free thinking

I have not written about my personal life for a while. It was never the intention of this site. This site was to write about philosophy, about society, about humans, about nature, and about what we as as a race are doing right, and doing wrong. I never wanted it to be along the lines of “today it is Tuesday and this is how I fell. And wow, that was a good cup of coffee I just had”.

With the passing of Mel, it was such an extreme event that it dominated my experience. I couldn’t not write about it. The writing also helped me, was part of the process, and helped many others too. Now I can look back at it as a deep and moving experience and relationship, and know that it was part of my life and its cycles.

Now, I am deep into the next cycle. Again blessed enough to be a husband to a wonderful woman, Vanessa. Further double blessed with the gorgeous twins, Tayla and Anabelle. I could never have seen any of this coming. While I saw myself as recovered, I would have accepted leading a barren life as the outcome. To find instead a fountain of love and caring and beauty, is I suppose a miracle. Even if you want to keep your heart closed, it is impossible when two little offspring of yours are smiling up at you. Together in being launched into a new life and relationship with the amazing Vanessa, my hands and heart are full.

So over time this series of articles will revert again to being a forum for free thought about a range of topics. Yet I felt it was important to bring closure to the personal series that took place, for people to know that from that terribly dark and low place, the cycle of Life has turned and I am again in the most fortunate of positions.

That my friends, is the nature of life. The only fact we know for sure about any object or phenonemon, is that it will disappear. Sooner or later. Yet we can relax and trust in God and the Universe, as literally our every need will be provided for.

Life as a human can be depressing and embarassing. The way we are neglecting our planet is shameful. To think that species are becoming extinct, disappearing, because as avspecies we just couldn’t care less, is a horrific thought. It is akin to a nursery school teacher letting the children starve to death. Or as is happening in South Africa, when fatcats on government and development farms let animals starve to death because they spent their budget on World Cup tickets.

Like most South Africans, I am shocked by the endless slaughter of our rhinos. Making organised criminals richer, and feeding off a myth in Vietnam and other Asian countries that the rhino horn has medicinal value. It is like eating damned toenails. Below is a baby rhino that was not even born because the scum killed the mother a few days before birth date. Its baby sibling also died. 3 of the species killed for one horn, due to nothing else but the stupidity and greed of mankind.

What surprised me in a pleasant way, which is very rare, was to read that Vietnam is starting to feel pressure and met with South Africa on ways to curb this. Lets hope its not just talk. I was even more surprised learning earlier that China has done a lot to stop this.

Similarly, Cathay Pacific has prohibited carriage of shark fins on its planes, saying it is not a sustainable practice. This is a welcome shift in attitude and lets all pray it spreads in Hong Kong and the area. Only education and a change in thoughts can make us less ignorant, and hopefully move us away from being senseless mass murderers.

Until we feel love and compassion for all around us, and use everything with respect, we are a pathetic excuse for the highest form of life on this planet.

Having said that, I do believe that punishment for those raping our nature should be harsh indeed, as it should be for rapists. A Chinese ship captain was caught recently in Cape Town with a suitcase full of shark fin. His fine was 2% of what the value of the suitcase was. Where is the deterrent in that? He should have received years in prison. Better still would be to chop off part of his body.

Culture has numerous positive connotations. The term “a cultured person” is often used to describe someone of refinement and sophistication. A person’s culture is seen as their rich heritage that is part of what forms them. I am not a fan of culture. It has the consequence that past deeds are re-performed into perpetuity without reviewing their merit, simply because it is part of a culture.

