Patchwork People: NMMU Group Dynamics Post Graduate Program Students

Announcement of the following publication by KREATIV SA:

Patchwork People
Editor Myra Lochner

Published and distributed by
KREATIV
PO Box 4404
GEORGE EAST
6539
SOUTH AFRICA

All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 Myra Lochner KREATIV
Copyright of individual submissions remains with the authors

First Edition, First Print 2008

ISBN  978-0-620-40954-4
________________________________

POST SCRIPT ON PATCHWORK PEOPLE:

Frans Bezuidenhout - Endopathy and Self-relational Discovery

In the past two years Myra and I have embarked on a journey of collaboration through which her model of ‘endopathy’ and my model of ‘self-relational discovery’ have been used as a tool to assist participants to enhance their Self.  By being able to acquire insightful understanding of ownership and inter-dependence, participants can contribute to their own as well as to the lives of others.
Endopathy is a concept consisting of a prefix ‘endo’ that dates back to ancient Greece some 1 000 BC, implying ‘inside’ or ‘into’, while ‘pathy’ refers to a feeling of strong emotion for the suffering or disposition of others.  In essence it refers to a desire to relieve persons from their burden, but never taking control over the life of another. It further implies that the healer and receiver move onto a common level of sensoric nearness.

When combining our models, the individual can be both the healer as well as the one who seeks healing.  However, it for this to take place, the healer must first become healer within the Self.
While my model aims to assist the individual to recognise the strengths and weaknesses of the self-relationship, endopathy offers an avenue to healing.  It is for this reason that the medium of poetry has been used, as it creates what is called the ‘now’ [i.e. the scenario or common ground] in which healing can take place and both healer and healed can participate.  One important aspect of the ‘now’ is the opportunity that it creates for experiencing ownership, that is an important facet of both endopathy and self-enhancement.

To illustrate endopathy through the medium of poetry, two poems will be used, the first written by Myra and thereafter, my reply in answer to her thoughts and feelings:

Permission

I am waiting
for your permission
to go, oh King

For I am starving

© Myra Lochner

Stumbled crying

My heart is sad and crying;
each tear, a droplet of exploding atom.
No ocean can fully contain
the emotion of my sadden soul.

Life’s ways often unpredictable;
assurances sometimes vanishing bubbles.
    Dreams
    Feelings
    Visions
captures of invisible knowing.

Crying smiles of closure
widens emptiness of soul.
Peace of eluding fulfilment ...

Listen …
There is hope; there is outcome.

Continue in self’s journey: the
truth of tender’s knowing.

© Frans Bezuidenhout

Here follows a few poems to illustrate insightful discovery and endopathic healing in the words of individuals who have never before written a poem:

An example of taking ownership:

Failure

Forgive:  cast away my pride
Fearless storms of this world
Yes, pain is not forever
Failure my wisdom

© Gosego Abram


An illustration of two participants
within a common level of sensoric nearness:

Senryu

sunshine smiles bring hope
mistakes and blunders cause pain
pain only love heals

© Loreen Mareverwa

Words in response:

light breeze through trees
pain and sadness may hurt you
forgiveness is hope

© Selona van Zyl


Briefly the self-relational feature of this workshop entails:
 The understanding of the self
 Identifying areas that prevent inter- and intrapersonal relational growth
 A pathway to discovering personal and relational growth.

The Model of self-relational discovery enables participants to define the nature of their self-relationship, and to an extent, their relations with others.  While self-reflection is an important feature of this model, it also allows participants to use the indicators provided during the workshop to achieve immediate growth and self-empowerment.

In combining our models in one workshop, we have discovered its uniqueness, both separately and in combination, which proved to be a creative and powerful
approach to the benefit of society as a whole.

Frans Bezuidenhout
Professor in Sociology at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University [NMMU]
Port Elizabeth
SOUTH AFRICA
April 6, 2008

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COMMENTARIES ON PATCHWORK PEOPLE:

Devon Murray – Parts of the Whole

When we look around us, we see human beings are all a similar – but separate – part of each other.  The natural progression of being such is to find the similarities we have.  When we accomplish this with any amount of clarity, we begin to see each of us has an inherent similarity within another being around us, and in finer examination still, we see none are so different at all – just built-in natural, fragmented growth.  The state of the origins or natural progression of growth will always be different, for there are various forces which we are not all aware of, that change the way we grow, into who we are.

We are all growing in this same understandable process: as human beings, a plant, or a planet surface, and indeed within a plan, with different elements growing in their own ability.  This similarity begins to reach within you a feeling that nothing is outside of the plan.  Whether it is your DNA chains, versus mine, or the strata of the earth in consequence to the water movements of the ocean, all we know build in this pattern of self similarity, even into completely new aspects of its original state.

