The_jackalope
The_jackalope's JournalI did it.
If all the men who have sexually harassed or assaulted or have been complicit in upholding this culture of violence against or violations of women publically wrote "I did it", we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.
I did it.
I did it even when I didn't know I was doing it.
I was raised by conscious parents. My mother was a strong feminist. My adolescent reading included Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer. I still did it. The combination of testosterone, culture and rationalization is shockingly powerful.
It's a very uncomfortable awakening. I've tried to make amends where I could, and used the realization to aid my growth as a human being when I couldn't.
If we won't own our behaviour, nothing will change.
#IdidIt
#NeverAgain.
The photographer's nightmare - retinal detachment.
I has it. Luckily in my non-dominant left eye. Had surgery last Thursday. I'll be taking a break for a while.
Optimism
This is a photograph of my mood this morning.
Quiet, contemplative, optimistic.
Emerging from the shadow of my wife's death three weeks ago, I can now see that life always goes on.
Photography is a healing art.
The Gerasimov Doctrine
In February 2013, General Valery Gerasimov—Russia’s chief of the General Staff, comparable to the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—published a 2,000-word article, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight,” in the weekly Russian trade paper Military-Industrial Kurier. Gerasimov took tactics developed by the Soviets, blended them with strategic military thinking about total war, and laid out a new theory of modern warfare—one that looks more like hacking an enemy’s society than attacking it head-on. He wrote: “The very ‘rules of war’ have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness. … All this is supplemented by military means of a concealed character.”
The article is considered by many to be the most useful articulation of Russia’s modern strategy, a vision of total warfare that places politics and war within the same spectrum of activities—philosophically, but also logistically. The approach is guerrilla, and waged on all fronts with a range of actors and tools—for example, hackers, media, businessmen, leaks and, yes, fake news, as well as conventional and asymmetric military means. Thanks to the internet and social media, the kinds of operations Soviet psy-ops teams once could only fantasize about—upending the domestic affairs of nations with information alone—are now plausible. The Gerasimov Doctrine builds a framework for these new tools, and declares that non-military tactics are not auxiliary to the use of force but the preferred way to win. That they are, in fact, the actual war. Chaos is the strategy the Kremlin pursues: Gerasimov specifies that the objective is to achieve an environment of permanent unrest and conflict within an enemy state.
Sounds sort of familiar, no?
Memento Mori
On the evening of September 6, 2017 our living room was its usual familiar, comfortable, cluttered mess. Outside the front window late afternoon sunshine slanted through maple leaves. An hour before, Kathy had eaten a small dinner - three exquisite grilled scallops and a crème brûlée from her favourite restaurant, whose owner had been astonished and thrilled to be asked to prepare a meal for such a special occasion.
After her final dinner Kathy decorated her favourite blue leather recliner with a pale yellow afghan she had crocheted forty years ago and an assortment of her beloved silk scarves. Around her neck she hung the amethyst pendant I bought for her birthday in 1976, that had become a lasting symbol of our love.
There was no fear to be found anywhere. Her air was one of deep relief that the time was finally here, overlaid with calm curiosity and half-suppressed eagerness.
We said some heart-full goodbyes, but they didn't have the same sense of urgency they had two weeks before. That was the night I sat with Kathy, holding space for her as she made two consecutive unsuccessful attempts at suicide. The following morning she made the decision to turn the task over to the professionals of the medical establishment. She knew what she wanted.
At 6:00 Kathy settled herself into the recliner. In my mind's eye it became her seat in the back of a small ferryboat on the bank of the River Styx. I took some photographs of her.
At 6:30 Charon the ferryman arrived, in the person of a gentle Indian anaesthesiologist. He asked Kathy if she was sure this was what she wanted, and she smiled as she said "Yes."
The nurse who was assisting put an intravenous line into the back of Kathy's left hand as the doctor began laying out large syringes of midazolam, propofol and rocuronium.
I sat down facing Kathy. We held each other's hands. The room went utterly still. The doctor's voice emerged into the silence: "Are you certain that you want this to go ahead?" Once more Kathy said, "Yes, please."
