RIP David Coburn.
It's been a while since I've written in this thing to any length, and it always seems to coincide with something bad happening, and how I deal with it all. This time is no different. This year I've lost two great teachers. The first being Peter 'Hummy' Byron, my mentor in the magickal arts. And although he once told me off for referring to him as my teacher, this is EXACTLY the role he fulfilled.
David was no different.
I still remember trying to join the Masonic fraternity. I was originally knocked back because I was Wiccan. I remember writing into Grand Lodge. I remember then responding and giving me two emails, one for David Coburn and the other Jonathan Breach. Jonathan ended up being my advocate, but still David was always around. Between him, Jonathan and my other Brother, Kendall, they pretty much took me through the three degrees of Masonry. Even with me attaining the sublime degree of Master Mason, I still looked up to these three as my heroes in the realm of masonry. All of a sudden I was a Big Fish, but the pond just got bigger too. All of a sudden, I was learning roles for lodge. Forget Tyler or Inner Guard, I was promoted straight to Deacon work... All with David and Kendall at my heals.
David and I have had our disagreements, this is true. He was devoutly Christian and I am devoutly Pagan, we've even at one point almost stopped being friends, until I realised something bigger was going on and extended a well timed olive branch. Out of that spat, Lodge Southern Cross lost a second time Junior Deacon, and instead got an esoterically bent Education Officer, Hell bent on bringing the Brethren up to speed with some the Mysteries of our Noble Craft.
David was a lot of things to me: Mason, Teacher, Sounding Board, Hero, but mostly he was my friend, and my Brother.
I think todays funeral spoke buckets of the kind of man he was, people from three separate aspects of his life filled a church hall, and when Bro Cox played the second movement from Holst's Jupiter, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Mine were, I'm proud to say, as red as a pair of beetroots from tears. Men, that I, normally, would think of as blokey, exchanging tears and group hugs. Even as I write this I have tears welling up, and a smile on my face. The tears are for the fact I'll never get to see my friend in the flesh again (even at a gravesite - he was cremated), the smile is for the fact that I knew him in the first place.
David was a big man in stature (part of which contributed, I'm sure, to the multiple heart-attacks which finally took him. But like his stature, his heart was huge, and open; and his demeanour, larger than life.
Masonry, his Church, and even the World in general was made more then what they originally were with his presence. And will now have gaping holes in them created by his absence.
Goodbye my friend, and my Brother, Very Worshipful Brother David Mark Coburn :-(
David was no different.
I still remember trying to join the Masonic fraternity. I was originally knocked back because I was Wiccan. I remember writing into Grand Lodge. I remember then responding and giving me two emails, one for David Coburn and the other Jonathan Breach. Jonathan ended up being my advocate, but still David was always around. Between him, Jonathan and my other Brother, Kendall, they pretty much took me through the three degrees of Masonry. Even with me attaining the sublime degree of Master Mason, I still looked up to these three as my heroes in the realm of masonry. All of a sudden I was a Big Fish, but the pond just got bigger too. All of a sudden, I was learning roles for lodge. Forget Tyler or Inner Guard, I was promoted straight to Deacon work... All with David and Kendall at my heals.
David and I have had our disagreements, this is true. He was devoutly Christian and I am devoutly Pagan, we've even at one point almost stopped being friends, until I realised something bigger was going on and extended a well timed olive branch. Out of that spat, Lodge Southern Cross lost a second time Junior Deacon, and instead got an esoterically bent Education Officer, Hell bent on bringing the Brethren up to speed with some the Mysteries of our Noble Craft.
David was a lot of things to me: Mason, Teacher, Sounding Board, Hero, but mostly he was my friend, and my Brother.
I think todays funeral spoke buckets of the kind of man he was, people from three separate aspects of his life filled a church hall, and when Bro Cox played the second movement from Holst's Jupiter, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Mine were, I'm proud to say, as red as a pair of beetroots from tears. Men, that I, normally, would think of as blokey, exchanging tears and group hugs. Even as I write this I have tears welling up, and a smile on my face. The tears are for the fact I'll never get to see my friend in the flesh again (even at a gravesite - he was cremated), the smile is for the fact that I knew him in the first place.
David was a big man in stature (part of which contributed, I'm sure, to the multiple heart-attacks which finally took him. But like his stature, his heart was huge, and open; and his demeanour, larger than life.
Masonry, his Church, and even the World in general was made more then what they originally were with his presence. And will now have gaping holes in them created by his absence.
Goodbye my friend, and my Brother, Very Worshipful Brother David Mark Coburn :-(