Meredith And Her Understanding Of The Power Of Good Thoughts

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Since November 2007 and during all the conversations I have had regarding Meredith, sooner or later someone always makes the observation that she was so very special.

This is why she has been held up as a shining light to which others would aspire. She was indeed an amazing woman, a combination of not being just very beautiful, but far more important being very intelligent and motivated towards helping her fellow human beings. She was a caring person who, if she hadn’t been murdered, to what heights she would have reached is impossible to tell.

There is an innocence here, not just intelligence and great humour but just a wondrous combination of all the qualities we hold dear. Yes she was one of a kind and that is why we remember her and keep her memory alive. We will never forget her and we will never abandon her either, but no matter the outcome we will fight on to get her the justice she so richly deserves not for revenge but for her family.

One of the most powerful and forceful posts I have read so far.

In some sense we all are a mixed bag- some good and some bad thrown randomly in. We select what we want to be and there lies the greatness of man.

Due to technological reasons, we were unable to upload all the images we had hoped to, - to accompany the text.

One of these was Botticelli’s illustration to Dante’s Paradiso, - that Meredith read.

You may like to follow the link below to see it, and others from the Divine Comedy….some seem to show that ‘thoughts have wings’.

;http://www.worldofdante.org/pop_up_query.php?dbid=I383&show=more;650;443

I liked most the solitary candle, unwavering and unflickering, trying its best to dispel the darkness.

Will it succeed? You decide. It is your duty to ensure that the flame does not go out. The single flame represents everything decent that we love and respect.

We focus on the flame, not the darkness. The light leads and guides. It helps us to concentrate and decide. It makes us move forward.

Lead us from darkness to enlightenment.

Thank you, chami, and Greetings to you.

There is another photo of candlelight, which hopefully we may be able to put up later on.

Wonderful, SeekingUnderstanding, hi Chami:

Our readership in India has always remained high. From there I do agree we have a lot we could learn about pain and pressing on. In UN development the Indian experts were always among the most effective we had. Anglo-Indian families were not uncommon, all very achieving and very nice.

I once arrived in what was then Madras from Kuala Lumpur and took a train to Cochin where a car I bought in Hong Kong came off a Russian ship; then zigzagged between the dozens of temples in the south (unguarded, usually not anyone else around) and so to Bombay, Delhi, and after 2 months on to Europe. Now that was a trip.

@SeekingUnderstanding,

One of my favorite poems of Tagore:

***
Sorrow’s dark night, again and again,
has come to my door.
Its only weapon I saw,
Pain’s twisted brows,
Fear’s hideous gestures,
Hiding its deceptions in darkness.
Every time I believed its mask of fear,
Fruitless defeat has followed.
This game of defeat and victory is life’s delusion;
From childhood, at each step, clings this spectre,
Filled with sorrow’s mockery.
A moving screen of varied fear
Death’s skilful handiwork wrought in scattered gloom.

A beautiful article thank you, Seekingunderstanding! 

One of the outstandingly sad things about this awful case is simply how sweet Meredith was.  Being English, and a parent, I recognise many of her qualities and it breaks my heart.

I can not get around why it was that Meredith, in all her goodness and light, was ended by someone who is void of either.  The comfort for me is knowing Meredith will be in Heaven.

Thank you for bringing attention to the fact it is her birthday in 2 days, and also to this blog for keeping Meredith’s spirit alive. I will light a candle for her on Saturday in her honor.

Precious, precious. I had never seen the photo of Meredith in the snow wearing red boots and holding ladies’ garments on coat-hangers. So cute, she could have become a model.

The bright yellow bow on her black tunic really pops. What a smile, background with the snow she loved.

Thank you for the deep thoughts, beauty, and poetry, SeekingUnderstanding.

The Indian people I have known (very few) have been unusually gentle or kind natured. Thank you for the poet Tagore’s thoughts on the unspoken words filling the mind of Man or the world.

The power of positive thinking is a good word for this season. The Henry Van Dyke poem is deep, I’d never read that one before nor the Rabindranath Tagore ones. 

