Category Archives: Politics

Mind the Gap

It is Christmas Day, 2020 and I find myself in a gap. Between a glass of cava and the dinner being ready; between a sunshiny walk and the fall of darkness, I find myself.  Perhaps it is always in the gaps that we find ourselves?

Husband is outside, making the beginnings of a bird box. In his last creation, a pair of tawny owls enjoy Christmas on their balcony. They, and the robins and crested tits, have been constant companions during this blighted year. Year of the the pandemic.

Yesterday, our friend, whose land and vineyard has been in his family since the Middle Ages, told us they had had a poor harvest. What have you harvested this year? Do we even know yet, what this year of pandemic has been growing?

I have the sense that the wholeness is beyond our knowing.  Political leaders may mess with the details, try to trick the system and tinker with the edges of what is real, gas-lighting us all in the process of stealing wealth and resources for themselves. But I also have the sense that they are under-estimating the power of nature.  And also, under-estimating the power of the people. We, like a force of nature, are awakening. There is no knowing, no telling what will come next.

Unprecedented. That must be the word of the year. The word of 2020. Unprecedented. Unforeseen. Unimaginable. Yet, really, as history and her story tells, it is all precedented. It has all been seen before. We humans. We think we have it all under control. Our lives. Nature. The world. But no.  We do not.

I, for one, am looking forward to 2021. I hear the Herald Angels singing. What is born may not be a Christ child, but something is being born. We know this, because whenever we go into the dark, as we have done in this year of 2020, going back into our homes and into our own deepest minds, something is gestating. Eventually, we will give birth to it.  It cannot help but be born.

Hark, the Herald Angels are singing. Glory is afoot.

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Lockdown or Retreat? Resilience in Action

Coronavirus as 21st Century Warfare

So this is what war looks like in the 21st century. As one wag put it (there are lots of wags in social media),

“Our grandparents were asked to go to battle. We are being asked to sit on the couch.”

So this is me, on my couch in my little eco-casita in Spain. To be honest, for me life has not changed much. Husband is working from home. I am offering an online meditation and writing retreat, which keeps me both busy and well-connected to my tribe. We have plenty to occupy us and a comfortable place to be in, surrounded by nature. Others, however, are not so lucky. Just today, two people have joined the retreat group from their places of isolation. One has been forced to go and stay with a friend because her living conditions with a new flat mate were not conducive to 24-7 confinement. Another is joining because she lives alone and is struggling with anxiety. From the UK, I speak to my son, who finds that there is no hand sanitiser to be found anywhere, not even in his workplace, who are nevertheless recommending that employees use it.

“Get some tea tree essential oil” I tell him. “It will not only kill germs, but will boost your immune system too. Scientist Husband refutes my hypothesis, so I am forced to go and get Mr. Google (or in this case, Ms. Ecosia) to put him right. I send it to my son as evidence. “Tea tree oil contains a number of compounds, including terpinen-4-ol, that have been shown to kill certain bacteria, viruses and fungi. Terpinen-4-ol also appears to increase the activity of your white blood cells, which help fight germs and other foreign invaders. These germ-fighting properties make tea tree oil a valued natural remedy for treating bacterial and fungal skin conditions, preventing infection and promoting healing.”

I do a virtual fist-bump with my son and tell him most people will be unaware of the uses of tea tree so it’s probably still available. Sure enough, he finds some in his local chemist.

Alternative Lifestyle Resilience

The tea tree incident is just one example of how, as an alternative-lifestyler with twenty years of yoghurt-weaving under my hemp-crocheted belt, I feel more prepared than most for this crisis. We’re not exactly preppers, but we have solar electricity, solar hot water, and most of the tools we need to fix basic stuff around the home. We grow food and preserve it. The other day, I found a stash of tomato sauce that we bottled last summer. It’s delicious and saves me from having to put more pressure on the shops at this moment. My son informs me that there is not a single bag of pasta to be found anywhere in his town.

We giggle at the idea of some people sitting on twenty kilos of pasta, with a spare bedroom stuffed with toilet roll, but the truths are harsh. Our system cannot cope easily with increased demand. It functions on a just-enough, just-in-time assumption and is thrown by shoppers wanting more of something at odd times. I’m sure, given the proximity to Easter, that if it were chocolate eggs we wanted to hoard, there would be plenty, but wet-wipes? Forget it.