If you take this point of view, you find you can apply it to anything.  Myra Lochner chose to look at this truth in reference to the human spirit.  What I explained above, is a look at the truth that everything is fractal: self similar, and in fact, also a broken – or a fractured – part of all else.  If you regard the spirits of us as a whole, a sea of fracturedness, but no less similar than the divine God, you may find that through our interactions in creation and growth, nothing is impossible, and as a result of it, everything is true. Everything, while seemingly meaningless possibly at first, is truth from creation.

Think of yourself as a guide.  And not just any guide, but one that is true to all other aspects that you guide.  You give exactly the same to each part you encounter.  No matter their differences, for you see there is not truly any difference at all, just a different make-up from the same elements.  Is a person, or a spirit, anything else?

I think you will find we are not different at all.  Now, as this guide, you take what is before you, and you give it the same element as your own guidance, through examination of a set of values.  Obviously each will have its own view.  But, you are the guide to these values being placed into a pattern, so while each value returned may be different, if each is a part of every level of the answer, you begin to find a truth.

The truth shall set you free.  In our daily lives, we experience a world that wants you to feel separated, and unalike, whether it comes from background, culture, distance or teachings.  But we begin to see it is not the truth, and our own finding of the truth frees us from what stifles our growth as human beings.  That which someone claims as mystical, or outside of us, is actually within us all. 

Myra takes a group of people who have through their own intentions come to part of a process.  She is guiding them, with a purity that is the same to each individual in the group.  She then gives them their environment, and asks of them to express the feeling of the items before them, in distinct categories of mode we all share, through description, by poetry or by prose.  This in turn is then aligned as each in short sum as being true.

The process is not what is done, but what is shown.  A truth that all may see, that lay just beyond the realm of sight and mind, and opens doors in the spirit which may give answers we never expected to find, or knew were needed. 

Devon James Murray
New York
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


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Ken Myers – Living Intended Joy

Patchwork implies a make do, a semi temporary fix.  The unravel of these patches in order to interweave the golden Thread into the refined Cloth: this is the context for the recital that Ms Lochner calls endopathy.

If music be the result of a recital, then there must be an instrument and player. The recital houses their effort. Many can, with fine results, play a given instrument and there are many stellar instruments. Rare and to our delight comes a Stradivarius and a Menuhin. But I have left unmentioned the written notes to be brought to the joy of living; the desire of living; the élan of a recital.

The written notes are neither new nor outside the ordinary kin. Yet, as with a hushed Carnegie Hall, the flow of her selfless rendition of endopathy smoothes its way into the soul, with a charm and sense of yes.  There is no question or hesitation as to the fit: it simply does. No question as to correctness: as in the music that fills the great hall, her delivery of pure and known truth comes as does the love we all know.

There is no competition, no challenge of intellects. Simple instinctual knowing – heard in our bones. Not a new technique, nor an innovative shuffle. Rather a Stradivarius singing within a unique soul. Music crafted of divine given phrases, sounded by a talent beyond rare.

The apparent differences of those who come from all manner of places, cause the term patchwork.  Yet, the music captures each and brings the differences into one. Soon the patches add each their notes of poems and bits of prose and the music grows into an ever expanding symphony – and each patch becomes an instrument that plays within its own hall. And the score renews and renews; reverberates throughout the hills.

It is not the instrument, or the hall, nor the score; it is the soul and heart of each applied with the skill of the artist. There are so few of these too rare artists – we need to honor and nurture them. Let them teach all our patches. In this small volume are but a few notes of what an artist can bring out of patches, with an inspirited instrument, score and a loving soul. Notice how and the ways each has followed the internal path that the artist has shown them – to follow their own symphony. What would a nation be if all its pieces were true to their intention?

A true teacher teaches each to be what was intended within. This teacher does this divine given work.  This book is a testament to divine work and the results.

To combine that which one knows intellectually, with what the student needs for personal growth, requires talent and awareness; a foundation in education and training; as well as teacher talent and the ability to perceive audience needs. Then the ultimate: to communicate soul to soul.

To know and understand is one thing; to impart and impact is another. To be grounded in a field requires in depth understanding, to impart requires that extraordinary ability to open the student to their own abilities: to open those to individual, personal use.

Here in this poignant publication is shown how this can and does work. The students’ own works prove the point. They took the lesson and ran to heights they did not know before.
Now they have a new criteria to measure themselves by, and are forever changed.  They have a new ME.

Ken Myers
Oregon
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


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INDEX .INHOUD

FOREWORD


Myra Lochner – For the Sake of Love  xi

For the Sake of Love  xii

Devon Murray – Parts of the Whole  xiii

Divinely His  xv

Ken Myers – Living Intended Joy  xvi

Beauty Reborn  xviii

SECTION ONE

KREATIV Workshop:
NMMU Group Dynamics, Post Graduate 2007
Pantoum  3
I  Sunstar  3
II  New Life  3
III  Loss  4

Frans Bezuidenhout

Spark Poem  5
Star Poem  5
Cherishing Myself  5
The Heavens  6


Tony Clarke

Lanturne (Selection)  7
Senryu  8
Haiku  8
Pentag  8
You  8
Even Hexatext  9
Silence  9
Acrostic  9

