fresh fruit ordered earlier in the day from the shop just down the road.....a lovely collection of goodies for us to enjoy and as I was leaving, a vast (free) bag of Jerusalem Artichokes was pushed into my hand....last time I bought some, I made soup and took the shopkeeper a mug to keep her warm!! Island life...I just love it.

Tomorrow 'Er Indoors' has to be up at 4.00am in order to catch a flight up to Scotland. That far for a day's work in the eyes of a 'recovered' Agorophobic is totally mind boggling....I am staying here to wait for the new mattress to be delivered! 2 weeks away at 'foot-school' made me realise that I don't have to wake up with back-ache every morning! I am just thankful that I could do something about it and buy an autoclave in the same week. Do you think 'Memory-Foam' works on the little grey cells as well as muscles and joints?

Here is another logo......what a joy to have such a talented friend.

Yesterday I wrote my 'Patient Charter' and started to design my brochure....the layout was quite beyond me - I can't for the life of me manipulate columns, so I will pass that job on to someone more computer literate!! ('Er Indoors' has offered -I think it was self defence more than anything).So today, it's back to Nichiren and enlightenment.....seems to be illuding me......

Normal - freaky or what?

2008-11-24T05:00:00.001-08:00

Now then folks - those of you who know me and my foibles well, will know that I always 'thank Mother' for co-incidences and parking spaces.

The last offering from 'her in heaven' came to me seconds ago when I opened my weekly email - 'Weekly Words of Wisdom chosen by Lama Surya Das - 24 November 2008‏' -The Lama who is very much alive...somewhere in America - I recently signed up for his cyber offerings.....who knows why.

This was todays email......consider carefully if you will that I have just finished writing my AIDS day memorial words for Church next Sunday...remembering folk who died at 'The Sanctuary' a hospice (no longer in existance sadly) of great worth and note in Bournemouth......and of course my recent triumph in the distal plantar anatomical region.....plus the fact that I am 'married' in a civil partnership kind of way to Catherine and...you can come to your own conclusions.

I think that Mother has shown her usual inimitable approval of what I am currently engaged in......"Thank you Mother!"

I would value your comments - but would add that she never was one to do things in half-measures!

Lama Surya Das sent:

THE SANCTUARY

It could be said that God’s foot is so vast
That this entire earth is but a field
On God’s toe,

And all the forests in this world
Came from the same root
Of just a single hair of God’s.

What then is not a sanctuary?
Where then can I not kneel and pray
At a shrine made holy
By God’s presence?

-- Saint Catherine of Siena

feet foot footsie......

2008-11-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

Here I am back from a cram packed fortnight of clinical practice at 'Foot College'; the culmination of many months of study and I really enjoyed myself. Whatsmore, I passed the Diploma...hooray, even more letters after my name!

While I was away, Chris Quigley sent me a little snippet of information to be getting on with.......Thanks Chris - you can always be relied on for the 'off-the-wall' medical insight.....every situation covered! Check out the link and see for yourselves what Chris supplied to foot the bill in this case.

http://dermatology.cdlib.org/124/case_presentations/pseudomamma/conde.html

This was not a condition we came across at college I hasten to point out! Sadly, corns; callouses; verrucae and various fungal conditions predominated...alongside some terrible toenails. A nipple may have been a little too much to handle - specially in the first week!!!!!

Back home now to concentrate on Death rites and rituals and setting up in the business of feet. Continuing with matters of the sole naturally!

Remembrances....

2008-11-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

This week brings us a week of remembering.....for me it hasn't simply been the red poppy type. More colour for me this year - or should I say several colours as 'her indoors' brought me a white 'peace' poppy to wear.....not only that, there are even more colours in my own rememberance....which always includes the strip of red white and blue ribbon that my Grandma saved from the celebrations after the 'Great War' in 1918.

Recently at university we looked at the Holocaust and somewhen today, I stumbled upon a blog site that included this photo and a poem entitled 'a rainbow of triangles'......the poem that went with the picture was really moving, but could I find the blog again - having closed the tab by mistake? No - of course not and I went there via Black-Boxes, so I was sorry as it was more than good...but by the fortune and miracle of google, I found it - 'A Rainbow of Triangles (poem) by Deborah Rey on AuthorsDen'.

Back to remembering....I am just about to go off for 2 weeks and won't be near my beloved computer - no Internet anywhere apparently, so I have been told. Therefore, having been asked to write some words for the AIDS memorial service at the end of the month, I had to finish the piece today so that the dear Pastor could arrange her service around it if necessary....or alternatively, get me to re-arrange my words around her plans!!!

Lots of memories then - losses of all kinds, war, violence and pestilence.

I led a remembrance day service at church a few years back and used coloured leaves as well as poppies to represent the 'people of the triangle' - it seemed to provoke a lot of thought and I managed to get through without crying.

I just don't know about the AIDS service this year - I am reading my piece through time and again - feeling the words, rolling them off my lips. But the memories are real and very personal - the losses were close. I suspect that tears will fall no matter how hard I rehearse.......

In the meantime - a two week period of reflection on foot anatomy with the vague possibility of a diploma at the end.....(it's the final fortnight of a diploma course that I have been placing on the back burner a little too often while studying for the more erudite university Masters course).

We shall see....it may be tears all round......

Busy....

2008-11-05T02:02:00.000-08:00

I haven't been near this page for days and it's not because I got scared on that night of nights when ghosties and goolies get to go abroad!

Unlike some, I was not lucky enough to go to Mexico - but I did get to go up the road and through the village in a skeleton suit, to a party and then to the pub. The reactions were mixed! The best was in the street when a 6 year old told us we were "...SAD" - we enquired why, pointing out that she was also dressed up. Her reply was "Yeh - but like for a 29 year old....". This caused much mirth and we went away giggling about my being 50.

See, I'm still enjoying it!

Friends Thesis....

2008-10-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have just spent a good part of this afternoon reading through (not all - yet) the Doctorial Thesis by my friend Kyro Selket.
Entitled:

EXILED BODIES
AND
FUNERAL HOMES
IN
AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND

It is a document I devoured with an outpouring of many emotions - pride in the epic proportions of the task accomplished and humour at the individual 'take' on the approach. It is a document that I know Chris Quigley would like to read.........!

