This weeks journey of the celebration of life had me talking to a frog, searching for a photo of a flower, picking mangoes and being catapulted back in a memory timewalk.

Froggy you will remember, from last weeks newsletter. I was to ask him if he would mind sharing my shower to save water. Well I found him and this is what he had to say. Froggy

A very dear friend and top Canadian artist Merton Chambers, is working on a series of paintings of the women in his life, myself included. Large canvases, where not only is he painting each person, but their personalities through a flower that represents them. He asked me which flower represents me? I went searching for the one I relate to.?

Meanwhile a lovely email from Ada Aharoni, thanking me for my kind words and letting me know she has been to Queensland and Australia on a number of occasions, the last the IFLAC Second International Conference was in Sydney, in September 2001. We chatted about the virtues of mangoes, as they are dripping off the tree hanging over my back fence, and suppling me with my favourite fruit. There! why didn't Merton want my favourite a fruit instead of a flower- it would have been easy for him to get a Bowen Mango.

Ada has invited me to Israel to sample Israeli mangoes, which she swears are not as good as the ones from her homeland of Egypt. Her kind offer I hope to take up some day soon. She also wished for us harmonious rainy week, well the morning her email arrived it was raining, not harmoniously, but it's a start. Thank you Ada.

At the same time while having heaps of trouble, trying to join a list to support Christopher's protest against the war with Iraq, him and I had a very different conversation about mangoes- and if they were better then sex?

This and being the month of November, sent me catapulting back into the past memories and wonderful times, with the person who had the most influence on my life, without him, there would not have been our three sons, so no Caitlin, no promise, no need for this newsletter.

Would I give up every mango in the world to have him back if just for a day. Oh yes!

Talking back and forth with Ami Isseroff from Israel, where we are still working on what we thought was to be one article, which is now turning into a few articles, on solutions for the Middle East. What with working on this and the 11th being remembrance day, I did set up the Last post page, take a minute to listen to the phantom bugler, have made a few changes since Monday. The Last Post

Ami in passing mentioned The Story of Hagar, which triggered my memories not of a bible story but of a very beautiful painting called Son of Hagar. The delicate work painted on silk using the Bengal Renaissance style of watercolours, portrays what Hagar was feeling - Alienation.

The artist is from India, Frank Wesley. I know it well, Frank Wesley and I meet in 1975, me sitting on the pavement painting on a board, in a fence painting competition. Frank who had moved to Nambour on the Sunshine Coast was the judge. He stood behind me and before I ever saw him, I heard just one word, Hummmmmm!

I won the competition, as did one of my two children painting beside me. Frank then asked if I would like to visit his home, a very modest place on the hill which took my breath away,with walls covered in his amazing paintings.

He said I painted like a watercolourist, when I used oils and asked if I would like to paint with him, I think you can guess what I said. Who says sitting in the gutter can't get you anywhere? A few of my artist friends, thought it was a bit beneath their talents! silly them! For a number of years, I painted with Frank at his home and learnt so much about art and life from him. Our families became friends, he was very fond of my husband Brian. Frank was quite deaf, and him and I had conversations always using short sentences, (easy for him to understand and maybe the reason, I as people say, can paint a story in a line of a poem.) with Brian's very deep radio quality voice, him and Frank could talk for ages. Frank and I always had a special bond, and while I haven't seen as much of him over the years with my moving around. His influence like that of other mentors, lives always within me.

Frank was born in the Northern Indian village of Azamgarh in 1923 and among the many things he did, the most moving for him would have to be, having his designs were chosen in 1948 to be used for the urns, which held Mahatma Gandhi's ashes. Frank was even on the boat which took the urns to the Prayag for immersion. After I received Ami's email, I got out my copy of a book of Franks work, signed and given to me, a present from the Master. Year before he gave me his leather art folder, the one he used when he first moved to New York in 1958, still with his New York street address inside. I don't need to tell you how that made me feel, as an artist or as a person- or how I felt when it was stolen years later along with all the beautiful miniatures of Franks work Brian and I treasured.

Three large works which were not stored with everything else, now hang on the walls of each of my three children's homes.

As for the art folder, miniatures, Frank and Brian they are all etched on my heart.

I scanned a photo of Son of Hagar and sent it to Ami, I looked at the feeling Frank had in his work. I never did go on with watercolour and gave away oils and sculpture when I decided to work to help, indigenous artists from 1987. Frank was one of the few people who could understand why I gave up so much to help indigenous people and to save one person from certain death.

He was also the first person to praise me for my poetry, when he said he could taste the juice. Frank Wesley told me a long time ago, the two best bits of advice he could give me were.

Like Gandhi, this simple man of few late words, changed my life for ever when he simply said hummmmmmm.

I have added a page to the Mentors section which has a number of photographs of Franks work and more about Frank and his way of life. Even a photo of me sitting on that pavement. Little did I know a week ago, that someone in Israel would put me back in touch with Frank before it is too late. Thank you Ami.

When you look at Franks work, think of me and how I felt watching him paint them. Or how I felt when I used one of his brushes, one he had from when he was a student back in Gandhi's time, when he painted a design for an urn. Frank Wesley

By the way which flower is me? A wild yellow daisy, with a black centre, growing wild along the side of the road, soaking up water in the gullies, made by people building highways, so they can arrive at their destinations on time. The daisy just watches and says hummmmmmmmm.

Have a nice day, I will, working on finishing work on articles about the Middle East. I think one of my other Mentors, Anita Aaron's family may have started the problems, when he made the Golden Calf. Of conflict may it not have happened if God had told Abraham's son Isaac to change his name to USA instead of Israel.

Mum don't get excited, I am just researching the bible-that's all, also reading the Qur'an (westerners say Koran)

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