Permaculture as Inter-dependence

My friends in the permaculture movement feel similarly prepared. My timeline is full of people offering free meditations, body healing and advice on how to boost the immune system, and I enjoy them alongside the dark funnies about sending stool samples to the government for “testing”. These people have taken the time and made the effort to make their lives more resilient to sudden change. For a start, they tend to consume less. They  have organised themselves to rely a little less on mainstream services. Not towards independence,  they understand that is a myth, but further towards inter-dependence. Towards community and in many ways, towards themselves. They have more ways of coping. More tools for anxiety, stress and other strong emotions which accompany times of transition and change.

Most of us understand that the system supposed to support us is mostly stacked against us. But still people feel disappointed that the people charged with protecting us serve the wealthy first. We will do well to remember, next time we get a chance to vote, what kind of policies served best at this time. My friends in Spain are not complaining about being isolated in their homes, though under conditions that rule only dog-walkers may go outside, they are scrabbling to borrow dogs from their neighbours! On the whole, we feel grateful to the care-workers and government officials who are making difficult decisions every day to protect us. Mostly, we want to comply. To protect each other as well as ourselves.

Connection in Community

This is one of the heartwarming things about all this. The reaching out, the wish to support, the compassion. This must be a taste of why some older people feel nostalgic for wartime. What they remember is not only the rations and the pain of untimely death, but the intense joy of human connection. The kindness of neighbours. The comfort of community. For a while, we are not pitted against each other in competition, though there will always be those who profit in times like this. For a while, we do not see so clearly the colour of skin, the cultural background, the religious or political affiliation. We do not hear accent nor even language. We see humans. Human to human. And human to animal, too. Human to environment. Human to spirit. We would do well to rememebr this.

As I sit here on my couch, door open to the wide outside, a bird chirrups enthusiastically into the afternoon air. There is traffic on the road below, but much less. Less aeroplanes fly overhead. Even since yesterday, the first day of our confinement, my being feels calmer. We have at least thirteen more days of this. I think I can get used to it.

ps. If you’d like to join our Heroines’ Home Retreat, we’re virtually open. Email me directly: helen [@] livinginthefuture.org

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Image by Jason Leung

Climate Emergency – or Cultural Emergence?

I wake in the night with a knot in my belly. A cold sweat trickles down my neck. My heart races. In my mind, I see headlines proclaiming that UK governments have declared a climate emergency. And though I’ve been living as though this is the case for many years; though I’ve been telling stories about how we can reduce our impact on the planet; though I’ve been following as closely as I can my own advice to live more lightly, still I am scared. What do we do now?

Cultural Emergence

The word emergency has within it, emergence. What kind of world is emerging? With all the hubris in politics over the past years, it’s easy to believe that we’re approaching the end of the world. Corruption, greed, ignorance – all seem to be hitting a high point. Hatred is all around us, manifesting in extremism at both ends of the political spectrum. It’s truly frightening what wilful blindness can achieve.

In a way, we are reaching the end. The way we’re living now has to end. Governing without caring a jot about the people or land you are supposed to be stewarding has to end. What we are seeing is is the last desperate death throes of a way of being that knows it’s time is up. And yet, underneath all that, there’s a growing movement of people expressing another way of being.  A movement of consciousness, intelligence and spiritual maturity that comes through in flashes of strong and compassionate leadership, considered and determined action and a wealth of healing modalities to support us as we move forward. We understand much better how our past impacts on our current actions, which shows us not only how to attend to our collective pain with care, but how we all deserve forgiveness.

No time for blame

For the damage we have done to ourselves, to each other and to the planet, at this time of emergenc(y), there is no time for blame.  Can we agree that we all make mistakes, that the past is past, and that together, we can create a world that feels safe and fair for everyone? It’s a big ask. We will be required to dig into the deepest reaches of our being. To use our vast human resources and pool our energy for the good. To tend to ourselves, each other and to the world around us as if we, they and it matters. Because we do. They do. It does.

