Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

eve of may and one party newspapers

best Beltane wishes to everyone. I was going to write a blog reviewing 1st 4 months of retirement, but am distracted. There seems to be trouble around, personally, as well as in the world of course. I'll talk about a tiny one.

My neighbour came round with a problem with the little stream that runs through our gardens. I checked and it was running fine through ours, high after yesterdays thunderstorm. In her garden downstream it was still and had been seeping out. I put on my wellies and tried poking into the culvert at the end, could not reach any blockage and the next people down are away. So not much I could do.

And it seemed a bit like a tarot reading. blocked energies, numbness, feelings leaking out into the wrong places. and strong people picking up the pieces, getting out their plungers and doing their best  while trying to keep distance from the bits we can't reach or help or solve.

mayday, new life, labour, help me

and if in the UK please go and vote tomorrow particularly in London, a curse on the tory fool and the monopolistic daily paper that is his campaign mouthpiece. The only local paper here "forgot" to mention the Green candidate. Funny no one worries about them while accusing the BBC of bias.

workers, mothers, lovers go and vote in your shared interests. we are in this thing together

strong women

Canada's theme for international women's day is strong women - strong world. Over the border the possible first woman presidential candidate and possible first black presidential candidate are destroying each other's chances. Can they not cooperate? Has nothing been learned since the arguments over whether woman or black people (men of course) would get the vote first?

So too sad today to feel strong. let's turn instead to a strong black woman to cut through the crap, oh Sojourner where are you we need you?

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

remembrance in the UK

I always find remembrance day creepy. The red poppy runup, the 3 line whip for anyone appearing on TV to wear them, the small scattering of white peace poppies. The obligatory silence if you forget and end up in a public place at the wrong time.

Apparently soldiers disabled in the recent wars were not allowed to join the official procession as they were not "veterans"

Bob Worcester in  Je Me Souviens says that less people are dying in wars now. But what is a war? And isn't this just soldiers?

In WW1 90% of deaths were soldiers. In WW2 50%. Now it's more like 10%.

Not that I don't feel sorry for the soldiers who die and the people who loved them, but I'm made very uneasy by the tone of newspaper articles that imply soldiers should never be killed. Do army recruitment ads need a goverment health warning "soldiers can die as well as kill"? Is the ideal that our boys (and girls perhaps) just sit safely at home pressing red buttons?

The human and ecological devastation of war is vast. The military is responsible for 25% of transport carbon emissions (among other things)

I'm not wholly a pacifist though. I would have fought the nazis in WW2. In the army in the UK, in the resistance in europe or preferably in germany to stop them getting to power in the first place. But when do you know?

samhain

Samhain, all hallows eve, day of the dead, halloween. A time to remember those we have lost.

here's a song, meant to be a round so not too good as a performance:

the disorientation of the equinox has past and we settle into the coming winter .

here's one for the autumn equinox I did earlier

the happiness bird

I'm not a twitcher but I like seeing birds, and my favourite is the kingfisher. I'm lucky enough to have seen a few but sightings are rare and they always lift my spirits.

Last night we walked around a newly discovered (by us) local ecology reserve. Disused gravel pits in a small strip between the river and the road, hardly anyone goes there.

So this abandoned pit is now a clear stretch of water, blue in the midsummer evening sun. Over it I saw a kingfisher fly into a tree, and it emerged a few moments later so my partner saw it too. Not just the turquise blue but the bright orange underbelly illuminated by the low sun. It flew across and was gone, but is still imprinted in my mind as a glowing vision of pure happiness.

Are we predisposed to love that colour? The oasis in a desert. The longed for cooling stream. A reminder of the preciousness of water as we wonder how long these small wild places can hold on.

spring

The guardian has an interesting article relating the rise of depression to the emergence of the individual self.

Certainly we feel better reconnecting back to the earth, and spring brings new life and warmth

Depression is really a question of scale

I can't take care of the world but I can take care of this stretch of river.

we / the earth are going to die
but not yet
(not that I can always aspire to this)

this morning was so misty each tree was dripping with moisture, looking up the clouds were visibly thinning, then the sun burned through,  it was beautiful. I went paddling yesterday, might almost have swum (but not quite yet :-)

Is it denial to feel joy? I don't think depression makes us function well.

arms trading

Tony Blair wants to know how to get guns off the street.

So how did they get there? I don't think these boys are making them in their metalwork classes.

I have visions of exhausted cleaners picking them slowly one by one out of the gutters, while they continue to pour off the production lines by the thousand, Where does he think they go?

Perhaps giving Britain's largest arms manufacturer BAE immunity from investigation on corruption charges on the grounds that it would be bad for national security was not setting a terribly good example.

web spiralling

A few recent sites I have found/joined/been told about:

Chris Johnstone's Great Turning Times Lots of news and events and info particularly for the UK, you can check the site or subscribe to the E newsletter

My.EcoEarth.Info - Grassroots Global Earth Activism A new site from Glen Barry, subscribe and you can set up petitions and generally collaborate with other environmental activists. Also a selection of the days relevant environmental news articles.

ethics

The Independent newspaper has had some very good stuff about climate change, consistently giving it front page coverage. But what happens in the rest of the paper?

This weekend as well as the usual travel supplement it had a special feature on lovely holiday destinations, and it would be very difficult to reach any of them without an aeroplane.

I don't want to single them out here, all newspapers do this. Advertising rules. Thoughtful pieces on global poverty are juxtaposed with adverts for jewellery. Articles on feminism with fashion.

happy solstice

It was lovely to read lots of solstice greetings on the ecopsychology list. Gmail sorts messages into threads and gives each contributor a different colour so it made a lttle rainbow from round the world  It tells of more storms in British Columbia, drought and bush fires in Australia. Here a songthrush was singing in the station as the trees start to bud.

we celebrate the web of life on our fragile electronic web

here's a song for winter solstice