Let us draw an analogy with an individual. Being self aware involves constantly observing and analyzing your thoughts, actions and deeds to detect where you are weak or are acting in a manner that is unsuitable given your state of development. According to yoga philosophy, anything that is a regression from your standard of development is undesirable, and anything in line with your steps towards personal growth and improvement is desirable. So you need to constantly critically examine each component of your behavior and personality, and be honest and admit where an area needs to improve. You are realistic that it cannot all be done immediately and is a process, yet you are determined to work this process however long it takes. As such, nothing about you is accepted the way that it is. Yes, you accept yourself in your current state, because that is who you are, and you have to accept and love yourself. You are a work in progress and have already come an incredible distance just to be here in human form, but still have a way to go. If you accept yourself exactly as you are with a view of “I am never going to change”, well then, you may as well be dead. I say that because this life is nothing but an opportunity for you to grow and unfold and with that kind of stagnant outlook your growth will be negligible if anything. So, for example, I should accept that I am impatient but realize it as a fault and consciously try to improve my reaction to frustrating events and circumstances. When I am impatient and act in a manner that is inappropriate I need to be aware of it, watch myself doing it, be embarrassed and strengthen my resolve not to do it again.

There is that saying that goes along the lines of: When you change an action you create a habit, when you create a habit you shape your character. The yogis teach us that we are a culmination of our lifestyle practices and habits, and that we should be aware of each habit and its consequence on us. “I watch TV after dinner.” “I have a drink after work.” “I don’t eat vegetables.” These are common habits that people have without analyzing why they got stuck in it and what the consequence of this habit is on their lives. Does it contribute to their development, or improve the world around them? If not, why are they doing it? It is also surprisingly easy to change a habit – it comes down to changing that one activity at a time. Not buying that chocolate in the afternoon on this particular Tuesday afternoon is one action that can change a habit and change you.

So what does all of this have to do with culture? People perpetrate activities for the sole reason that it is part of their culture, without analyzing why did their culture have this activity and is it still relevant? Things have changed in 100’s of years and so must our actions. Some actions that may have been acceptable in the past, are no longer tolerable. Such an activity is the eating of shark-fin soup, and shark-finning.

Shark-finning is the despicable practice of taking a shark, “finning” it by cutting off its fins, and throwing the live shark overboard to die an excruciating death. It just sinks like a bleeding torpedo to the bottom and lies there, trying to swim but unable to move without its fins. Because only the fins are kept on board, and don’t take much space, countless thousands of sharks are slaughtered and stored on each ship.

I saw video footage of this ghastly and hateful practice on the incredible “Oceans” Blu-ray (not the censored Disney one, the French full version). It was the most disturbing thing that I have ever seen on the screen. Watching this splendid animal sinking to the bottom of the ocean after an Asian fisherman sliced off its fins, unable to swim and lying at the bottom bleeding grotesquely to death while it tried to move, unable to utter a sound. This image shocked me. Then I realized that this twisted and sadistic murder was not one special dramatic event, this was exactly what happened to thousands of sharks daily. All that had happened here was that I got a close up view. So I looked up how many sharks this is being done to. It is a truly horrific number. 140, 000 a day.

50 MILLION SHARKS A YEAR ARE BEING SLAUGHTERED LIKE THIS.

It is impossible for shark populations to stand up to this scale of mass slaughter. They are being decimated. For absolutely no purpose. Environmental degradation is always painful, but you can understand where it is coming from when there is a human need being satisfied. So when mines are built or grazing land made, it is sometimes wrong but you can understand the argument behind it. For example, in the Amazon we want the rainforest to exist but a poor family sees it differently if they see a chance to graze animals there or extract other resources.

Yet with Sharkfin soup, the reason is pathetic. The fin itself is tasteless cartilage. What shocked me is that it is not a fin or two in the soup, it is a bowl full of fins. Each serving is a massacre. I watched a documentary and read what I could find to try and understand it better. The senselessness is appalling. The only argument to support it, is that it is part of the Chinese culture, and that if you have a guest you must serve them sharkfin soup. It is a status symbol. Now that millions of Chinese are moving to Middle Class, the demand for shark fins has exploded. There is absolutely no thought of the damage incurred and the consequences thereof. It is a simple “it is our culture” without examining if it is a good practice. That is what initiated my rant against Culture. So sharks are being decimated so people can try to impress others.

Here is an actual quote from the documentary, “People say it is not humane what we do. But the shark is not humane, it eats the other fish, and kills them.”
Bizarre.

