Message update ...

Did the other stuff wait? NOPE. Did the other stuff get in a truck? Kinda did for the best part of the day. Did it F*&£**g back up? In a manner of speaking, can you hear the beeps ... and see the boxes crashing down !!! The one small ask for the 'other stuff' to wait went unheeded ... joy unbound ... and the consequences were deeply unsettling to say the least, and yet not wanting to sound unappreciative or ungrateful for the lessons the Universe in it's ultimate wisdom is choosing to send my way, I know the 'other stuff' came from a place of love. Can I do without the judgement? YUP. Did I learn anything? SURELY DID ... good stuff too, although it may take awhile to sink in.

1. Think about what I want as opposed to what I don't want. We're back to the dopeness versus the wackness.

2. Separate stuff out, label it, put it on a shelf and bring things out one at a time.

3. Even when all around feels overwhelmingly rubbish, find the positives.

4. Be more aware of the consequences on others and act with greater responsibility.

Message for today ...

The stuff that you are NOT clear on is NOT part of your path. Or at least it is NOT the main part of your path. The stuff you ARE clear on IS your path. Go work on the stuff that IS YOUR path. Ignore the rest of it for now.

Ok my path for today is ...
step one - walk becky in the woods (yeah, I love step one),
step two - get cleaned up and go to work (boo, not so much fun there!),
step three - do stuff at work (I'll do my best, I can't promise much, except I will write G's reference),
step four - pick up Lou, Steph and Bargy on the way to cricket training (ooh, could get messy not feeling too great),
step five - come home and chill (lovin step five on my path)
step six - all the other stuff can wait, seriously it can get in a truck and F*&$£...g back-up and wait.

On the edge of civilization

Colleen Kelley

"Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, sounds, and shapes of an animate earth - our eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other eyes, as our ears are attuned by their very structure to the howling of wolves and the honking of geese. To shut ourselves off from these other voices, to continue by our lifestyles to condemn these other sensibilities to the oblivion of extinction, is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human ...

... Still, the current commodification of 'nature' by civilization tells us little or nothing of the perceptual shift that made possible this reduction of the animal (and the earth) to an object, little of the process whereby our senses first relinquished the power of the Other, the vision that for so long had motivated our most sacred rituals, our dances, and our prayers.

But can we ever hope to catch a glimpse of this process, which has given rise to so many of the habits and linguistic prejudices that now structure our very thinking? Certainly not if we gaze toward that origin from within the midst of the very civilization it engendered. But perhaps we may make our stand along the edge of that civilization, like a magician, or like a person who, having lived among another tribe, can no longer wholly return to her own. She lingers half within and half outside of her community, open as well, then, to the shifting voices and flapping forms that crawl and hovered beyond the mirrored walls of the city. And even there, moving along those walls, she may hope to find the precise clues to the mystery of how those walls were erected, and how a simple boundary became a barrier, only if the moment is timely - only, that is, if the margin she frequents is a temporal as well as a spatial edge, and the temporal structure that it bounds is about to dissolve, or metamorphose, into something else."

- David Abram (1997) The Spell of the Sensuous, Vintage, New York, p. 22-29 -

When a woman looks in a mirror ...

Photo copyright Dan Tuffs

"... I hope you see yourself.. Not one of the myths. Not a failed man - a person who can never succeed because success is basically defined as being male - and not a failed goddess, a person desperately trying to hide herself in the dummy Woman, the image of men's desires and fears. I hope you look away from those myths and into your own eyes, and see your own strength. You're going to need it. I hope you don't try to take your strength from men, or from a man. Secondhand experience breaks down a block from the car lot. I hope you'll take and make your own soul; that you'll feel your life for yourself pain by pain and joy by joy; that you'll feed your life, eat, 'eat as you go' - you who nourish, be nourished!

... On the maps drawn by men there is an immense white area, terra incognita, where most women live. That country is all yours to explore, to inhabit, to describe. But none of us live there alone. Being human isn't something people can bring off alone; we need other people in order to be people. We need one another.

... I think we have a responsibility to freedom ... especially to freedom of speech. Obedience is silent. It does not answer. It is contained. Here is a disobedient woman speaking (Wendy Rose, saying in a poem called The Parts of a Poet),

parts of me are pinned
to earth, parts of me
undermine song, parts
of me spread on the water,
parts of me form a rainbow
bridge, parts of me follow
the sandfish, parts of me
are a woman who judges.

Now this is what I want: I want to hear your judgements. I am sick of the silence of woman. I want to hear you speaking all the languages, offering your experience as your truth, as human truth ...

This is what I don't want: I don't want what men have. I'm glad to let them have their work and talk their talk. But I do not want and will not have them saying or thinking or telling us that theirs is the only fit work or speech for human beings ...

I know that many men and even women are afraid and angry when women speak, because in this barbaric society, when women speak truly they speak subversively - they can't help it: if you're underneath, if you're kept down, you break out, you subvert. We are volcanoes.