Lighted candles photo is lovely. Quiet power.

@chami

Thank you for the poem, it is lovely. I especially like:

‘Every time I believed its mask of fear,
Fruitless defeat has followed.
This game of defeat and victory is life’s delusion;’

So often fear is invalid - a delusion,a construct from our unknowing self.

Yet some fears in life are valid, and we need to be aware of true danger. I suppose learning to distinguish the difference ( between valid and invalid fears) is one of life’s great tasks.

I find Tagore an inspiring person, in many ways. I see the poems I have were translated by Aurobindo Bose from the Bengali…do you read them in Bengali, chami?

I like the way Tagore often refers to becoming - the way we are always about becoming who we are. It reminds me of another poet whom I admire - this time German - Rilke - who also speaks of becoming. Translation, though, needs much sensitivity.

Meredith would have been a talented translator, among the many possibilities. Her not-becoming continues to be heartbreaking.

@MHILL4, rebecca, and Hopeful : thankyou for your response, for reading these.

Quiet power, yes. Perhaps it can be concentrated this way.

I will light a candle at noon, here in England, GMT, on the 28th.

Amazing, powerful, and very moving post! Thank you, SeekingUnderstanding.

The pictures you chose are wonderful. There is something special in that little girl - Meredith - a gladness.

Thank you for introducing the marvelous poem by Philip Larkin, which, it turns out, is about his wishes on the birth of his friend Martin Amis’s daughter.

This poem reminded me of another which I first read and loved many years ago, and which now makes me think of Meredith’s qualities, as I have learned about her:

A Prayer for my Daughter
  by W. B. Yeats  

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on.  There is no obstacle
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It’s certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there’s no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15530

===

Pete, thanks for sharing your adventures in India. I would have loved that trip, too. I am getting the travel bug these days, and reading books by Bruce Feiler, the world traveler and writer. He describes how he and a friend, traveling through Europe as young men, sneaked into the basement of the Paris Opera House to roust out the Phantom of the Opera! I’m not sure one could do that now… like you say, the ubiquitous “guards” and “security” issues nowadays. But there are always ways to abandon the tourist track and just explore, and that’s the kind of travel Meredith enjoyed too, as her father wrote about (for example, living with the Italian family).

===

I cannot express my sadness for the Kerchers on Meredith’s birthday on Saturday. It is the third day of Kwanzaa, the meaning of which, I think, really applies to our combined efforts for the past 6+ years on TJMK, PMF dot ORG and NET: “Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.” May the search for truth and justice for Meredith continue to unite us!

===

Since we are a community, I wish you all a happy holiday season and many joys (and few sorrows) in the new year!

A lovely prayer/poem/ vision by Yeats…thankyou very much Earthling, for sharing this, it is very apt…and your other thoughts, on community.

Thank you, Earthling, for your lovely thought and wishes for this community, and the same to you and yours.

In keeping with our thoughts on Meredith Kercher and her family, one of her supporters CaliDeeva has written this lovely piece to support that on her crime blog, “Christmas And The Pain Of Murder Victim’s Families”, at

http://justice4ever.com/2013/12/christmas-pain-murder-victims-families/

Yes, at this time, our prayers and wishes go to those who can never share Christmas with their loved ones, but also, in view of SeekingUnderstanding’s article on the power of good thoughts, then, let’s hope for peace, and a resolution to the Kercher’s pain this holiday season.

Thank you

Ergon, Earthling, and all others who have expressed your goodwill and warmth to this on-line community…and also your, and our, support for those in sadness and bereavement at this time.

I am actually one of these (but psychologists are trained to be reticent about self-disclosure!!), as I have lost half of my family - 4 out of 8- as well as some friends. For several years this time of the year became something, if not to dread, then to endure.

And my bereavements have been through natural causes, albeit early…so,really, the added circumstances of senseless murder are so hard to imagine on top of this.