Emergency Bean Burgers?

Queen Bean Burger
Queen Bean Burger

Awake in the night, I ponder the blog post I just published on how to make spicy bean burgers and I wonder how this seemingly trivial activity could possibly make a difference. Why am I making – and what’s more, writing about making – veggie burgers, when the world around me is burning? In response, I can only say that we do what we can. In the article, I talk about how I grew some of my ingredients in my garden, which is one sure way to build resilience. In my modest home, I make nourishing food that increases my personal and family well-being. I avoid the plastic packaging which often accompanies store-bought food, keeping waste out of landfill and out of our oceans. I support a vegetarian diet, which has been shown to be one of the biggest things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. To survive this global crisis, we need to care for ourselves, for each other AND for the planet. We are inter-connected, and our future depends on us.

To complete the picture, and to allow my spicy bean burgers to really do the best work they can do, I take them to our community garden and share with some neighbours in a May Day celebration. What ways can you find to turn this emergency into an emergence?


Tune in to my Mayday meditation via the Meditista podcast – and get a new meditation every Wednesday. Or for a more intimate approach, join us in our Month of Mondays online meditation group. It’s a really lovely way to create our own, global cultural emergence.

Singing Bowl
Singing Bowl

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Positive Stories for a Change

What stories are you telling yourself today? What are you reading, hearing, thinking about, and passing on? If you started your day with newspapers – whether print or online, it’s likely you were bombarded with bad things that have happened. For me, wildfire, murder and political chaos dominate my headlines today and while it’s possible that my social media feed offers some light-hearted relief, I might need to scroll past the shouting in order to find it. In this kind of environment, it’s no wonder our mental health is suffering. Hope is an emotion that lifts heart and mind, but in a world smothering in greed, hatred and mounting CO2, hope is fast disappearing.

Thriving Communities

So when I got a call to help edit a film for the Permaculture Association about a programme of theirs called Thriving Communities, I leapt at the chance to be part of a different story. The film brings together clips from projects around the UK using permaculture principles to address community needs. Though permaculture is often thought be only relevant for rural dwellers, many Thriving Community projects are urban- based, showing that the values of Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share are relevant, practical and can make a difference just about anywhere.

Contrary to popular understanding, permaculture is much more than gardening, though growing food is a good place to start. Planting and nurturing seeds brings us into relationship with the earth and if we do it in a group, with other people as well. What’s more, it’s hard to miss the parallels between our own well-being and that of the plant, so growing food is educational as well as nutritional. Somehow, in addition to looking after soil and seedlings, we end up looking after ourselves, too.

Positive Stories

Living in the Future has always been about telling positive stories, but we need them more than ever now, as the clock counting down towards runaway climate change and species extinction ticks relentlessly towards ground zero. In the face of this, taking personal action can seem like an overwhelming task. Sorting the recycling, whilst important, seems too  small a response.

Given the enormity of the task we face, you may be drawn to take part in some way in the growing protest movement that is Extinction Rebellion. Organised on a grass roots level by activists calling time on government apathy and inaction, XR invites contributions in all sorts of ways, from engagement in non-violent direct action and associated support roles, to writing, artwork, and more contemplative practices. The question for us personally might be – how can I express my own response to this devastating global situation, in a way that feels both possible and sustainable? For instance, as I write this, my email is pinging notices from companies advertising Black Friday deals – is there a way we can make seasonal giving more earth and people-friendly? Can we show our love without buying more unwanted and unnecessary stuff?

Sand Circle by Marc Treanor http://www.sandcircles.co.uk/

As our leaders charge headlong and blindfolded towards who knows what, my own experience of grief, anxiety and disempowerment has led me deeper into my own spiritual practice. Gardening is undoubtedly a part of this. Movements like the Permaculture Association and the Transition Network have long recognised that as well as positive actions, the alignment of our outer/inner worlds is an important and crucial part of the work and storytelling can really help with this.  By bringing our expectations more in line with reality and suggesting new ways of dealing with challenges, stories help align our inner and outer worlds, helping us move more easefully through times of change.

So let me ask again, what stories are you telling yourself today?

