Some images from occupy the streets

 

The love movement :)

Birthday Poem for Luis

SONETO LXIX

Tal vez no ser es ser sin que tú seas,
sin que vayas cortando el mediodía
como una flor azul, sin que camines
más tarde por la niebla y los ladrillos,

sin esa luz que llevas en la mano
que tal vez otros no verán dorada,
que tal vez nadie supo que crecía
como el origen rojo de la rosa,

sin que seas, en fin, sin que vinieras
brusca, incitante, a conocer mi vida,
ráfaga de rosal, trigo del viento,

y desde entonces soy porque tú eres,
y desde entonces eres, soy y somos,
y por amor seré, serás, seremos.

  - Pablo Neruda -

 

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be. 

Who knew bamboo was the future?

... not me, but after watching this I am now a total convert!



and if you want to see how beautiful a house made from bamboo is, check this out ...

Rebecca Solnit on Hope

Despair is a black leather jacket in which everyone looks good, while hope is a frilly pink dress few dare to wear. Rebecca Solnit thinks this virtue needs to be redefined.

Join Rebecca to explore why disaster makes us behave better and why it's braver to hope than to hide behind despair's confidence and cynicism's safety.

Solnit takes to the pulpit in the video below to deliver a sermon that looks at the remarkable social changes of the past half century, the stories the mainstream media neglects and the big surprises that keep on landing.

History is not an army. It's more like a crab scuttling sideways. And we need to be brave enough to hope change is possible in order to have a chance of making it happen.


Rebecca Solnit on Hope from The School of Life on Vimeo.

http://www.theschooloflife.com/Sermons/Rebecca-Solnit-on-Hope 

"To hope is to gamble. It’s to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.

I say all this because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. I say it because hope is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.

At the beginning of his massive 1930s treatise on hope, the German philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote, “The work of this emotion requires people to throw themselves actively into becoming, to which they themselves belong”. To hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future makes the present inhabitable. Anything could happen, and whether we act or not has everything to do with it.”

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the dark: the untold history of people power, Canongate Books (Edinburgh) 2005, p. 5

Thanks to Ruth Potts for the quotes and the link.

Occupy the Streets - London, UK.

This is the initial statement from Occupy London:

At today’s assembly of over 500 people on the steps of St Paul’s, occupylsx collectively agreed the initial statement below. Please note, like all forms of direct democracy, the statement will always be a work in progress.

1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
2. We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
3. We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
5. We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.
6. We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
7. We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
8. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
9. This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

http://occupylondon.org.uk/

 

An autumnal walk around the Dartington Estate in pictures ...

Myth Weekend Poem and Pictures

Leaving the village, entering the forest. In myth there is normally three parts to a story; severance, threshold and return. Severance refers to some great change event, such as, losing your job, the end of a relationship, the birth of a child. It is the point in your life when you sever attachments to your old life and you move out of your comfort zone. This is known as leaving the village. You depart from the familiar and enter liminal space the metaphoric forest of transition, learning and change.

This weekend was the first gathering of five in the year programme of the West Country School of Myth and Story (http://www.schoolofmyth.com/courses.html). The purpose of which is to explore the mythic world through story. Being the first gathering it is the point at which we all crossed the threshold leaving our home comforts behind and stepped into the forest of the unknown to delve into the mystery and to listen to what the ancient ones, the elementals, the ancestors have to tell us.

On the Saturday afternoon after listening to the initiatory story of Faithful Johan we were invited to wander the forest and moorland to write our 'I am ...' poem and in so doing to discover our own mythic ground, our innate birthright, our connections to nature and ultimately to claim our ground.

Before I felt the urge to write I followed my instincts to a new part of the woods, a corridor of old beech trees lay off in the distance and I headed towards them. As I came closer I was drawn to a huge boulder. From there I felt eyes upon me and I looked up to see three deer watching me from a far.

I began following the deer trying my best to keep on their trail. It was not easy as they moved fast and the colouring of each deer helped them to easily blend into the background. I eventually saw the originally 3 deer catch up with their herd and in single file they leaped after one another down into the lower woods. See how many of the deer you can see in the picture below?

