Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor

June 29, 1942 - December 10, 2022

Dear friends,

Robert Taylor, a well-beloved member of the Apollo Center of the Fellowship of Friends, completed his task on Saturday, December 10, from cancer with Covid complications.

Robert was born in the East End of London during World War II, on June 29, 1942, and was 80 on his last birthday. He joined the London Center in 1978 and moved to Apollo in 1980 after directing the Munich Center with Guinevere Mueller. He led the Apollo Theater for some years, performing and directing Shakespeare plays. From 1983 to 1986, he lived in Russia and Prague, and shared the magic of self-remembering with our first generation of Russian and Romanian students.

We thank thee.
The Elysian Society

Funeral Service Text: Robert Taylor 2022-12

Life and death—they are one, at core entwined.

Rainer Maria Rilke

  1. Paola Tacchi - Parks April 1, 2023 at 9:23 am

    Dearest Robert Taylor,

    The Magnificence of your life exploded in a myriad of fallen stars the morning of your exit.

    On this side, we still call it death but you cannot, because it’s your new life now.

    You Robert – enchanted and eternal – at every step have shown me how to live in the grace of God.

    Yours,
    Paola

  2. Susan Rainier January 7, 2023 at 9:16 pm

    No Room for Form

    On the night when you cross the street
    from your shop and your house to the cemetery
    You will hear me hailing you from inside the open grave
    and you will realize how we have always been together,
    I am the clear-consciousness core of your being,
    the same in ecstasy as self-hating fatigue.
    That night, when you escape the fear of snakebite and
    all irritations with the ants, you will hear my familiar voice,
    see the candle being lit, smell the incense, the surprise meal
    fixed by the lover inside all your other lovers.
    This heart-tumult is my signal to you igniting in the tomb.
    So do not fuss with the shroud and the graveyard dust.
    Those get ripped open and washed away.
    In the music of our finally meeting.
    And do not look for me in a human shape
    I am inside your looking.
    No room for Love this strong.
    Beat the drum and let the poets speak.
    This is a day of purification for those who
    are already mature and initiated into what Love is.
    No need to wait until we die!
    There’s more to want here than money and being famous and
    bites of roasted meat.
    Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing house
    that has opened in our town where people sit
    quietly and pour out their glancing like light, like answering.

    Rumi

  3. John Walz January 7, 2023 at 2:27 pm

    “Lives of great men remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
    And then departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sands of time.”
    -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Very grateful to be one of Robert’s many Fellowship footprints.
    With Love,
    John Walz

  4. Olga Melnikova January 7, 2023 at 6:12 am

    “Do not waste suffering: it is a doorway to another room, a strange and beautiful flower as yet unopened” . Robert Taylor

    This poem I dedicated to my beautiful friend Robert Taylor and beautiful soul I will love all my life.

    Only once in my life
    it happened a meeting with a man,
    who changed my destiny forever…
    and the perception of this world.

    Like a gentle wind he covers
    with his own presence, sight, gesture…
    Like a warm sun he hugs you
    with his love for you…

    Indeed we don’t see,
    don’t hear, don’t sense
    This world for real…

    There is a kind of separation
    inside ourselves, and at the same time
    we’re waiting for the unity from others
    Strange indeed, don’t you think so?

    One’s need a gentle touch of a man’s hand
    who will help to show the Truth with
    his own whole being, heart and action
    silently, invisibly, carefully…

    Guide you to the door of the true world
    where you can enter into the space of
    the miraculous world.

    When you find yourself there,
    you can once for real to hear, to listen, to feel,
    the World…

    You can recognise the meaning of the meeting
    with a Man who loves you
    you will see Miracle has happened,
    The whole world will become a revelation

    In one single moment you will face
    a miracle itself…

    Forever yours,
    Olga

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