What one cannot do, I know, is forget about tragedy. For me, now, the joys of Christmas are in ...friendship. The love and understanding of one’s friends are the most precious gift.

And, now, with the advent of miraculous new technology, we really can create friendships all over the world. We have to learn (or invent) ‘inter-cultural etiquette’ - for want of a better phrase! - but we do now have a wonderful opportunity.

Some people ‘believe’ in telepathy, and other people think it’s all nonsense. I think it would be silly to get into an argument about it!

What is undeniable is the amount of people who have synchronistic happenings in their daily lives. The number of people who begin thinking about an absent person, and then the phone rings and it is them.

Nowadays, the same thing is happening with emails - from all over the world, in different time zones. People have the same idea, a very similar thought, at the same time (regardless of day or night or time zone!) and can share and exchange this.

It is actually a physical phenonomen that two waves can each be strengthened by being in harmony.

‘When two sounds that are in phase are added together, the combination makes an even stronger result. ‘

Perhaps some physicists can add to this?!

So when we talk about the power of sharing positive thought, we are talking about something real. We really can make a difference together.

Perhaps when we light our individual candles, - on the 28th - we could just jot it down, here, in a comment? It would be lovely to have a record of all the thoughts coming together, with a record of all the different ‘times’ at that moment in the different corners of our world.

For instance, now it is 8.30am where I am - my morning thoughts!

[Quoted by Chami]

‘Every time I believed its mask of fear,
Fruitless defeat has followed.
This game of defeat and victory is life’s delusion;’

[Observed by SeekingUnderstanding]

So often fear is invalid - a delusion, a construct from our unknowing self.

*******

The fear level in the world now may be higher than we have ever known it. Certainly worse than in the era of the Cold War with its nukes which was almost a kabuki dance by comparison.

Michael Moore in his Columbine documentary devotes the better part of a remarkable hour to showing examples of the TV and print media whipping up fear as a way to get an audience together and sell. Some of the churches and the gun groups do the same thing.

Fear of American culture was traded upon by bin Laden, fear of a demonic prosecutor in a demonic country is traded upon by the Bruce Fischers.

Among other things, as a direct result, people travel less and learn less and sit at home being outraged. International relations become harder, economic growth drops and the spiral down keeps on turning.

But even just a few cheerfully infectious can-do people can stop that and eventually set the whole thing in much-needed reverse. Often semi-outsiders are the most effective because they are not of any one constituency.

Great comment Pete..so true.
And ‘thank you’ and Happy New Year to you, especially for showing us the ‘can-do’!

Just checking in to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and New Year.

May 2014 bring Justice for Meredith and her family.

@SeekingUnderstanding

Yes, I am a native Bengali from Calcutta (now called Kolkatta) and most of these poems I have read in my school days. Most of my teachers are dead now (I met one recently) but in those days the best medium of instruction was a strong stick!

But many things I see differently. Kerchers are strong and they are bearing their pain and suffering with grace and dignity. Yes, the loss has wounded them mortally but when you look at their faces, you find serenity. They are the one who stand tall, unvanquished.

Some people cannot feel pain. They do not know what it is or how it feels. They are defective in a sense. Kerchers do know pain and it hurts them tremendously. But the way they bear it makes them great. They have conquered death. They are now unafraid. The sacrifice they made, Meredith paid with her life, is not waste. We all share now a bit of everything she had.

That is why we are here.

Greetings to you all for a happy new year.

Maybe not so different, chami - sometimes language gets in the way…
The book I have of Tagore is called ‘Wings of Death’ - it’s his last poems, full of serenity and vision, and love, really, - insight into love.

All good wishes to you too,and everyone else here who has shared with me over the year.

Hi Pete

“The fear level in the world now may be higher than we have ever known it.” I go along with that. The readiness of everyone (including Bruce Fischer and other FOA types) to engage in xenophobia and racism without a second thought does indeed betray great fear and existential insecurity.

