Death and funeral celebration

Executor's notice re: funeral May 5th 2009

Caty Kyne ( deceased 28/4/09 has requested  her friends to assist with -

Painting /drawing /writing decoration of her  coffin at her house:

Address: 39 Howitt St.Fairfield/Northcote

Tuesday 5th May        5.30 -------- 8.30 pm

Wednesday 6th May   3--------- 6 pm sharp.

( RING Jenny for special requests ,for a time  after 7.30 pm on  Wednesday )

FORMAL FUNERAL NOTICE  WEDNESDAY IN THE AGE:

Service Friday 8th May at the Amphitheatre Fairfield park ( to the right of the Boathouse)

Time 1.30 pm -- 2 .30 pm

Bring cushion/rug /umbrella. Open sessions for poems ,short contributions from feminist /celtic/etc. writings or own

( If you wish to escort Cate's coffin in  or out please arrive earlier )

We invite someone to read one of Cate's poems -

Open to follow on to the Boat house  for refreshments at own wishes/costs.

A scattering of the ashes  &  Wake -will be on the Satuday 20th June same time at Fairfield Park- informal

We invite someone to make a Cate cake/ Bring balloons for a serendipity send off

Please send around your networks

Any questions please contact Jenny Hillier ( 041 9563648) Friend & Joint Executor /Trustee with Maureen Ryan

Poem by Allie Dawe for ashes scattering

Bringing Caty into amphitheatre

Rev Coralie Ling bends over Caty's beautiful coffin

Caty and her family (LtoR Adam, Martin, Ellen, Ji)

the amphitheatre as it was filling 22 at back and

central group, Virginias, and Hills of Bree on c

central group smiling

Caty and her family

Razia Ross reads poem

amphitheatre from behind David Buller, Jennifer B

Yoland reads 'For Strong Women' by Marge Piercy

Yoland, Jenny Hillier&Maureen Ryan Execs, Max Ket

Yoland closeup, Jenny, Maureen, Max

Yoland reads medium shot

Max plays flute, through amphitheatre stepswell t

Max plays through reeds audience soft focus

Max plays, UAW and BL groups audience 23 LH gro

amphitheatre audience Gilbert, Amadis, Lesley Ha

harp, coffin, closeup

coffin closeup, Matt and Yoland contemplative

Max plays flute, family holds hands, Mary Crooks

gumtree, amphitheatre from RH side

Reg Blow local Aboriginal elder, speaks of Caty t

Reg Blow didjes Caty with sacred vibration

Reg Blow didjes right around Caty

Reg Blow didjes Caty to the trees, birds and sky

Reg Blow didjes Caty to the ground

women closeup sing 'Bread and Roses' to Caty, wi

group sings 'Bread and Roses', 'Slan Go Foill' on

group symmetry sings 'Bread and Roses'

brother Jim Kyne and sister Ellen speak of Caty

audience smiling at a recollection

Jane Touzeau pays tribute

Darebin Greens councillor and former Caty's schoo

early days friend pays tribute to Caty

the family says final goodbyes, harpist plays Ce

2 guitars, 2 Executors and Coralie closeup

whole group in symmetry sings 'A last glass'

the final throng and flowers shower symmetry

the final throng and river

the final throng

full final throng and trees

full final throng and trees symmetry

full final throng, through branches, Yoland and A

full final throng symmetry

closeup of scattering of petals on the coffin

middle range scattering of petals and group

very closeup soft focus of top of coffin petals

middle range scattering of petals and group

flower laden coffin being lifted, Caty has to go

closeup Yoland watches Caty pass 'in transition

caty passes river, 4 funeral directors in symmetr

the autumn trees watch Caty pass, Maureen, Jenny

the hearse pulls away, Yoland carries the scarf

goodbye Caty

 

Song and Reading for funeral – at Cate’s request

Bread and Roses

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.

As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
With art and love and beauty our soaring spirits always knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.

[Shortened for today, with apologies (and thanks) to James Oppenheim, who wrote this originally in honour of 10,000 women and children who marched against brutal working conditions, during an historic strike by textile workers in Massachusetts in 1912]

Yoland Wadsworth read – at Caty’s request

[Shortened to the purple paras – read the full version in a month]
From – Marge Piercy (1980) The Moon is Always Female,
(1986 edition) Alfred A Knopf, New York

"For strong women"

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov [or in Caty’s case, calloo callay!]
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shovelling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

 

The scattering of Caty's ashes in her beloved Yarra River