Most of us accept that life will be harvested by humans, in the form of animal life and plant life being killed and used. The sickening part about sharkfinning is the waste. By throwing bodies overboard they can pack a ship high with only shark fins. I will use an example of Egypt. Egyptian fishermen never caught much sharks because they did not get a lot for a shark carcass. Then Chinese buyers taught them to just keep the fin and throw the shark overboard, and now sharks in that area are in the process of being wiped out. You don’t have to be brilliant to know that if you lose the top of the food chain, you are going to find some serious imbalances falling through.

The sharks are caught with long lines – the ocean is filled with lines with huge hooks that the sharks swim into and are hauled up and the fins sliced off and the bodies thrown in. Pure slaughter. The rate is truly alarming, and if we don’t do something soon, sharks will be gone because of the most stupid reason in the world.

I had the great privilege of diving with Sharks in Kwazulu Natal, reef sharks. I will return there to dive with the Tigers when it is warm enough for them to move, and am planning dives with 7-gill sharks and pelagic sharks. These are dives without a cage, just naturally seeing them in their element. You can not dive with them and not be moved by the experience. They are magnificent, powerful, perfectly designed creatures with a great dignity about them. This is what makes their mutilation so disgusting to me. See the link here to the photos of the sharks.
photos of sharks

I need to ask my Asian friends what it is with Asian people. There is so much of value in their philosophy, but the 4 most awful injustices being wreaked on animals in the world at the moment are due to beliefs and views that can only be described as fucking stupid.

1)Sharks being destroyed for shark fin soup to prove status
2)Rhinos being destroyed and their horns taken so little penises can try become erect. There are so many natural ways to achieve this – ginseng, guarana, etc.
3)Dolphins and whales being destroyed for meat that is high in lead and not needed by anyone – just to prove a point?
4)Seahorses being destroyed and dried and crushed so that the idiot eating it can try and get some of its magical properties

I am of the view that we should be taking a radical stance. Have you seen “The Cove”? Instead of a few hippies watching the fishermen, if a thousand people went there and beat the living daylights out of every fisherman that tried to kill a dolphin, it would stop.
Sea Shepherds should not stand and talk over the microphone. They should board ships where finning is done and slice off the right hand of everyone there. Do that across the world and I am sure that finning would stop.

I was seeing a client in the Cape Town harbour who was in the fishing industry. He told me that right there a few meters from us in the harbour was a ship piled with shark fins. Dogs were guarding it, and the local South African Harbour Police did not go there because the Chinese Mafia was too strong. This is just plain not acceptable, society should not be tolerating this. We should not be tolerating this.

We are the custodians of the planet, and I am ashamed to be human when I look at the disgraceful way that we are handling this responsibility. Scientists who expose global warming get death threats. Animal populations are destroyed for a quick buck with not one shred of care or compassion. We each have a role to play, and I pray that I find a way to play an effective role that makes a change in this planet and how we treat our fellow occupants of it.

Today it has been two years since Melanie Henning, my beloved wife, passed away. As part of the natural progression, the pain has lessened over the time, so now I can talk about her, and not just about my pain of losing her.

And that is what i want to do today, on this day, to remember her. To remember her how she was in my life, without being overwhelmed with the shock and pain of loosing her, an impact which left me reeling at many levels.

So, how do I remember her? I remember as a woman who significantly changed my life.

One of her last sentences to me was “I love you for eternity” and like many things that she said, my understanding of that improved even after her passing. Her leaving this life has not changed the love between us, and I have realised it never will. This does not mean that I am ‘stuck’ on Mel. I know that she is gone, and my life on this Earth continues. It expect that I will fall completely in love again with another shining woman, and have a family and be blessed and deeply content, but that will not change my feelings about Mel. The link that formed between Mel and I is not an obstruction to me having further relationship. That type of love, which is a profound understanding and connection, is not exclusive or jealous.