My take is that we are collectively at a turning point as a species. Problematic world events which demand new mind-sets for solution seem to be exponentially increasing as the old paradigms no longer apply.  The tendency is to think it’s the height of sanity to rigidly stick to the old paradigm , even when it clearly no longer explains anything. The history of science is replete with all this.

Maybe this explains the fear level?  Everyone knows more or less consciously that something is very seriously awry, and those we have been led to believe were “the experts” turn out often to be woefully wrong or outright charlatans. For a single but forceful example, how anyone can have any residual faith whatsoever in the economic system, post 2008?  We know that materialism became the new belief with the decline of religion (and how humanity bought into that!) but it seems we are still buying into it (like crazed zombies) when it has signally failed. It seems we have no other raison d’etre. Talk about existential crises, where would we be without our “retail therapy”? (Rhetorical). No amount of first-aid to our economic structures will help, in my view. There’s something amiss in the way we see ourselves, our neighbours and our place in the universe, i.e. it’s ultimately a spiritual crisis.

Climate change is another area that is unsettling for some, and for deep reasons. What is threatening to the old view is the idea that our collective behaviour has consequences. In the same way that a child learns (or not, in AKs case) that he or she is not just an atomised individual but part of a family, we are are realising as adults that we are part of a larger whole (called “Gaia”  by James Lovelock). This higher view of ourselves entails a reverence for the whole and taking our responsibility seriously, not for example pillaging the earth or exploiting others for short-term gain.

We have been at such paradigm changes before and there are always voices patiently proposing better worldviews. Sadly, they always seem to take hair-raising lengths of time to be heard, sometimes after facing the full inquisition treatment. In our time I’m thinking of so-called “visionaries” like Rachael Carson, James Lovelock, Rupert Sheldrake, Deepak Chopra, Stanislav Grof, et al.  They actually far outnumber nerdy and self-important dinosaurs like Richard Dawkins (he with the selfish gene).

From Earthling: “I cannot express my sadness for the Kerchers on Meredith’s birthday on Saturday. It is the third day of Kwanzaa, ... really applies to our combined efforts for the past 6+ years on TJMK, PMF dot ORG and NET: “Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.” May the search for truth and justice for Meredith continue to unite us!”

Perfectly said. Thank you!

And to add, and not forgotten, our wonderful community is complete with The Murder Of Meredith Kercher Wiki. Looking at the vandalism of the Meredith Kercher Wikipedia entry by known FOA, some members felt the need to rectify it by creating a Wiki resouurce based only on source documents. And they did a wonderful job, so kudos to them too!

Candles and cakes for Meredith, wonderful. Sorry for multiple posts.

Odysseus, I agree that we SHOULD collectively be at a turning point as a species. We, as humans, have the intelligence and ability to accomplish amazing things. We are also the only species that is anti-nature, in that we go about wantonly destroying this wondrous gift of a planet. Does any other species pollute and sabotage its own habitat in quite the way we do? And we are the ones who possess a concept of “future” and “consequences”!
This is why I have so much respect for Native American teachings about the Seventh Generation. I have decided not to have children, so I don’t have to worry about what will be left of Planet Earth by the time my grandkids are grown. But that doesn’t diminish my despair when I look at the way corporations exploit natural resources in the name of progress.
This is still a land of plenty, although we overfish, overfertilise, and overmine.
Early civilisations survived through cooperation, not through competition, or every caveman for himself. Prior to the Occupy movement, I kept wondering why the poor and the sinking middle class were “not storming the bastille”, when there is obviously no legitimate reason for anyone in the 21st century to be hungry or homeless. I don’t want more for myself. I just want enough for everyone.
Greed, envy and self-centredness ended the life of a positive force in this world. I hope that Meredith’s spiritual energy continues to do good in the universe, but I know that it continues to inspire here on earth.

Happy New Year, aethelred

@mimi

So true. We actually have the wherewithal and the knowledge to solve most of the world’s problems right now, but some sort of intrapsychic inertia takes over because, you know, where would we be if we no longer had our insoluble problems - and what would be the point of life if feckless and idle people didn’t get their just deserts? Or horror, actually got some of ours?!