Before you say none, I can assure you there are at least two deer in this photo, granted at a distance but they are there, moving fast and camouflaged. At this point I decided to stop tracking the deer. They were far to canny and my movement only served to chase them further and further away. Instead I followed the beech trees until I came out on to the moor. A huge panoramic vista opened up before me and for a while I did not know which way to turn. Do I go up high on to the moor or do I follow the path down into the valley and along mariners way back to Heathercombe? In the end I decided to sit down and enjoy the view. And it was whilst sat on the ground looking around me that the words came for my 'I am' poem.

I am

I am an underground cavern
unknown and unseen by anything
except for the passing rain water
permeating from above.

I am a golden daffodil rising
from the ground to trumpet
the spring.

I am a granite stone sitting in
a drystone wall marking the
boundary of a farmers field.

I am a burnt orange autumnal
oak leaf floating down from
tree to ground.

I am the deep throaty moo
of a Frisian cow waiting to
be walked to the milking yard.

I am a deer standing as still
as a Rodin sculpture watching all
in the valley below.

I am the edge of the horizon lost
in a hazy embrace with the sky above.

The Nineties

This week I have had the privilege to have been in the company of two women in their nineties. A very memorable and special experience. When someone reaches the heady heights of 90+ they have my attention.

Grace is as bright as a button. I'd just arrived into a group of 40 or so people most of whom, including Grace, I had not met before. Being somewhat shy I'd grab my cup of tea and sat down in the corner of the lounge near a book shelf. As I was flicking through the pages of a book Grace confidently walked across the room with a big welcoming smile and sat down in the chair beside me immediately striking up a conversation. Within minutes she was telling me a story about when she was a nurse before the war and she would hitch-hike up to the Lake District from London. It would take her two whole days. And then she'd spend a few days walking the fells, some of which we could see through the window of Glenthorn House in Grasmere, before heading back down to London. Grace smiles at me and says I'm 90 you know. She must have seen the surprised look on my face. I would have never have guessed that this spritely diminuitive powerhouse was in her nineties, 75 maybe, but not 90. Grace looked down at the book in my hand. Noticing the name of the author Bede Griffiths she segued into another story of the time she spent in California studying with Matthew Fox. After many months of study she had become accustomed to the American intonation, one evening the guest lecturer stood up and to her amazement spoke in a cut-glass Oxford accent. When she enquired who was speaking it turned out to be none other than Bede Giffiths. In a few short minutes I felt like I'd gotten to know this incredible woman. Grace was such an open free spirit full of life. After our conversation, I saw a book of poems by Grace for sale on the Greenspirit bookstand. Was there no end to Grace's talents? Probably not ...

Phyllis is a vision of loveliness. Earlier in the day she had visited the hairdresser, a weekly appointment she kept along with other regular activities that formed part of her routine in the nursing home. When we arrived she was not in her chair in the lounge or in her bedroom. We sat waiting in the conservatory until one of the care assistants wheeled Phyllis in to meet us. Hello, she said with a beaming smile and a knowing look. The care assistant is telling Phyllis her daughter is here to visit. Where is she? Phyllis asks. I tell her, she'd just popped out the room and that she'd be back in a minute. Nan, I am Fiona your granddaughter. Her face lights up and she puts her hands up to her cheeks with excitement. You look so different. I remember you when you were a baby. I loved you. I love you now. My Nan points out the window, Granny Capron lives just down there on Waterloo Road. My Granny and Grandad live at the school, they clean it. Phyllis is talking to me as if her grandparents are still alive. In her mind she is in her childhood walking the streets of Burry Port in South Wales, looking after her youngest sisters Kathy and Margaret. Then she looks up, I'm in my nineties you know. Yes I say, your ninety three. I don't feel ninety. From when I was a little girl my Nan has always told me she feels 25. In her eighties she would say, Fiona my body aches I'm getting old but in my head I still feel like 25, it's just when I tell my body to do things it doesn't want to do them anymore.

