In the Backwoods & Old Sandhill Cemetery

Revisiting Synchronicity : The Last Docking of The Delta Queen in The Port of Paducah, Kentucky

(c) jj leatherman                                      Nathan's Music

(c) jj leatherman

This morning I woke up with The Delta Queen (song by Nathan Lynn and Bawn in the Mash) playing in my head...then all this morning, I think I am hearing the Calliope Whistle loudly announcing??? Something...So, I peruse the Ol' BLOG and find that we are nearing that sad anniversary. I think it's worth a re-post and a re-visit. There is something about synchronicity and nostalgia that never grows old...

SAVE THE QUEEN~October 27, 2008
On Synchronicity: The Delta Queen and Nathan Lynn


We went early and made a day of it starting with a good morning salute to the Queen, and then headed to the River Maritime Museum, then onto the Railroad Museum, next for lunch: Kirchoff's good soup and sandwiches and then onto Wildhair Studios to pick up my first music purchase of Bawn in the Mash's Atomic City, their first album. Finally, we got back in the car and re- parked right down by the river to watch the Queen leave the Paducah Port for what could be the very last time.


Still in the sunny part of our day before the Queen's departure while relaxing in the warmth of the car by the river, I put the Atomic City album on and listened and stared at the old gal that is the Delta Queen paddle boat, and tried not to cry too hard in front of the children, but I was really sad, and then a head pops in our window~who but the singer of our farewell serenade: Nathan Lynn: http://www.nathanblakelynn.com/index.php.


 He popped his head in and said, 'hey I sing that song, that's me singin'" The boys were delighted, and I went and got his autograph, and he gave me a cd! I felt like the most privileged of fans.


www.save-the-delta-queen.org

After I hopped back in the car, my eldest son didn't believe that the person on the cd that we were listening to was who he said he was there at the river front, right in front of us, so I said~'hey, he's got that guitar on his back maybe he's about to prove it." So, then the boys and I shamelessly followed Lynn and Dixie up to where the river gage runs and Nathan commenced to singing his beautiful tune about none other than The Delta Queen. It was such an honor to be there at the confluence of great art and history.

Hope Collage

Finally, I have a new piece up at the Benton Working Artist's Gallery~{B-WAG)...It is mixed media collage made with authentic vintage materials, dragon fly body, feathers, and my photography...

Photography~My First{ Indian}Wedding

Signs

Today is The Day!

Yay! I marry myself today! It's Valentines Day~AND The Lunar New Year!!!! The Year of the Tiger.

A Special Valentine
If Love Could be tied in little bouquets, then you would have corsages the rest of your days...You Couldn't tell the corsages apart because they would be tied to the strings of my heart.

photo taken in the woods behind my house (c) jj

DEATH, it's what I am dealing with:
maybe you are too, or maybe not, but this is what I need to post today:

Last night I saw a great Kevin Spacey movie, The Life of David Gale. The movie reminded me of the five stages of death and how destructive 'fantasy' can be...

From WIKI

Kübler-Ross model

Stages

1. Denial — "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."
   Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of situations and individuals that will be left behind after death.^[1]
2. Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"
   Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Any individual that symbolizes life or energy is subject to projected resentment and jealousy.^[1]
3. Bargaining — "Just let me live to see my children graduate."; "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."
   The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand I will die, but if I could just have more time..."^[1]
4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die . . . What's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"
   During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect oneself from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.^[1]
5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."
   This final stage comes with peace and understanding of the death that is approaching. Generally, the person in the fifth stage will want to be left alone. Additionally, feelings and physical pain may be non-existent. This stage has also been described as the end of the dying struggle.^[1]

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness, later to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). This may also include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, divorce, drug addiction, an infertility diagnosis. Kübler-Ross claimed these steps do not necessarily come in the order noted above, nor are all steps experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two. Often, people will experience several stages in a "roller coaster" effect - switching between two or more stages, returning to one or more several times before working through it.^[1]
Significantly, people experiencing the stages should not force the process. The grief process is highly personal and should not be rushed, nor lengthened, on the basis of an individual's imposed time frame or opinion. One should merely be aware that the stages will be worked through and the ultimate stage of "Acceptance" will be reached.
However, there are individuals that struggle with death until the end. Some psychologists believe that the harder a person fights death, the more likely they are to stay in the denial stage. If this is the case, it is possible the ill person will have more difficulty dying in a dignified way. Other psychologists state that not confronting death until the end is adaptive for some people.^[1] Those who experience problems working through the stages should consider professional grief counseling or support groups.

[edit] Cultural relevance

A dying individual's approach to death has been linked to the amount of meaning and purpose a person has found throughout their lifetime. A study of 160 people with less than three months to live showed that those who felt they understood their purpose in life, or found special meaning, faced less fear and despair, in the final weeks of their lives than those who had not. In this and similar studies, spirituality helped dying individuals deal with the depression stage more aggressively than those who were not spiritual. ^[1]

[edit] Criticism

According to George Bonanno^[2], professor of clinical psychology of Columbia University, in his book "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," based on two decades of rigorous scientific studies that follow people who have suffered losses in the U.S. and in other cultures, there is no evidence to support the Kübler-Ross theory^[3]
A 2000-2003 study of bereaved individuals conducted by Yale University obtained some findings that were consistent with the five-stage theory and others that were inconsistent with it. Several letters were also published in the same journal criticizing this research and arguing against the stage idea. ^[4] Skeptic Magazine published the findings of the Grief Recovery Institute, which contested the concept of stages of grief as they relate to people who are dealing with the deaths of people important to them.^[5]