——————

@SeekingUnderstanding

Talking of synchronicity let’s not forget John Kercher’s moving account of the funeral when he reveals:

“...At this point during the service, a curious thing happened. In my mind I spoke to Meredith and
said: ‘If you are with us today, can you give us some kind of sign?’ Beside the pulpit there was a
huge vase of flowers. At this moment, it suddenly toppled over and crashed to the floor.

Perhaps it was a coincidence but I like to think that it wasn’t…”

(“Meredith” p.116)

I can imagine that incident has bought much comfort to him as I’ve had a similar experience following a bereavement, asking almost exactly that same question. In my case the response was a page reference to a book I had never read which I later found contained only a drawing and the following lines from a poem by the Victorian poet Francis Thompson :

“All things by immortal power,
Near and Far
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst stir a flower
Without troubling of star.”

If anyone is interested Laura Archera Huxley gives an amazing story of a post mortem communication from Aldous Huxley in her book “This Timeless Moment”

@Odysseus
Those lines are a wonderful description of connectedness, and more. How marvellous, the way you found them.

I, too, have my moments of wonder that occurred in these ultra-sensitive moments following bereavements.

There are many profound things of which we do not know. ‘Timeless Moments’. There is still much that remains undiscovered about the nature of time.

Thank you for sharing your precious experience with us, and also reminding us of the moment from Meredith’s funeral.

@Seeking Understanding

Thank you for the comforting images and timely post about Meredith. The poems cited in the commentary have reduced me to a puddle of tears. But that is not a bad thing. Sadly, Amanda Knox, and I believe her parents, all 3 of them, are incapable of empathy. Their feelings are stunted, and that applies to Edda because of how she relates to her daughter, Amanda, protecting her from reality and from embracing what she has done, the only path to freedom and happiness. It seems to me that type of relationship is self-oriented. Amanda is an extension of Edda, not a separate individual capable of doing terrible things.

Of course, many of us possess the capability, but would never act on it. Whether Amanda has convinced herself she is truly innocent, or whether she feels it’s too late to retract the lies, she’s very damaged. Of course, this is only my perspective without benefit of professional training. SU, if you could elaborate on this, it would be appreciated.

@Ergon

It’s very kind of you to post my blog link. I could not relax on Christmas until I had written this post. May God bless the Kerchers and heal any sadness and wounds.

And may God bless all of you here at TJMK, and may this be the year that justice for Meredith will be realized.

Peter, thank you for all you do which inspires me to keep up the fight.

Tomorrow I will check in when I light Meredith’s candle. I am on the U.S. west coast so it may be considerably later than most of you.

@Seeking Understanding

Thank you for the comforting images and timely post about Meredith. The poems cited in the commentary have reduced me to a puddle of tears. But that is not a bad thing. Sadly, Amanda Knox, and I believe her parents, all 3 of them, are incapable of empathy. Their feelings are stunted, and that applies to Edda because of how she relates to her daughter, Amanda, protecting her from reality and from embracing what she has done, the only path to freedom and happiness. It seems to me that type of relationship is self-oriented. Amanda is an extension of Edda, not a separate individual capable of doing terrible things.

Of course, many of us possess the capability, but would never act on it. Whether Amanda has convinced herself she is truly innocent, or whether she feels it’s too late to retract the lies, she’s very damaged. Of course, this is only my perspective without benefit of professional training. SU, if you could elaborate on this, it would be appreciated.

@Ergon

It’s very kind of you to post my blog link. I could not relax on Christmas until I had written this post. May God bless the Kerchers and heal any sadness and wounds.

And may God bless all of you here at TJMK, and may this be the year that justice for Meredith will be realized.

Peter, thank you for all you do which inspires me to keep up the fight.

Tomorrow I will check in when I light Meredith’s candle. I am on the U.S. west coast so it may be considerably later than most of you.

Apologies for the double post.