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/geo/people/grads/kyro-selket

I guess you will have to click and engage in dialogue with Kyro re: her work.

The way in which Kyro speaks about trying to gain access to the funeral premises which she was trying to research, past the conventionally suited, conventional people who worked within them is something else.....it speaks volumes about the general 'nice greyness' of the 'Western Funeral Directorate' and Charles would heave a great guffaw if he read Kyro's words. Hooray for her, a proud self confessed Butch Dyke who 'fits in or fits not' - depending on the hue of the grey and the blandness of the mentality she constantly challenges - simply by being present.

I am proud to have been in the 'presence' that is Kyro, at the Death Conference - DDD7 at Bath University in 2005.

It was a very, very good conference; yielding not only Kyro, but my Spouse ('er indoors), who was there as the NSW National Trust cemetery expert and one other, who is now a friend of us both and indeed our doggie. Importantly, this latter conference friend is the person of superior knowledge who I consult on matters of enlightenment....
Who would have guessed that Bath University would come up trumps like that!

Back to Kyro though......she is so worth it!

Thanks for my 50th

2008-10-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over and dusted.......or is it?
Actually, no it isn't, because on Saturday I am going clay pigeon shooting with a bunch of friends. Er indoors organised it and it is a present from the family folks in Australia.

All in all, it is a fairly radical thing for me to be doing as usually, I 'don't do guns' however, at 50, I have been reliably informed, one can start to do as one pleases........so I am branching out and giving it a go - I hope (and so do all the friends we have invited), that I am better with a gun than I am at darts - one of them bears a scar on her leg where I once missed the dart-board. I wonder if the same thing applies.....I get good at darts after drinking a pint and 1/2 of Guinness. If I am a bad shot, I can only presume that I could be better 'drunk' it's not something to try out in a crowd.

I digress.....

Only on my birthday could the gifts include several alluding to religion/death:
7 Deadly Sins Chocolates
6 Bastet Cats (why 6 all at once? Why?)
A Coffin Cake - you have seen it....if not, scroll down to the previous age related post.
A tryptich Buddhist icon celebrating (as far as I can tell) the Lotus Sutra and the sermon in the clouds....

There were also:
4 Talking boxes....3 with messages from friends and the other stating "That Was Easy!" Also acquired were several books - the earliest dated somewhere in the 1700s and the favorite being 'Muffin the Mule'. The 'Old-Lady-Pants' were an interesting pre-need aspirational item, the pot with beautiful glaze also doubled as a musical instrument...(I had to blow it just to see), flowers and bottles will sustain the memory of the days of celebration for a while to come. The balloons will deflate before the excitement wears off and the cards will gather dust. I must email thanks to all and sundry. Please note, the blog gets first bash at the thank you picture...no one else will understand it!

I wonder how long the rocks will stay on the hill.......

Death Care Industry....

2008-10-23T01:40:00.001-07:00

This is an interesting little film...
Enjoy it!

It came to me from a friend via Facebook. The credits are at the end.

By the way.......I want to be the pencils!

Last night in my 40s

2008-10-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow when I wake up, I will be 50.

I can't quite believe it but I am excited nevertheless............so much so, that I have just spent 2 hours having my hair died pink, blue, orange, blonde and black.......

I decided that was the best way to mark the occasion.

SO THERE!

You are the first (apart from the hairdressers) to know.
Even her-indoors doesn't know the extent of the transformation yet.

I have posted a photo............I did promise!

Also one of my 'Happy Birthday in stone' which is how we do things here on the Island of Slingers.......

AND my fantastic Birthday cake......

Party time tonight - a feast at the local posh Indian down the road...then home for champagne and Coffin Cake!
Death is apparent even in our jolly times.......guests include 2 funeral directors an embalmer and a cemetery expert....the cake therefore is highly appropriate don't you reckon?

(One friend thought that it was 'problematic' and 'highly inappropriate for an anniversary' - clearly she won't be coming back for champagne then and very clearly she should know me better - [actually, she did come back for champagne - and sat in the other room bless. I don't know if she ate cake tho]!!!).

'...a bit of re-cycling...'

2008-10-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a while, because I am getting used to a new regime of reading and thinking, due to being back at university.

It's a poor excuse on the face of it I know, but I am not yet attuned and anyway, despite being told that I look at everything critically and constantly dissect all matter of issues, thoughts and deeds, of myself and others I might add, I still feel that academic critical thinking is a step beyond my personal 'comfort zone'. One needs to develop the right vocabulary.... and that takes effort. Synapses use an abundance of energy to make new and tentative links in my poor brain. It wears me out. (Or is it simply a lack of time management skills?)......

At the moment I am deeply immersed in Buddha - essentially the way in which
nirvana is conceived in the Nichiren Tradition. I won't go on about it - well frankly, when plotting an essay, I always think it best to internalise as much as possible and only 'splurt' words when the concept is well past the embryonic stage.

The point is - following on from the last post, it strikes me that re-cycling might be quite a Buddhist concept...multiple re-births and all that. Perhaps not so much in the Nichiren tradition however; I get the feeling that Nichiren is more about infinite possibility, dynamic unity and encompassing wholeness through Nam-myo-ho-renge-kyo...It's dangerous to expose the astounding gaps in ones own knowledge - I hope that a suitable quantum filling of Bodisattva is present somewhere in the relationship between my ku ke and chu

I'll let you know if I find any; alternatively, if any of you are so enlightened......please do share it with the rest of us!!!

Or, and I'll leave you with this; is the answer to enlightenment really as simple as Nichiren said...after all?

Lucky lucky lucky...

2008-10-13T04:03:00.000-07:00

I've had a busy morning since the 'Missiz' went off to work. I transformed the kitchen - with a lot of help from 'friend-next-door'.

Thing is, that the dishwasher broke - it sounded OK but the dishes were coming out dirty, which clearly wasn't the best option. After it happened half a dozen times, I thought it best to have a change. Mind you, the old dishwasher belonged originally to 'friend-next-door's gran. Then it washed mugs for the workers in 'friend-next-door's' dad's office. Then, it was in 'friend-next-door's' flat......it has since lived with me for about 7 years. All in all, it was clearly a machine made to last; (they were made to last in those days!!!) and we were quite sorry to have had to take it to the dump.

