On hens and enlightenment

Terri Windling recently wrote a blog post which included Parker J. Palmer's thoughts on 'the admonition to 'keep death before one's eyes daily''. I started to write a comment but it became too much and so I returned, the prodigal blogger, to share with you my thoughts on death and enlightenment, through the medium of hens. (Did you miss me?)

There was a time when death was 'before my eyes daily'; I couldn't escape it. Perhaps it is a lack of courage in me, but when I lived with a moment-to-moment consciousness of my mortality and that of all the people I love; looking to the future became impossible. I literally couldn't plan, even a daytrip, even a meal. Life was difficult. And terrifying. 

I think of that time when people talk of 'being in the moment': I just couldn't make it work in my actual practical life. I was like the chooks I cared for when I lived in a commune. One would suddenly flutter over the gate. She'd peck about for a bit, then notice how far she was from the others. Bocking in alarm, she'd hotfoot it to the gate and flap and fluster there indefinitely, living quite perfectly in the moment, having forgotten that with just a short run-up she could easily fly back over the gate, and not possessing the imagination to plan that in her future. Eventually I would walk pass and scoop her up, mutter some insulting words of endearment and chuck her back over. By the time she'd landed she'd have forgotten there even was a gate. 

There is a real wisdom in letting go of the constant planning and organising and controlling the minutiae of our lives. I get that. And a lot of the past is best forgotten just to free up a bit of brain space for poetry and PINumbers.

But the years I spent at the gate, so close to death I saw it every time I blinked, they remind me to keep life, too, 'before my eyes daily'. I like to plan good meals for my girls, and it is a blessed relief to be able to imagine them older than they are now so we can plan many happy days together.

 

It Is The Day

Dear Thomas,
It is the day. I hate this day. I would redact it from the world if I could, the way I once had to redact you from the electoral roll, as if you had never lived.
It feels like a bomb has exploded inside me and all my hard-won resilience has particulated into the air. It is lost in this shockingly beautiful day, and I am stripped to my devastated core.
I am glad you cannot read this. Much as I am desperate to tell you, I do not want you to know how it really feels to be your widow. I want you to think I am missing you in a wistful, romantic way, taking long walks alone to think of you and fondly wrapping myself in your oversized jumper.
Well, I am wearing your jumper, but the sleeves are annoyingly long. They unroll into the washing up water and I don't have time to keep rolling them up again. I have children to care for!  have a house to run! I need to make art and earn and keep finding a way to live without your help and I'm cross with you and your jumper's stupid.
I was always so far from the cheerful pixie bride I imagined would suit you best - some smiley, fey woman who could play the fiddle or at least honestly enjoy you practising. But you chose me. I still don't really understand why and it still feels like the biggest compliment. I was stompy, snarky, a smoker, a meat-eater. I wanted to dance, but only by myself. I wanted to listen to music, but not more of your twiddly folk albums. Somehow you loved my Johnny Rotten T-shirt and my bad cooking, the way I would laugh and laugh at slapstick while you worried someone had got hurt. Somehow you loved me.
This fantasy (my fantasy, not yours) fey bride would now be weeping prettily and looking at photos of you. I want to take the photos down - they make me sad - but Ember wants them up, so they stay. And I'm not crying - not right now. In a minute I will read and eat crisps until the baby wakes, then I will do my best not to be miserable and grumpy with her all day. And all the long night.
Nothing is as good without you, my Captain. I had no idea it would be this hard for this long. I feel the scar tissue on my heart thickening every year, just as it did on yours. I can only hope that, unlike you, I will survive.

More twiddly folk music

Still Reaching For The Light

It is done.

It was a very happy thing to create (see my last post for earlier stages), but already Christmas is making demands and the baby is also making itself known with much writhing and thrashing about. So preparations for both are underway. 

Keep Saturday 5th December clear if you can get to Chagford because our Artisan Fayre is back with another wonderful mix of talented artists of all ilks, not to mention the music and teas and cakes and those very nice mince pies and... but really it's all about the art and not at all an excuse to hang out with some really lovely people in a sort of all-day party/market way. Do come!

The first load of very tiny clothes have been washed. Pickle and I had an unashamedly squealy time hanging them up to dry and it was fun to see her amazememnt at how very teeny some of them are. I'm not sure she really believes me that she was once just a loveable lollable blob of blubber which fitted into these clothes.