We gazed deep into each other's eyes, touching each other’s souls and feeling the eternal bond that made us one. She smiled again, and her gaze seemed to turn toward more distant visions.
"I love you."
"I love you too."
Kathy's eyes sank gently closed. There was no other sign of what was happening. As the doctor pushed propofol into her vein, her breathing slowed. Before the third syringe was empty, it had ceased. After the doctor checked carefully for a pulse he turned to me. "She's gone." I heard the nurse announce the time - 6:49. A remote stillness roared in my ears.
There was some paperwork. As we waited for a call back from the coroner, I showed them some of Kathy's art. They said their goodbyes and left.
I kissed her one last time. With some difficulty I got my camera out again. I took the final picture of my beloved. I sat with her until two men from the cremation service arrived. I declined their offer to walk with the gurney out to their waiting vehicle. The door clacked shut behind them. I said a silent prayer.
****************
I had some initial misgivings about posting these final photographs. Kathy had given me repeated permission to do whatever seemed right following her death. In the end this seems the right thing to do. By showing them I honour her courage, her heart, her wholeness, her self-awareness, and her commitment to the flow of life.
At the same time I hope to unveil the moment of death a bit. In my own small way I am trying to remove a few of the barriers that have been placed between us and death by a culture that is inexplicably fearful of it.
In the words of another transdimensional sage, "Dying is perfectly safe. It's like taking off a tight shoe." He is right.
So,
Do go gentle into that good night.
Embrace, embrace the dying of the light.
Carpe aeternum.
I love you, Kathy. May boundless joy be yours.
After nightfall
A couple of days ago I got a new lens - a Nikkor AF-S 28mm f1.4E for the camera buffs - and took it out for a night-time stroll on a D750. This is what I came back with.
I have utterly fallen in love with this lens/camera combo.
This one is pretty Twin Peaksy.
At the going down of the sun
Since the death of my wife a week ago, my camera has turned more often toward the sun and sky.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I'm thinking a lot these days about the phrase "I'm sorry for your loss." People say it for a variety of reasons. They may actually feel sorry; they may say it because they think I expect it from them; it may be a reflex programmed way back in childhood, or it may be a way of safely acknowledging an uncomfortable event. All these reasons are perfectly acceptable, and I'm not going to bitch about politeness or caring.
What has interested me in the week since Kathy died is how my inner response to that phrase has evolved. While my outside voice still says things like, "Thank you, that's very kind," my inside voice is now saying something completely different. It says something like this:
Loss? What loss? Who got lost, and where would they have gone? Kathy wasn't her body. She wasn't even her mind, or her emotions. Kath was always a spirit, whatever that means. For a while the "spirit formerly known as Kathy" was focused in a physical body, now it is defocused into the universe - the eternal Here, the eternal Now. As Seth put it, she is now "an entity no longer focused in physical reality." That emphatically does not mean that she's "gone."
I don't even think "Oh, she lives on in our memories and in our hearts" - though that is true to some extent. What is far more true is that she lives on forever in everything. Whenever I take a photograph, I'm photographing her. When I walk down the street, I am surrounded by her. Well, that can't be exactly true, can it? "Surrounded by" implies that I am still somehow separate from her - she's outside, I'm inside. But that's just a culturally reinforced illusion. If she is now everything, then she must be me as well. And she is.
That's how I perceive her; that's my understanding of what happened. This is why there has been no sorrow in my heart. At first there was a sense of dislocation, because it was a fairly major change for all concerned. But sadness? No. She was happy to leave, even eager. She had wanted to go home for many years, and finally she could. Love means wanting for your beloved what they want for themselves. This is why I feel joy and celebration rather than sorrow. She got what she most desired.
But, "Thank you, that's very kind" works a little more smoothly most of the time. People at work are less likely to look at me sideways and wonder what planet I'm from. Luckily, you folks are not them, and we can sometimes tell each other our truth.
Thanks for listening.
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Member since: Sun Jun 4, 2017, 05:46 PMNumber of posts: 1,660
