Last week I had Wee John from NYFSG (a UK Quaker Camp for 11-16yr olds) staying with me, he'd been to Sydney to see Helen (also from NYFSG but her family emigrated to Aussie a few years ago) and had come across to see Aotearoa NZ whilst 'down under' (and whilst Helen had exams or something).
So during the week I took him (ahem, got us a lift...) to the farm where I'd 'taken' Ann & Colin a few months ago as they travelled around after their stint as Resident Friends in Auckland before they returned to Aberdeen.... which is John's 'home' Meeting.
John went from us to Simon (whose parents I live with) in Christchurch - I know they survived the Undy 500 to Dunedin cos I was with Sarah (sister of Simon) in Auckland when she got a text to say they were now in Queenstown presumably in search of snowboarding, and then he was off to Ben & Charlotte's in Wellington... Charlotte stayed with Si & Susie in 2005 just before WGYF, they stayed over here at her parents bach in 2006 and got engaged there (awwww...), Wee John was at their wedding in Edinburgh in September and at NYFSG with them a few weeks ago. As John was arriving at Ben & Charlotte's place last night Ben was on the phone to his mum in Auckland who I'm staying with on my way to Welly - the reason I'm still in Auckland 2 days later than originally planned is I'm meeting Marie tonight at Auckland airport, Marie was staff with me, Susie and Si at NYFSG in 2002, when Wee John was Wee and John R-M was Big!
Got all that??!
Now in October Sarah will be at YFGM in the UK with Alex who was over here for a 15 month long '6mth stay', as will Wee John be and so it goes on.... all interlinked and intertwined like Celtic knotwork. And believe me there's plenty more like that, I haven't even started on who was all at Summer Gathering here this year!
As I've said before and will no doubt say plenty of times again - 6 degrees of separation? Huh, who are you kidding? Throw a few Quakers into the mix and you're down to 2 at the most... By the way if you follow that link you discover that the answer to it all is, of course, 42. And there lies a whole heap of other synchronicities of the last few days which I won't detail here but link the Far North Christian Revival Centres current poster campaign to a six year old in Christchurch , YF dinners and a conversation with Ruth at the farm when I was there with Wee John...
I may be on the other side of the world from the land of my birth but there are times when it really doesn't feel like it as the strands of who knows who in my life seem to become more tightly woven rather than looser.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
back again
No I haven't abandoned my blog, thanks those who asked! My laptop has been poorly bad and is still seriously sulking despite a new battery (again...).
In addition to having unco-operative technology I've spent the last month filling in forms, well that's what it feel like. I've applied to do a Graduate Diploma in Teaching through the University of Auckland next year - and before anyone takes me to task about all those times I've said I'd never want to (a) teach or (b) live in Auckland I hasten to add it's for Early Childhood Education and studying extramurally (which would mean I'd get to live up in Kaitaia still).
So why? Well funnily enough that's what several of the said forms have been asking (both those applying for the course and grovelling for funding loans and grants). I don't think it would have ever occurred to me as a 'career' option in the UK but the more I've learned about Early Childhood Eduction here the more it appeals. The national curriculum 'Te Whariki' translates as the weaving, it is the weaving together of many strands of a childs life and development in the context of their own community surroundings. It is holistic, it has emphasis on the spiritual development of the child and my pidgin anthroposophy could finally come in handy again (about seven years later how appropriate!). When reading through the curriculum I realised it was covering so many of the issues addressed by the Quaker Youthworker course I worked through in fits and starts, what's more as with Quaker youthwork the children are all there through choice (albeit parental/carers) rather than law so there's often a higher level of commitment and enthusiasm supporting the childs presence.
There are a number of Quakers involved here in ECE, both delivering it at a grassroots level and in the training for it, I guess it's not that surprising really!
So I'm waiting to hear if I've got an interview with the university and if I've got my loan application approved. Probably just as well I'm spending this week running around the country catching up with old F/friends rather than sitting here fretting over it. I'll keep you posted!