I moved the fridge to make room for the new machine, which is as I type, whirring around and doing its stuff for the first time here in its new home. Oh yes - I forgot to say - the 'new' machine has been in my store for a year; it previously belonged to 'friend-next-door's' mum and dad, who 'got rid of it' when they moved house.
So far, it hasn't produced a puddle on the floor - which is of course a brilliant sign!

The freezer - I ought to mention, came from some other friends over the back wall, after it became surplus to requirements; the sink and work-tops came from the chemistry lab refurb at a local college (complete with Bunsen-burner hole). All the cupboards are made or re-cycled. Life is like that here - give and take, share things round. Friend-next-door uses my storage space and in exchange, puts things my way. It makes for a comfortable existence, no frills and no H.P.... in our little community, to have endless 'things' simply in order to impress the neighbours, has the exact opposite effect.

I consider that we are very lucky; life is good and so are the friends we have the honour of sharing it with. I have pity on those with complicated lives who consider that they are judged on what they have, rather than who cares about them.

Oh - and you can forget the previous post about an 'expensive' Eco-pod coffin, don't you think it would be more in keeping for me to have a re-cycled pine box? I recon I could probably russel-up enough friends to carry it - save paying the 'dismal men'!

Measuring Up

2008-10-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

There has been a good deal of measuring up in recent days, or has it been just measuring down as we wonder quizzically what Iceland has done with the vast investments entrusted to their banks by UK Local Authorities!

Icesave said that they weren't involved in the 'Sub-Prime-Market' - what is happening in this curious world?

Daniel Defoe, said in The Political History of the Devil, 1726:

"Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed."

Measuring is simpler by eye I suggest - but I am wondering, is it only the Mortician in me that can tell what size coffin you would fit in, just by looking at you?

At this rate, no one is going to be able to afford to die, let alone travel in taxis!!

Humpty-Dumpty

2008-10-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

I was watching the news before going to sleep tonight and the Credit-Crunch Crisis was on. Some very personable but clearly a little stressed American Senator was being asked if the 'deal' was going to go through.

He said that "Humpty-Dumpty needed to be put back together again..." which made me laugh out loud and when I awoke in the middle of the night I lay awake thinking about it all.

I'm not awake because I am worried - my stock broker (haha, I have one - for now at least!!!), has had sleepless nights for the first time in 20 years, but not me. I just watch from the sidelines and wonder how 'they' (whoever 'they' are) ever managed to do the maths that enabled so many to borrow so much, without any means to pay it back.

I am totally innumerate - a legend of the arithmetic test (0% average)....but even I can see that the equation was never destined to work. My stock broker was right when he said that in his opinion "...there just isn't the intellect - at the top."

I have been in several Humpty-Dumpty situations myself.

As an embalmer, you get to appreciate the fragility of the human head when it comes into contact with a solid obstacle at speed. I know I have mentioned that several academics have criticised us as doing violence and invading the bodily space of the deceased as part of our work (Hallam et al, 1999, p.130), but frankly, if it was me and my child had been killed in an accident, I think I would be glad that someone just quietly set about spending hours putting Humpty-Dumpty back together, so that I could spend some last times with them before the oh so awful, premature, funeral.

Memory is a precious resource, I think of several of my accident restoration folk quite frequently. Them, and also those that I remember having visited them in chapel - the ones, who left behind in thier grief, never knew that I had been told that it would be an 'impossible job', when I collected thier precious dead from the hospital mortuary.

What's the world economy when it's weighed against the life of a teenager - or anyone for that matter?

Not a lot...

Hallam,E; Hockey,J; Howarth,G. (1999). Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity. London and New York. Routledge.

Death....fun-ethics...

2008-09-28T04:14:00.000-07:00

So what is grave humour?

I ask this question in all seriousness - and I have a feeling that over the next few years, it will be an issue that confronts me and stretches me - sometimes to breaking point.

You may have detected a certain relationship between me and Mr Reaper...I admit to being attracted to the 'Pythonesque' vision and also the version purported by the inhabitants of 'Diskworld'. Mort ought to be my nickname, but I have a perfectly nice acquaintance called Mort (in real life naming terms...) and Antler is something that I got stuck with years ago. Antler reminds me of a shamanic head-dress I once saw - or imagined. (No one else would think of that link in relation to.....) I digress. Sorry.

'Grave humour'. What is it? How is it used? Is it helpful - even useful....?

There are so many aspects of this question - aren't there!
Bordering on the dangerous and distasteful - some of them.......

Definition-of
Ethics-of...
Topics-of...
Instances-of...
Meaning-of...
Justification/or not-of...

Facetious and tasteless quips to cover the discomfort of a situation.
Light hearted observationals, such as 'do you know the one about the headless man.....' Throw-away lines that may even act as 'mantras' to 'protect' the speaker - but which might actually cut to the quick, or deeply offend someone else, if heard inappropriately.

Could this mechanism be used unwittingly to transcend unpleasant reality, especially by those who face these types of hard realities daily?

Is this a phenomenon that can be seen as a measurable coping mechanism?

I know some of you are nurses/etc....medical humour may be considered to act similarly. Any observations?

Back to tattoos...'CUT HERE' seems appropriate to me.

Death is for life....

2008-09-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's a promise folks, death is more permanent than a tattoo!

Tat's are sometimes cool, but unless you're a Japanese gangster and get your skin fleyed - or come to that, you become one of 'Von Hangman's' specimines, it's death that sticks by/to/on the soul. Yours and mine.

So in the meantime, while you're waiting, make a list of stuff you can do, but don't anymore.....see if there is anything worth re-visiting in the skills closet.

Here are some of mine: The Can-do but Don't-do-anymore List.

1. Darn socks......
2. French Polish Pianos.....
3. Turn Table Legs.....
4. Cook....
5. Smoke a Pipe....
6. Play the flute/guitar....
7. Sing.....
8. Swim.....
9. Sleep......

I am going to give the last one a go - right now!

If I make it through the night without the reaper getting me, I will blog again soon.
Tata for now!

The Meaning of Death...

2008-09-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

I just thought I ought to balance the last post with something pertinent to the subject in hand.

You know, of course, that this is clearly a real event from "The Meaning of Life"
- docupython style don't you?