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Visca la Terra – Bless this Land

Whilst writing this post, I stumbled across the work of Geraint Rhys, a Welsh singer songwriter who has recorded a great anthem-like song, Visca la Terra.  He translates this phrase, often associated with radical independentistas, as “Bless this Land”. Whatever we feel about the politics, we of the smaller nations cannot help but see ourselves reflected in these struggles to be seen and heard.

So it is that I find myself a sunny beach, with the first chill of winter in the air, meditating in solidarity with those striking over the independence question in Catalunya. As foreigners in this land, we may not feel the pain of what is happening as deeply as those who call themselves Catalan, or those who consider themselves Spanish, or both. But what we can do is to listen without judgement. We can hear their stories and bear witness, as the sun and the sea bear witness to our meditation.

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. John Kabat-Zin
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. John Kabat-Zin

It was my friend Joe who recently used the word witness. Just two weeks ago, we were in Germany on a Mindfulness Teacher Training Course and I was interviewing him about his work as an activist. He was bearing witness, he said. And now here I am on a beach in Spain, holding a meditation group for peace in Catalunya. The word comes up in my mind and sticks, like a flag or a badge I can wave or wear. If I can do little else, I can bear witness.
We sit listening to the sea lap on a sunny shore, aware that the traffic is backed up all the way to the city, that public transport is severely disrupted, that many shops and offices are closed as part of the strike. “People were on the streets this morning as I took my son to school” said one woman. “The company I work for has banned us from talking about it.” said another. The idea of witnessing seems important to me, but it is only later that I reflect that it feels  good for me to have found a role in this drama.

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Last week, Joe wrote to ask how it is on the ground here. I gave him a comprehensive picture of life in our small village, just one hour south of Barcelona. “To be honest,” I said, “on the ground here for us, nothing has changed. Summer is cooling into Autumn. The vineyards around are turning red and golden. Yesterday a huge electric storm shot forks of lightning into the hills around our home, the sky cracking as if the world was breaking part. Nature is far more threatening than the Guardia Civil!”
I was joking, but it was true all the same. And all the same, I wrote, “It’s hard to escape the awareness that our Catalan friends are suffering. It’s been a traumatic time and emotions are being pulled at. Those of us with less rooted connections feel empathy, but also see that folk are being manipulated on both sides.”
When the idea of being a witness pops up, the thread of thought is inextricably linked to Joe, to the Agents of Change course and to the practice of mindfulness. For what is mindfulness but kind awareness? And what use is kind awareness if we cannot find a way to bring it into the service of others? Into the service of wellbeing of humans, animals and the natural world? Into the service of peace?

 

 

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Peace and Independence – Can we have Both?

On Thursday this week, the International Day of Peace, I gave a talk at a local school about how the practice of mindfulness relates to peace. Drawing on the idea that without inner peace there can be no outer peace, I outlined how our personal practice can help facilitate calm, clear communication with others, even if they have harmed us. I was careful to tell the young people that there are times we need to stand up for ourselves, call another out for their wrongdoing, but suggested that it could be done non-violently.

Peace Talk
Peace Talk

On Friday, sitting with friends in a flat in Barcelona, a clattering begins outside. It’s 10pm and the casolada has begun. From all around, we can hear the dull chiming of spoons on pots. This is a people’s protest, Catalan style. I stand on the balcony and look out over the darkened city. To my left, I can see the tallest towers of the Sagrada Familia, where we have just spent a pleasant hour in one of their free public openings. It was my first visit, though I have been living in  Catalonia for over 18 months now. Gaudi’s masterpiece cathedral is astounding, but to be honest, I am much more excited by the casolada! My friends have heard it before. They live in the city and have been present during the last few days of protest, but I live out in the countryside and though I have heard stories, this is my first contact with the indignation currently sounding throughout Barcelona’s streets and homes.

Catalonia is preparing for their October 1st referendum. They will vote to decide whether to split from Spain and claim independence. This is not news. The banners proclaiming “!” hang from balconies in every town and on the recent Díada of September 11th – Catalonia’s National Day – a torchlit march in my local village saw people wearing the Señera – the national flag –  like capes and carrying a thirty foot long version of it through the streets. This year, it was hard to separate national pride from the question of independence.

