You may recall "The Emptiness Sutra" which I wrote about this time last year. In that post I talk about how, try as I might, I simply couldn't get my head around what it was on about, however I never told you that days later I had an epiphany wherein I realised that it simply means that ...
... when the Heavens want something done, it happens very easily on earth.
It's part of the Buddhist creed "Desire Nothing!" because things will happen if and when they're meant to happen.
And the reason The Emptiness Sutra is hidden there in the forests of Ngong Ping is because building the Big Buddha all happened so very, very easily. In 1992, Po Lin on Lantau Island was an old, decrepit and impoverished monastery with only several elderly monks remaining and not a single novice, but then the Head Monk, while in prayer, had a sudden flash of a vision wherein he saw a giant seated Buddha on a particular hill, and a voice in his head said "There has been no giant seated Buddha image of me built in exactly 1000 years". It was all so strange he told people about it ... and everyone he told immediately leapt on board saying "Here's the money.", "Here's the materials." "I'm an architect." etc, etc, etc, so in only a few months the project was underway and within a year the Big Buddha was seated there for all to see; the only giant seated Buddha built in 1000 years.
But what does this have to do with Dame Mary's gravestone?
Everything!
Dame Mary Edwell-Burke.
"Self portrait with Hibiscus."
Ms Sagale Buadromo, Director of The Fiji Museum, got in touch the other day saying she'd read my blog post and, after thanking me for pointing out the omission, said the Fiji Museum would erect a headstone for her. It was such good news but I panicked because already there were so many people who'd come aboard and who definitely wanted a say and I was so worried it would be taken away from them, so I thanked Ms Buadromo profusely for her offer but said she should talk to them first.
What was already in play was that Anne Smith had applied for permission to erect something at Dame Mary's grave, Fiji artists Warrick and Craig Marlow, who knew Dame Mary well, already were getting their heads around what to design for an appropriate monument, everyone was mooting Renu, the exceptionally talented stonemason at Fiji's Beautiful Monuments, as the person with the appropriate passion, talent, skill and artistry to manufacture the eventual design ... and now I hear the very exciting news that Ms Buadromo has come aboard and The Fiji Museum will pay for the finished product.
How "Emptiness Sutra" is that?
So that's the plan as it currently stands, and everyone is saying that it should all be done by Dame Mary's birthday on June 19th, which we all hope will be the day of the dedication ceremony.
And they're all saying I have to be there because I was the one who started it with all this agitation. LOL!
However, the news isn't so good on the other fronts. I have signed up as a Wikipedia writer for the simple purpose of giving her a cyber-presence, and have an item on Dame Mary ready to roll, only bloody QANTAS is holding it up.
In our research, we discovered QANTAS owns copyright to all her images. Apparently they took them in exchange for letting Dame Mary have free air-travel on their planes and for allowing free travels for any of her paintings. So we can't do anything on Dame Mary's art without their say-so. But they're not saying. All the letters and phone calls, and I'm simply drawing a blank. Everyone says they'll get back to me but no one is.
Maybe I should put it up anyway and force them to deal with me!
Hey, do you recall those halcyon days when QANTAS was a great airline? These days? Phsaw! Bah humbug!!! Remember how they lost Keith's luggage and he had to spend days down in Sydney with no winter clothing ... and they didn't even apologise! Honestly, it's like they're no longer Australians, the way they now behave!
And do you too find it rather sinister and suspect that they're not leaping at the prospect of someone putting the name Dame Mary Edwell-Burke out there? It's almost like they don't want it to happen. And when you couple that with the Australian Embassy in Fiji saying they no longer have the catalogs they made - that have photographs of the 90 of her paintings that are now in private hands - that were in their 1987 Exhibition, that we were hoping to turn into a slide-show to be shown at an event we're planning to co-incide with her grave-stone dedication ceremony, it almost begins to feel like Australia is trying to STOP anyone from remembering her.
Normally I love conspiracy theories, but the idea of this being one just makes me feel rather ill! Surely the Australian Art Scene isn't powerful enough to continue their right screwing-over nearly 70 years after she offended them by daring to question their judgement? But since any part of this plan that involves Australia suddenly becomes so very difficult, it really does make you wonder, doesn't it?
But if The Emptiness Sutra teaches us anything, it's that Heaven wants a gravestone for Dame Mary, and so that is definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY going to happen, and all the rest of it may not be so Heaven-sent and as such may take a much greater struggle.
Are we up for that one too?
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