And space is needed (as it always is in our house), so I have taken radical action and offerred one of our sofas to whoever could carry it down our twisty stone steps on their head. No Gappies were harmed in the making of this photo.

There is a sadness in this crisp autumn air. Two young women friends, both with particularly warm hearts and generous natures, have died within the last month and another is very ill indeed. Also, I have recently made it through another wedding anniversary - a day I hope to celebrate rather than suffer at some point. Death brings gratitude to the living, as well as sorrow, and I am making the most of this gift each time I step outside, following Pickle with her new dinosaur backpack, to meet a new day. We continue to find ways to reach for the light.

For Bea. For Ella.

The Blooming and the Bud

There is so much I haven't said.

The seven-week scan with the two blinking heartbeats. Two! The horror in the eyes of friends as they congratulated me. The planning for two of everything. Pickle's pride and excitement at being a big sister to twins.

Then the weeks of rolling nausea and exhaustion which left me barely able to care for Pickle, myself and my two growing beings, and entirely unable to to do any housework or stay awake for an entire day. Pickle has been amazing. I am very grateful for how she accepted and adapted to my less fun state.

The 12-week scan, my first chance to see them properly. But... one heartbeat. Just one now. One healthy and very active baby; one sad forever-bud adrift within me. No heartbeat and no future. We will never know who it would have been if the folds had been crisper or the edges more neatly aligned and the whole wonderful origami of evolution had - Ta dah! - made a baby, a human instead of this tiny cloven-brained frog with no jump. We will never know.

Very, very much (I have pinned my sanity on this), I hope we will know who this other baby will be as it and I bloom together towards birth. Because I am still carrying my little frog, there is a risk of losing both, but I want to spend all the time we have together, 70 more minutes or 70 more years, believing in this life and preparing myself for the full-frontal heart collision that is motherhood again. 

It is time for something really spectacular and wonderful to happen to Pickle and I. Twins seemed the miracle which promised us happiness and joy. One baby is miracle enough.

Day of the Dreads

Thomas died three years ago today.

Gappy, Pickle and I and a couple of friends went up our hill to the Dada Lump. It's not as obvious as it once was, but still makes a good seat.

We lit a little fire (Thomas always made a fire) to burn some special things.

We ate (another of his favourite passtimes); even Pickle who is still too poorly to eat much.

 Treasures were hung in hedges and buried in the earth, but my favourite thing was this:

I hung all my splendid dreads, wool and all, in the branches of the hawthorn tree which grows above Thomas's head. He always wanted dreads, so now he has mine.

I don't know how long they'll last; I expect birds will make good use of them for nests.

The wind may take one or two, possibly for miles.

Or they may just dangle about, confusing the fat and happy sheep.

The hundred trees, planted by Thomas's wider community and lovingly tended by his father when he visits Pickle and I, are flourishing. It is a good place, this land which holds the Dada Lump. I am very grateful.

Pickle was tired and cold, so we blew kisses to Primrose and Fey, who also lie up here; put out the fire in the traditional manner (a very quick way to warm one's cockles) and headed for the nearest pizza.

It has been a tough day, but also it has been just right.

Solstice Lamp

The night - that last night - Thomas came home from hospital, I lit a lamp and hung it outside our gate so, as he was driven back to us, he could see home from the earliest possible moment. I couldn't wait those extra seconds for him to know how much we wanted him back.

The dark is good for me this year, a good time to be trying to brew new life.

But still, the tiny lengthening of the light feels like the world hanging out a lamp for me. I will get home. And if I am very, very lucky, I will see the sunrise.

From Inside a Hawthorn Tree

Lately I have been living from inside a hawthorn tree. Thorns and spikes holding me fast, drawing blood and fracturing my view while the bread-and-butter leaves have sprung out to sustain me and the heart of the hawthorn has surrounded me as a balm while my human heart has panicked a little. I remember that moment in childbirth when the pain and exhaustion suddenly tipped me over the brink from enjoying being such an amazing animal to fear that this just couldn't work and I and my daughter would die. Grief has such moments too. The pain just goes on and on and much of the time I can recognise it as a sign of the depth of my love and so live with it quite peaceably, barely writhing in its grasp. And then some trigger, often unknown, tips me up and I am so scared I won't be able to carry this for much longer. I panic that if I slip and this pain spills, it may swirl around my girl's ankles and pull itself up the xylem of her veins until it holds her heart as it holds mine. And we will both have no choice but to retreat to the hawthorn tree at the bottom of the garden and wait it out until pain or life let go.