La Diada - National Day of Catalonia
La Diada – National Day of Catalonia

Although there is a lot of support for independence, with most people naming the fact that Catalonia gives far more in taxes to Spain than it receives in resources, it is by no means  clear which way the Catalan people will jump. However, fear from the Spanish authorities has grown to such a pitch that they have decided to try and block the vote entirely and nobody knows how far they are prepared to go. In the port, it is said there are ships housing thousands of Guardia Civil, the Spanish State Police. Catalonia has its own police force, known as the Mossos, but it is not they who have been raiding local government offices this week and confiscating ballot boxes. Several officials were arrested, which caused protests to arise, demanding their release. This is no longer about Sí o No, this is about human rights. I ask my Catalan friend what she thinks and she tells me how she and her husband have been taking turns to attend the round the clock vigils. “There are all sorts of people there.” she says. “Grandmas who were alive in the fascist times of Franco and young people who took to the streets during the Crisis. People are coming together because this time, the Spanish government have overstepped the line.”

Life in Catalonia, though relaxed and relatively easy, is always infused with contradiction. The Catalan language is spoken everywhere, in schools, in shops, in the street, at home. Because everyone knows it is a language that has fought for survival, the very speaking of it is an everyday political statement. As a Welsh person who grew up learning, but not speaking Welsh, I have nothing but respect for the way this language has been fiercely protected. It is a mark of identity and solidarity, but not, funnily enough, exclusivity. Catalan people meet the stumbling Spanish of tourists with grace and kindness, though, like the Welsh who insist they are not English, the Catalans are defiantly not Spanish.

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As Britain prepares to redefine itself as separate from Europe and the Scots back away from declaring their own independence, I feel ambiguous about separatism and nationalism. Cultural identity is important. It helps us feel we belong somewhere and reinforces a sense of community. However I still feel that these arbitrary frontiers, drawn along lines which tell tales of war and conflict, seem at best like childish spats over yours and mine and at worst, deadly symbols of division. How can we have both? How can we express ourselves and our feelings of home and country without making our neighbours the enemy? This is a question, surely, that we all must answer every day, in each encounter, in every single human relationship. After all, peace begins with me.

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Enough is Enough

It’s time for the British to go French. I know, I know. They’re arrogant, they’re rude, they don’t like it when you try to speak their language. But here’s the thing. They don’t put up with any crap. Sorry, merde.
French people are really defensive of their way of life. It’s easy to be critical of French lorry drivers when you’re queuing at Calais and they’ve shut down the roads because they want a pay rise. And it’s a pain to be stuck at the airport when French air traffic controllers are striking for better work conditions. But these are the consequences of people standing up for what they believe in and I, for one, think it’s worth the rest of us putting up with a little discomfort to support them. After all, perhaps next time, it will be  us who needs THEIR support.

How is this relevant in Britain at the moment? Well, it’s time to say, to quote our vainglorious leader: “Enough is enough!”

Remember when the referendum vote – that slim, barely noticeable majority – got turned into “the will of the people?”. It’s not so long ago. That vote for Britain to leave the European Union got hijacked into a “hard Brexit” where Britain left not only the European Union, but the single market, the protection of European laws, a respected and (relatively) stable economy and perhaps most stinging, the status of a country respected the world over as sane and tolerant. Now the Tory party are trying to do it again. The minuscule lead they have managed to maintain after an election campaign foisted on an unsuspecting nation and opposition party was designed to get a blanket mandate for all sorts of damaging policies. The dismantling of the NHS to be speeded up. The disintegration of the education system manoeuvred through increased examinations, more private schools and university tuition fees. The undermining of the police force. The shoring up of the wealthy elite with tax cuts, loopholes. And the erosion of privacy laws which protect society from human rights abuses. And how we got to this place is becoming clearer and clearer. The ideological and information systems by which people set their moral compass are rigged. The billionaires who own our newspapers, corporations and who sit on the boards of hospitals, schools and religious institutions have set the dial in their favour. We the people are effectively being screwed and we are finally waking up to the fact.

