Today marks 77 years since your birth, and the first time I don’t get to sing you happy birthday. One of (too) many firsts.
I came out to my studio/shed at dawn and have been pottering about in one of your much loved shirts, with the sleeves rolled up as you left them. It’s the closest thing to hugging you today.
Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) taught how when someone passes from this life that rebirth/resurrection/eternal life - can be a continuation. That those who have passed live on in those who remain.
I take great comfort in this teaching because it does not require the patience of reuniting in an afterlife. To remember someone is to continue them, to mindfully take what they have taught you and put it to use in your day, continues them. To smile, to sigh, to draw, to listen to the music they loved because you love it too. The physical self may no longer be, but their presence, through thoughts and actions, continues.
So today I am out in my shed, listening to Johnny Cash, tinkering, smiling at the clutter and number of boxes of items that may ‘one day come in handy’, and delighting, as you did, in the birds carrying on their day in the trees nearby.
I dearly miss the physical presence of you in our lives, and I honour this through mindfully enacting your continuation.
The images are from an exhibition last November, ‘Life Sounds Like’ with @regularrick . I was asked to create an artwork in response to a short film where people reflected on their favourite Australian song. Bec's reflections on Nick Cave's The Carny provided a much needed opportunity to create a work to honour Dad.
Exhibition Statement: Nov 2024
And no one saw (The Carny) go…
Responding to Bec for Life Sounds Like at Tanks Arts Centre with Regular Rick
I grew up in Violet Town, NE Victoria, and I went to senior high school in Wangaratta, Nick Cave’s hometown. Like Bec, I am a huge fan of Nick Cave, Wim Wenders and Wings of Desire. The first three images were taken as I wandered around my father's shed on one of many visits home with the kids. Dad’s shed was his circus tent. He was the magician, performing amazing tricks that endlessly fascinated me as a child, fixing and repairing broken objects to working order, welding, building, restoring rusted wrecks of cars dragged from far-flung paddocks and boxes of muddied parts.
Dad passed just a few months ago and the grief is still sharp on my breath. Like The Carny, he slipped suddenly and quietly from this world. The final two images, colour, in reference to Wings Of Desire, were taken this year after his passing. We stood to watch the sun set, amongst the giant river reds and yellow box. The farm is someone else’s now - the grief ebbs and flows - the carnival moves on…
Thay’s Dharma talk on continuation and how 'it is impossible for a cloud to die'.
Our continuation is ever present - our karma - both while we are living and when we have passed. Our thoughts and actions become our continuation.