But for those who are still puzzled, you needn't be. This clip is exactly what it says on the opening credits. Moreover, having studied the work of Mr Grim Reaper, up close and personally, for several years, I think I do detect his real - true-to-life - biographical character...in this little fillum.

Now you have watched and learned, I hope you found everything instructifying and re-assuring. Petrolheads amongst you ought to be particularly pleased to know the truth.

However, my tip for today is most certainly to avoid the Salmon Mousse!

PING!

2008-09-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

I found this clip...and then had to manage to overcome the 'Poohemes' and work out how to post it.
It had me rolling around in mirth. I just love this team of people. However I can't help casting John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in everything else he does.

Where was I? A clip was about birth, surely - that's the wrong end of the story!

PING!

I am now the proud owner of a new shiny University card (sporting a hideous photo). Not only that, but I have an NUS (National Union of Students) card to pick up - next time I go to campus. The photo on that one is worse, but the prospect of money off books might coax it out of my wallet - every now and then!!!

Logged into the system and fired up. My tutor is enthusiastic, supportive and awake -I just have to rev up the brain cell, re-learn how to write in 'academic-speak' and prepare to wear my reading glasses a lot, lot more.

MA here I come.....the plan is to convert eventually to MPhil then PhD.
Not bad for a gal who left school at 16 with not much in the way of qualifications or hope. For me, it's the very best way of entering my 50th birthday month and the most fabulous present that my 'Ancestors' could ever have given me.

Death has done me proud - they died - bless 'em and I have thrived - I have, I hope, been positive about being the only one left plodding the earth.

I have taken time to think, time to grow and time to explore the wonderful opportunities I have been given. I never dreamed such things were possible for me. What blessings!

I recon they look proudly down every now and again and smile on me...
or should that be...look up?

I buried some of 'em if I remember rightly - didn't I!

PING!

An argument I really wish I had won....

2008-09-24T01:20:00.000-07:00

I have quite strong views when it comes to talking about my work.

I talk around it but not often about it - except in defense.

As a member of my institute, I have various statements or promises that I endeavour to keep. We all should. It's only fair. Especially where 'the media' are concerned...a slippery bunch - on the whole.

In the dim and distant past - when I was working and not studenting and sitting on my bum reading, a film crew visited our company. They were from the local University - which apparently had/has a very good reputation for turning out media graduates.

They wanted to make a documentary all about funerals...

I made a stand and declared that I wasn't going to be filmed in the embalming theatre and they could interview me about my job in the sitting room....that was it.

My boss and I had a row.

I refused to budge. But somehow during the course of the day, she managed to manouver things so that I was told to go and do a sound check while the film crew took some shots inside the theatre.

How bloody nieve was I?

They got me talking....and before long it dawned on me that the very worst situation was unfolding. There I was, walking around in my day clothes and the red-light was on the camera.

I asked later when they were going to do my interview. I was told that they already had.

I was furious. Incandescent with rage (that's when my nose goes red). I was especially angry with my boss - who had clearly given permission for them to film me like that. I felt really betrayed. Another huge row happened but I was just seen as obstructive and difficult....Moi?

Some months later, a copy of the film was delivered to the premises.

No one ever got to see it.

It vanished.

Pepper up-the-bum of the establishment....

2008-09-23T05:48:00.000-07:00

"...pepper up-the-bum of the establishment..."

Lindsay Anderson (the 'If man'), was described thus (or by words to that effect) this-morning on the esteemed Radio4. I was driving up a steep hill at the time and had to stop a guffaw of laughter from swerving me recklessly into parked cars that people had left on each side of the road.

Dunno who said it - I suppose listen again could inform me - but somehow, the phrase not only tickled my fancy, but it described me to a tee.

I passed it on to Charlie (Good Funeral Guide...) and he recognised himself in it too...I am going to have it on my tombstone. He agreed. I suppose now, we have to see which of us goes first and claims it in carving. Second time round on a grave (however far apart) could be thought so very passe darling.

I had been down to my local FD, to collect my equipment. I don't suppose many people know what 'equipment to embalm' looks like - my car was full to the brim with it.

Dog was there too. He often is. I am reassured to know that Zoroastrians consider Dogs to have the power to ward off evil spirits. Dead Zoroastrians are always shown to a dog as a precaution against such contamination.

My dog is happy around coffins - he knows, I think, that he has a duty to perform - as far as I know, he does his best. (It surely isn't for nothing that dog spelled backwards is deemed an important word...to some humans).

Peoples dogs and cats should go to their owners funerals...it got me thinking.

I have been to a couple of funerals where anonymous cats have appeared and partaken actively with no bidding. The first memorable time was in a very, very cold cemetery. Parents were burying the ashes of a much loved daughter - aged 23. A tragic time, much sorrow, many tears and hankies.

Suddenly and with much purpose, a cat came towards us and looked into the hole at the ashes casket, then it proceeded to wind itself round the legs of the parents - completely ignoring the rest of the small group of onlookers. The FD tried to usher it away - but it persisted around the two 'chosen' for a number of minutes - before going off in the direction from whence it came.

Afterwards, we realised that donations for the funeral were being collected in aid of 'Cats' Protection' and that the daughter had been a real proper cat lover and owner of several. We never managed to find out who's cat it had been...we asked around.

The parents loved it - it made the day really special for them. They said so.

Second memorable cat was black and sleek and very vocal. It came from nowhere and marched in front of the hearse up the hill towards the Crematorium accompanying the FD who again tried the "shoo! go-away!" handbag technique...Not easy when you are trying to walk in front of a hearse with unsuspecting but onlooking mourners.

The hearse stopped - the cat stayed around and insisted on coming in to the funeral - the family decided to let it; why not? It behaved perfectly and didn't sing till after the service. It liked funerals, (It was black for a reason I guess).

It stayed around the crem this black funeral cat, (helping...where it could), for a week or so, till it was adopted by the cremator attendant who took it home. He and his wife lived in a cemetery gate-house, so the cat was still in it's absolute element.

So I think that animals too can be 'pepper up-the-bum of the establishment' - frankly, who would want to stop them?

Caught up in the net......

2008-09-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

Black boxes have captured me - as they have so many others.

I am wondering just how 'they' decide where to send me. Not that I am complaining at all, I have been places that I formerly wouldn't have dared to go...

This morning I found myself on a squeeky clean site - run by an American Pastor's wife......I left a message. I wonder, if she visits here, if she feels welcome, daunted or confugilated.

