Deb Curreen Author

 I refuse to rant and get on the internet for a good old moan, or stay home laminating the state of a crumbling world as fresh rain masks the sun, and liberty begins to drown a little more each day. I won't waste my words on all the crooked politics the holey roads, not the God-kind of holy, the rip- off bloody supermarkets where wild dogs circle  hunger flaming from red eyes. in this wintery, nostril dripping weather that lurks outside my window, as hope sleeps fitfully in my doorway. I'll retire my TV to the dump, it can live there with all the other breaking news woes, while I unsubscribe from "headlines" and updates. I refuse to rant and lament, scroll and extoll about the coming doom or hide inside my room... while the world goes wild around me. I'm going to the beach to sip a cup of ocean, inhale the waves, scroll the horizon for cloud updates  as the autumn drizzle dampens my forehead, old tears and sweat rolling down my cheeks and off my shoulders. I thank...

  the tangi rain has stopped finally the earth is sodden and heavy the pain in our hearts too. while our minds swell with memory our spirits limp through the days as our rangitahi now rest in the arms of our tupuna.   the tangi rain is over.   the absent face of the sun  breaks apart dark clouds of grief that have hung for three days over our whenua.   shade we never asked for  unbidden… strangling pain wailing good byes to our dearly departed lifted away into the skies   if feels like the tangi rain goes on forever.   the sun shines drying the last drops from a silent cross that's keeping watch… while guiding   a young soul on the path to eternity. Te Rerenga Wairua sends thunder waves beat the rocks with farewells.   standing on the headland tossing  goodbyes with roses arohanui mai we love you... (come back)   the tangi the rain it is now over.

My loving, big, funny brother        Native bird painting by Ezra Curreen                                                                                               When my brother died, we were all bereft. My whole family, extended whanau, friends and strangers near and far, were overnight, plunged into unbearable sadness and shock. The trauma lasted for years. My big, strong brother was gone. Life had become too hard for him, so he drove to his favourite beach, one night and ended his life. Quietly and gently. He was gone. In the immediate hours and days after his death, as we gathered at our family home to bid him farewell, his friends told stories about him. Funny stories I had never heard before. Hair-raising antic...

I don't watch a lot of news, anymore... or read a paper with bold headlines, beating me about the face with gloom, death ricocheting around the globe, storming my brain, filling the air that I breathe which creates a world of pain, for life as we now know it. ❤😒🌠🌋🐸 It makes me blue, the news... red with anger,  black with sadness,  as real life images from the battlefields of families, struggling in the furnace of affliction, bombard me,  until it feels like the end of the world inside my soul. So I quit the news, for golden snatches of peace in my heart... gathering like autumn leaves on the earth, sending glittering rays of hope and solace into my mind. I've blocked that drain, the  misery they call news... with carefree trips to the ocean, walking in the hills, picking handfuls of freesias,  with their heaven sent fragrance that floods my house. I have filtered my internet letterbox, halting the scourge of alerts and highlights. I play gentle music of the...