Imbolc Seed thought - Quality over Quantity

Do what you can with what you have...

The recent deaths of many iconic people; Motorhead's Lemmy, David Bowie, Glenn Frey and Alan Rickman has brought focus, for me, not on their deaths but how they lived their lives. This quote from Glenn Frey's obituary could (I think) be applied to any of them they all had "a work ethic that wouldn’t quit. He was funny, bullheaded, mercurial, generous, deeply talented and driven."

All of them were true stars in a world of celebrity. Bowie, as ever ahead of the game, seemed to recognise this in the way he retreated from public life as celebrity culture rose to prominence. He learnt to toy with the digital age by recording 'The Next Day' in complete secret at a time when Tarantino's script was released into the social media 'digiverse'. He then goes onto completely stage manage his own death as art and neatly side-steps the mawkishness of a funeral turned into a digital-media feeding frenzy by having a quick, unattended cremation without friends and family in attendance. His last image then become his climbing, miming reverse into the cupboard at the end of Lazarus. A perfectly scripted, from this pagan's perspective, passing with a respectful control over his death in comparison to Outside's dystopian view of 'death as art'#. His is a positive message about managing to die with dignity.

Similarly Lemmy never compromised, unless you count moving to vodka & orange from JD & Coke, and was the ultimate rock & roll star to the end. Although his funeral had the full digital coverage it avoided the fake sentimentality by sticking to it's core rock'n'roll, coke'n'hookers, live fast and fuck the consequences ethos.

They all lived quality lives & rather than fading through dementia into nursing home twilight were still doing what they loved until the end. So if there's a particular seed thought for this Imbolc it's around Quality over Quantity; living a life that is driven creatively and allows you to honour your principles yet generously gives back to society.

# For 'Hello Spaceboy' Bowie played just after Oasis, Oasis had recently been slagging Bowie off as past it and not rock'n'roll; with that performance he slayed them, particularly as their performance was lacklustre