Reflections on Cambui, Campinas, SP, Brasil

We stayed in a wonderful Pousada in the district of Cambui, home from 15 August to 19 September and a very comfortable friendly place to be while in Brasil. I had many a conversation with Angelica, her mum and Ju ... they spoke excellent Portuguese and I did my very best to understand. I can honestly say we never failed to communicate somehow. I was very sad to leave, unfortunately living in a hotel is not a long term option no matter how comfortable and familiar it had become. Cambui is in the city of Campinas. Downtown was as busy and intense as any big city, with the exception of Sao Paolo, which was off the scale in size and INTENSITY. Standing on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paolo made Cambui feel like a country village of subtle quaintness.

When it rained the streets became like streams and if the rain was heavy it did not take long for some roads to flood, the torrents of water had no where else to go. Driving around one Saturday afternoon as the heavens opened proved a very entertaining experience! When a storm arrived the thunder and lightening would go on for what seemed like hours, the weather hanging over the city bringing grey clouds and dropping the temperatures. This would usually last a day at most and then back came the blue skies and the sunshine. Even in the winter months temperature could regularly reach the low to mid 30's. I have no idea how people function in the summer heat! I have two words for you 'air conditioning' ...

Brasil is riding an economic wave. A construction boom was evident everywhere I turned. Lowrise individual single storey homes were being bought up, knocked down and replaced by large high-rise appartments. One day you'd walk along a street and the next a house could be bulldozed in anticipation of future verticle developements. All in the name of progress the skyline of the city was being altered in front of our eyes.

Homes like this ...

And this ...

Are being replaced with this ...

Great views I'm sure, but do we all want to live that high in the clouds?

I adore a touch of natural greenery amongst the concrete, bricks and mortar. A highlight of any city are the sightings of plants, trees and parks. All of which can be found without too much searching. The streets are lined with trees. Many of which were rich in vibrant and verdant flowers displaying their spring plumage. If not flowering they were growing tropical fruits. I saw bananas, mangos and papayas that you could pick as you walked by. Some homeowners made efforts to bring life to their front yards, which added extra colour.

You can't go to Brasil without sampling the delicious food (especially tropical fruits, rice and beans!) and experiencing the sights and sounds of wonderful musicians. And it's a given that the people who are responsible for such delights are warm, welcoming and friendly. In the UK we have pasty's and in Brasil there is pastel. One is baked, the other is fried. To me they are pretty much the same thing and very tasty. Although the waistline needs some elastication if you know what I mean. You can't go wrong with rice and beans, add some salad and fried fish and you have a perfect meal. For those who like Japanese food, Brasil is the country for you. There is an abundance of sushi, tamaki, sashimi, tempura and nigri. And after all that everywhere you look in the grocers and markets there is display upon display of the most awesome tropical fruits and vegetables. I tried so many varieties of natural fruit juices I lost count. My favourite being melancia (watermelon). Most days breakfast consisted of fresh papaya. And the varieties of bananas was a total education for me!

If it makes a noise it is a potential musical instrument ... well it is if you are Brasilian and if you have a love for rhythmn there is no better place to be. I was lucky enough to see a concert by Tambeiro. A group of students from Unicamp who played a range of percussion instruments and drums including the pandeiro and the traditional berimbau - awesome! They could invoke the sound of the ocean or the rain forest and if you closed your eyes it felt like you had been transported out of the theatre somewhere else - incredible. I had heard nothing like it before and will remember that evening forever. At the performance began the musicians and dancer entered from the back of the auditorium walking down the ailses onto the stage. At the end they left the same way finishing outside drawing the audience with them playing for all to hear.

I fell in love with this beautiful place and the warm and welcoming people. It is full of contrasts and extremes. Nowhere is perfect, however, it is definitely a rollercoaster of experiences, well worth the ride.

The uncertainty of the poet

In April 1985 the Tate Gallery, London, announced that it had paid £1 million for a Giorgio de Chirico masterpiece, 'The Uncertainty of the Poet'.

I am a poet.
I am very fond of bananas.

I am bananas.
I am very fond of a poet.

I am a poet of bananas.
I am very fond.

A fond poet of 'I am, I am' -
Very bananas,

Fond of 'Am I bananas,
Am I?' - a very poet.

Bananas of a poet!
Am I fond?' Am I very?

Poet bananas! I am.
I am fond of a 'very'.

I am of very fond bananas.
Am I a poet?

- Wendy Cope -

published in Serious Concerns, 1992, faber and faber, p.33