The thing about consciousness is that once it is raised, it is difficult to put it back in the box. Apartheid, Ghandi’s India, women’s liberation, the Arab Spring. Once the people have that awareness, it’s only a matter of time before it is expressed. Whether it is a slow or quick revolution depends a lot on the conditions. What freedoms are in place. How draconian is the oppression. In Britain, we have been given an opportunity. A window into a world free from austerity, oppression and divisiveness. That window is the Labour movement under Jeremy Corbyn. In just two months, he has turned a country sick with fear and anger into a country filled with hope and aspiration. He has ignited imaginations and that may be his most important gift. He has helped us see how a better future might come about.
While the US still struggles to find valid reasons to remove Trump, Britain has the chance to remove May before she makes her coalition of chaos. The union with the DUP is ill advised, not only because of their militant right wing ideologies ( anti-abortion, anti-gay rights) but also because it contravenes the hard-won Good Friday Agreement. This alliance is the height of cynicism and a desperate attempt to hold on the power. They are trying to tell us that once again it is the “will of the people”, but we’re not falling for it again.
Are we?

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The Revolution is not being Televised

I haven’t used this site for party political campaigning before, being somewhat of the opinion that ‘whoever you vote for, the government always wins’, but with the 2017 General Election, the UK is experiencing nothing short of a revolution and that’s pretty exciting stuff! The massive sea-change of support backing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party has not been seen in British politics since 1945, the year that Clement Attlee’s Labour Party achieved a 12% swing against Winston Churchill’s Conservatives to gain a mandate for post-war reforms. These post-war reforms included the creation of the National Health Service, which guaranteed free health care for everyone. How fitting, then, that one of Corbyn’s strongest election pledges has been to reverse the privatisation of the NHS that has been accelerated under the present Tory government and is set, if they are elected, to continue under advice from the Naylor Review.

nhs

It would be wrong to suggest that this revolution has been bloodless. The terror attacks perpetrated over the past year have left a nation stunned and heartbroken and in this, I include the murder of Jo Cox. While the mainstream media glossed over this latter atrocity as the actions of a single lunatic, other murders have been railed against with the shrill indignancy of a country whose values are under siege. But the truth is, our shared values have been under attack from within, from cynical, greedy and violently racist political leaders and these murders are being used to justify the erosion of our human rights.

Living in the Future is not an overtly political project, but the values which underpin ideas of community and environmental care are undoubtedly left wing. What’s more, Living in the Future was born out of Undercurrents – a not-for-profit organisation which rose out of the public unrest under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative policies. At that time, it was the protests against road building and the poll tax which were ignored by right wing media. Now it is the left wing opposition itself which has been ignored. As Gill Scott-Heron predicted, the revolution is not being televised.

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The Revolution will not be Televised

As a student and teacher of media studies, I have spent a lifetime arguing that there is no such thing as objectivity. That the ideologies drummed into us at home and school, by he church and other influencers, seep into our words and actions, not least as journalists. But the deliberate slanting of mainstream journalism against policies of peace and social care as put forward by Jeremy Corbyn has been nothing short of lying. And not only by the right wing tabloids, but disappointingly, by the so-called left wing Guardian newspaper as well. In a society where the gap between rich and poor is propped up by Conservative policies, with tax cuts for the wealthy and companies evading payments though they benefit both from the people and the  infrastructure of the country, it’s not hard to see why a vote for the Tories is a vote to maintain the status quo.
And at a time when depression, mental illness and loneliness spread like epidemics in our world. At a time when the earth needs us to stop pillaging her bounty and start giving back, at a time when climate change threatens our very survival on this planet, we can no longer afford to appease the rich. We can no longer allow hate and division to prevail. We have to find a way to work together.
In our most recent film, Deep Listening, we explore how intentional communities, in harmony with ancient aboriginal ways, practice a quiet way of being with themselves, with the land, and with each other. This way involves us hearing the profound messages needed for healing. Healing of ourselves, of the earth and of our communities.

We need to listen to each other.