My fear is unfounded. When I tip, nothing spills. This pain is mine alone and cannot harm others. It took a long while to learn that and I doubt it still. My daughter carries her own pain which will evolve with her. I pray it will never feel this heavy because, while she perhaps has lost more than I, she is less aware of how much lighter our lives would be if her gentle Dada was still with us.

She has her own concerns but they mostly involve what I'm cooking for tea (invariably pronounced 'Disgusting', then consumed with gusto) and the contents of her astronaut lunchbox. Lately we have found a couple of baby birds on the pavement, fallen before wings had even begun to form. We carry them to the nearest field, choose some grass or earth to lay them on and a nice leaf to cover them. Pickle knows they will likely be eaten before nightfall, but we like them to be somewhere green and good for a time. Her equanimity around death is shocking for some, but reassuring for me. It happens and it can happen right up close before you are even two; before you have grown even one feather. It is good to know a kind hand will carry you and the people you love to a good place. That feels mythology enough for now.

Here, as proof of the resurrection that is spring, are four (I think) live and squirmy babies who will by now have soft featherdown. The photo isn't great because I used the zoom so I didn't get too close, but you can just see their interwoven bodies.

When I last spoke with you I was eyeball-deep in fayre preparations. It was all worth it (as it always is) and here I am having a lovely birthday selling wares and receiving gifts

and laughing with some excellent friends.

To the left is Suzi Crockford, creatrix extraordinaire at Dartmoor Drums and Rima Staines, muse of many, over at The Hermitage, who took the first fayre photo. This second one was taken from the stall of Virginia Lee. I am blessed to have so many inspirational friends. It was a good day and ended with the fine combination of The Sweet Lowdown and cider.

Many of the talented names of Chagford and its environs have donated work for this Saturday's art auction fundraiser for Proper Job - our essential local re-use and recycle centre. It'll be a good night, with a band and beverages and banter, but I'm quaking at the thought of my work being auctioned alongside the other amazing things on offer. Click the link to see why I'm so worried. I've given this oil painting:

I've also fully set up my online shop for original work, here at Artfinder. There's quite a few new pieces which haven't made it onto this blog yet, plus a lot of prints I've made of Thomas's amazing pencil and ink drawings, so I'll run a series of regular posts with a new work each time. For now, this is Still Falling For You, which I think explains itself:

Pickle and I have been to Tintagel Castle, where she had a brilliant time racing towards cliff edges or leaning perilously over them while I held myself back from holding her back and nearly fainted from the effort and anxiety.

And we have spent more time with my parents, comparing the wide open spaces of Somerset to the moor we are used to.

And all this time, while I am angsting about money and schooling (don't get me started on that) and art and her falling off cliffs or bikes or trees, Pickle is sensibly getting on with the business of growing up. She grows out of her clothes faster than I can say, 'Maybe I did a hot wash by mistake', can get her own breakfast and do most things all by herself (al least until she's tired) and has even started writing/dictating letters to her friends.

Oh, and she has produced her first book - fully illustrated and bound by her own fair hand. It mostly concerns the movements of snails and is the most delightful thing I have ever read. #Proud Mama moment :o).

Ink Tree and Chagblood

I sounded so sure yesterday, didn't I? Last night long hours of fear chased me around and through and away from dreams and I find myself wobbling again. Reconstruction would mean so much more recovery and set my eventual hysterectomy back at least six months more than having a simple mastectomy. What, said my frightened mind, if I get ovarian cancer in that six months? What if I died because I didn't want to wait a few years to have foobs? What if my girl lost both her parents before she was five? How could she recover from that, ever?

And I know, I know, now that it is light (ish) and I have had a couple of coffees, that the chances are so very small... but my love is so very big and the fear changes size and shape too fast for me to keep abreast. (But not enough to stop me sneaking wordplay into otherwise serious sentences.) It is a very unmerry-go-round.

Nonetheless, it has created a wonderful thing. When I put the link to yesterday's post on Facebook, my friends started commenting with offers of help and, due to a misremembering of my blood weirdness (I have ITP which means my platelets are low), one even offered me her rhesus negative blood to have on standby while I have my surgery! Which, amazingly, prompted other people to list their blood type in case they could do the same! This has become known as Chagblood - the latest in a long, successful run of community ventures. I am overwhelmed by the generosity of my people and feel the gratitude running through my veins.