There was one happening that overshadowed everything. We built a bond of love between us that held us close together, through everything. All that could separate us was if one of us was to leave this mortal plane, and that is what happened. Your body fell apart and you had to leave, and your fate was accepted by both of us and we went through it together, with your strength and courage filling me with an admiration for you that will never stop flowing, and giving me an example of how to face the worst possible outcome with complete calm and grace and lack of fear. That is how we did it, side by side. There was so much pain. You, my wife, had pain in your body, we the couple had the pain of splitting, and I the widow had the pain of losing you. Yet this is something that we took. We took it as a part of life, and a part of love, accepted it as part of the cycle and our reality, and what we had we cherished.

So, Mel, how do I remember you now?

These are your attributes:

You were truly remarkable. And that is not just something I say because I was your husband. Tribute after tribute poured in to me about you, and they all resonated with the same striking points. I will repeat here what others said:
So, so beautiful
A body that was not like a human body
A deep, natural, laugh from the depth of your core that was infectious
Flowing with warmth and love
Highly impatient (x2 with me = lots of explosions )
Had high expectations of everyone
Didn’t hold back any punches. Most people are limited by all these social filters of what can be said. You did not note them, because your intentions were good you expressed concepts where I often expected people to cringe, but they instead appreciated your interest
Endless energy
Except when sleeping. Waking you up in a rush was a dangerous task I learned quickly about.
Loved the simple things in life.
Loved me with everything that you had
Loved to laugh
A better natural on a mountain bike than anyone I have ever seen. I struggle with everything we were cut short of doing, but being such a mountain biker the few times that we rode together were such an ultimately happy experience for me

This is what you did for me:

While I was head-over-heels for you from the start, it took me a while to understand much about relationships. You understood this about me. One moment of clarity came when I noticed suddenly that my loneliness had gone. My whole life had been played on a tone of angst due to never having had a connection of the spirit. So while at first I may have just though that I was having fun dating this hot woman, the day that I noticed that my loneliness had evaporated in the light of your presence, even the most cynical part of me realized that something special was happening. Gone were the melancholic walks in the deep of the night, gone were the aches to be known deeply by someone.

I feel like I was a boy when we met, and a man after you were done with me. As partners should do, we strengthened and developed each other. Those gifts you gave me were lasting gifts that will be with me forever, and I thank you deeply for them.

We laughed one day when I described you. Rather than a breath of fresh air in my life, you were a tornado in my life that turned it upside down. For years I nagged you for a date, and when you finally gave in you liked what you saw and one month later my new townhouse was a home for two with all your things in it and a man who had been solo his whole life was suddenly in a deep, warm, close relationship. Thank you for your patience in adapting me to a shared life and breaking through my thinking-for-one.

You took me through the most profound experience imaginable, made all the more striking because of your fierce passion and zest for life.

All of us here know that you are safe now and continuing your spiritual journey, as we are. We thank you for the warm, bright, unique, playful, forceful, unforgettable, loving role that you played in our lives.

Rest in peace, dearest Melanie Desiree Henning.

xxxx

15 May 2011

PRE-OPERATION:

So my leg has had some weird appearances over the last few days. It has swollen like a tree trunk when I didnt keep it raised. The foot is a nice purple / pink colour. The back of the leg is extremely bruised when nothing hit it there, from the knee all the way down.

So I was mountain biking in Stellenbosch with friends, and loving it, as always. We had done some pretty hairy things that day. Big jumps, steep and long drop-offs, steep descents on rough terrain, fast tracks with intruding objects, all done without any bad happenings.

Then when going through an easy part through the forest, at high speed, and I suppose my mind had drifted a bit and was thinking about the expression and style and how that was what I was concentrating on now, and how beautiful it was in the forest with the sun through the trees, and how much I loved riding, and I somehow didn’t see that a fallen tree had a stump about 10 cm thick that stuck into the path, and I hit it at high speed. I saw it at the last instant, and knew something on me would break. Luckily I improved the angle a bit as it could have been much worse. It was bad enough though. The stump caught me really hard on the outside of the right shin. So hard that pieces of flesh and hair were stuck on it after. The shin and stump didnt move after that, but the rest of me and the bike were going just under 50 kms / h, which caused me to be swung around and my knee to twist in ways it should never, at great force.