I hope it's the former.

Death is somewhere we can all meet up...it's a net we can't escape from. No button marked 'out' or 'backspace'.

Just buttons marked 'chance', 'dare', 'choices', 'opportunities' and 'friendship'.
All the buttons determine how we live towards death.

The vicar's wife will have her own ideas as to what happens next. You also may have a vision.

Faith, vision, hope. More than this?

A promise that you'll meet Daena and get over the bridge? Heaven? Re-Birth?

What is out there and why do you think you'll go there and where and who will you be meeting up with?

When is just - for most of us at least, too dificult a question to be asking!

Something rocked my boat....

2008-09-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

There are a few things that rock my boat. I guess you may have gathered my take or slant in life, but one thing I am passionate about is anatomy and another – books.

I mentioned my youthful infestation with ‘Pooh’ in a previous post. This new post might suggest another serious infestation and it may well explain, in a convoluted way, how I happened upon any facility for critical thinking about the following rant!

Remember the story of ‘The King’s New Clothes’ – Hans Anderson I believe (I can hear Dick Van Dyke singing in my head as I type – I had a record of stories when I was very very young). If you want a short recap, (off the top of my head and with many apologies to the original…), the tale is about a King who wanted to be the best dressed King around. He was visited by two Tailors who wanted to make a quick buck. These two geezers persuaded the King that they could make him a unique suit with the most prized cloth, so rare and fine was its quality, that only the most observant and bright could detect it. They ‘showed’ him a ‘sample’ – which he naturally agreed was genuinely unique, so fine as to be like the shadow of a wisp of silk.
The Tailors discussed design and price, said it would be ready in a few weeks and went off, smiling I bet.

The King was so excited and soon news of the marvellous suit of clothes was known far and wide – throughout his kingdom. Everyone was told that only the most genteel, wise and perceptive people could detect the quality of the cloth and people flocked to see the king as he paraded the streets on the celebratory day that he chose to wear it publicly.
Everyone “Oh’d” and “Ah’d” as His Maj. swept through the streets. They turned to the folk next to them saying “…Such fine lines – what rich colours, such subtle design….”

Till a little five year old girl pushed to the front of the crowd, pointed her finger at the King and shouted “Oi! He’s in the nuddy – look everyone, the King’s got no clothes on!”

You get my drift?

Well…in my world - and yours too, there is an anatomist with a hat.

Not the Cat in the Hat, a man in a hat. I think he’s really a Dr.

He wants (by his own admission) to be the best anatomist in the world. Well, there are some fabulous anatomy teachers – take Dr. Alice Roberts for example. Who, but the coldest of stones, could be uninspired by her? I recon she could teach me the differences between my adenoids and my aorta any-day.

http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Anatomy/about/staff/roberts.htm

Back to my “man in the hat”. What is he doing with bodies? Moreover, is it only me that simply doesn’t get it?

Actually, it seemingly isn’t only me and I am going to (try to) post a link or at least a site for you to cut & paste. Sorry - I am incapable, it's the best I can do!!!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6aPdLco3Ciw&feature=related

If you are just about to have dinner, or are a bit on the ‘squeamy’ side – you could take my word for it, but watch it if you want plus all the other 'Body Worlds' stuff and make up your own minds.

When the ‘Body Worlds’ exhibition hit Brick Lane, I (along with many others) went to see it. I got in for a bargain price by showing my British Institute of Embalmers’ membership card.

As I made my way around the exhibition I became profoundly uneasy – not just because the exhibits were bodies – heavens, I’ve seen thousands of dead people, up close and very personally. I’ve been in anatomy labs in medical schools – scalpel in hand even; I have read text books galore and looked, for hours, at anatomical specimens in jars at places like The Hunterian Museum. Besides which, in the course of my work, I have held the very hearts of several people I once knew.

All that aside, nothing prepared me for ‘Body Worlds’. Something disturbed me so much, that I had to go to the V&A afterwards to see real art and to recover my composure.

Why?

I have thought about it a lot since then and have even explored the subject through the analytical sieve that is the undergraduate essay, but I still have questions and grave misgivings.

I could just about accept that people want to donate themselves as ‘exhibits’. But my gut tells me that what is actually being presented is akin to some kind of freak show – one that presents human tissue without any genuine reference to it’s humanity, even though the figures are posed ‘in artistic animation’. The glassiness of the plastic eyes gives nothing away and the preposterous nature of the exploded movements or exposed internal landscapes, seemed not to instruct many of the masses, simply titillate.

I say this as a reaction to what I heard and saw. I spent a lot of time at the exhibition listening to the comments of fellow voyeurs. It was an uncomfortable journey in which I witnessed many misunderstandings about the anatomical facts on display (many people were seemingly not able to interpret the labels). In addition to this, I witnessed many uneasy snickers and the inevitable guffaw or two about the nakedness so called ‘art’ in the arrangement.

Fascination was there, but questions were also being asked, by more than me, about where in the world a dead full term pregnant mother with baby in-situ could have come from.

Is there a European country (or a family for that matter) that would/could allow such an event to go un-examined by the Coroner, or equivalent, or un-marked by mourning ritual? In a post-Alder Hey Britain, the exhibition of such an emotive subject seemed to me to be wrong.

Please tell if you know, think, or suspect otherwise.

The visitors’ books that were available for all to sign, showed delight and support. People wanted to donate themselves and were engaged with the project.

I just didn’t get it - not really.

A fabulous technique, plastination may be, in its place - where should this place be?... Anatomy is the coolest subject after all and med students really do need to benefit from the technique.

Although we live in the most extraordinary bodies...(you do, look at yourself - go on); we have the technology to create real plastic model bodies. For centuries, beautiful wax anatomical models have also been on show. Moreover, the internet opens up doors and windows into body and soul alike...go to the Wellcome collection online or offline and see.

But surely, real anatomised bodies, so patently used as art-form, for fame and financial gain smacks of King’s New Clothes to me. Is, I wonder, the man in the hat a Tailor, an artful butcher or simply a very clever salesman?

Or, is it just me being a precious over sensitive death-worker, a grumpy old-woman or even - God's forbid, a wee bit cynical?

Failing that, I may simply be showing my true age...five wasn't it!!!

