Memoirs of the Brightside of the Moon

by Ginger Gilmour

  Here is a Zen story that guided my path to Harmony and Peace:

  There was a woman who, every day, brought flowers to decorate the altar at the temple. One day while she was decorating the altar; she met a certain Zen Master. The Zen Master said to her, "You bring flowers and decorate the altar every day. It is said that because of this your life will be very wonderful and beautiful." She said to the Master, "Master, when I am decorating the altar, I'm so peaceful and happy. But when I am at home, I have unrest, worry and anxiety. What can I do to be peaceful and happy?" The Master replied, "To be peaceful and happy is like how you decorate the altar."

  The woman asked the Master to explain this more. The Master explained, "You are like the altar. Peace andhappiness are comparable to the flowers with which you decorate your life. So you have to keep them fresh. Do you know how to keep the flowers fresh?" She answered, "Yes, sir. That is easy. To keep the flowers fresh, I just cut off the bad stems because they cannot suck clean water, and I put them in clean water, which keeps the flowers fresh." The Master said, "That is right. You can use in your life the same method you use to keep flowers fresh. Let go of bad thoughts and cultivate good thoughts instead and then you have a purified mind, which is without unrest, worry, and anxiety and so on."

  The woman thanked the Master and said, "Thank you very much for your advice and allowing me to come to the temple to learn Dharma, practice meditation and to listen to chanting." The Master said, "You are welcome. That is good for you", and added, "You should see your body as a temple, Dharma as a way of life, meditation as being like your breath leading to peace and happiness and chanting as the sound of mindfulness." She again thanked the Master for more advice and more than that, she put the Master's advice into practice in her life. As a result, her life became peaceful and happy just like the fresh flowers, which decorated the altar so beautifully.(1)

  I finally found a midwife. Her name was Merina and she was gentle and angelic. I particularly liked the fact that she was still breast-feeding her child of three years when we first met. I was happy for she was a true Spiritual Midwife. We met regularly and practiced our breathing exercises, sharing our mutual vision. We made a great team ready for the day our child would enter the world. David and I waited and waited for that moment to come as I was ten days past my expected due date. The Floyd kept working and working to finish the album. On the evening of 1 November 1979, David returned home and said, "The album was finished." No sooner did he say that I went into labor. It was clockwork. The gates were open and she was born in the wee hours of 2 November 1979, full of light.

  To this day, I know the baby waited for her dad to be there (and the album finished). It wasn't a long labor. It was a girl. We named her Clare for a radiant glow surrounded her. David went and fetched Alice into the room to greet hernew sister. Together, David and Alice took baby Clare into the candle lit bathroom and had a bath together. In addition, Alice took with her a life-size doll we had given her as a present. I think it was a bit crowded.

  While they took care of Clare, Merina finished dealing with the placenta, later buried under a new lavender colored rose bush in the garden. We were all tired, especially David, but joy overcame us as we held our wee Clare in our arms. Within hours, flowers, cards and telegrams surrounded us and the phone didn't stop ringing. The house filled with the sweet scent of hundreds of flowers.

  Little by little, our life integrated anotherchild to care for, while the Floyd had a breather preparing for the next cycle, the gigs. We rented a large camper van and we gave Sue some time off. Kids in tow and Christian by our side, we set off up the coast of California, destination Big Sur in a large American camper van. As I chose to breast-feed, it made it easier to travel with a young baby. We met up with Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash who lived up that way. We walked on the beach of Big Sur at sunset. Alice followed her dad walking in his shadow as I took pictures of the moment with Clare carried close to me in our baby sling.

  We had relief from our small quarters for a few days in a wonderful log cabin Hotel just beside the road near Big Sur. One day we took a walk in the woods and came upon the mushrooms that looked like the fairy toadstools from ourchildren's storybooks. They were red with white polka dots. Goodness, they are real! I thought as I went to touch them. David motioned me away and in a concerned voice said, "Don't pick them! They are highly poisonous!" He knew a lot about mushrooms.