Anna-Lea Dittrich

Star Poem  10
Lanturne  10

Esther Knichel

Star Poem  11
Lanturne  11

Megan Louis

Star Poem  12
Laturne  12
Block Poem: Quatrain  12
Heart Poem  12

Anthony Masha

Senryu  13
Lanturne  13
I love you  13

Anne Mathers

Free?  14
Spark poem  14
Lanturne  14

Tozama Mnonopi

Star Poem  15
Lanturne  15

Mncedi Ngamlana

Heart Poem  16
Spark Poem  16
Lanturne  16

Mzikazi Noholoza

Lanturne  17
Lies  17
Heart Poem  18

Thembani V.A. Nyoni

Star Poem  19
Lanturne  19
Lanturne  19

Jeandré September

Star Poem  20
Lanturne  20

Albie Steenkamp

Stergedig  21
Haiku  21
Lanturne  21
Hartgedig  22



SECTION TWO

KREATIV Workshop:
NMMU Group Dynamics, Post Graduate 2008
Pantoum  25
Star poem  25
Magical Music  26

Frans Bezuidenhout

Motivation  27
Restoration  27

Jo-Ann Daniels

Acrostic  29
Not only about Fathers and Sons  29
Star poem  29

Nicolette Daniels

Journey  30
Star poem  30

Leanne Davies
A day of baking  31
Star poem  31
Love  31

Pamela  De Wit

Acrostic  32
Star poem  32
The Star was the Beginning  32

Deanne Dunn

Acrostic  33
Eve  33
The Sea  33
Star poem  34

Ludwe Jayiya

Acrostic  35
Star poem  35
I am strong  35

Sekere Khomo

Acrostic  36
Star poem  36
I had a dream  36
Because I can  37

Leslie Moorhouse

Acrostic  38
Star poem  38
Love poem  38
The boy in the sky  38

Hlekane Ndhambi

Acrostic  40
Star poem  40
Laughter  40

Anele Ntsendwana

Star poem  41
The feeling  41

Roger Peters

Acrostic  42
Star poem  42
Short story  42

Steven Thomas

Acrostic  44

Laverne Williams

Star poem  45
Shells on a string  45

Monwabisi Wopa

Acrostic  46
Star poem  46
I feel free within myself  46
’t Was a day like any other  47
Allow me my dream!  47
This is Love  48



POSTSCRIPT

Myra Lochner
Dust Free  51

Frans Bezuidenhout - Endopathy and Self-relational Discovery  52

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INTRODUCTION: PATCHWORK PEOPLE

Myra Lochner – For the Sake of Love

To work within the spiritual realm, and to grow within creativity, understanding and compassion, asks for endopathy: the predisposition to become part of the inner world of others.

Endopathy cannot be taught; it is the inclination to trust, love and care, which is immediately accessible and present in every single soul, albeit often blocked and blurred by various factors, caused by socialization and past experiences. The woundedness, or deprivation on various levels, can only be addressed within a warm and safe environment, by means of clear-cut and sharply defined guidelines. Poetry and creative prose become vehicles to attain and maintain such an environment.

In order to relate to the inner world of another, the shared sensoric reality -- simulated by presenting stimuli of taste, sound, touch, smell and sight -- is linked to universal feelings and a collective memory. Emotions within the audience can be aroused by guidance of the senses, stimulating verbalization of suppressed or avoided blocks. In this way a vast spectrum of emotions may be opened up by intuition, transcending the cognitive and even the experiences from which they sprout. Feelings like anger, fear, guilt and sorrow, may be freely expressed in order to arrive at the wondrous surprises held by the rediscovery of love, hope and faith. The freedom to be unique, but a creative and productive member of society, is placed within reach of everyone and happiness becomes a matter of choice, not hindered by external circumstances.

Endopathy transcends culture, race or sex.  It is firstly in essence the blueprint of the Divine, which holds the key to unrestricted growth and happiness.  It is secondly the inner sensitivity for justice and respect – for our Creator, for self and for others – which is often underdeveloped, because of emotional deprivation. Thirdly, it is the susceptibility to rediscover purpose and focusedness and fourthly, the awareness of the responsibility towards others. Endopathy thus enhances the constant awareness of the indestructible golden Thread of Love, connecting all to All.

The product of KREATIV’s workshops during 2007 and 2008 at NMMU, as recorded in this publication, titled Patchwork People*, is a true reflection of the power of love.

Myra Lochner
Owner and Director KREATIV SA
George
SOUTH AFRICA
April 6, 2008

*Title by Lesley Moorhouse, taken from her phrase submission to the Pantoum, Quilt, page 25.

For the Sake of Love

Oh! If I could draw my veins
and fill it with your blood;
if I could sketch my eyes
and light it with your sight;
if I could paint my lips
and form with those your words;
if I could craft my heart
and be of you a part:

I would have let you feel and see
and sing and know that you are me!

© Myra Lochner