NO.....what's REALLY important?

2008-09-19T05:42:00.001-07:00

Nothing that can be hoarded and that's for sure.

Love, laughter, good health, safe home, loving friends and family, good food and time to enjoy sharing ideas.

Communicating about the phases of the moon or shapes in clouds, hearing music, smelling scented flowers.

Smiles, cuddles - nothing that can be measured with a tape-measure or a calculator.

Thankfulness when these things are in life.
Strength granted when life is tough.
Mates to share troubles.
Understanding and grace, peace and gentleness.

Beauty - seen or unseen passion for adventures real or imagined.

Nothing to take into my final box for sure - but inspirations to find through Black Boxes........

You can't take it with you....

2008-09-19T05:42:00.000-07:00

Why not....why can't I take it and anyway, what's really important?

Don't know about you, but I am a real hoarder. I think if it wasn't for my other half - who likes "cleaning up", I would be one of those old people with piles and piles of newspapers in the front hall and God's forbid 26 cats. (Thankfully, I now have a dog who has a serious hobby - cat chasing, so we are safe, for now).

Actually, I kid you about the 26 cat's, I couldn't live with the combined smells. EW and I'm an embalmer, we have iron stomachs - for smells!

But hoarding is a hard one to shake.

It's not a habit that I chose for myself, it just started to happen. One minute I was minding my own business in my flat, deeply enjoying a wall of books and the rest covered in pictures. Simple life - work and play, play and work. Polish furniture, mend furniture, lacquer doors.

Then it happened - mother died and the questions started. What do I throw away, what do I keep? What's important in my life that was also important in hers - precious enough to save and enjoy living with? Certain things were easy, the Oxfam mountain grew and grew. I moved to accommodate the resulting bulk.

Then, over the years, the rest of them went and you're right, none of them made any attempt to take any of their treasured stuff with them. They had wills, but they only covered theoretically 'important' things bank-manager, tax-man things.

How in the world do you face throwing away bits of red white & blue ribbon saved from 1st World War France?

Yep - somewhere in my crowded house, it's here....somewhere.

However, a friend visited yesterday and he started reminiscing about my 104.5 year old Gran. He knew her while she was alive and helped at her funeral when she died.

(He also kept me on track, when the time came, between house and skip, throughout the whole drawn out episode of choosing artifacts to 'throw', 'keep' or 'Oxfam').

"Well!" he declared, "If they dig up your gran in the future sometime, they'll think she was some kind of royalty with all the stuff we put in her coffin...bits of knitted tat from 'Auntie Wheels and...'".

"Yep...", I replied "remember the Herb Alpert records...and the - and the..." and we spent a funny five minutes recounting all the detritus that we knew she had kept for a really good reason over the years - but for what reason we couldn't begin to guess. Some things we couldn't fathom at all, so in the course of time that the old lady lay in state, in her bedroom in her coffin, we just added and added her treasures to her burial box!(She was 4'2" and I swear that the coffin we gave her was huge - it had to be, to fit all the 'stuff')

It was a serious transition clearing out Gran's place - reminders of 4 generations of family that I am now the solitary remainder of. It was like a series of mini mourning episodes, all of which had to be examined emotionally and dealt with as the physical artifact was given an allotted place on the chosen pile.

No wonder a lot of it has ended up at home!

But what, would I take with me? (A much harder question than what would I grab if the house was on fire that's a practical and logistical question).

The 'taking list'
A photo of my spouse...
The ashes of 'Booby' my cat...(sorry dog)!
A miniature clarinet model...
A very small, very old Teddy...
A small matchbox steam-roller...
A small Buddha...
A Shabti...
All wrapped in a red and white spotted 'running-away' hankie.

But hang on you cry - we thought you were going to be cremated with Booby.

I am, so why not keep the above list intact and make up stories over lunch - over a good bottle of wine.

Discuss: These things were important to Antler - why?

Welcome to widget travellers....

2008-09-18T03:31:00.001-07:00

Hi - if you got here via black boxes, please send me a message.

Despite the general theme of my site, i'm really quite OK.....really!

Welcome anyway whoever you are and wherever you zoned in from. Perhaps you could help me out and tell me what you think is going to happen when/after you die....what do you hope for? Heaven? Nothing? Something alternative?

Look forward to some comments......

boxed and not literate...

2008-09-18T03:31:00.000-07:00

This is a lovely little word gadget......but try as I might, I can't work out how to paste it onto my sidebar. (I since have managed...I feel sooo credible now).

The instructions don't equate with my Pooh-logic. Sorry, but that's how it is.

Black boxes are interesting things. I have learned a little about them from training courses with one of the leading disaster management organisations. In aircraft, they aren't black at all - they are bright orange. Just goes to show that clearly in this case it's 'all in the name'.

Orange is one of my favorite colours. I wonder if this is why I have a leaning towards eastern religions? If it hadn't been for the threat/promise of no food after 12.00 mid-day, you might have seen me in a Buddhist robe....but hang on, the nuns wear brown at Amaravati.....I must have always imagined myself as a monk.

This whole thing about not fitting into boxes has been chasing me all my life and sometimes it has presented as a lot more than an irritation - no wonder I have been accused of being 'spiky'in the past. I have got to the stage now, where I can 'manage' the situation of not fitting in and am comfortable in the knowledge that what I think or do will most probably turn out to be the opposite - to the point of extreme - to anyone else.

I don't fit into the 'banking' system; I am under the credit 'radar'; I am married to someone of the same gender and think about death more often than is recommended in conventional Western religions. I certainly think about a personified death more than the so called modern gods and godesses of today - the 'celebrity'; 'football'; or 'fashion' icons - victims I would prefer to call them...

So there's the rub. The only box that I will ever actually fit into is probably going to be a gold leafed, feather-lined 'ecopod', check out the one on this website

http://www.ecopod.co.uk/index.php?pageid=30

So, from the Grim Reaper and ecopods to black-boxes of various hues, what a journey.

Bizarre things can happen when blogging. They are fruits of the imagination...

So, once more my friends,I have to remind you that as I haven't grasped the linkage thingy, you take your own chances as to where black-boxes send you - off a Death-site into...I wonder?

poohmes vs witwimes?

2008-09-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

One of my all time heroines has to be Sue Blackmore....

Know her?

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/

Get the general idea?