Meanwhile, my last few evenings have been spent doing this, which I recommend for stilling the mind.

Success and Failure

Our Winter Fayre was a success. We all shuffled in early to unfurl curtains and blankets across Formica tables, tak ivy to the magnolia walls and display our wares. These photos do none of us justice, but were the best I could manage between customers, on a camera which needed me to rub its batteries on my thighs between shots - real girl power :o).

I was ensconced in the corner with my neighbour who makes strikingly patterned pottery. We normally snatch at conversation as we scuttle past one another, so it was lovely to have a whole day together and we spent a lot of it laughing.

Another neighbour, Damien Hackney of Oakleaf Jewellery, was there too (we are a crafty street).

Nomi sold her amazing artwork and jewellery and the music of Telling the Bees which cheered us all more than the usual Christmas jingles.

Danielle Barlow, who organised the fayre, sold her ever-popular cards, prints and original work.

Rima was there with her traveling Hermitage, selling wonders as ever, with the new and powerful lure (I succumbed) of a Rima Staines calendar.

And there were more, who escaped my dodgy photography when even the power of a maiden's thighs was not enough to recharge the batteries. Iah of Ecofreq sold tempting fabric cuffs and adornments; Sara sold handmade funky bags and books; Sonny of The Healing Hedgerow sold potions and lotions to cure and soothe (and washable sanitary towels which one lady mistook for spectacle cases) and Danielle's entire family plied us all with drinks and stollen. We all agreed we'd do it again next year :o).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pickle and I have been struggling. I had thought (in a fit of self-ignorance) that waiting for my surgery would teach me patience. Nope. Instead, I am learning how astonishingly deep my impatience goes. I have a consultation with a surgeon in January, but then it could be months before I get a surgery date. Also, a referral for an MRI but no word of that yet.

So, I am stressed and needing a bit of space to collect myself. Pickle, feeling me retreat slightly, clings on tight. Which leaves me feeling I have less space than before. She wants to reduce her nursery afternoons from 3 to 1 (I've booked 2 in case she changes her mind) and move her bed into my room. I've resolved to spend as long as it takes to sing her to sleep and just go to bed earlier and earlier if she spends all night in with me, scrabbling about and asking if it's morning yet. But the beds stay where they are. (For now.) I'm finding ways to be close with Pickle, to play uninterrupted by such inconsequential irritants as laundry and cooking. It's hard - often I'd rather read the paper or have a nap, or just wash up with enough quiet to think. Failing my girl is the thing which will tip me over the edge faster than anything else. I realised I was halfway down the cliff and called for help. She got ill. A very long night of vomiting (in my bed EVERY time!) for her and laundry for me. By the morning we were both ragged. The washing machine, laundry basket and bath were all full. Everything was cancelled. We were in quarantine and could do nothing but be together. It helped and she healed from her first advent chocolate breakfast. I am back at the top again, leaning dangerously, but still grasping tufts of seagrass with my toes. I don't know which way I'll tip, but I'll keep doing what I can to find safe ground for us both in the storms ahead. Last Christmas was tough. I'm hoping this one will be easier, but this second year hasn't been easier in general. January waits to pounce with the anniversary of Thomas dying and February with Valentine's Day and Pickle's birthday, which is a joy and a wounding because he should be there, at least on her special day. And then March and the rebalancing of the light and, I pray, my mind. Let's hope we're all still standing on the other side.

Wedding Poems

It is the anniversary of Thomas's death soon. All words are flown, and with them levity. My friends, I wish I could make possible your desire to be with me; but in this I am alone, even as I feel your love. 

For want of direction, I re-read the poems, written by me, which my good friend Sam read at our wedding. Here they are:

Poem for Thomas

I walk in to your study to tell you I love you.

You have your headphones on and your back to me.

I stand behind you and tell you anyway.

I tell you that you make my days, my life, special;

that I will try, when we have a family,

to be what a family needs me to be.

I will try to be bold when the urge to hide tugs me away.

I will try to remember that your faults are few and insignificant.

It does not matter if the milk does not return to the fridge.

It does not matter if you do not know what I told you this morning.

It does not matter if you never buy a birthday card.

It matters, more than my heart can hold,

the truth of it spilling down my cheeks and neck,

that you love me;

that you stand with me.

As I tell you all this

you nod your head to your private rhythm

because of course you know already.

The urge to kiss you is strong

but I can’t stop watching you,

wondering at you.

I tell you I think you are brilliant.

You nod harder.