Agony. I roared out, and then hyperventilated a bit to try and deal with the incredible pain. So I rode the few kms home, mostly downhill, and then the next day went to hospital. After a few days of Xrays and CAT scans, it turned out that I had a bad fracture in my tibia. Not even where I hit it, but were the tendons pulled at the bone as the knee twisted horribly.

So, here I lie, leg in the air. I am someone who gets really grumpy and irritable and irritating when I go more than 1 day without exercise, and now it is going to be 6 weeks after the surgery before I can even stand. Wow. Life in the slow lane for a bit. It’s a different experience, thats for sure.

For the first week, I allowed myself to just wallow in depression. I had to. Sulk, DVDs, and TV games. Luckily I am being really well looked after. After that first week, I started to look at it more positively and constructively. Life is not random. While nothing can seem more random than a stump from an overturned tree sticking into the path and me not noticing it in time, life tends to work according to reason. With me generally being in an frantic rush daily, being forced to sit still for 2 months does allow one an awful lot of time to think and reflect.

POST-OPERATION:

Phew, I am a bit weakened and battered by that experience. A two hour long operation where they cut the knee wide open and cleaned it out, and put two 8cm screws across the top of the tibia. The fracture was a 5 out of 6 according to their scale. They also attached a big plate to the tibia with 8 screws between 4 and 8 cms long into it. Typically for me, the drill bit broke off while they were busy so that is also in my shin bone. Surgeon doesn’t want to open again to get it out, so its basically like another extra screw.

Hospitals these days try to avoid administering morphine, but for this operation I was on a 24 hour painkiller drip plus morphine injections every 4 hours. I was in a daze for days, and slowly started putting longer time between the injections until I could go without and leave the hospital. While my nature indicates that I am not the best patient and would be up and about way too soon, the fact that there is searing agony when I stand up on my crutches, even with no weight on my right foot, means that I will be obeying doctors orders and be seated on my ass for the next few weeks.

The surgery was a success though, in terms of the bones being nicely aligned and now I must ensure that nothing jolts the leg to move the plate. The bones must settle around that scaffolding and regrow. There will be Physio work later which I will dive into. It is difficult for someone as health and fitness conscious as me too see your body waste away. I suppose it will just add to the relieft when I can eventually start working on it again.

Bit absurd especially as the plan was to ride as hard as possible on my bike until December and get my riding and fitness to a really high level before I took my new dream bike in December, a 2010 Commencal Meta 5 Carbon. Black beauty. Now I am going to be hobbling onto it.

There are a lot of philosophical questions that I am pondering at the moment. A lot of people, from doctors to parents to employers to friends, have said that I am turning 35 not 19, and am not elastic any more and should be toning down on the adrenaline sports and treat it as a closed chapter in my life, especially as I have a responsible professional position and other responsibilities.

On the other side, there is the encouragement to stay the person that I am. Not to let obstacles or resistance break me down, but to grow stronger through overcoming it. By putting ourselves in the position (through mountain biking or snowboarding or surfing or rock climbing) where we are challenging ourselves with environments and situations that are outside of our comfort zone, we grow as people to develop to a place where those challenges start to be within our comfort zone. yes, there is risk attached to it and it is never easy, but wow, that is where the real reward is too.

Anyway, now I am going to slowly come back to life and working from home, and reading and playing games and enjoying all the care I am receiving.

Below is what the leg looked like 2 weeks after surgery – yuk!

_____________________________________________________

SIX WEEKS LATER:

Well, today I drove for the first time in 2 months. I drove to work and with my own music pumping in my own, new, car, I felt alive and independent again. Gave me hope for the rest of the recovery process

Also started swimming and riding on the exercise bike, which is a great frustration relief and shows that the worst is over.

Check out the Xray!