... That's what I want - to hear you erupting ... I want to hear you talking to each other and to us all: whether you're writing an article or a poem or a letter or teaching a class or talking with friends or reading a novel or making a speech or proposing a law or giving a judgement or singing the baby to sleep or discussing the fate of nations. I want to hear you. Speak with a woman's tongue. Come out and tell us what time of night it is! Don't let us sink back into silence. If we don't tell out truth, who will?

... So I end with a poem (Linda Hogan, The Women Speaking),

Daughters, the women are speaking.
They arrive
over the wise distance
on perfect feet.
Daughters, I love you."

An extract from Ursula's Bryn Mawr Commencement Address (1986), published in Le Guin, U. (1992) Dancing at the Edge of the World, Paladin, London, pp158-160.

Sunshine + Flowers = Happiness

What is it that's so magical about the sun shining that brings out the best in people? The warm rays on our faces and smiles appear. I suppose for people in northern hemisphere sunny days like today make a much appreciated change from the biting wind and bracing cold of the winter. With spring comes the first flush of colour; snowdrops, crocus, primrose, daffodils and any day the bluebells will cover the floor of the woods like a giant perfumed blanket.

In Buddhism there is the saying;
accentuate the positive,
eliminate the negative,
result happiness.

You could also say;
sunshine plus flowers = happiness!

The Girl Effect

I love the message that we should value girls and that we should promote the wider acceptance and understanding that men and women are equal. Education is a fantastic means to empower people. I'm less comfortable with the idea that money, profit and economics is THE solution to poverty. I think the value system embedded within the free market economy of profit and growth has created the have's and have not's which results in poverty. What do you think?

Chuckie Chick went a wandering ...

He wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once he saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Words heavily borrowed from William Wordsworth (1804)

Insomnia

i can't get no sleep
deep in the night
and no rest in sight
let me dream again
find a release
some peace
from this insomnia
i can't get no sleep
just before dawn
and i can feel the morn
before another day
give me a break
as a lay here again
for all I need is
you by my side
just enough time
to drift off for
a while
to sleep

You make it easy, as easy as ...

1

2

3

4

to say

I

Love

U

Women's Cricket World Cup Joy ...

Woohoo - go laidees !!!!

ICC Women's World Cup final, North Sydney Oval:

England 167-6 (46.1 overs) beat New Zealand 166 (47.2 overs) by four wickets.

"There are 100,000 stars in our galaxy and 1,000 million galaxies.

I am sure cricket must be being played elsewhere"

- Sir Patrick Moore gets to the heart of the alien life issue -

love is love ...

Keepers at a bird sanctuary in West Sussex hoped that the last remaining female Blue Duck in the country - called Cherry - might mate with either of the drakes, Ben or Jerry. But neither male duck appeared interested and are now inseparable at the Arundel Wetland Centre, leaving Cherry to her own devices. Centre warden Paul Stevens said he was disappointed that efforts to produce new Blue Duck offspring had failed but said the two male birds made "a lovely couple". "They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with," he said. "People who visit the centre think they're a fantastic couple, without really coming around to the idea that they are two males. "They both have very big personalities and people come from all over the country to come and see them. Cherry doesn't seem bothered by it, she's just happy to keep herself to herself." Blue ducks originate from New Zealand but there were thought to be just three birds in the UK. Keepers initially introduced Ben to Cherry, but neither seemed keen. They then brought Jerry down from a sanctuary in London. Mr Stevens said: "Cherry showed some interest in him. She displayed typical mating behaviour - she approached him and called to him, she even looked like she was nesting. "We thought it was great and it was all going to happen but nothing ever did." Mr Stevens said the male ducks were then placed in the same enclosure: "To our surprise the two males really took to each other and it was obvious that they really liked each other. "It would have been nice to get a last clutch of eggs from Cherry but Ben and Jerry do make a lovely couple."

Story by Caroline Gammel

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4962394/Blue-Ducks-likely-to-die-out-in-UK-after-male-birds-get-together.html

at the point of change ...

In the spirit of Sesame Street today is brought to you by the phrase ‘keep it real’ and the word ‘process’. Where I’m at right now is dealing with the fears within. My fears are having a party in my head and in my body. My true self is watching my fears sing from the hilltops, charging through the lanes and essentially pressing all my anxiety buttons in the only way they know how. What does this all mean? Well it means sometimes it hard to breathe, or to focus and concentrate on the simplest of tasks. It means that I get lost in conversations and exhausted by my own thoughts super fast. It means that I am having to keep it real in the best way I can so as to hang onto the railings of my life. And the words process, process, process come up time and time again. It’s like I’ve swallowed something huge and it now needs to be digested, digested, digested !!! I don't need to take anything new on board for a longtime; no ideas, no people, no places, no sounds, no nothing.

Trees Entwined

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

- Captain Corelli's Mandolin -