The Stars Beneath My Feet: My spiritual journey after my soulmate’s suicide

By Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

The Stars Beneath My Feet is a diary Gunda Hardegen-Brunner wrote for herself and to her husband Michael to share with him what happened to her after he had committed suicide. It’s the story of an inspiring, very personal spiritual journey that touches on the universal questions – what are life and death all about?

Michael Brunner was a well known South African actor, remembered by many as Seedling in Jock of the Bushveld, Dr Budlander in Soul City, Skip in Isidingo and many more movies and TV series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gunda Hardegen-Brunner
• Release date: Aug 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311315946

Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Gunda Hardegen-Brunner grew up in the Black Forest and in Bavaria.She was first published at the age of 11 – a poem in the school mag, which was promptly closed down because of it.Always interested in foreign countries and other cultures she spent a year as an exchange student in South Africa in 1975/76.Gunda studied ethnology at the universities of Heidelberg, München and Paris VII. Later she became a physiotherapist and lived for a few years in France.After a serious car smash she returned to South Africa to recuperate and subsequently married her former host father, the actor Michael Brunner, to many known as Skip in Isidingo, Seedling in Jock of the Bushveld, Dr Budlander in Soul City and dozens of other movies and TV series.Gunda and Michael lived for 10 years on their smallholding off the grid with free range animals all over the show. They built a house using mainly local materials – the ground to make bricks, the trees for roof beams, the grass to thatch the roof. They built a traditional 40 foot gaff rigged cutter and lived on it for 3 years. When Michael’s health began to deteriorate they moved to a farm with a retreat centre in the Overberg and camped in an ancient milkwood forest for one and a half years. In search for a new place they travelled southern Africa for a while and then swallowed the anchor in the Karoo.Michael died in 2012 and since then Gunda has been on a pilgrimage, inner journey – outer journey, which The Stars Beneath My Feet is all about

Book preview

The Stars Beneath My Feet

My spiritual journey after my soulmate’s suicide

Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

To life in all its forms.

Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Published by Timshel

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Cover design: Nathalie Shrosbree

Cover photo: Nathalie Shrosbree

Cover painting: Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Table of Contents

Start of The Stars Beneath My Feet

About Gunda Hardegen-Brunner and Contact details

Other books by Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Interview with Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

We all felt it that day on the farm

Flint and I went for a walk. The first flowers dotted the veld with their bright colours – yellow orange purple – in between the bossies and the klippe. A winter wind was howling, blowing big grey clouds across the pale blue sky. The shadows of those clouds rode like phantoms over the glowing mountains, veiling the rusty umber of their ancient folds,

and there it was – your presence – all around, gentle & overwhelming, abstract & very real, connecting the sky the mountains the veld & us.

I drove home. I opened the door. Time stopped

the plastic packet over your head, the empty pill containers, the bandage around your neck, your hands peacefully on the duvet – but cold…oh so cold

your chest, concrete-like, no movement

the plastic packet, rigid, tight

doc came

cops came

the cat wanted to lie on your chest

there were stars in the sky

you weren’t in your body anymore

I could feel you all around

doc said, here’s a pill if you want it. You mustn’t stay here tonight.

Vilma came and took me back to the farm

I’m lying in a bed that is not your bed or my bed or our bed

it’s cold except for 2 little wheat bags – warmed up in the micro wave

one at my feet, one on my tummy, the bed is soft

the wind hasn’t stopped howling, the windows are rattling, the door is creaking, it is pitch dark

same dark if I close my eyes or open them

there are images jumping from my mind and from my guts burning into that space just between my eyes

The plastic packet, The plastic packet, The plastic packet

your hands peacefully on the duvet, almost like in prayer, maybe that is what you were doing – talking to the universe

Doc said, I don’t understand, how did he get that bandage so tight around his neck?

He was a sailor and a great lateral thinker.

And it’s unusual that he is lying there so peacefully; the body doesn’t want to die; when it’s suffocating the body will put up a fight.

The plastic packet THE PLASTIC PACKET the plastic packet

Your hands

The cops, 4 or 5 of them. One sending smses on his cell phone, 2 looking around with blank faces, one looking for something on his clipboard

The plastic packet, THE PLASTIC PACKET, your hands,

each time I look at the plastic packet my guts pull into a tighter knot

The neighbour walks in, his eyes open wide, his face turns grey

the plastic packet, your hands, the plastic packet

one of the cops starts taking photos of you with his cell phone

What the hell does he think he is doing?

I say, I don’t want any of this to hit the media too soon.

Doc says, They certainly won’t get anything from me, and to the neighbour, and I’m sure neither from you. The cop stops taking photos.

The clipboard cop asks, Is anything missing?

Doc says to me, Maybe you should have a whisky.

I don’t want a whisky

the cops’ walkie talkies are crackling and somebody is talking

They have to wait for the forensic person to come from Beaufort West

Doc says, That can take hours.