Hello everyone,
 
  Thanks for all the great work you do here on behalf Meredith Kercher and her loving family. The poetry is lovely and befitting for this time of year on Meredith’s birthday.

I have been reading this site for ages and finally summoned the courage to write something. I actually used to read the Italian blogger’s site way back and I had left comments on there pleading to Frank, “Don’t do it Frank! It’s not worth it…” without knowing at the time what he was up to exactly.
 
Arline Kercher’s words haunt me when she said something along the lines of, ‘they killed her because she was everything they were not!’. Her deep understanding of their depravity shows Arline
has thought things through and is a wise woman.
 
  The Kercher family stay vivid in my mind, they are angels for being so graceful and gentle. I hope Arline and John are doing better with their health. They are wonderful parents and have brought four very well mannered kids into the world and should be very proud of that accomplish-ment. I do not have children yet but I will strive to do what they have done in the future- is there anything better than that? Dennis

Hello Dennis, -greetings to you, and thank you very much for your comment.
Today, especially, so many of us are holding good thoughts and wishes for John and Arline Kercher, and all the family. We hope it can make a difference.

Hello CaliDeeva, and thank you too. Sometimes, indeed, quiet, genuine tears need to be allowed to flow.
I say a little about the lying problem here:
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_amanda_knox_trainwreck_what_the_newly_published_knox_writings_reve/#comments
( under Observable Behaviours).
Also in my post after her last interview, I made a direct request for her try and start telling the truth.

Here are some lines by Rilke, which helped me during periods of loss :
‘Give me, O Earth, for keeping
tears, of your purest clay.
Pour, O my being, the weeping,
lost within you, away.
Let the witheldness flow where
That will receive which should.’
(30 October 1924)

‘Losing also is ours; and even forgetting
Gathers a shape in the permanent realm of mutation.
What we release can circle; and,
though we are seldom the centre,
each of those circles enrings us in its absolute curve.’
(7th february 1924)

I have just lit my candle..
It is a tea light held by a little glass angel, and the sun has just come out and is making it sparkle with a tiny rainbow.
It is now a minute past noon here.

@SeekingUnderstanding

Thank you - beautiful lines from Rilke.

Just elaborating on connectedness, I had a conversation a while ago with Dr. Peter Fenwick who was, maybe still is, the Consultant Neuropsychologist at both the Maudsley and John Radcliffe hospitals. He said that they have done experiments with couples who are in emotional relationships whereby one partner is put under a MRI scanner and the other is taken to a totally separate site where a torch is shone in his or her eyes. The part of the brain of the partner under the scanner lights up just as if the torch had been shone directly in their own eyes.

Of course, we intuitively know and might expect this sort of connectedness but it’s still nice to have such scientific demonstrations.

I’ve lit my candle now, at coming up to 12.30pm here in the UK. Thinking of Meredith and sending best wishes to her family…

I lit my candle at 7 PM here. It is getting dark and the candle is sitting in a nice green stand. I put off the light and it looks exactly (well, almost) like the photograph above.

When I focus on the light, some strange thing happens and I feel strangely happy and nice for a time. It flickers and wavers but it is indoors and is somewhat protected.

There lies the difference between fire and light.

@Seeking Understanding

Thank you for the kind words and link. The poetry lends such a lovely tone for this, Meredith’s special day. I will be sending prayers and thoughts of healing grace to John and Arline Kercher and Meredith’s brothers and sister, Stephanie. It makes me happy to think perhaps they read here occasionally and will be enveloped in our warm wishes and dedication to justice for Meredith.

My candle is now lit in celebration of Meredith.

Thank you so much to everyone who has lit or will be lighting a candle today, and your positive thoughts, so well expressed here.

Candle lit. All thoughts with the Kerchers today.

Welcome Dennis.

Happy birthday Meredith - I trust that Justice will deliver in January and then you may rest in peace. Keep shining brightly until then dear girl.