Well, having seen her in action on a lecture stage and having spoken to her, I can understand why Memetics may be seen as a force to be conjured with. She is a fabulous instrument of transmission for any kind of information. What's more, I want her hair; but haven't yet assimilated the correct meme for courage!

As a student of religious studies, I have to take this memetic aspect of information transmission seriously. It isn't hard and makes perfect sense - to me...

I have a theory of my own - bear with me. Yep, I meant that.

When I look at my friends and try to evaluate what 'take' they have on their own world and religious reality, it strikes me often that they fall into two camps. (I am aware that this may also be entirely generational...do kids read books now, or are they only subject to Temes???...).

I think, within my mates, that I can detect two predominant mindsets - and I know that although this is clearly a very, very (very, very), small sample of humanity; there are those of us who's world perspective and resultant logic is purely Poohish and another lot who show signs of being deeply Wind in the Willowsish.

In my case, I was 'infected' at such a very young age, that the Poohmes got hold of my innermost being - influencing my every thought and therefore infesting my physical, spiritual and psychological character to boot.

I know this theory to be totally true as I am manifestly an empty vessel - much like a 'hunny pot' after lunch. A good place therefore, for thoughts and 'thunks' to swill around in while being open a bit at the top - so that 'thinks' and thunks' get to escape again. It's a pretty random happening.

I have found.....that 'thunks' only escape from the memory, after swirling around a little. But possibly only really truly escaping after sticking a very little bit to the 'thinks' that have been left behind since the last time they were 'thunked'.

Besides all this, like Piglet, I have a very small head and must therefore have also inherited the perfekt Wol spelling meme as part of the 'Poohme' infestation. (Even tho I was initially infected by 'Boomes' [book memes???]that ought - one would have thought - to carry a viral attack of perfek grammar).

My friends - the real ones, who are therefore similarly infected - but with the alternative 'Witwimemes' - show different deep-thought characteristics. But I am sorry I can't 'thunk' quite what these deep-thoughts might be replicating or even believing in.

I can only guess that they (the replicated characteristics) might have proved to be too complicated for my 'hunny-pot' to capture - moreover, piper's anywhere - especially at the gates of dawn only act to frighten small-headed people like me - I am easilly confused to the point of memingless drivel.

Besides which, it's now time for a snack - which I need....if you have paid any attention to 'Pooh-logic'....parti-qu-lar-ly often.

Towers of Silence....

2008-09-12T06:17:00.000-07:00

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=malabar+hill+mumbai&ie=UTF8&ll=18.959769,72.805924&spn=0.002055,0.003712&t=h&z=18

This link - if you can get to it mind you, takes you directly to a Google map image that hovers you above the Malabar Hill Dakhma Complex - The Zoroastrian Towers of Silence.

Actually, I thought that photographing them even from a height was frowned upon, so I was glad that the zoom button refused to take me in any further...yes, I admit to have tried it!

I have long had a fascination for the Zoroastrians - whoever thinks that Mazda is simply some kind of Japanese car, needs to look lively.

Mazda is the omniscient Wise Lord, the Creator. Mazda or Ahura Mazda among other names, is the exulted God of Zoroastrianism.

Zarathrustra was his priest/prophet who got the religion named after himself having built it out of some earlier established religious frameworks (Clark 2001: 3).

When shall I know, O Mazda, whether through truth you have control over anything, the fear of which frightens me. Let the pronouncement of good thoughts be told me truly. May the benefactor know of what kind his rewards will be. (Y.48:9)

That's from the Gathas which are the sacred texts provided for us by Zarathrustra - they are personal songs to God, a bit like the more widely known psalms and what is more interesting (to me at least), is that this religion - which we have, I hope, established is not - NOT - about worshiping a type of automotive technology, is considered to be the world's earliest 'received and prophetic' religion. Possibly 1400BCE and pre computer; blackberry or mud tablet script.

This is a living religion - although it seems not to be one that one can convert to.

However from what I can gather there has been enough spiritual permeability to allow scholarly types to detect historical links between the other 'people of the book'. but sadly Zoroastrians were dominated historically by the ones who thought theirs was best...

This all got me thinking - we have had the first Hindu Pyre in the UK, when can we build a Tower of Silence? Would we - if we had such a thing, as juddin - non-Zoroastrians get to go there, if the rituals were deemed suitable. Or would we have to steal the idea (like we have with lots of other non-western things in our oh so chequered past) and create our own local versions?

Where, (disregarding the straight-jacket of local planning departments for the benefit of imaginative thinking) would we put our new-fangled 'towers'? It seems a great pity to me that the famed Calder Hall piles have been demolished recently...They could have been modified perfectly!

Something on The Isle of Dog's might fit in with the ritual side of things....
(a joke in poor taste for those who know - shame on me).

But continuing on the wildlife theme, it's clearly the birds that are the main problem. Although if we are being creative, surely we could come-up with another form of vulture.....

Answers posted here please.

And I apologise in advance - for everything - with huge reverence - to Ahura Mazda engineer of all things and His followers in the Parsi community who I promise - I respect hugely.

Ref:
Clark, P. (2001)Zoroastrianism: An Introduction to an Ancient Faith. Brighton/Portland: Sussex Academic Press

In and Out of the Box...

2008-09-11T02:33:00.000-07:00

I am reminded about how difficult it can be to explain coherently what you do, if you do something that is margianalised or hidden from the norm.

I have just been reading a book by three very erudite scholars - entitled:

Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity

A book authored by Elizabeth Hallam, Jenny Hockey and Glennys Howarth; all women that I have huge respect for. I passed my previous degree with many references to their past works.

Now while it's entirely reasonable for people (including them) to hold opinions against embalming practice, even to describe the treatment in terms of "...violence...", I get really 'thingy' when the description is patently wrong.

I am nit picking - you think!

I have never sewn lips.......we don't sew lips.

We do oral sutures - or mandibular sutures, but the stitch doesn't go through the lips. For one thing, the tissue isn't strong enough to hold the suture and another thing the damage caused would cause fluid to 'weep' constantly.

Even you can understand the concept of wet lips being not one we would encourage...surely?

Then - if that wasn't bad enough, they got the whole embalming technique back to front so that whoever was embalming in the description, was injecting preservative into nowhere in particular.

Eh? you may ask.....