  When we returned to Los Angeles, I was tired, so we hired a vegetarian cook named Akasha. She made the best corn bread and aduki bean stew with Hijiki seaweed. I learned a lot from heras we explored the world of vegetarianism together. Clare started to cry a lot, especially after midnight. David and I took turns walking around with her. During the day, Louella was a great help for she was a real MOM-MA. She had had nine children of her own and she would walk around the house with Clare in one arm and dust with the other. It gave me time off to rest.

  It became obvious that Clare did not accept being held by many other people except her immediate family and especially Louella. Anyone who resembled hard Rock 'n' Roll and into drugs caused her to holler until we took her out of the room. The reaction time and time again was too much to be a coincidence. I made excuses so no one's feelings were hurt, but silently I saw hersensitivity and protected her from any misunderstanding. In those days and in that environment, how would I say, "My child is sensitive. She is straight from Heaven. She knows you are not happy and take drugs and are wasted." How could I say that and hope they would understand? Her screaming became rather disconcerting. Maybe there is something wrong. Eventually, I found a homeopath and an alternative doctor who helped me with a way of eating as an experiment. He hoped we would discover what was bothering Clare as I was still breastfeeding her. We started by me stopping dairy products for one week and then introduce one thing fora few days and see her reaction. Then I would go on to excluding Wheat. The first try proved that it was dairy, but it was not her having difficulty. My kidneys were not digesting dairy well and it was going into the breast milk. She was fine after I stopped eating dairy. I personally feel that as we had that near death experience during my sixth month of pregnancy, she too was behind in the development of her organs. This would come to light later when she was around two, for she could not tolerate milk. She is fine now, she says. Later, back in the UK, Dr. Sharma suggested that we should put her on to soya milk, which was organic in those days. GMO was not in our vocabulary then. We were just not aware of it. As David's schedule was very demanding, I took on the total responsibility of breast-feeding Clare without him giving her a supplement bottle as he had done with Alice. This meant that Clare came everywhere with us. She was a wee one going to all the Hollywood parties. I was in a back bedroom feeding her once when Andy Warhol walked into the room. We sat on the bed chatting for some time and became friends. He said for me to call him when we got to NYC and we could go shopping together. I particularly wanted to see his studio.

  CHAPTER 35

  THE WALL COMES ALIVE

  The months of December, January and February involved creating the next step of Roger's dream. The Wall was to become a multi-media theatrical production. Some have referred to it as a "dramatization of angst." Really it was a "dramatization of how to transform angst" for me. Rehearsals began and day after day, over and over, the Wall came down. On one occasion during rehearsal, I said to David, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a positive ending amongst the rubble?" The next time I saw the run through, all the band were stepping out over the rubble playing acoustic guitars or other simple instruments. Lovely.

  The Wall gig consisted of only two venues in the States, Los Angeles (seven shows) and New York (five shows). The idea of taking it on the road just wasn't a possibility anymore. Thus, the way the band toured changed. All of the shows were full of everyone we knew and didn't know, from ticket holders to Hollywood stars, from record companies to musicians. David's parents came over from England to be with us and hold their new grandchild. It was a family affa
ir. Lots to organize regarding concert tickets, backstage passes, cars to the airport, cars to gig, babysitters, restaurants, who sat next to who but the most challenging of all, for me, was the night the grand-nephew of Kalu Rinpoche (a Buddhist Lama) came. I had taken refuge with him several times while he was in Los Angeles. In the Buddhist tradition, the purpose of taking refuge is to awaken from confusion and associate oneself with wakefulness. Taking refuge is a matter of commitment and acceptance and, at the same time, of openness and freedom. By taking the refuge (vow), we commit ourselves to freedom.