In addition to having unco-operative technology I've spent the last month filling in forms, well that's what it feel like. I've applied to do a Graduate Diploma in Teaching through the University of Auckland next year - and before anyone takes me to task about all those times I've said I'd never want to (a) teach or (b) live in Auckland I hasten to add it's for Early Childhood Education and studying extramurally (which would mean I'd get to live up in Kaitaia still).
So why? Well funnily enough that's what several of the said forms have been asking (both those applying for the course and grovelling for funding loans and grants). I don't think it would have ever occurred to me as a 'career' option in the UK but the more I've learned about Early Childhood Eduction here the more it appeals. The national curriculum 'Te Whariki' translates as the weaving, it is the weaving together of many strands of a childs life and development in the context of their own community surroundings. It is holistic, it has emphasis on the spiritual development of the child and my pidgin anthroposophy could finally come in handy again (about seven years later how appropriate!). When reading through the curriculum I realised it was covering so many of the issues addressed by the Quaker Youthworker course I worked through in fits and starts, what's more as with Quaker youthwork the children are all there through choice (albeit parental/carers) rather than law so there's often a higher level of commitment and enthusiasm supporting the childs presence.
There are a number of Quakers involved here in ECE, both delivering it at a grassroots level and in the training for it, I guess it's not that surprising really!
So I'm waiting to hear if I've got an interview with the university and if I've got my loan application approved. Probably just as well I'm spending this week running around the country catching up with old F/friends rather than sitting here fretting over it. I'll keep you posted!
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Harry Potter and the Quaker Quote
No spoilers I promise (oh and Lucy I've finished it now!) not even oblique references like Kate put in her post...
As you open Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows you come across a couple of quotes - one of which has meant a lot to me for many years. Here is a longer extract of the text as found in Britain Yearly Meeting's book of Quaker Faith & Practice, thought some of you Potter fans who aren't so well acquainted with William Penn might appreciate it...
22.95
The truest end of life, is to know the life that never ends. He that makes this his care, will find it his crown at last. And he that lives to live ever, never fears dying: nor can the means be terrible to him that heartily believes the end.
For though death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that's recompense enough for suffering of it. And yet faith lights us, even through the grave, being the evidence of things not seen.
And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
William Penn, 1693
(the text in bold is that quoted in HPVII)
What I will say (and no this won't spoil it for anyone) is that Dumbledore's insistance in earlier books that love is stronger than anything else comes through even more strongly in this one which has prompted many thoughts. But right now they are whirling around as if in a penseive (and yes Mum I have spelt that right, you really are going to have to read them you know!) but they haven't quite got themselves in enough order to make sense for a blogpost. But needless to say this has decided to float around along with it all - WGYFers and ANZYFs will probably recognise it better than most =)
As you open Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows you come across a couple of quotes - one of which has meant a lot to me for many years. Here is a longer extract of the text as found in Britain Yearly Meeting's book of Quaker Faith & Practice, thought some of you Potter fans who aren't so well acquainted with William Penn might appreciate it...
22.95
The truest end of life, is to know the life that never ends. He that makes this his care, will find it his crown at last. And he that lives to live ever, never fears dying: nor can the means be terrible to him that heartily believes the end.
For though death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that's recompense enough for suffering of it. And yet faith lights us, even through the grave, being the evidence of things not seen.
And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
William Penn, 1693
(the text in bold is that quoted in HPVII)
What I will say (and no this won't spoil it for anyone) is that Dumbledore's insistance in earlier books that love is stronger than anything else comes through even more strongly in this one which has prompted many thoughts. But right now they are whirling around as if in a penseive (and yes Mum I have spelt that right, you really are going to have to read them you know!) but they haven't quite got themselves in enough order to make sense for a blogpost. But needless to say this has decided to float around along with it all - WGYFers and ANZYFs will probably recognise it better than most =)
Saturday, July 21, 2007
delayed gratification
(hands over ears) I'm not listening.... nobody's hearing nothing.....
ok, so that's from a different cult classic but I don't care - just don't tell me what happens. Given I'm in no state to cycle into town I probably won't get my (reserved!) copy until Monday. Meanwhile I'll go back to re-reading through I-VI and pretend HP VII hasn't come out yet...
