reflections and questions on life, love and paradox

 Introduction and Contents TO LIVE IN MY BODY   2014   This year I want to learn to live in my body      not just my mind   Ridiculous      We all live in our bodies                  We can’t live anywhere else   We are bound by our skin      moved by our muscles                  supported by our bones                              fed by our blood and lungs                                          organized by our brains Of course we live in our bodies   But I’m not sure I have...not really A dancer all my life      ...but... I suspect I have not really lived in the body that gives me life I mean, consciously lived...in...me   I think I’ve always been somewhere else      striving for something else                  just around the corner...just out of reach I can almost taste it If only I could catch up      do whatever I have to do                  work harder...work longer...work faster                              work more

 Introduction and Contents THE OTHER August, 1996   The need for ‘the other’ Unable to define ourselves we need an ‘other’ that we are not   We are not like ‘them’ not female not black not poor not Jewish...Moslem...   ...So we are male white rich and Christian   This gives superior difference We are, therefore, better than   Then all that happens to ‘the other’ is...unfortunate perhaps deserved and...certainly not my concern ©  A. Maie, 1996

 Introduction and Contents GROWING UP , 2007   They are so deep...so heavy too depressing really I just don’t want to think about it be confronted with it Where is the hope?   Why don’t you write...perform....create something positive something to make us laugh?   Yes, well...   But the need to search for meaning...an answer the need to know and confront   to take it all on board as ‘this is what it is’ ‘these are the challenges...the contradictions’ ‘this is the reality’   to realise that the answer and hope are, after all, illusive   and then to still find joy in each moment to accommodate the complexity the contradictions the ugliness as well as the beauty... and, with the lightest of hearts, to fully celebrate the experience of living isn’t that the time we really grow up when we really attain our adulthood our maturity? © A. Maie, 2007

  Most of these reflections were written 1994-2000; others are more recent.  Many of them became texts for performances.  They, and the performances, were part of a process of coming to terms with and developing a philosophy of life.  One of the stages in this process was my doctoral thesis, Centre of the Storm:   In Search of an Australian Feminist Spirituality through Performance-Ritual. The performance element of the thesis traced ancestral pathways and stories from north-western Europe to Australia, and the process formulated my own religious paradigm, that is, a spiritual ground and matrix, which encapsulated an increasing awareness of place. I view the poems and reflection as expressing my ‘growing up’; of attaining peace; of being able to celebrate the journey of life with full knowledge of the messy and confronting realities of our own lives and those of our co-travellers.  The content here comprise only a selection of the poems and reflections written at the time. Growing Up