So, on 15 May 2010 it was a year since our Melanie left us. We had a get-together at my mother’s house, where Mel had spent her last days. It was a very nice day, but I didn’t speak very well. I suppose that is understandable, given the situation.

Some of the speaking was fine. I spoke about how while the pain may be less over time, I am very pleased to know that the love is no less. It is just as it always was. And while the memories of the daily routines will become vague over time, her presence is no less bright for me.

I did two things that were significant for me. I read from the spiritual teachings that have held and comforted me through all of this:

“This, therefore, is the Truth. As from fire well lighted, fiery sparks flow off in
all directions by the thousand, so do all beings come out from the ever
Immutable, and are resolved also into the same.”

“To those who have acquired that sense of consciousness of the illusion of death,
these frightful emotions of grief and terror at death have faded away. To them,
while they naturally feel the sorrow of temporary separation and the loss of
companionship, the loved one is seen to have simply passed on to another phase
of life, and nothing has been lost – nothing has perished.”

I played the videos I had made of her. I did this because a picture speaks a million words, and I thought that these videos effortlessly described her and the woman that she was. What I didn’t do, was speak myself about how she was, and that is probably what is fitting for her memorial.

What an amazing woman that she was. One of the most frequent comments that people make to me, is that they have never met anyone so full of life as what Mel was. It was pouring out of her. Even though she had been through some very difficult experiences in her life, she had this joyful appreciation of life that pervaded everything that she did and was the backbone of her character. When I met her, she was a tornado that came into my life, bright and passionate and uncompromising. In our time together, we grew together and as people at an astonishing rate. Look how natural and assured and confident she is as a young woman in the picture below, snapped in my garage on our way to a function. She had really found herself.

Her passing has made a huge impact on the lives of all who knew her. I can see this from the way that people speak to me, and from the traffic I get on the website. Everyone is touched by her life and her passing, and none more so than me.

In a way, I have gotten to know her even better since she left. Hearing all the old stories, seeing old pictures, and mostly just reflecting on how she was, and how we were. And how special she was, and how special we were.

I had not been keen on getting involved deeply in relationships, but with Mel I realised that apart from her being physically gorgeous and great company, there was something else. There was pure spirit in her that was brightly alive and full of love and determination to live this life as best she could. I realised that if these spirits got together, our differences would be set aside and we would truly join. And wow, that is just what happened. Those who knew us, knew how exceptionally close we were, every step of the way.

I will always hurt that we could not explore to the end, the potential of what we had started. But I will always take solace in knowing that we joined completely, to the deepest level. There are small things that niggled me for a while, where I wished I could have done better – averting an argument, coming home earlier, not working a weekend, taking her more often on a romantic date, giving her more time when it turned out to be so short. Yet I know that in the important things, I was there. She knew she was never alone, she had complete support, and I walked her path with her right until the last steps in this life, holding her in my arms as she drew her last breath.

I wish I had time to have given her more, and I knew that she also had so many plans to lavish me with signs of her love. However, I am comforted by the following diary extract that I found in her diary. Before you read it, I should tell you that Mel had a deep passion for ice-cream.

“Living with Jay is like eating ice-cream in Heaven.”

It makes me proud that I could provide her with that kind of experience in our relationship and life together.

God bless you Melimuli, I know that you are causing havoc and laughter wherever you are.

Below are the links to the albums and videos that are up, for those who haven’t seen them yet:

Video Montage of Mel’s Life: CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF MELANIE HENNING

Video Clip in the Trees: RIGHT CLICK HERE AND “SAVE TARGET” TO WATCH VIDEO

Photos of Mel’s Life: Click for album of Mel

Photos of Wedding: Click for our wedding

Photos of Honeymoon: Click for our honeymoon

Speech at Memorial Service: Speech

Card at Memorial Service: Card

Poem of her Loss: Poem – Broken

Someone pointed out to me that the video clip I put up last year of Mel in the tree-tops was a broken file, so here is the full file.