I said don't tell me ok... Martin, Lucy, Audra - that means you too! Howlers heading in the direction of anyone who tries to spoil anything.
Lousy timing for dizzy spells I can tell you, and they aren't the magical kind either... law of sod I'm home alone again this weekend. Bah humbug, or should that be Cockroach Clusters?
Chocolate frog anyone?
ok, so that's from a different cult classic but I don't care - just don't tell me what happens. Given I'm in no state to cycle into town I probably won't get my (reserved!) copy until Monday. Meanwhile I'll go back to re-reading through I-VI and pretend HP VII hasn't come out yet...
I said don't tell me ok... Martin, Lucy, Audra - that means you too! Howlers heading in the direction of anyone who tries to spoil anything.
Lousy timing for dizzy spells I can tell you, and they aren't the magical kind either... law of sod I'm home alone again this weekend. Bah humbug, or should that be Cockroach Clusters?
Chocolate frog anyone?
Sunday, July 15, 2007
raining again
It's raining again, hard, and has been all morning.... the fire station siren went off about half an a hour ago, after all the flooding last week I can't be the only one sitting here wondering how high the waters will get this time and if that was a flooding call rather than a fire.
Metservice is warning we could be in for rain most of the day and it's not so much the amount of rain falling that's the problem but the existing saturation levels of the ground - 'Lake' Tangonge will no doubt be expanding further - usually swamp land yet an ever increasing amount of it has been under water for a while now with the winter rains, it's now extended further than most people I've talked to can remember. I know I'll be fine where I am and that I don't need to go anywhere today if I don't want to - I had planned to go to Phyllis' and sort through a crate in her garage to see if it got water got into it last week but as her garage is also full of a neighbour's belongings from her badly flooded home across the road I need to be able to put stuff outside which would seem somewhat counterproductive right now!
I know I'm one of the lucky ones, not only for being above the flood levels but for having enough faith in the way the world works to know that the whatever happens the important needs in life will be met. That might seem a little naive but despite several occasions in life where I've wondered where I'll be living next somewhere has always come up, I've always had who I needed there - even if they weren't who I expected or perhaps wanted. I know that whilst I'd be sad to lose various possessions with sentimental value there are far more important things in life and life's too short to dwell on things rather than people.
Along with many of those rendered homeless by the floods I don't have a clue where I'll be this time next year. I know where I'd like to be, but as life has a funny habit of giving you what you ask for but not necessarily how you expect it to happen I'll not be making any assumptions!
Metservice is warning we could be in for rain most of the day and it's not so much the amount of rain falling that's the problem but the existing saturation levels of the ground - 'Lake' Tangonge will no doubt be expanding further - usually swamp land yet an ever increasing amount of it has been under water for a while now with the winter rains, it's now extended further than most people I've talked to can remember. I know I'll be fine where I am and that I don't need to go anywhere today if I don't want to - I had planned to go to Phyllis' and sort through a crate in her garage to see if it got water got into it last week but as her garage is also full of a neighbour's belongings from her badly flooded home across the road I need to be able to put stuff outside which would seem somewhat counterproductive right now!
I know I'm one of the lucky ones, not only for being above the flood levels but for having enough faith in the way the world works to know that the whatever happens the important needs in life will be met. That might seem a little naive but despite several occasions in life where I've wondered where I'll be living next somewhere has always come up, I've always had who I needed there - even if they weren't who I expected or perhaps wanted. I know that whilst I'd be sad to lose various possessions with sentimental value there are far more important things in life and life's too short to dwell on things rather than people.
Along with many of those rendered homeless by the floods I don't have a clue where I'll be this time next year. I know where I'd like to be, but as life has a funny habit of giving you what you ask for but not necessarily how you expect it to happen I'll not be making any assumptions!
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