I’m spending Christmas with family in Cumbria, last night we had 70mph winds and rain here, yet this morning, bright blue sky and sunshine, as I stared at the mountains surrounding Keswick, my thoughts were very much with the Kercher’s.
Candle lit 7.53pm, Cumbria, UK.

Candle lit, thoughts of Meredith today.
RIP, Meredith Kercher.

Happy birthday to Meredith. I’ve lit a tall white candle for her and turned out all the lights. It’s pouring rain outside.

There’s a golden glow around the candle flame like a halo for Meredith.

Happy birthday Meredith. People all over the world love you and will always take care of your memory Eventually you will rest in peace. The candle flame will always burn for you.

Happy birthday Meredith, sorry it’s late, seasons greetings to the Kercher family and to everyone here on our site 😊

@SeekingUnderstanding

You see, we all are quite strangers here on this blog, we do not know most of the others personally but we feel (at least I feel many times) together as a group, community or even a family (why not?).

It is the pain and suffering that has united us. Your post has been strangely forceful in the sense that you did not even bother the discuss the crime- the murder- and the perps! The happy pictures of a little girl has spread joy and happiness within this blog that is impossible to measure. In that sense, you have brought so many different people together!

The celebrations of life!

@chami
I am so glad if that is indeed so.
I wanted for us to experience the strength and spiritual lift (for want of a better phrase!) that just arrives when a group of people share positive thoughts together (near) simultaneously.

Also I do believe it can make a difference in the New Year.

When a group of people are beginning ‘to lose’ - where there has been a conflict, a fight (and remember it was the FOA who appealed and decided to resist and fight) - then usually what happens is that group begins to fragment, and in-fighting begins, possibly blaming begins too.
We can see this vividly illustrated when a political party loses an election.

Hence it is of timely importance for us to feel our own unity, our shared respect and good wishes, our yearning for justice.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed, and those,too, who realized this, but perhaps didn’t have time to comment.

To me, it is a wonderful thing how we can connect across many different cultures and countries…what we have in common is more important than our differences, in the end…- our humanity.

Seeking understanding: Chami: Wonderful sentiment. Thanks to your community.
Meredith:
The candle I light in your name, from your birthday till the New Year, there are so few when the world should be ablaze. If god compel this destiny the pulse to ebb away to die alone with none beside you, then this permitted desolation comforts mine. To mark I was not there, and no life among us is ever quite the same again, when once that cold, sanctifying conclusion has been laid upon the earth.  Meredith, with youths numberless dreams intact, your contract with life’s expediency unfulfilled, this community came into being and dedicates itself.

The world is a different place after the death of Meredith. There is no emotional preparation for the loss of the person whose name we did not know and struggled first to utter. It is the loss of a life that held love for her family above all else, who did not journey long enough in life to see its meaning matriculate. When you lose someone you admire, someone who perhaps bore a cross that you may never carry, for whom love might develop,  you lose yourself for a time and wait around for your body to catch up. We resent the shallow and defensive reassurances that -“this too will pass”, or that, “there is no death”.- where every attempt to divert only serves to irritate. Not knowing her so well, nonetheless we cannot find the reasons or words to make sense of our sadness. It is the waste and irrevocability of it all that leaves us sad and helpless. It is a mystery, but as if something has been torn away from us, something precious, loved unknown whom we could ill-afford to lose. When we feel this way we have to do something by, and for, ourselves. Yet discover a group, or friend who feels the same, a copious hidden tree will grow and in its branches bear witness to itself and be with us in our sorrow. Others cannot feel as you would feel, but may help us walk on top of the road not wander aimlessly along under such a burden of sorrow, where some have become lost. In this respect mourning can be seen as the sum of sorrows shared on a journey through a landscape varied and vast where you never asked to be, yet must find your way through with your integrity intact. It helps immeasurably relating unselfishly to the memory and personal reality of one so loved as Meredith and in the by going you may find discarded pieces of your life, forgotten- but rediscovered in a new light, to resuscitate undiscovered regions of the soul when it can be felt as a return to life.