It’s not a coincidence that Jeremy Corbyn, his values and principles miraculously intact after many years in politics, expounds these very practices and aims to bring them into his government. If ever we needed someone who understand how to listen, we need it now. It won’t solve everything, of course, our system is undoubtedly broken and needs urgent attention, but if you are in the UK, it’s time to perform an act of revolution and to vote Labour on June 9th.

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Vote Labour on June 9th

Note : Re: “For the Many, not the Few”

Thanks to Steve Coogan for clarifying the source of the Labour Party election slogan. In this poem, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley is speaking about non-violent direct action.

Written on the occasion of the Peterloo Massacre, Manchester 1819, Shelley begins his poem with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time “God, and King, and Law” – and he then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action: “Let a great assembly be, of the fearless, of the free”. The crowd at this gathering is met by armed soldiers, but the protesters do not raise an arm against their assailants:

“Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.

And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there;
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew;
What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay,
Till their rage has died away:

Then they will return with shame,
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek:

Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!”


Note on the note…

(Shelley’s poetry sometimes had only an underground readership during his day, but his poetic achievements are widely recognized today, and his advanced political and social thought impacted the Chartist and other movements in England, and reach down to the present day. Shelley’s theories of economics and morality, for example, had a profound influence on Karl Marx; his early—perhaps first—writings on nonviolent resistance influenced both Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi.) Wikipedia.

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dragon-catalonia

Here be Dragons – Meditation on Uncertainty

Yesterday, as we sailed into the uncharted waters of Trumpdom, an artist came into my Catalan class to give a presentation. It was a workshop in emotional intelligence, using the dragon as a symbol of fear, though it might easily have been a signifier for Trump himself.  The artist, who sported a blue beard (for what reason we never knew) led us in a game. We stood in a circle and threw a length of cord between us, stating each our name, where we come from and where we now live. It is an exercise I have led myself, during workshops in film-making. “Em dic Helen. Soc de Gales. Visc en Sant Pere de Ribes.” Simple stuff,  but looking around at my classmates, I see what a multicultural world I live in. People from from Gambia, China and Pakistan, from Morocco and Ecuador, Andalucia, and Portugal. All making an effort to get their tongue around the native language.  I also see how the Catalan people, at least, are embracing those of many different cultures. As Trump closes US borders to Mexicans and Muslims; as Britain winds up the drawbridge to their tiny island and hopes to weather the storm alone; as Australia turns back the boats bringing refugees from Sri Lanka and Indonesia, I look around at these different faces, with different dress codes and different accents and I feel a certain warmth. I, too, am an immigrant here. In a recent exercise discussing whether our eyes are fosc or clar, I was the only member of the group with blue eyes.

The artist talks about maps, and how cartographers used to label uncharted territories with a drac. A dragon. For some, he said, the symbol of a dragon would instill fear and be a sign never to go there. For others, it would be an invitation to explore. In our own uncharted territories, the  outer and inner worlds we inhabit and traverse, there are also times when we encounter fear. Our dragons breathe fire and make loud noises, as if to scare us from ever going to that place. The dragon is both guard and protector. It warns us that it might be painful to go there. That we might need to prepare ourselves for disappointment, failure, or loss. But does that mean that we should not go? Coming face to face with our dragons is what makes us heroes. It helps us develop courage and strength. When our eyes (and hearts) are opened to new experiences, new people, new worlds, new challenges, this is when we tend to grow.
Sant Jordi – Saint George – is an important figure in Catalan culture. He is the dragon-slayer that we know from English stories but he has a special purpose here. El Dia de Sant Jordi is celebrated with two special customs. Men present women with a rose and women make men the gift of a book, bringing together the heart and the head – the organs of feeling and of reason. We can take this symbology as an object of meditation as we travel into unfamiliar waters. Whilst it would be foolish to completely ignore the warnings pointed out to us by the mind, it is unlikely that we will survive, let alone thrive, without the unique tool provided for us by the heart. If the times ahead are to be challenging, let us rely on the intelligence of the mind and the care of the heart, for one without the other will fall short, delivering us headlong into the teeth of the threefold ‘dragons’ of fear, hatred and delusion. The Buddha advised that our main practice is to develop the two ‘wings’ of wisdom and compassion. In times of uncertainty, we need them more than ever.