A while ago, I sorted through pictures of my life together with Mel, to make that album of Mel. I came across these little bits of video footage that I had taken with my photo camera, I did not even know I had them at the time. It is lovely to see her so fresh and alive.

RIGHT CLICK HERE AND “SAVE TARGET” TO WATCH VIDEO

It is a reminder of what a beautiful woman she was, so full of life and joy. Of how refined she was, yet still active and adventurous. She almost seems to have more life and energy in her than the normal person. That is how it always seemed, and maybe that is part of why it burned away so fast.

This day was a fun day in the canopies of the forest, an expedition she had wanted to do, and it was great fun. We did it as part of a country road trip we did together in December 2007, a trip that we really enjoyed and brought us closer together. At that time we had just learned that there was something wrong with her health, but did not yet know more than that she was going to have an investigative procedure when we returned home. We had a slight worry but were still in a state of innocence regarding the severity of it. Little did we know what lay ahead of us.

But as humans, we never do. That is why it is so important to make the most of every day, which I feel that we did. This helps give me peace. We have no regrets of things left unsaid or love never expressed. We did everything we could to fight the sickness and its potential outcome, but we could not change fate. It drew to its conclusion and she was taken from this mortal life. For her, she still exists with the same spirit and awareness. For us, her death is such a final and irreversible thing that we have no choice but to deal with it. The only way to go on is to heal, and enjoy life again. Because while it can have moments of the most utter tragedy and pain, this Life is truly a blessing, a chance to experience the Divine. And this experience should not be spoiled because we can not bear, and slowly put down, the hurt that we carry. It does not diminish our love for them, or their meaning in our lives, if we are able to find meaning and happiness in our lives again after they leave us. In fact, that is our obligation.

its been a pretty reflective time for me lately. things in my personal life have changed and i am spending a lot of time alone again. naturally, i often go over everything that happened, and process it, and try to get an understanding of my life and my current position.

if i look at it objectively, i am healthy and strong and still young (enough). i live in the best city in the world, i have a good job with lots of potential, and am surrounded by family and friends. i have outdoor and other pursuits that i thrive on – mountain biking, bodyboarding, trail running, golf, yoga, swimming, that help me develop and strengthen myself. i have artistics passions like writing, photography and music that help me to explore and express myself. but, people who get close to me know that inside i am still in pieces and not ready to be close to someone. even if i wanted to be.

today i had to go to the hospital where mel and i spent so many days, for a physical and fitness test (by the way – very fit and the most flexible man they had ever tested there, go yoga). while there, i walked into acacia ward which had been her hard home for long stretches. just walking down that corridor, those overwhelming feelings poured over me again. the enormous concern, care, compassion, worry and most importantly, love, that filled me and tore me in every direction for so long, getting more and more extreme until everything just exploded and collapsed and she drew her last breath while i held her in my arms.

there was a feeling it touched in me, that reminded me of an expression on mel’s face once, in the summer at the end of 2007 when we went on holiday. we knew that when we got back we had to go to the gynae, that something was wrong, but we had no idea yet what it was. but she was worried, it was on her mind, and you could see it in this picture.

of course, mel was not someone to stay morbid for long. the next morning was sunny and we went for a walk up the mountain, and look how lovely and natural she looked up there. it was interesting, as this holiday was a year into our relationship, and i was wondering how she would enjoy it out with me in nature. she loved it, i loved it, and it brought us closer. she also gave me a present for that christmas, a light-hearted book about love, that she had put pictures of us into and scribbled on her own narrations and captions. i remember it stunned me to realise how much she loved me at that stage already, i almost didn’t feel deserving of it. the next year, she was in hospital and i brought her the same book, updated with pictures of mine and my own captions. we had grown together, and my love was as full and fierce as hers.

there was never a dull moment with her around. the photo below a few minutes later is a good example of that. i always have a stupid grin on my face in photos with her, but can you blame me? she knew how to serve up absurdity when it mattered most.

yo know, it is normal to go back over things in your mind, and wonder if you could have done it differently, better. given more strength, more support, connected more closely. i received a lot of mails from people around the world, about mel and her life and her passing, and the impact on them. i received quite a special one lately, where the lady said: ” you have done the most beautiful thing I have ever seen one human being do for another “. that warmed my heart, and reminded me that the bits that weren’t perfect were 2-3 % and the overwhelming majority was very perfect. all i did for mel was what she did for me – we accepted and loved each other and did everything we could for them until fate split us on this planet, taking one and leaving one.

and that is a very profound experience to have been a part of, and then to continue with your life and live it to the fullest, rebuilding it so that it is complete, yet so very different.