I laugh.

You turn and grin.

He and I

The day is old and beautiful.

The music stopped a while ago.

He and I dance in the living room,

Dancing slow for my knees and his heart -

A lifetime of dancing and loving paying its toll.

He and I dance our forgotten dreams,

Lost hopes,

Flown children.

He and I dance as darkness falls on our shared life;

Smiling because it’s been so good

Crying because so little is left to do.

He and I keep dancing,

Keep daring to know all of each other,

Keep dancing towards death,

But all the while dancing together in life.

He and I

Old and beautiful

 Thomas on Our Honeymoon

On Gardening

So, we know I'm trying to become a gardener (says so just up there), but now we also know my garden looks like this. Clearly I am a bit resistant to actual gardening. I could spin you a web of time and non-childproof garden features and weather and unfurl at your feet my well-rehearsed Things To Do scroll, but I find time to make name signs (look right), so why not be out in the garden I want to learn from and grow with? Why not be physical and earthy in the way I wish to be? Too much death, that's why.

If you've been with me a little while, you'll know that my husband, Thomas, died six months ago. And six months, in a soul-deep bereavement, is just a wink of Kali's long-lashed eye. For half a year I have been creating a good home for my girl, making art for people I know and people I will never meet, writing stories and poems and blog posts, growing in many directions and watching Pickle grow with stellar speed. I have been gathering beautiful things for our house. I have been acquiring some first-shoot skill on the harmonica and taking us on adventures near and far.

I have been doing. I have not been undoing.

I have managed some sorting of Thomas's things, but mostly when they can go to someone who loved him to use. (Pickle now wears his favourite T-shirts as nighties, which breaks and gladdens my heart.) I have made changes around the house, but mostly in ways Thomas would have appreciated. I have been bold and brave and bloody amazing in my acceptance of his death, and yet, from the corner of my dream eye, I glimpse a waiting place... waiting for my husband to come home, to heal my heart as I could not heal his, and witness the capering wonder that is our girl. And perhaps the garden has become that waiting place.

How can I, then, when I have lost so much and leaned with such abandon on the nature around me, take a blade to Thomas's garden? I have loved the wild chaos of it; rested in its presence. I have been reassured by its unequivocal assertion of life. And I have only just started to believe that this could really be my garden and not me hacking ignorantly at a bounty which also waits for Thomas's care.

But. And it's a big butt. He is not coming home. The garden is now mine. Or, to borrow wisdom from Australian Aboriginal people, it is now I who belongs to this garden. Pickle makes her own explorations of it and celebrates every flat surface with chalk, but if this land will be anything other than an unweeded wilderness, it is me who must make the change. It is me who must kill and clear and pull and slice and manipulate. I'm finding it a challenge to summon the ruthless confidence in my decisions necessary for gardening. I am loving the soil on my hands, but not the blood. Dandelion blood sticks a long time. I'm just not a Conquistador at heart. I'd be a rubbish Crusader. I have no missionary zeal to persuade the fern which almost blocks passage up the steps that, on balance, it is better for it to die, or at least be very much maimed and constrained. Who am I to make such judgements of this land which I hold to be older, richer, wiser and stronger than this person-self can ever hope to be? Who am I?

Mulling on this as I winced my way along the hedge with loppers, one eye out for nests to arrest my anti-progress, it occurred to me that I have none of this angst when sculpting. I take a piece of stone, older than the earth from which the hedge grows, and I scrape and bore and riffle away untroubled by the dust to dust falling all around me. I feel creative, as if I am transmuting a stone created by a thousand influences into one created by a singular, more intentional, influence. That feels fine. That feels good, an honouring of the stone itself.

The difference is that I can experience, with a little imagination and a little opening of my soul, how it is to have one's branches cut or to be pulled up at the roots, but my empathy with my sculpting stone is more cerebral; less felt. So, the difference is that it hurts me  more to cut green than to cut stone. Ah. And I thought this was about my great heartfulness. Ha ha.

Still I am left with the question of how manage this piece of land without feeling like (or being) a little copy of the imperialist patriarchy I am, unavoidably, a product of. I answer myself with semantics:

I will not 'manage' this land. I am not the boss of it. I come as a student; as an apprentice and as a child.

I will nurture this land as a parent nurtures a child by discouraging damage and encouraging nutrition.

I will tend this land as a nurse tends a patient by removing bacteria and offering love.