When a child is born it is said the mother is born again and if the child should die before her time Mothers before their death die a thousand times, and in that singular moment of anguish the mask slips and you catch a glimpse of a savage unrest, a stronger face beneath the grief torn face. It is of such stuff this community is made and must find its return to lifeIt is a community of many parts not so much in season, but a feeling people get when trauma opens up their closed off hearts and of compassion freely given.  And to think of people as fellow travellers and not as creatures from another planet, conduct that depends upon the temperament of varying man or woman. A small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has, it was community altered for the better the universal brotherhood of man.

That future that stands on its own two feet, pledges our loss as common a thing we cannot bear.
Allows us then to stretch out our arms and grasp each other, with our hands transforms the individual loss into community strong and sincere. Notice how the land may slumber deep, but never the sea, this is where we are, where the deep ocean moan of old eternity is first made so that justice might be upon the earth.

How, on that sea, in the Odyssey, the story turns on a journey where the spirit grows. “We have not reached the end of our trials. Another labour lies in store, boundless, laden with danger, great and long and I must brave it out from start to finish.” It was a different man who came back, than the boastful homesick sailor whose pride prolongs his journey, a product greater than the sum of the parts returned to resist the vicissitudes of homecoming and held his name till last “Even his grief’s are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured.”

The Odyssey relates what Odysseus comes to know, that suffering make up a large part of what it is to be human, to be in life. That to look not only to your own suffering but turn our feelings towards others is to be able to find meaning in suffering and perhaps find unity through grief. The gods who so often intervene cannot die and therefore cannot truly suffer. But this also
means that not unlike the perpetrators in the death of Meredith they cannot truly live or truly love nor experience the compassion that is felt as one side of our community lament.The violent men and one woman cannot feel those things that we can feel and makes us human. Nor belong to that community. Nor, whatever the future holds, know the end that was prepared for them from the beginning.

“I fell away through veils of pain and smirry mist until I came to a burnished silver shore above the moss where a man alike to clean-heeled Achilles marched away with long strides across the meadows of Asphodel.”
I will bear only a scarlet poinsettia at my throat into that dark land- and I will pass alone- no friend to hold my hand, no mothers fond embrace blessing our goodbyes and no expectant fathers patient smile waiting as I arrive, no serene announcements excited banter stir the air, nor are my brothers and sister there, of welcome there is none, only from the throat of birds the quality of silence that falls so softly round that gentle face that awaits my place among the great family of everyone. The thick, close, soundless showers of smirry mist-whispering, fragrant, soft, fresh, without voice or music-were swimming around summits and cliffs and closing in about every hollow. Gentleness and pleasure were drifting down in the smirry drizzle of mist. The reverent sounds I never heard before, but now cling to the silence of dead souls, as the love that made my own heart bright shone alike on all that I had failed to recognise with myself had died.

Let this candle burn bright through a day and a night. We do not grieve in the cold shadows of despair, the death- zone here on the cliff’s crumbling brink. No! we grieve when we turn back, away from the edge, for the future repents the past gives us half the chance to think, to dwell, on thoughts and align, if we can, the doubts, the penetrating gaze others make even on those things that may comfort theirs yet punish mine, to combine and remember Meredith’s infinite grace and the hope we’ve gained the hope we’ve lost.

Dark the night and cold, this night of the kindly wind we call: “Dair na coille,” the Woods Mating, and it brings the promise of summer and the continuance of the wheeling year. The face of Janus wears a smile; time to put the candle out. There is more cold coming, and snow, yet as I open the door on the stroke of midnight to let out the old year and welcome the new I shall say, as always I do, to the blackness and whoever may be listening out there in the light bearing ether, Macthomas gives A good New Year,  to all with True Justice for Meredith Kercher at heart, this pledge, Meredith will not be forgotten.

Where next:

Or to next entry Marking Seven Years Since Meredith Was Taken From Her Family And Friends

Or to previous entry Meredith’s Perugia #35: A Main Draw For Her, The Exuberant Baroque And Renaissance