I went away this weekend, camped out in the mountains and did yoga out in the grassy field under the starry night sky. it was a deep experience and reminded me again how important it is for me to do yoga, and that i should focus more on it, especially in these times. it really is exactly what i need, it centres and calms and strengthens me. but more importantly, it helps me focus on what i should be doing, how i should be, and helps me to extract and develop the finer parts in me, and move away from the grosser parts.

also when meditating after, a lot just fell into place.

i had a vivid insight into the nature of our awareness, our intellect, and that of the nature around us. i had the firmest, deepest understanding i have ever had of what we call “I”, the centre of consciousness that is us. i understood how it comes into this physical world and permeates a physical thing, making it a “being” because it is the intelligence and spark behind it. how it moves on when the physical thing dies, and goes into the pool of consciousness and returns. how the spiral moves upwards.

i understood what it means to evolve, and the yoga teachings became properly clear to me for the first time. this was quite a revelation after more than a decade of study and already being fairly elevated. spiritual growth is not a case of being rewarded for certain practices – such as act well and you become wise or get given spiritual gifts. we are a centre of awareness and intelligence, and evolution or spiritual development is a case of refining the intelligence and becoming more aware. as you become more aware, you become a higher life form. certain practices lift your intelligence and awareness, and certain practices degrade it. all that the yoga teachings are doing, is explaining to us how to lift our state of being to be a more advanced centre.

and this is what a mistake is, when we do something to degrade our awareness. actions that will advance us further, are the right action for us. actions that will bring us down, weigh down our spirits, shutter our minds, are the wrong action. that is how to tell when you are crossing the line.

so now i am exceptionally focussed on that path, by paying attention to every action and word and thought and trying to ensure that it is the best option. then, slowly, what “you” want becomes less important. you, the ego, a collection of experiences and habits and wants and cravings and confusion, might “want” something because it thinks it might bring it happines. but “you”, the soul wanting to unfold and grow, will not want that course of action, but to follow the course that will take it along its path. and every step on the path leads to a higher state of being, a higher form of life.

it puts a lot of things into perspective for me. when you end this life, and review it, you want each soul you encountered to come to you and say “thank you for the role that you played in my life, for supporting my spiritual growth and helping me on my journey”. notice that i did not say “supporting the little things my ego may have wanted”. in that way, you are continuously building good karma.

i was comparing that to other possible reactions, and also got a good handle on exactly why it is bad to take advantage of someone. if someone has a weakness, you stimulate that weakness and effectively encourage it to get your own wants satisfied by that person. you are doing exactly the wrong thing to this person. whoever they are, you should be helping them to outgrow their weakness. think of the damage that you do to their soul, and to yours, by following this path. otherwise, you could look at it and say, hey, each person got what they wanted. on the surface maybe, but not properly.

so this forms a good yardstick by which to measure life.

“om tat sat”
one true existance
ocean of knowledge
bliss absolute

Hi Everyone,

There was a lot of interest in the video of our beautiful Mel. I received some lovely new footage (thanks Adriana) that I really enjoyed seeing, and I know that all of her friends and family would like to see it too. So I included it in the video and made it a bit longer. The new bits are near the end. It is worth downloading the video again to see it. It was filmed at the time I met her, and was quite poignant to watch.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF MELANIE HENNING

Like before, I recommend right-clicking it and downloading it to watch without any jumping or sticking.

Funny, now that I include the new footage, the video is exactly as long as the backing track. Works nicely.