DRINK YOUR TEA

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis

on which the world earth revolves

- slowly, evenly,

without rushing toward the future;

Live the actual moment.

Only this moment is life.

- Thich Nhat Hahn -

Mythos and Logos

"We are myth making creatures and, during the twentieth century, we saw some very destructive modern myths, which have ended in massacre and genocide. These myths have failed ... They have not been infused with the spirit of compassion, respect for the sacredness of all life, or with what Confucius called 'leaning'. These destructive mythologies have been narrowly racial, ethnic, denominational and egotistic, an attempt to exalt the self by demonising others. Any such myth has failed modernity, which has created a global village in which all human beings now find themselves in the same predicament. We cannot counter these bad myths with reason alone, because undiluted logos cannot deal with such deep-rooted, unexorcised fears, desires and neuroses. That is the role of an ethically and spiritually informed mythology.

• We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national and ideological tribe.
• We need myths that help us to realise the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive of efficient in our pragmatic, rational world.
• We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness.
• We need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a 'resource'.

This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet."

Karen Armstrong (2005) A Short History of Myth, Canongate, Edinburgh, p.142-143.

The Other Side of You

"It is hard to account for the common human resistance to happiness, unless it is that we would rather be crippled by what we lack than risk the pain that is one potential consequence of placing our secret selves in other's hands. The desire to be loved is as basic a need as the desire for food or drink. But to take delight in being loved requires nerve. For where life is most ardently awakened it can be most excruciatingly extinguished and the fear of that possibility can tragically become the wet blanket which smothers the sacred flame."

- Salley Vickers -

Stress Response

Researchers have developed a new model to expand our understanding of how people respond to stress. The 'fight or flight' theory has been the domiant model for explaining stress responses was derived from research based on the reactions of men only. When women were added to the research sample a new reaction was discovered. The first new model to describe people's stress response patterns in more than 60 years is called "tend-and-befriend". It proposes that women generally respond to stressful situations by protecting themselves and their young through nurturing behaviors--the "tend" part of the model--and forming alliances with a larger social group, particularly among women--the "befriend" part of the model. In contrast, the researchers suggest, men generally stick more to the fight-or-flight response. As we all have male and female aspects to our psyche there will be times when we want to fight or flee and there will be times when we prefer to tend or mend relationships.

Azar, B. (2000) 'A new stress paradigm for women', Monitor, vol.31 no.7 http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug00/stress.html

Dream On ...

"The decline of proletarian humanism is not a crucial experience which invalidates the whole of Marxism. It is still valid as a critique of the present world and alternative humanisms. In this respect, at least, it can not be surpassed. Even if it is incapable of shaping world history, it remains powerful enough to discredit other solutions. On close consideration, Marxism is not just any hypothesis that might be replaced tomorrow by some other. It is the simple statement of those conditions without which there would be neither any humanism, in the sense of a mutual relation between men, nor any rationality in history. In this sense Marxism is not a philosophy of history; it is the philosophy of history and to renounce it is to dig the grave of Reason in history. After that there can be no more dreams or adventures."

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1980) Humanism and Terror, Greenwood Press, Westport, p.153. First published in 1947.

REMEMBER

Now and again

Stop the clock

Ditch the mobile

Switch off the TV

Grab your friends

The ones you love

Open your door

Dodge the traffic

AND

Take to the open-road

Follow a rainbow

Head for the hills

Go far until you

See the colours

Feel the breeze

Say hello to a sheep

Hug a tree

Spy a kestrel

Jump a stream

Russell the leaves

THEN

Find a clearing

Light a fire

Heat the beans

Sup a cuppa

Toast marshmallows

Sit awhile

Tell a story

Sing a song

FEEL

The tension ease

Smile

Be

YOU ARE BACK TO NATURE