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Average, Normal People

The recent revelation that Theresa May’s UK government is set to override the wishes of folk in Lancashire and pave the way for fracking in their county. Locals petitioned their council to bar the practice on the grounds that it is potentially environmentally damaging and dangerous and the council agreed. Now the government have overturned that decision and given the go-ahead for exploratory exploration of coal seam gas in Lancashire. This authoritarian, dismissive act started me thinking about a discussion I was having the other day about “average, normal people”

It was early on a Saturday morning after a wedding party and we were having a fry-up in a seafront cafe. I had picked up a newspaper from the ones available at the cafe and it started there. The paper was one I wouldn’t usually read. Its views are pretty much diametrically opposed to mine, but as it turns out, so were my friend’s.

My habit with a weekend paper is to read out an article which has caught my eye and offer my opinion. “Hey!” I say. “Listen to this!” On this occasion, the exchange began with a journalist who thought that offering a help-line after the Archers’ storyline of domestic abuse was namby-pamby. “Who could possibly be upset by that?” he asked. “Surely there are more noble recipients of our sympathy, like soldiers, for instance?” Well I don’t wish to take anything from soldiers, of course, PTSD is a real thing and they could do with more recognition for it, not less. However…

The latest figures show that seven women a month are killed by their partners in England and Wales. 1.4 million women will suffer domestic abuse in the UK this year, mostly at the hands of their (male) partners. if that were a virus, it would be an epidemic. It follows that there must be a huge number of women affected by trauma, sometimes after years of emotional and physical abuse which too often ends in hospitalisation and in many cases, death. I pointed out that the author of the piece was a white middle aged man. I thought it relevant. White, middle-aged men hold a lot of power in the world. Their collective voice is pretty loud. In contrast, the voices of abused women are small and easy to drown out. Like I say, I thought it relevant.

My friend disagreed and took offence. Or rather defence. My feminist analysis clearly touched a nerve and he rejected the idea that patriarchy was a force for the oppression of women. “Patriarchy is an historical fact”. I argued, admittedly taking the bait. I treated him to a brief outline of the ways that patriarchy was evident in modern society – in the system of patrilineage that had rubbed out generations of women from the records and robbed millions of their inheritances; in the fact that men sit at the top of a vast majority of global organisations, hold power in the media, in education, in politics. He argued that we have a female prime minister. I countered that in order for women to hold such a role, they had to play a game of politics defined by machismo and strength. He said he’d rather have a leader strong in negotiations than a wimp.

This week, journalist Zoe Williams said it better than I could when commenting on Donald Trump’s boasting about assaulting women. Although loathe to argue that a female point of view exists in politics, Zoe suggests starting with freedom from violence and reproductive autonomy as good “muster points”. She goes on to point out “A constant eye on the future, a calm assurance that not everything of value can be counted, a love of international co-operation and respect for the institutions it has created, a knowledge that some things are too important to be left to the market, an empathy with the dispossessed : there is nothing essentially feminine about these ideas, yet where no women are, you never hear them.” I wished she had been there to put those ideas before my friend.
Our argument, for argument it was by now, lurched on, until my friend came out with the phrase “Average normal people”. That was it. The voice of Nigel Farage and his Brexit crowing ringing in my ears, I got up and left the cafe.
Outside in the early autumn sunshine, locals and tourists wandered up and down the promenade, enjoying their weekend stroll. I all but collapsed into one of the seafront seats. Tears came. If even my friends think like this, what hope is there? I moaned inwardly. I re-ran the discussion in my mind, trying to come to a place of peace and trying to understand what on earth he, and Nigel Farage meant by the phrase “Average normal people”.

This conversation mattered little. It was just a weekend morning chat in a lazy cafe in Wales, but when the words are uttered by a politician, they matter a lot. By uttering these words, a politician is inferring that you and s/he are the same, which, merely by virtue of their privileged position, let alone the opportunities that probably came about to help them get there, is rarely the case. (I acknowledge there are some notable exceptions to this but they are the exceptions that prove the rule). The language of politicians is designed to make us feel that we are all in the same boat, but we’re not. At least, we might be, but it is only they who have access to the first class suite and the life rafts.

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