The cat jumps on my lap

my mind is blank

there’s a tear in my universe and I am in that empty space between the past and the future

I’m lying in the bed that isn’t my, your, our bed. I can’t sleep. I won’t take those pills. The wind is howling.

I’m in the tear and the space is filled with your presence. Your presence is very strong, solid, calm. But my mind is racing, like the wind outside.

The plastic packet. The cops, doing their job, like any other job

and your hands like in prayer

for this leap in your journey

it’s been a while since your body started packing up, your quality of life wasn’t what you wanted it to be. And you made a decision. As you always said you would – to let your body go and set off on one of the great spiritual adventures DEATH.

I open my eyes. There is a faint light now. A new day. The first one without you. In 20 years. It’s freezing. Ragged clouds are racing across a grey sky. I put some clothes on. There are candles on the bedside tables. I take 2 and put them on the window sill. I light them for you. Their flames are the only warm colour in the universe. They are the only sources of warmth in the universe. They are flickering in the wind blowing through the gaps in the window.

I feel your presence within me. It’s so strong there’s no space for anything else. It’s beyond any emotion. It just is.

I wonder where you are. My life has switched to slow motion – like moving under water – less gravity – and a new intensity that has settled on my soul. I wonder how you are. If this raging gale is an expression of your transformation – or if it’s all peaceful and you are already on the other side.

It’s still early. Vilma comes back from delivering farm goodies to the shops. She says, Looks like half the village knows about Michael already.

Flint is taking me to the police station. I have to make a statement. It’s the last thing I want to do – haul up yesterday’s events in my mind. I have a knot in my guts.

The policeman is sitting behind his Public Works Department desk. The desk is laden with stuff. Behind the policeman stands a shelf. In the shelf are cardboard boxes with hand written labels presticked on to them. The boxes are overflowing with files. The top shelf has the most headspace. A row of Klipdrift boxes is lined up there, also full of files. The office is small and sombre. Flint is sitting next to me. On a Public Works Department chair.

I’m glad he’s with me.

The policeman finds a pen and a writing pad. He asks if we are sitting comfortably.

He asks if I’m ready.

What can I say?

This is bureaucracy happening. It has to be done. The policeman is only one little wheel in the state machine. He’s doing his job. In his colourless uniform. In his colourless office. On this colourless day. He’s friendly.

What did you do yesterday?

I got up, made coffee, had breakfast and then I went to the library.

At what time?

Roundabout 9 o’clock.

Where was your husband when you left?

The knot in my guts is growing. The last time I saw you alive you were half asleep in your bed, drowsy. I asked you if you wanted to get up.

You said no.

I kissed you.

You said, have a good day on the farm.

He was half asleep in his bed.

The policeman writes everything down with his pen. He takes his time. Flint sits on his chair, bent, with his head in his hands. I feel his compassion. It makes me cry. The policeman carries on writing, slowly, carefully.

I’m grateful. Things are happening on a human scale. No computer. Just the sound of a pen moving across a sheet of paper.

More questions. I have to account for every minute of the day. I feel like a criminal. Although the policeman is kind. He’s only doing his job. He has to stick to the rules. Every now and then he says, You must rest now, and I sit on my Public Works Department chair like on a rudderless raft in a void, at the mercy of the state machine.

After 2 hours the policeman says, Thank you. I’ll type all this on the computer and bring you a copy and if you agree with everything you can sign it.

We all get up. The policeman gives me hug and says, Sterkte.

I’m glad I am in Afrika, where things like this can happen.

I’m too exhausted to cry.

The days pass in a haze. I’m glad I am on the farm. There is space. To walk. To breathe. To scream and cry. To stand in awe and look at the mountains, the sky, the moon and the stars – feel the vastness of the universe and think you are out there – where you wanted to be.

You had the guts to do it.

Phone calls. I have to make all these phone calls. To tell the family. Friends. People.

I can only tell the story so many times.

Re-live the moment of finding you.

All my cells scream - THE PLASTIC PACKET, the bandage, the empty pill containers, your hands.

Ag my darling how awful

I’m so sorry you had to find him…like that

I don’t believe it, he was so positive so full of life

I know he hasn’t been feeling well for a while. You did the best you could looking after him. Don’t feel guilty

How could he do that to you?

Oh what a shock, what a shock for me

How sad, how very sad

Everybody has their own philosophy about death.

Yours: when the body has done its job, when it becomes a burden, when there is no realistic hope of regaining a good quality of life, a whopping magic quality of life, then you say ‘thank you’ to your body, ‘thank you for all you’ve done, we’ve done together over the years, I love you my body – and now I let you go. And I’ll carry on my journey on a different plain.’

What makes my cells scream is the plastic packet. And then your hands tell me – you were ready to go. The body didn’t want to put up a fight. And your soul broke free.

In many cultures death is part of life.

The Malagasy take the remains