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#3019 - Monday, December 17, 2007 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
- Lin Yutang, Writer
life is a garden, not a road
we enter and exit through the same gate
wandering, where we go matters less than what we notice
~ Bokonon ~
(The Lost Book)
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For Josephine
What is this strange dance
we're doing with you taking the lead?
You are daily sliding closer
to the leafy edge of mind,
to that space without words
where thoughts become wisps
to chase around corners
before they vanish,
only thoughts run faster than you,
and take one-way tickets
on a bus out of town,
leave before you can catch their name.
"My memory is the length of a sentence",
you say and smile as you tell me
as if I didn't know,
but a sentence is long enough
for a sunbeam to flood the room,
for a mockingbird to sing
from the orange tree,
for your face to light up with a smile,
for Jodi to puppy dance on hind legs,
You used to argue philosophy,
make tree houses from
books in your mind
and travel far away like
a wandering sunbeam looking
for a place to shine.
Now you settle in,
an autumn sunflower
dancing in the wind
at the corner of the garden
under the banana tree,
you sway in jasmine scented air,
nod to red hibiscus flowers and
follow the sky dance of swallows,
you drift, serene, to a wordless sleep
in the warmth of this OK afternoon
filled with a cardinal's song.
© Zen Oleary
June 9, 2003
recently watched a show on
PBS ...
called There is a Bridge ...
http://www.memorybridge.org/documentary.php
about making contact with alzheimer patients ...
ways to 'reach' ... and interact ...
at least on occasion ...
to find that there is still a person there ...
that they have NOT been robbed of their identity ...
it just is no longer the identity that 'we'
the family/friends identify with ...
no longer the person 'we' knew ...
who 'we' think should be there.
those memories, that identification ...
no longer happens to be there for them.
so it is about being with them .... now ...
as they are, now ...
who they are, now ...
not about trying to force them to remember
what they can't ...
or to correct them ...
'cause that isn't who they are anymore.
just because they don't identify with the past ...
doesn't mean there isn't someone there.
and this show was about making contact
with who IS there.
quite moving.
i thought about you and others who work
with these folks, even while viewing it ...
and certainly would love to hear your
comments on this.
hope you can find a way to see it.
-ts-
here is a link to a few video clips ...
http://www.memorybridge.org/videos.php
the one of Gladys Wilson & Naomi Feil
is most moving ...
watching the 'bridge' ...
contact ...
being made.
-ts-
[Ed. Note: This is an amazing moment to witness.]
"I've always thought
a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord.
And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the
Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with sun pouring through,
such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's always
been a comfort to think of that shine taking away all the spooky
feeling. But I'll wager it never happens. I'll wager at the very
end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That
things as they are, just what they've always seen, was seeing
him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my
eyes."
~ Sook Faulk (played by Miss Geraldine Page) speaking to Buddy as
they lie on their backs in the grass while flying kites,
gazing up at the cloud-filled sky overhead ~ written by
Truman Capote, from the classic 'A Christmas Memory'.
This is my all-time
favorite Christmas movie. Poignant, and so much more. -
Mazie Lane
The outstanding film, Away From Her, is now available from Netflix, in case you missed it this past year. Away From Her is the lyrical screenplay adaptation of celebrated author Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”.
Away From Her is a beautifully moving love story that deals with memory and the circuitous, unnamable paths of a long marriage. Married for 50 years, Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona’s (Julie Christie) commitment to each other appears unwavering, and their everyday life is full of tenderness and humour. This serenity is broken only by the occasional, carefully restrained reference to the past, giving a sense that this marriage may not always have been such a fairy tale. This tendency of Fiona’s to make such references, along with her increasingly evident memory loss, creates a tension that is usually brushed off casually by both of them. As the lapses become more obvious and dramatic, it is no longer possible for either of them to ignore the fact that Fiona is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
This role was good enough to bring Julie Christie out of her chosen seclusion, which is saying a lot right there. In lieu of a review, let me just say it is not a depressing story so much as a heroic one. More information is on the movie's website and it received rave reviews. Highly recommended by those of us who did see it. http://www.caprifilms.com/awayfromher/