I will place all my senses at the service of this land so I can understand when I am getting it wrong and see the path to getting it right.

I hope these words will take root as I progress. And I hope it will be progress in the old-fashioned sense of making-things-better.

As an antidote to my blundering blather I leave you with Pickle in my parents' well-tended garden, happily watering the plants moments after rain. She watered the puddles, too, to watch the circles. Sometimes the wonder really is in the doing and there is a joy I could never think my way to.

Saying Goodbye

Months have passed. Pickle and I are sculpting a new way to live, to be joyful, to be grateful, to remember without breaking. We are finding a way to be something like family without my heart's Captain and Pickle's Dada. We are, as they say, moving on; tugged by time further and further from the last everything with Thomas. 

Soon it will be time to write about the curiosities and wonders of our new life, but first I want to share with you some of how we have been saying goodbye; unclenching our desperate monkey fists and walking away from the jar which holds the past. And to honour just a very few of the people who have helped me. And to thank all of you, sincerely, for your love and kindness. (You may wish to make a cup of tea at this point.)

The day after Thomas's death, one of his closest friends, Jason of England, held a memorial fire on his land. At such short notice, webs of all kinds called in an amazing amount of people. Our local cafe, where Thomas, Philippa and I have all worked, closed so all staff could attend.

In fine Chagford tradition, children of all ages came and stood solemn or ran wild as the mood and the wind took them and dogs circled each other for all the reasons dogs circle, then became pack for the day.

Tom Hirons held the space with a strength all the more admirable for the shaking. He, and his partner in smiles Rima Staines (who took these photos and those of the funeral), have consistently been solid ground for me when I have spun myself too thin to feel gravity.

We spoke sage truth, as we passed the herb bundle or as the moment stepped us forward.

We drank mead from this horn as we did at our wedding.

We found comfort in touch. Here, my mother is at my shoulder, my father in the foreground. Their ripping at their impotence to make this not so for me has come to naught and the pain of that runs deep. I cannot imagine being the parent of this woman at this moment. Her face shocks me, so much older than my own and etched with a raw grief I have since learned to smooth with a smile.

And then my turn. I spoke directly to Thomas. I told him that he had done enough. He had given the world and me more than can be said, plus the joy that is Pickle. He had created this circle of loving people, and a much, much wider one elsewhere. Enough. Nothing to stay for. I released him from me and asked him to go free.

There is an icicle in that moment. Sharp.

And I told Thomas, and I tell you now, that if I had foreknowledge of this story; if I knew that we would have only five years together, that Pickle would have less than two years to know her Dada, that when he died it would feel like this... 

every day like this...

I would choose this story. I would choose this man and this heart to give mine to. Five years exchanging love with such a heart is enough to last me a lifetime and I will pour all I have received from Thomas into the small and perfectly formed heart of our Pickle. I will make her life wonderful.

And then it rained. Hard. Unable to withstand it we fled inside Jason's barn and clustered like animals sensing danger, smelling death.

But all things pass.

Quite atypically for Dartmoor, the blue reasserted itself

and we crawled out with the sun.

Organising a funeral seemed so far beyond my capabilities, despite doing it with Philippa (Thomas's aunt, who co-raised him) and help from many people, but the day arrived nonetheless.

We gathered in our friend's beautiful yoga barn, hundreds of us dressed in forest colours, listening to the phenomenal harp music of Elizabeth Jane Baldry, clustering thickly around the leaf cocoon which held his body so much more tenderly than a coffin.

A few of us had words to say. We spoke of Thomas's kindness, of the child's life he had saved, of his sense of adventure and great skill at dreaming. We spoke of his enormous propensity for clutter in other people's lofts, of his knowledge and art and wisdom, and I, stuttering with shock, read this from my journal:

There was a girl – the usual mix of wise and numpty, with a streak of fierce and a wash of sorrow. She grew up and met a man. As it happens, a quite extraordinary man. Now, this man had a shaman’s heart. Since before his birth, the chances of it beating for much longer had always been small. At 10 days old he wouldn’t make 2 years. At 2 he wouldn’t make 5. At 5 he wouldn’t make puberty. At 15 his chances of having children were too tiny for doctors to consider.

So, when our woman met this man, he was already long in the habit of squeezing a decade of love into every year – every moment, when he could.

Of course, she fell in love. And in one of those strange quirks of fate, he fell in love with her too. And by ‘fell’, I mean they fell into another world entirely where just the existence of the other makes every grubby thing shinier and every shiny thing glow white hot. It was a very good thing.