Well, the whole point is that you have to have an intact system to take advantage of the natural circulation. Poke holes in it and what do you get? A 'sieve'...with no way of transporting anything fluid that isn't going to escape.

It is of course possible - but it gets more complicated and having been accused in the same book of being "...pseudo medical...", I won't bore you with the anatomy lesson.

Which gets me to the point of this little rant.

Yesterday I went up to university to see my tutor and have a bit of a look round and chat to folk.
I met a charming young man who is a recent graduate - who having done the education thing at the correct end of his life, hopes to follow in his fathers footsteps into the Church of England. He was suitably earnest and enthusiastic a model 'Anglican'.

We had this chat about coffins, which I decided, suddenly as I was driving home later, might have been one of those parallel communications where you are each talking about the same issue - but from totally different points of knowledge.

Compared to him, a novitiate in 'boxes', I think I might be termed coffin expert - this latter position naturally only complicated things.

So, when he said words to the effect of 'I have heard that it is illegal to re-use a coffin after you have taken the body out of it....'

I naturally said - "rubbish - who told you that, of course you can re-use a coffin - mind you, you might not if it had been contaminated in some way.....!"

My answer was based on the knowledge that there ARE indeed certain circumstances where the coffin may be changed or re-used. I give you three such examples that I have experienced:

1. You go to remove a person who has died in certain private hospitals who only allow you to use a coffin and hearse.....not the usual stretcher and ambulance/van/estate-car.

This is the first-call and you have not yet been told by the relatives which coffin to use for the funeral - not only that, you may not be able to get an accurate size for the person. So you use a nicely lined coffin that is large enough to accommodate the nurses 'guesstimate'. You find out later that not only is it the wrong size - but the wrong colour.

You put the person in another coffin and are clearly not going to throw the first one away!

2. You do the funeral of a VERY large man.

To lay him out in comfort - the coffin (which has to be specially made) is 4" wider that the crematorium maximum size....so you explain to the family that the option may be to get another identical but slightly smaller coffin (at no extra cost to them)- that will go into the cremator - and ask if they are happy for you to transfer him on the morning of the funeral. Otherwise - burial is the only option.

In the slightly smaller coffin, which was indeed a very snug fit (meaning that the gentleman's hands stuck up a bit - due to his arms being tight against the coffin and his elbows up on his body, instead of by his sides)...he was safe enough. However, not quite as dignified looking as he was in the previous coffin.

Termed 'the boat' as it took up considerable space in the coffin store, this giant box was eventually acquired, by another funeral director who used it to bury one of his own clients.

3. A coffin comes over from abroad carrying a person who had died on holiday. The family don't like it at all - they hate it in fact - and so they ask for another one.

So we re-cycle the Zinc lining and put the coffin in the coffin store.

Sometime later we give it (at no charge) to a family who have limited funds and who love it, in all it's European glossy finary, while knowing perfectly well where it came from.

Going back to my prospective young priest........the coffin novice. What he was really implying was (I think), that once the coffin is on the catafalque in the crematorium, it is indeed illegal to tamper with it in any way, externally or internally. At that point, removing the body and re-using the coffin would incur a lengthy visit to one of HMQ's penal institutions.

Moreover it would be very bad form to try to tamper similarly with a burial coffin after the funeral. However, being a "...coffin expert...", I do know of a company supplying coffins that have a cardboard coffin liner (that remains - with the person inside - to be buried or cremated) and a legally removable posh wooden exterior that can be used for burial or cremation - and used and used and used again ad-infinitum!

Simple, in the end, wasn't it!

Lot to think about....

2008-09-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

I am steaming uphill towards my 50th birthday.

I see it as either a half-way stage, considering my grandmother's 104 years and my great aunt's 97 - or near my ending, if looked at through the glass half empty eyes of someone who has lost 3 close relations all aged 58.

Those three early demised, all went to the great 'beyond' - that is the suprise behind the door of death - over a relatively short period of time. The race for the finish line in each case was attended by various illness which, I suppose helped to provide some reason for it all. Naturally though, it got me thinking - pondering and reflecting.

I was 32 when the first one went...and that's when I unwittingly fell into the funeral business. I think a Coroners case with 2 inquests and a 28 day wait for release of one's mother is a very sobering entrance into a profession...I French Polished her coffin - and that was it. I like to think that she would be secretly proud to have started the ball rolling!

When the very last of my relatives died - this time in her 80s, I had thought and pondered enough to do 99% of her funeral myself. The 1% was only a quirk of geography. I lived miles away from her nursing home, so when she died, I asked the nearest 'man in a suit' to collect her and see to the Dr's paperwork. I told him that the coffin would arrive the next day, that I wanted to hire a hearse & bearers and that I was going to conduct the funeral.

My partner's mother had just arrived from the Antipodes for a holiday so we decided to hold the funeral after she left - so that we could concentrate on both significant incidents to the full and it also gave me a few days to chat to folk and write the service.

So, when the Dr's papers had been done and the death registered by a friend who was there at the time of death, I got the 'call' and set out in my little van - up the motorway.....

It broke down, just outside Bristol . I think the RAC switchboard lady was a little taken aback when I calmly said I was going further north "...to embalm my 'auntie'!"

So - if you are a critic of embalming, I put my hand up to say that I have embalmed 3 members of my close family, quite a number of people I counted as good friends and even more folk who I recognised as aquaintances. What's more, in many cases, I know that my work made a difference - because unlike some other embalmers who are closited in the mortuary, I met many of the people who were left behind.

I am very passionate about my work - those who know me, know that I can be ferocious if I feel that corners are being cut or people aren't being treated correctly. I care because I recognise that what we are able to do as embalmers, is 'beyond' the remit of everyday life. Anyone can look on the internet and find things out about embalming - even see film clips, but nothing can really describe what it is like to stand there and make the first incision.

So, to those funeral directors who are 'fridge-magnates', who declare that there is more skill in keeping a body in cold storage to embalming, I say that in my experience and humble opinion - I beg to differ.

Moreover, when I do get to go through the doors of death myself, I want to spend as little time behind the door of a fridge as possible. Get me embalmed (I can tell you who I want to do it...) and put me at home in my living room - in the warm for at least a week!

I recognise skill...and when the time comes - will be happy to pay my last tribute to it.