  Yogi John had suggested that I should offer Lama passes to come. "Do you think he would really like to come?" I asked. He was sure that he would like to come, for he had had a private conversation with Lama the previous day. The Lama was only in his mid-thirties and interested in other aspects that influenced the hearts and minds of the young. Despite that, I was still quite surprised when he said yes. I wondered to myself, "What does a Tibetan Lama need, in regards of care from me, in order to witness the Floyd Concert The Wall? We picked him up within the appropriate time. I escorted him to the mixing desk. I had arranged seats for us, thinking that he might prefer to be in the center of it all. The mixing area was like the helm of the Star Trek Enterprise. The one mixing desk had expanded to two: sound and lighting. Now the WALL was beyond description except by a technician and there are books about it. There were sections of command modules for each aspect of the production, which took up LOTS of seats in the middle of the hall. Production managers, plenty of assistants lined the desks with headphones, their fingers poised to begin the show. Bottles of Evian water were everywhere.

  Lama walked through the audience in a cloud of unending Peace, observing, feeling. The Peace was contagious and entered my being softly. I felt like I did as a child always trying to do my best for my parents. I was over excited, honored and at the same time fearful that I might trip catching my high heels on my long chiffon dress right before him. At the beginning, I offered Lama some earplugs. He shook his head, "No, it is ok, I will be fine." Then the music began.

  The surrogate band in masks, made in the likeness of the band, first led us into a euphoric state as brick upon brick built the wall. The Wall representing symbolically the alienation Roger had been feeling on the Animal tour and within his life. As the last brick was put into position, his voice echoed throughout the hall, a farewell. Many words kept screaming over our heads song aftersong. God, it was loud! Painful! I looked over to Lama to see if he was ok. The stillness of his focus maintained within his being. Words of desperation called out to us from the wall as the drama unfolded, searching to be heard. The Wall was complete. We were Isolated from being one together, the band and the audience. No longer unified within the music. This time we were just alone in another's projected anxiety. Anguish of a person's pain hung in the air.

  Spellbound and overtaken by the grandeur or perhaps the incredible majesty of the production, the audience was still. Numbed, held by the drama of the journey of self-indulgence into the shadow, into the pain of existence. We succumbed to the imagery and the Sound of the Round and the theatre of it all. The drama still plays in my head. Just the sheer volume pierced every cell of my being. It was quite a feat. Where were we going? Were we being dragged down by it all.Was this our reality as well? Were we blinded by the glamour of it all and yet held in such Beauty. What was it? Held in the crossfire? Numb? Finally, the moment of release arrived. The lights dimmed. Stillness filled the air. David appeared on top of the Wall. His playing came from his heart. It reached beyond, piercing the fog. In that song, we transcended the angst and brought Beauty even though the lyrics led us to believe otherwise. The audience held in rapture as the notes took us higher and higher and higher,releasing the tension. David, silhouetted by rays of light behind, moved with the sounds as his playing pierced the air from above. Waking us up from the spell of destruction, nurturing, freeing us, taking us to our resurrection. Transcending the angst within us all. No wonder Roger didn't want the song on the album. Maybe he was not ready to transcend his own pain. Yet, maybe he listened to his soul telling him this was the way? The fervor increased as Roger screamed out to the audience, asking us to enjoy ourselves. Did you really mean that? He was so sarcastic. The pace increased. Sounds of primeval screeching, drumbeats, repeating, took everyone further. They stood and danced hypnotically clapping to the beat. Surprisingly, Lama stood with them, his poise captured in the colored lights. And when it finished, he honored them and clapped too, but it was silent. I understood that evening the term, "One hand clapping,"for there was another energy that emanated from his gesture. It was a deep appreciation from his heart that brought tranquility to us all within the frenzy. It was a creative force lifting and transforming the vibration already there.

  I motioned for us to leave during the last song just before the Wall came down, so we were not caught in the audience leaving the stadium. The imagery spat out its vile throughout the hall as we walked down the aisles of the seated audience towards the backstage. Their heads were focused on what was happening on stage, but as Lama passed they turned. One row after another turned and saw him.