He was 27 when they married in a cloud on a hill and soon their wonderful daughter was born, true of heart and loud of lung. He was the very first to kiss her and even those who knew him well marveled at the new depths of love he found. Another very good thing.

The three of them spoke of their love many times a day. Notes were left in hidey places, gifts bought for no reason but the giving and they had a fine time laughing and singing and dancing and reading and drawing together.

He was 30 when his shaman’s heart faltered, panicked and stopped. He was at home, his wife at his side, his belly full of pizza. Only minutes before, his sleepy daughter had been dreamfeeding between her parents as they held hands in the darkness.

So now our woman is a widow at 33 – tragic. And a single mum – tough.

So, love her, help her (trust me, she needs it) but don’t be too sorry for her. She was chosen to be the wife of this amazing man, to join her heart with his, and she has many happy years to spend with their daughter.

She is still the luckiest girl in the world.

And then, six at a time, his father at the front all the way, the strongest of us carried Thomas up the long, long road to the top of the hill, to the peak opposite where we married.

There is a good reason for the phrase 'a dead weight'. Thomas was 6' 4" (very tall in metric) and broad of shoulder. Several times the bearers stopped and we took the opportunity for the Morris men and women to honour Thomas in the way he loved (right outside he church).

When the slowest had caught their breath, on we processed, bearing fire and birds created the day before to symbolise Thomas's wish for a, sadly illegal, sky burial.

Friends were waiting at the burial site to smudge us (for many of our relatives, the second time they had been smudged - the first being our wedding) and greet us with a fire. Thomas always needs a fire.

To uphold another Chagford tradition, we forsook all tradition and Jason read a text Thomas had sent him from hospital, about death and fear and bodily entropy, but all expressed in that Thomas way I cannot emulate; only point to

and Rima played as many notes as her heart could express, each one a tear.

Some special and personal things were put into the grave with Thomas. I gave him the Dydd Santes Dwynwen card I had written to give him on the day he died. (Santes Dwynwen is the Welsh equivalent of Saint Valentine and felt like our own Valentine's Day. It is incredible that he died that day.) And I gave into his keeping the little box of moss and soft things he had created to hold Pickle's umbilical cord.

One by slow and weeping one we crept to the brink and let a handful of earth cover a little more of our Thomas. Pickle, who had been sleeping in her buggy since we were halfway up the hill, woke with perfect timing to add the littlest handful of earth to the grave of her Dada. That memory is seared on my heart. 

And, as we had herded up, so we trickled down, back to the barn for an afternoon of memory gathering (we are making a book for Pickle), music, tears and the usual banquet of shared food. And more Morris dancing.

We have planted trees with Thomas now, oak and hawthorn. And, in a field near the town, a mulberry.

And on Lunar Beltane, we had a tremendous fire in honour of Thomas, built with skill by Peter Montanez. Pete had asked Thomas to light this year's Beltane fire, so I lit it (with his dad, sister and oldest friend) in his stead.

Drummers called up the energy

and it burned

and it burned

and it burned.

Here it is in action:

https://vimeo.com/41698739 

June 3rd was Thomas's birthday, so we returned to his grave site and guess what? We lit a fire. Here is his dad, Bill, adding wood; my parents to the right and Thomas's uncle Simon (the Great) trying to look like he knows how to break sticks despite living in Richmond in the background.

We were a much smaller group, just those who couldn't let his birthday pass without holding out a hand to the others.

Pickle helped fetch wood,

we cooked delicious stews

and while Pickle was contentedly sitting in a wheelbarrow with a fast-disappearing bowl of food, I took a quiet moment to visit Thomas's oak

and hawthorn

and the mound where his body lies.

I always say that I love this land wide land of moor and wood and water and ancient rock, but this particular piece of land will always be the best seat on Dartmoor for me.

If your tea is still warm, or you have warmth enough without, Rima has written a most beautiful, most true, most heartful tale of The Elf with the Upside-Down Heart.

Terri Windling has discussed Thomas's many talents and contributions to folklore and mythic arts In Memorium.
Rachel has written a lovely piece For Thomas and one about his journey into the Earth.

and our good friend from everywhere, Manjree Khajanchi, has written a poetic Eulogy: For T.H.

Thank you for staying with me. Next time we meet I shall fold back the corner of my widow's cloak and show you some of the secret things beneath which make me giggle and breathe a little deeper.