  I will never forget the expressions that lit up their faces in contrast to what they were witnessing. It was as though they saw Christ. Their hearts opened with the thought that he had graced them by being there. Rock 'n' Roll concerts were up until then a place where we were free to rebel, to hide out. A secret place just to be, to contemplate, to express, we thought, but Lama came. He entered their sanctuary and made it acceptable. He honored us all that evening with his silent presence of compassion. The madness stood still for a while.

  While we watched from the sidelines, shouts of destruction resounded around the hall, over and over. The Wall collapsed against explosive sound effects and smoke. It was over. My head rang from all the screaming in the last few songs and from being so close to the explosion where we stood. Was it the end of the world? And there from the rubble came all the musicians playing the final song with acoustic guitars, mandolin, clarinet, and accordion. The calm after the storm.

  CHAPTER 36

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  February 1980

  Next stop, New York, New York. The flight from Los Angeles was full of celebrities. Juliette Wright secured the seat next to Rudolf Nureyev. Joan Collins with her large sunglasses sat in the row behind us. Dudley Moore was sitting in David's seat when we were boarding. We had a moment of laughter as David said to Dudley, in a Dudley voice, "Dudley, I think you are sitting in my seat?" Dudley looked up from behind his newspaper and in a Dudley voice said with a smile across his face, "Really? OOOH, Sorry David." It was a real English moment.

  Just before take-off, I had to go to the ladies room while the stewardesses were busy making us all comfortable in first class with drinks and menus. I was walking down the aisle when a man wearing blue jeans, a cowboy hat and boots was coming towards me. He was tanned and extremely handsome. He had a glint in his eye and emitted a very strong energy of desire. Our eyes met as I felt his magnetic energy coming closer. Did we know each other? He looked so familiar. I smiled in response as I searched my heart to understand the connection. Closer and closer we came to the moment of acknowledgement and just as we almost fell into each other's arms like long lost friends, I knew who he was... YIKKEES! It was Richard Burton! I didn't know Richard Burton! I closed the door of my heart quickly and coolly brushed by him like two ships in the night avoiding the crash. He turned with a perplexed look as he watched me disappear behind the drawn curtain of first class. Goodness, everything written about his charisma is true. I had a narrow escape.

  I so love New York, the smells, the taxis zooming by, the fairy lights in the trees no matter what time of year and especially the soft pretzel stand on the corners. It was February and touches of winter still lined the streets, but the air gave a hint of spring. The hotel we were staying in was also booked for a Sumo Wrestler Convention. It was a rather close moment one day when Alice
and I, with Clare strapped to my chest, had to share a lift with two of them. They are soooo tall and big.

  They were in their full gear. Actually, they were only wearing their Mawashi wrestling belts. One does not usually come so close to them in their ceremonial belt only, at least not in Rock 'n' Roll. I could feel their spirit of silent control and purity of heart. This quality was beyond the competitive presence of normal wrestlers. They had dignity in their demeanor for they are devoted to their native religion Shinto.

  While in Japan on the Dark Side of the Moon tour, I became aware of Sumo and Shinto rituals and the sacredness behind their history. In a way, I felt honored to share these few moments with them. Alice was dinky next to them as they made room for us to come into the lift. In her innocence, she kept looking up at them as we stood next to each other. I had a smile on my face as I held her hand with assurance that all would be ok. She had never seen anyone like them not even in a circus, which is far from where one might find them.

  On one of David's free evenings from rehearsals, we visited Auntie Mary, from Lindos. She was staying in their New York family apartment and organized a wonderful dinner in her favorite New York restaurant. Andy Warhol was one of her guests, we sat next to each other and I felt at home chatting with him. The feeling of friendship that we had felt in Hollywood was still there. I had Clare with me carrying her in a Moses basket and had to breast- feed her during our evening. Andy was very open to discuss the nature of breast-feeding. Looking over to Clare suckling he asked me how it felt. I said that it was wonderful and created a special bond between baby and mother. I added that I wish this could be true for the dads.